161–170 of 278 posts
Okay I am reading this and some of the comments and well..... Have some damn discipline. Grown up and be an adult. Problem solved.
It's true. This stuff is addictive, and I've known that for over two decades now. And I've been addicted ever since my older brother told me about the Internet when he went to university. I don't fool myself that I can stop anytime; I clearly can't. I don't want to. But it's true that it's sucking up way too much time.
I don't read books anymore because I read HN and Google+. I have trouble of focusing on boring administrative chores because there's always this info-driven dopamine boost within reach.
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One big difference is that alcohol was not engineered to be addictive. Whereas at Facebook and many other companies there are a lot of smart people continuously trying to improve metrics like DAU, UAM, response frequency, etc. And they do it with no apparent regard for the impact on users' lives. Heck, many game companies proudly advertise how they are the most addictive thing you can get right now.
Well okay sure, but engineered or not, alcohol is very addictive. There are probably more addictive substances, but alcohol really is up there on that list. You could probably engineer a better addictive substance, but not one nearly as pervasive in global culture. There's something truly unique about alcohol that isn't true of any other addictive substance on the planet.
Except nicotine, sugar, caffeine, etc.
Honestly I'd say your argument is a much better fit for sugar.
I'm saying this as someone who went off it for a few years, and now back on it, trying to quit.
Tremendously addictive, and it's EVERYWHERE.
Birthday? Cake. Meeting up with friends? Drinks. Easter? Candy. Date? Chocolate. Did something good? Reward with cookies.
I sound like I'm on some bandwagon, but I'm not trying to argue that honey or agave or anything else is better, but there's very little sugar naturally in any real food, and we can't escape it.
Alcohol is at most gatherings, but it really isn't nearly as pervasive.
What the author suggests is highly impractical, and makes adopting this way of life all the more challenging. I suggest for people who have a serious problem, to try out time-managers and site-blockers. When I was going through a highly unproductive phase, I used ColdTurkey. The software's not too good and if you're really craving for a fix, you'll find a way to get past it. But, for the regular procrastinator it doe…
I agree. As for me, I'm a remote worker but I rent a desk in a coworking space, which means I can use their high speed internet for hours every day. That's a lot of time to acquire information and do chores.
So the consequence of not having internet at home would be, basically, that I'm offline between 7 PM and 9 AM, or whatever. When I've lived without internet before, I've spent a couple of hours on weekend days in cafes checking my websites.
It's not necessarily a horrible austerity. For me, I've always experienced an offline home as very relaxing, nice, and peaceful. (Of course there are many factors which can make it impractical, e.g. family.)
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After a long addiction where I had used my phones as projects rather than tools, I decided to unwind. The blinking notification light was the first one to go, as I couldn't concentrate when it was active (which was most of the time). The next step was to buy a huge battery which made my phone twice as thick, but I only needed to charge it every few days which was a huge thing not having to worry about constantly. Aft…
I did a similar thing. I replaced my iPhone (after I dropped and smashed it) with a Nokia 105 "dumbphone". It can only do calls and SMS messaging. It's the best thing I've ever done. I knew I'd get by without most things but I wondered how I'd get by without google maps in my pocket. I bought a road atlas for the car and quickly re-learned how to read a map and plan a route the old fashioned way. If I'm going somewhe…
Which is exactly the opposite of my way of handling e-mail versus SMS. It it's really really urgent, be courteous enough to give your time and call me. For anything else send an e-mail.
E-mail is my primary communication channel and any device that can't handle it is useless. Whereas SMS is discourteous to me as it demands that I read and respond on one particular device, rather than that which is most convenient or appropriate. Quite often I'll read an e-mail on my phone and sit-down at the laptop to compose a reply.
For devs who want to go offline for a bit I recommend Zeal (offline docs) + kiwix (Offline Wikipedia app that also parses stackexchange/stackoverflow dumps) Check their github page. The entire stackoverflow dump is about 10 Gig.
Is that (kiwix) really going offline? I don't think it's the 'active internet connection' that's the crux of the problem, it's the trawling through pages and pages of stuff, which Wikipedia is very good at allowing. Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/214/
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…
I never reach into my pocket to check for messages. That is what my LG G Watch R is for, it gives me the information quickly and easily.
Yep, can confirm that. I haven't had any Internet in my student flat in the past 1 1/2 years and am thriving on it :-) I have Internet at university and when I go home for the weekends, so I'm not cut off from the world; but I do need to much more deliberate in how I spend my time online.
One of the biggest advantages: I have time to read books again. As a kid I was a voracious reader, but that decreased in high school, partly because I was spending the time on the web instead. Giving myself the opportunity to go back to books has been tremendously satisfying. (HN and the Internet is great, but you learn so much more through books.)
I haven't dealt with my laptop based computer addiction, but I have solved my cell phone addiction. It's important to understand how much behavior around technology is based on ingrained habits. My goal with dealing with my phone was to "short-circuit" the habitual/addictive behavior. To do this, I did two things. 1. I turned off all automatic notifications on my phone, as well as all background updates of apps/email…
I solved that problem with a far simpler solution. I don't own a smartphone. I spend eight to ten hours watching a screen at work. Don't want to spend another five doing the same thing in my leisure. I also don't own any tablets, for the same reason, except a Kindle which I use every now and then in commuting. Most people I meet feel surprised when I tell them I don't have a smartphone especially considering that I'm…
But being the local computer geek gives me insights that others do not have. I already saw the problem coming a mile away with the first mobile phones long before they were called smartphones. I already had the whole village asking me for advice with their computers (the few that had computers). I helped everyone build theirs for gaming and had to help them when they had problems with viruses and so on.
Why would I want to be reachable at any time? Would a smartphone make it even worse? You bet. Would I be getting a phone any time soon? No way.
I did eventually get a Nokia 3210 though, which stayed with me until a couple of years ago when I gave up and bought a smartphone to be able to screen incoming robot sales calls...