It's actually quite easy to "break" your addiction to smartphones: Don't use them in the first place.
Vacuous truths are still vacuous.
Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
21–30 of 63 posts
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#22RIP to anyone who clicked that link without ad block. The app is a cool concept but I don't see it ever taking off. They broadly assume that people want to be distanced from their phones, which I'm sure most don't. There is nothing wrong with enjoying technology. Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? I'm not checking social media, I'm just browsing throug…
> Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? Probably. Many applications (web, desktop or mobile) today are designed to maximize interaction. They try to tickle our reward loop as often as possible, and vie for our attention between themselves. They manipulate us into devoting them our attention while feeling good about it. On the other hand, we tend to consta…
I should clarify in saying that I check my phone for texts and call every few minutes, since I always keep it on vibrate. If I'm waiting on something and I have a few minutes to kill, I'll open up a funny picture app or youtube and consume a few minutes of entertainment. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not affecting my health, productivity, or social interactions.
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? I'd say undoubtedly so. "Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction The adverse consequences is debatable but it is very likely we are all missing out on experiences and losing health by checking our…
I thought the defining definition of addiction is that the action causes an interference in your ability to function. I'm not sure this qualifies.
If you're looking at your phone every few minutes you are almost certainly interrupting social activities or whatever it is you're doing that requires more than a few minutes of continued focus.
If you're not convinced that any of this applies to you even if you're spending all your time on your phone.. well that too would be a typical reaction of someone who is addicted.
You might also be displacing other activities that require prolonged attention without even noticing it. How many books does the average person read that checks their smartphone every five minutes?
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the defining definition of addiction is that the action causes an interference in your ability to function. I'm not sure this qualifies.
If you're looking at your phone every few minutes you are almost certainly interrupting social activities or whatever it is you're doing that requires more than a few minutes of continued focus. If you're not convinced that any of this applies to you even if you're spending all your time on your phone.. well that too would be a typical reaction of someone who is addicted. You might also be displacing other activities…
Humans aren't single-threaded, most can glance at their phones mid-conversation with no interruption.
Your second paragraph amounts to a kafkatrap (wherein denying the validity of the argument automatically means it applies to the denier).
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#25RIP to anyone who clicked that link without ad block. The app is a cool concept but I don't see it ever taking off. They broadly assume that people want to be distanced from their phones, which I'm sure most don't. There is nothing wrong with enjoying technology. Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? I'm not checking social media, I'm just browsing throug…
>Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? I'd say undoubtedly so. "Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction The adverse consequences is debatable but it is very likely we are all missing out on experiences and losing health by checking our…
What you described is precisely what's not happening though. In that there are no consequences to my frequent phone checking. If I'm playing a game and waiting for a match to start for example, it's not affecting me negatively in any way to just open youtube and watch a quick video. That's one of my points here; in that enjoying smartphones and being addicted to them gets muddled.
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#26This is pretty cool. Some feedback:
1. Lock screen functionality would be good. It's sort of jarring to go back and forth between this (pleasant, mellow) and my normal lock screen (looks just like my normal phone).
2. It'd be nice to be able to resize the custom background images.
3. Not sure I like the distinction between "tools" and "apps", especially because I try to view all my apps as tools. It'd be nice to be able to add a custom tool (I wanted to add Audible for example) that would just be on the one page.
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#27It's actually quite easy to "break" your addiction to smartphones: Don't use them in the first place.
That comment is even less helpful than saying "It's actually quite easy to break your addiction to alchohol - just don't drink". The reason it's even less helpful is that, unlike alcohol, smartphones provide useful functionality in day to day life.
Smartphones provide useful functionality in day to day life.
Do they now?
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#28Currently, I use the Moment App on the iOS to keep track of how much time I spend on my phone and it has been immensely useful. Though it only captures my usage and can't actively help me reduce my smartphone usage. I love the ability to batch up the notifications. In my ideal world, I would get notifications at 8AM, 12pm, 5pm and 9pm. And that's all. I am jealous of the Android platform that it is possible to create…
> I love the ability to batch up the notifications. In my ideal world, I would get notifications at 8AM, 12pm, 5pm and 9pm. And that's all. Couldn't you do this manually by silencing your phone except for alarms, and then setting vibrate-only alarms at those times? Alarm goes off, you check your phone and deal with any notifications you have so far, and then you go back to ignoring it.
For me, this would functionally be no different than just deciding I wasn't going to check.
Alarms would make sense if I had trouble remembering to check if I didn't check constantly, but the problem is the compulsion to thoughtlessly reach for my phone to check for notifications every few minutes. If I could batch up notifications therefore making the act of grabbing my phone and looking at it pointless, that seems like it would have a real impact.
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? I'd say undoubtedly so. "Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction The adverse consequences is debatable but it is very likely we are all missing out on experiences and losing health by checking our…
What you described is precisely what's not happening though. In that there are no consequences to my frequent phone checking. If I'm playing a game and waiting for a match to start for example, it's not affecting me negatively in any way to just open youtube and watch a quick video. That's one of my points here; in that enjoying smartphones and being addicted to them gets muddled.
>In that there are no consequences to my frequent phone checking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_overuse#Health
There's a reason that the first step in addiction therapy is getting the subject to be able to admit that there's a problem.
Re: Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an "addict"? I'd say undoubtedly so. "Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction The adverse consequences is debatable but it is very likely we are all missing out on experiences and losing health by checking our…
What you described is precisely what's not happening though. In that there are no consequences to my frequent phone checking. If I'm playing a game and waiting for a match to start for example, it's not affecting me negatively in any way to just open youtube and watch a quick video. That's one of my points here; in that enjoying smartphones and being addicted to them gets muddled.
It's not affecting in ways that you notice right now, but we don't really know the true effects of never letting your brain be bored.
There is some evidence that boredom is good for you as explained in this post: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170719-how-moments-of-bor...