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Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

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Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#221

Post by village-idiot »

njarboe wrote: post #211
ip26 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cut myself off time to time in various ways. I canceled home internet for a few months one time, another I switched to a flip phone for a month. I'll frequently remove Chrome from my phone. I have tried the greyscale thing many times. Etc. What makes all this Hard is the plethora of legitimate use. When I canceled home internet, I was unable to log in to work from home (five minutes a day in the evenings helps keep…

A similar situation to eating too much. You have to eat and so many events include food. Eliminating it from your life as a way to stem the over use is not practical.

Discover the joy of intermittent fasting.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#222

Post by fbelzile »

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…

I am fortunate enough to run a lifestyle business in this space. I market it as personal productivity software that lets you pick what to block and for how long, then prevents you from changing the settings until the time is reached.

It's freemium and only a one time payment for pro (ie - not investor friendly) but I really enjoy being able to work on improving it every day. I sometimes get nice emails from people which helps motivate me more.

My app is called Cold Turkey (https://getcoldturkey.com). It's for Windows and macOS only, because of the security restrictions on smart phones. It uses browser extensions (with native messaging) to do the blocking, but if you disable the extensions during a block, Cold Turkey closes your browsers until you re-enable them.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#223

Post by sizzle »

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…

I think you approached this completely backwards and failed due to bad product market fit. If you did look into research for things like positive reinforcement, and tested your ideas with users before investing resources in building the wrong solution, you have a better chance in uncovering insights into solving the addiction problem. Even looking into alcoholism, gambling addiction, drug addiction etc etc would have yieled better insights for viable products.

One insight is that you have to separate yourself from your addiction with minimum effort possible, so getting the addiction enabler, whether phone, bottle of alcohol, masturbation, or drugs, out of your hands is half that battle because it reduces urges when the opportunity to relapse is removed from reach.

And since I want to help instead of just criticize, because tech addiction affects me and my loved ones greatly, the only solution that has ever worked for me literally to put my phone face down and on do not disturb mode and tell everyone to leave a message.

Also, if you make the equivalent of Self Control for mobile I would happily pay you for it because the UX is dead simple, you don't have to mess with VPN only enter your Mac password and it blocks all websites in a blacklist, even with computer restart and you can't do anything about it until time is over. This is easy to use and dead simple for mass user adoption.

https://selfcontrolapp.com

Let me know what you think about SelfControl.

Thanks for trying to help stop tech addiction, it truly is a problem worthy of solving.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#224

Post by projektir »

ip26 wrote: post #131
wccrawford wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

actually improving our house has proven even more enjoyable Plus you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. That was what completely killed my interest in any amount of game grind- it hit me mid-game that if I spent that time grinding my actual corporeal self, I'd have something to show for it after. I've since improved my AeT mile pace (your "all-day" level) from around 15:00 to 10:00ish. (My dream/goal is to get to…

> That was what completely killed my interest in any amount of game grind- it hit me mid-game that if I spent that time grinding my actual corporeal self, I'd have something to show for it after.

I wish I could relate to this. IRL grinding seems hilariously inefficient and unreliable, which I think is why people enjoy their gaming grinds so much.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#225

Post by kopo »

mbrock wrote: post #184
kopo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tex…

Good points. It feels like we are in some kind of "learning" phase, developing our ideas of what is useful and what is not. Who knows whether it will take 2 more years or 20 before the final verdict is delivered.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#226

Post by projektir »

flatline wrote: post #165
loceng wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In context I was speaking of health-related companies, that generally are scrutinized more - you can't create a medication and just start giving it to everyone, and you can't claim a medicine does something it hasn't been proven to do in studies, etc. And once again, Facebook et al, ties into health as social is health. Facebook did some experiments/research specifically to see the impact of showing more positive or…

Soylent and Theranos are two recent counterexamples that come to mind. In the former case, a company made many claims they have since dialed back; and in the latter case, outright fraud, though it may not have started out that way. 23andMe were shut down for a period by the FDA. There are of course plenty of healthcare startups that are working within the established boundaries of the existing system, but if you want…

Can you give more information on Soylent being fraud?

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#227

Post by jon_richards »

mrfredward wrote: post #68
jon_richards wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The ultimate bubble. Your "friend" won't ever disagree, nor share any viewpoint other than what parents want the child to hear. The only interesting point will be to see what the "friend" chooses to do when the parents and the child disagree. AI "friends" could be terrific in teaching children, but there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying the A.I. which is most likable. Imagine how…

>there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying the A.I. which is most likable.

There are far more dangers than just that, but what if you've been brought up by an AI that taught you the self-control to avoid them?

The AIs will fight over their ability to influence you. The hope is that the ones that use truth and reasoning will have an advantage, but there will always be the groups that are stuck in some fantasy.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#228

Post by Faark »

rootoor wrote: post #200

The idea that you can “fix” or “solve” software addiction with more software is silly to me. First, This requires users to setup this software. Then, there is nothing stopping them from working around or disabling it at anytime. If the software can’t be disabled then the user will switch to another product. If someone is really trying to curtail their software addiction, actual dedication will be required, not just t…

You position sounds incredible uncreative to me. The article says "we need people working on that". Your response is "blocking won't work, thus software can't help". Someone else already commented that it might does, indeed. But I'd expect there to be way more stuff that might help. Just one thought on the spot: look at fitness or weight loss helpers. They use tons of psychological tricks to motivate you. Tracking alone could have a huge benefit, both to show what's wasted ("you spend x hrs on reddit this week. Instead, you could have y") and to measure improvements. Just imagine what other options there are.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#229

Post by projektir »

munificent wrote: post #174

> The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism. A new group of businesses needs to emerge that gives us the choice to help ourselves and rediscover the benefits of disconnection. > Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline to…

> The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture.

I'm not sure about that. Seems like most developed countries, with all their different cultures, are following the obesity trend. Obesity became more accepted after it got more common (because shaming every obese person became non-viable), it seems, not the other way around.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#230

Post by gymshoes »

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…

Agree. I have seen a lot of the time tracking and other solutions but they only seem to work when the person has the willpower to follow through.
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