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Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

theminimalists.com

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Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#51

Post by a_c »

I total agree with the sentiment. I stopped using facebook for about 3 years. It was almost instantly obvious how much time was wasted on people's whining, fake news and dog photos. It is easier to do when it only affects yourself.

However it is a whole different story when things, like a cable tv, affects every member of your family. I was faced with fierce objection when I brought out the idea to cut out cable tv, and removing all TV from home.

It seems to me that the market value of "media" is how much time people are willing to waste instead of doing other stuff. For instance facebook now worth about 400B. What happens to global economy if facebook doesn't exist and people divert their attention to do whatever they interested in?

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#52

Post by shakna »

reacharavindh wrote: post #50

I think I should do something similar to my addiction to HN. I find myself glancing HN feed several times in the day with insatiable need to know the shiny new things. I'm going to try to restrict myself to one time a day visit to HN. Lets see if that can get my lazy ass to finally make more contributions in GitHub and do something more productive.

Check noprocrast in your profile.

From the FAQ:

In my profile, what is noprocrast?

It's a way to help you prevent yourself from spending too much time on HN. If you turn it on you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours. You can override noprocrast if you want, in which case your visit clock starts over at zero.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#53

Post by Terr_ »

prostoalex wrote: post #36
brian-armstrong wrote: post #4

Some people are alcoholics. They can't exist near an open can of beer without their life going to shambles. But most people aren't and don't have the urge to binge drink. I'm not sure how this is any different. The author of this article is an Internetaholic, therefore I should cut my tether to the Internet? And what of my LTE connection?

An alcohol manufacturer rarely has an army of designers, data scientists and engineers working non-stop to make their product more addictive and measuring their success on engagement growth.

Sure they do, they just focus on marketing and packaging more than on trying to create new chemicals.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#54

Post by Gormisdomai »

dplgk wrote: post #46

A less extreme idea embedded in here, that I'd like to try, is writing things down that you'd like research instead of impulsively Googling stuff. I think this wil have at least two benefits. 1. This will prevent you from impulsively interrupting what you're doing (like work or eating dinner) 2. Will filter out things you don't actually care about. When you sit down to go through your research list, you might discove…

I have tried this and it works great for me. Here are two extra things I now do:

Keep two or three parallel lists for different kind of internet use (e.g. research, message a friend, check for news about x, buy y).

Keep writing tools nearby always, even if it's just a pen and a scrap of paper in your pocket.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#55

Post by baddox »

haswell wrote: post #43
brian-armstrong wrote: post #4

Some people are alcoholics. They can't exist near an open can of beer without their life going to shambles. But most people aren't and don't have the urge to binge drink. I'm not sure how this is any different. The author of this article is an Internetaholic, therefore I should cut my tether to the Internet? And what of my LTE connection?

I think this blog post is entirely too idealistic about the benefits of turning off the Internet, but I don't think comparing excessive Internet use and Alcoholism is appropriate. Having personally been on the fringe of "high functioning" alcoholism on a few occasions, I don't think the comparison works. Alcoholism is inherently negative. Drinking alcohol in moderation may not be extremely harmful, but is still not n…

> Drinking alcohol in moderation may not be extremely harmful, but is still not necessarily great. While I certainly won't tell anyone how to live their life, cutting out alcohol use is still a "good" thing. Even if it's not a problem for you.

I just don't know about that, even though I know you're trying to be fair and reasonable. Even ignoring the reported possible health benefits of alcohol in moderation, if it's slightly bad for your physical health it can still be a net positive in your life.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#56

Post by teh_klev »

reacharavindh wrote: post #50

I think I should do something similar to my addiction to HN. I find myself glancing HN feed several times in the day with insatiable need to know the shiny new things. I'm going to try to restrict myself to one time a day visit to HN. Lets see if that can get my lazy ass to finally make more contributions in GitHub and do something more productive.

Did you know your profile has a "noprocrast" setting which might help you there?

