Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

loupventures.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 245 posts

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#181

Post by TeMPOraL »

bluntfang wrote: post #179
TeMPOraL wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have considered it and, seeing such pizza made many times, I discounted it. They use the same ingredients you'd buy to put in your sandwitch; the same ingredients you get in "local cousine" when you travel.

I don't think you're talking about commercial grade pizza then. Do you mean something like Pizza Hut/ Papa John's or a local pizza shop?

Yes, both local and chain pizza places. From what I can tell, they do source cheapest ingredients available... which is also what every individual I know does, mostly from the same sources. And they do not seem to add any extra salt & sugar beyond what I'd expect in a homemade meal of similar quality.

I realize now that using the phrase "commercial-grade" might have implied I mean stuff like frozen pizzas in grocery stores. I did not mean that, though there are some brands of frozen pizza that taste quite good when passed through oven.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#182

Post by Paul-ish »

ddtaylor wrote: post #60

Having worked on a product for 3 years that attempts to target this market I can tell you the sad reality, is that nobody really cares. Sure, there are clickbait headlines and companies/parents will feign interest, but when it comes to actually paying for a product or making any tangible change to usage habits, our numbers prove that nobody even tries. For full disclosure our product turns the Internet off until they…

Maybe your product worked too well, and people don't actually want to change their behavior. They just feel like they should. Same with eating right or exercising.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#183

Post by rapnie »

For solutions in this realm you could go to the non-profit Center for Humane Technology [0] (formerly Time Well Spent) and join their community [1] (I did). The organisation led by Tristan Harris (ex Google) is influential on high levels of government and corporations.

[0] https://humanetech.com

[1] https://community.humanetech.com

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#184

Post by mbrock »

kopo wrote: post #157
mbrock wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Buddhist thinking does give people narratives/rituals/methods to detach, that are without doubt of great value in today's hyperconnected world. And hyper connection does make us all vulnerable indeed. But on the other end of the spectrum, Sugata Mitra, the educator, likes to say humanity has just uncovered the ability to murmurate like starlings, thanks to the hyperconnectivity the internet enable. It's still early d…

I sometimes wonder if we should just totally embrace our onlineness instead of always treating it as a failure, an addiction, a horrible alienation.

For example I remember when I was living at home, me and my brother and sometimes even my mom, we would chat on some instant messenger (or IRC) instead of talking...

That can be framed as some kind of dystopian nightmare, but it's also just two people talking using a textual medium, and why is that bad or unnatural?

What if we could have both meditation retreats and something like online immersion retreats?

What if a couple relationship can be improved by using social technology, what if that stuff doesn't only ruin our natural wholesome way of being but can instead really bring us closer and allow for whole new ways of understanding each other...

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#185

Post by hollerith »

WalterSear wrote: post #180
hollerith wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) Professional help for addiction tends to be very expensive; in contrast, even buying a "specialty" smartphone to replace one's existing smartphone would cost much less. (2) Even those who can easily afford the best professional help, e.g., Ben Affleck, end up having to go back into an in-patient addiction treatment center multiple times (3 times so far for Affleck, the first time's being in 2001), which casts dou…

Not relevant, since the fundamental issues still aren't being addressed. By and large, dysfunction will just find a different way to manifest itself. Moreover, treating the symptom without treating the disease will be an inordinate struggle until the underlying issues are understood, processed and addressed. This will leave most of the afflicted no better off, and in some ways, significantly worse for the failed effo…

Recovering mental health usually takes years. The sufferer or people who care about the sufferer have to learn enough to solve the problem. They must free themselves from false beliefs and keep trying things till they find something that works.

Addiction is an obstacle to learning and (more generally) to making progress in life because a large fraction of one's potentially-productive time gets absorbed by the addictive behavior.

Replacing an iPhone or Android phone with a phone that is even slightly less addictive (if such a phone existed) would allow a person and those who care about the person to engage in the probably-years-long process of learning and trial and error faster, resulting in fewer years lost to addiction (statistically speaking).

* * *

Seeing concrete examples of lives ruined by addiction (or by some other illness) makes a person uncomfortable. A natural human response would be for me to reduce that uncomfortable feeling by telling myself it will happen to me because, e.g., (a) the sufferer behaved immorally whereas I am moral or, e.g., (b) the sufferer did not obey the rules of society whereas I do.

Are you sure that you haven't reduced your discomfort around addiction by telling yourself that it cannot happen to you or those you love because you and those you love are willing to do the hard work of getting to the "root cause" of the addiction?

(Or maybe you believe that it can happen to you, but that you will be able to fix the root cause before a large fraction of your life is ruined by the addiction.)

I ask because your comment skates close to what we might call "essentialism", in which you argue that it is useless for you and I try to help the addict because what is wrong is something essential to the addict, so of course only the addict himself can help.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#186

Post by kazagistar »

Paul-ish wrote: post #182
ddtaylor wrote: post #60

Having worked on a product for 3 years that attempts to target this market I can tell you the sad reality, is that nobody really cares. Sure, there are clickbait headlines and companies/parents will feign interest, but when it comes to actually paying for a product or making any tangible change to usage habits, our numbers prove that nobody even tries. For full disclosure our product turns the Internet off until they…

Maybe your product worked too well, and people don't actually want to change their behavior. They just feel like they should. Same with eating right or exercising.

In which case the real market is for things that seem like they help. Ideally as a subscription that you can forget about like a gym.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#187

Post by bachbach »

ddtaylor wrote: post #111
sooheon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the target should be adults getting it for themselves? Think AA more than parental control.

Adults are much harder to reach because they can always simply go buy a new computer or phone and circumvent any measures put in place to help them.

Habits are hard to break but I've also found it surprisingly easy to manipulate yourself by putting an annoying obstacle in the way. For getting work on time I can't snooze-beat the combination of a wake up light and a distantly located mobile alarm.

On internet use restriction the best solution so far has been to use a simple electronic plug timer connected to a laptop without a battery. Zap - no internet for you.

There ought to be a solution that installs itself into the computer's firmware though. Most of us on HN install new operating systems at a much higher rate than the typical user so having a persistent solution would be huge.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#189

Post by bachbach »

Bakary wrote: post #6

In 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…

I think you have a point. I tried many times to go to the gym, eat well, sometimes temporarily succeeding.

After moving out of my parent's house I lost 12kg in less than a year. I prepared my own meals before and after so that's a result.

Not sure how you'd maintain an iron will in relation to the internet - few computer geeks I know can say "I'll be done in ten".

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#190

Post by hollerith »

wccrawford wrote: post #50
Bakary wrote: post #6

In 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…

I'm a gamer and about as attached to tech as you can be without actually having mental issues over it. My wife and I recently bought a house and I've been finding that I'd rather spend time fixing it up than playing games or doing other stuff with electronics much of the time. That doesn't mean that I've quit wholesale, though. I eventually get physically or mentally tired and want to just relax, and it's back to the…

>My wife and I recently bought a house and I've been finding that I'd rather spend time fixing it up than [engaging in things that many people get addicted to]

I propose that most of the hours lost to tech addiction will be lost by people with a severe life problem (e.g., they're paralyzed and in a wheelchair; e.g., they have an incurable disabling illness; e.g., they cannot get a job because they're ugly and have an IQ of 70) in addition to the addiction. Most of them will not be able to find anyone trustworthy and sane to marry them. Most of them will not be able to buy a house.

It is natural for a person to respond to the assertion that X is dangerous (or pernicious) by focusing on how dangerous X is to people sufficiently like themselves without considering the danger (or perniciousness) to people in different life circumstances.

Post reply on HN