Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

Your depiction doesn't match common usage of smartphones -- people check them 150+ times per day, and saying "it's just a swipe" is meaningless. But regardless, why don't we sample the population and find out? It's my understanding that the current scientific consensus is that modern media and tech is having noticeable adverse effects on individual well-being and social relationships. If this is not the case, I would like to know!

I don't see any irony. There are inherent difficulties involved in being human... I wouldn't find it surprising if regular people are susceptible to sophisticated tech that takes advantage of cognitive characteristics to maximize time in app purely for advertising dollars, and that this may have adverse affects.

> If what you said was true then EVERYONE would have this problem.

This may be true, to varying degrees. This is something we need to research and take seriously.

I think there are many amazing, good things about modern technology and even social media. But we shouldn't turn a blind eye to potential negatives or blame completely normal individuals for being affected by these massive, unprecedented changes.

> But it's bigger than just these devices, and simply blaming the devices is not going to help solve for the root.

I agree there are many factors here, and I was not saying we should ignore all the other factors.

By the way, I'm not proposing any specific remedies, if you are worried about that. That is a different conversation.

Found this very refreshing. I think 'eccentricity as medicine' may be a component missing from modern mental health treatment. Seems like the societal pressure to 'not seem weird' could exacerbate mental illness and stress. Perhaps if people with behavioral dysfunctions were encouraged not to "act normal" but "act weird in productive ways" it could be beneficial.

Here are some things I did and the results.

1. Hacker News "noprocrast" setting. This is something underrated in HN, but I have set it so I can only visit every 6 hours and that my session can only be 20m long. That basically means one visit per day. I find myself not going on as much because I am "saving" my one visit for later.

2. Android "Digital Wellbeing" timers. I set a timer on my phone to limit me to 1hr of Google Chrome per day. This is my #1 most-used app. The first few days I was always hitting my limit. After a week or two my brain subconsciously started knowing about the limit and now my natural usage is 3. Work Profile + Do Not Disturb + Grayscale. At night my phone goes full grayscale and turns off all non-urgent notifications. My work profile also turns off. The combination of these three things makes me much less likely to engage after 9pm and get ready to wind down for bed.

4. I made an app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.not...) that helps me take control of notifications. Instead of blocking them, the app puts them in an inbox-like format. I can check them all at the end of the day without missing them entirely or letting them bother me at work. I do this for apps like NYTimes that surface interesting things but that I don't need to know about urgently.

Overall I am seeing a lot of progress! I find myself more able to, for instance, wait for the bus without playing on my phone. Hopefully over time I'll get better and better.

If you want to gain weight, you'd have to change your diet to eating more for a specific period. Vice versa for losing it.

If you want to change the way you eat, that's not to diet - that requires a lifestyle change in the way you see food. Meaning, you have to discipline yourself to eat well for life (generally).