The idea of productizing tech addiction recovery funded by the VCs which fund tech addiction enabling products seems slightly disingenuous.
Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
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Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#22You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#23It seems inevitable to me that as ML-based algorithms get better at exploiting the quirks in our monkey brains and keeping us on platforms for longer and longer periods, somebody will need to develop a counter-algorithm that lives in a browser extension or (somehow) on your device and is able to recognize unhealthy engagement patterns and make you aware of them. Actually implementing such a thing in a way that's perf…
I predict that one day we'll all have our AI best friend. They'll teach and socialize us when we're young, guide and consol us as we grow, and protect us from misinformation and adversarial AIs throughout our lives. Picking the brand of AI for your kid will be the most important decision you ever make for them.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#24In my own experience struggling with addiction I've found that it is a symptom rather than a cause. Once you craft a life that is actually stimulating the tech loses its hold over you pretty quickly, if not instantly (for example when you go on a weekend outing in nature and completely forget your phone). Of course, the time and energy wasted due to the dysfunctional behavior presents a chicken-and-egg roadblock agai…
Addiction seems to fill emotional voids like unresolved trauma, depression, ennui, unfulfilled ambition and so on. I think much like a bad habit, an addiction needs to be replaced by something else that fills the gap but is positive instead (for example exercise, working, learning, or sports) otherwise the gap is still there and will exert continued pressure to return to the addiction. That or (where possible) removi…
The Buddhist perspective seems to be that we suffer from a general addiction ("craving").
Meditation is supposed to shine a light on that. Since few people ever just sit down without entertainment or work, the meditation posture becomes a way to notice (and subdue) one's constant tendency to reach for something to enjoy or accomplish.
This craving comes as part of "attachment", the way our minds are hooked up into all kinds of duties, relations, plans, hopes, fears, etc. Mental life is like swinging from branch to branch in a jungle of obligations, desires, aversions, gossip, anxieties...
In modern parlance it's the phenomenon that makes us feel constantly stressed about all kinds of stuff, in the most general sense, up to and including the end game vision that one day we're going to die, so we better get to work.
Every time I check something off my todo list, two more things appear...
Without buying into Buddhist metaphysics, I do think it points out something that's extremely palpable in these days, thus the recent (fading?) trending interest in meditation and mindfulness.
Another lucid perspective on it is McLuhan's, like in a brief essay called "The Agenbite of Outwit."
http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_...
With the telegraph Western man began a process of putting his nerves outside his body. Previous technologies had been extensions of physical organs: the wheel is a putting-outside-ourselves of the feet; the city wall is a collective outering of the skin. But electronic media are, instead, extensions of the central nervous system, an inclusive and simultaneous field. Since the telegraph we have extended the brains and nerves of man around the globe. As a result, the electronic age endures a total uneasiness, as of a man wearing his skull inside and his brain outside. We have become peculiarly vulnerable. The year of the establishment of the commercial telegraph in America, 1844, was also the year Kierkegaard published The Concept of Dread.
Mental health in the age of the internet indeed seems like a major topic.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#25In my own experience struggling with addiction I've found that it is a symptom rather than a cause. Once you craft a life that is actually stimulating the tech loses its hold over you pretty quickly, if not instantly (for example when you go on a weekend outing in nature and completely forget your phone). Of course, the time and energy wasted due to the dysfunctional behavior presents a chicken-and-egg roadblock agai…
There are definitely nuggets of truth to what you say, but I can say first hand that often the biggest challenge (after admitting your flaws, of course) in battling addiction is determining what exactly it is that I am missing. If things are going well in my life generally (marriage, work, friends, spiritually, etc) and yet I still feel the pull to this coping mechanism, why is that?! I don’t have any latent trauma that I’m aware of either. It can be utterly demoralizing and confusing to continually fail for seemingly no reason at all.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#26We used to have far more focus rooms - they were called offices.
Tech is a convenient scapegoat for environments unconducive to focus and lack of interest in the task. It can also help with emotional state management which is useful over just banging your head against the wall. One use I find for HN is that it is usually pretty good at getting me in a rational and focused state of mind - it is similar to the benefit of a dedicated office vs your home PC. Productivity research in general suffers from a beancounting mentality in treating everything like it is turning an oar.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#27In my own experience struggling with addiction I've found that it is a symptom rather than a cause. Once you craft a life that is actually stimulating the tech loses its hold over you pretty quickly, if not instantly (for example when you go on a weekend outing in nature and completely forget your phone). Of course, the time and energy wasted due to the dysfunctional behavior presents a chicken-and-egg roadblock agai…
Yeah I dunno about that. A month or so ago, I took a two week trip across France and Spain, it was one of the most lovely experiences of my life, staying in great places, eating amazing food, etc. It was honestly about as wonderful and stimulating of an experience as I've ever had. About halfway through it I started to realize that I was still attached to my phone. I was sitting on trains reflexively checking Twitter…
social media is specifically designed to provide you regular bursts of instant gratification. Of course that's going to be more attractive to your brain than natural vistas, it's engineered for maximum impact.
When comparing natural and artificial stimuli I like to refer to this comic, which lays out the issue at hand beautifully: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#28It seems inevitable to me that as ML-based algorithms get better at exploiting the quirks in our monkey brains and keeping us on platforms for longer and longer periods, somebody will need to develop a counter-algorithm that lives in a browser extension or (somehow) on your device and is able to recognize unhealthy engagement patterns and make you aware of them. Actually implementing such a thing in a way that's perf…
I predict that one day we'll all have our AI best friend. They'll teach and socialize us when we're young, guide and consol us as we grow, and protect us from misinformation and adversarial AIs throughout our lives. Picking the brand of AI for your kid will be the most important decision you ever make for them.
I suspect that your parents will choose for you, and the majority will be ad supported.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Addiction seems to fill emotional voids like unresolved trauma, depression, ennui, unfulfilled ambition and so on. I think much like a bad habit, an addiction needs to be replaced by something else that fills the gap but is positive instead (for example exercise, working, learning, or sports) otherwise the gap is still there and will exert continued pressure to return to the addiction. That or (where possible) removi…
The Buddhist perspective seems to be that we suffer from a general addiction ("craving"). Meditation is supposed to shine a light on that. Since few people ever just sit down without entertainment or work, the meditation posture becomes a way to notice (and subdue) one's constant tendency to reach for something to enjoy or accomplish. This craving comes as part of "attachment", the way our minds are hooked up into al…
I totally agree. I think this constant need to be doing something is one of the voids that needs to be filled, and it seems to be largely cultural and driven by consumerism. Meditation is a great way to tackle that and many other voids, I regularly find myself feeling much more emotionally levelled out after having meditated successfully.
Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity
#30It is at least funny how therapy is not even mentioned in the article...