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#57

Post by osdiab »

throwaway287391 wrote: post #39
brian-armstrong wrote: post #4

Some people are alcoholics. They can't exist near an open can of beer without their life going to shambles. But most people aren't and don't have the urge to binge drink. I'm not sure how this is any different. The author of this article is an Internetaholic, therefore I should cut my tether to the Internet? And what of my LTE connection?

> And what of my LTE connection? I was wondering this too after reading the "call to action" -- do I get to keep my data plan? (Did the author keep his?) I assume the answer is supposed to be no, but that might be good to note explicitly as this wouldn't be nearly as life-changing if taken a little too literally. (Not to be too nitpicky -- the article makes great points!)

I find for myself that using my iPhone's porn filter to block timesuck sites like Reddit, Facebook, and ironically, this one—is a nice middle ground, where most of the time it's too inconvenient for me to go through deactivating the filters, but I can when I want to do something related to the service (like administering this hacker news post). Coupled with not having the native apps installed, it makes for a decent first step in reducing dependence.

My general heuristic is that anything with an infinite feed is designed to suck you in—so avoid apps that provide them, as much as is feasible for your lifestyle.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#58

Post by brightball »

jimmies wrote: post #20

Oh man, oh man, this is so close to my experience. I went lo-fi since the beginning of 2017. Real testimonials of a drug/facebook/internet addict who has the problem out of control here. I killed my Facebook account 3 months ago, and switched to a dumb phone (from a Pixel phone ;-) since the beginning of the year. Now I'm rocking a webOS phone and no IM account except for hangouts which I check on my computer when I…

Sometimes things just get ingrained as impulse and habit. I tried a lot of things before finally deactivating Facebook. Downgraded to a dumbphone briefly but it just wasn't feasible with work - especially the hotspot for when I'm on call. Tried scheduled site blockers like Freedom.io but the problem is I know how they all work so it was easy enough for me to disable them for a second. Tried blocking news sources that were usually associated with political-rant-shares but the algorithm just keeps roping you back in.

I generally try to stay off the web after work unless there's something I NEED to do after hours (right now I'm just finishing a database upgrade) and that easy enough. Killing Facebook ended up being the real cure for me. Any other sites I check I'm generally done after about 15 minutes...for the day. Facebook is just constant though. It's just such an easy go-to. Like the author of this post, I find myself reading books a lot more (for a really interesting read, check out The Undoing Project btw).

I see some other comments on here being critical of the decision but the real key is just identifying an acknowledging when you have a real, legitimate time sink problem. When you do and you can get to the bottom of it, it's like a weight off of your shoulders. Some people are better at moderation than others. Others are much better at quitting cold turkey.

When you really identify how much time you're wasting per day / week of something that's in short supply, especially when there are things you keep wishing you could find time for...the decision to do something like this gets really...really easy.

And once you do it, it feels pretty great.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#59

Post by teach »

osdiab wrote: post #19
hota_mazi wrote: post #13

Sure you can do that. Or you can just use the Internet responsibly, like an adult. How old is the author of this article, 16?

I think you give the average person a bit more credit in their self control than they perhaps deserve—lots of people have issues with addiction to the internet, based on typical Netflix binge habits or the infamous Reddit timesink.

Agreed. I'm 42 and I spend more time on the Internet than I probably should.

Re: Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done

#60

Post by dragonwriter »

prostoalex wrote: post #36
brian-armstrong wrote: post #4

Some people are alcoholics. They can't exist near an open can of beer without their life going to shambles. But most people aren't and don't have the urge to binge drink. I'm not sure how this is any different. The author of this article is an Internetaholic, therefore I should cut my tether to the Internet? And what of my LTE connection?

An alcohol manufacturer rarely has an army of designers, data scientists and engineers working non-stop to make their product more addictive and measuring their success on engagement growth.

> An alcohol manufacturer rarely has an army of designers, data scientists and engineers working non-stop to make their product more addictive and measuring their success on engagement growth.

They have at least the first two, and tobacco companies have, or historically have had, all three. Job titles are slightly different, but basic functions are the same.

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