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How to overcome Phone Addiction

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Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#291

Post by jlokier »

chrisseaton wrote: post #35
furstenheim wrote: post #30

Something that I've found useful when meeting someone in real life, I take an old phone that's only capable of making calls. That way I avoid any possible communication issues, but I don't get distracted at all.

The problem is that people under the age of 40 or so don't communicate via phone calls in the first instance. So a phone is not a means to communicate with them and you don't avoid any possible communication issues. Your lunch meeting is telling you on Slack that they're going to be late. You think you have no 'possible communication issues' but you're mistaken.

It's worse than that.

Your lunch meeting sends you a message via WhatsApp, but you don't receive the message because you don't have WhatsApp installed.

They think you've seen the message, you don't know they sent anything, neither of you realises, they don't turn up, you leave.

They message you again, you don't reply because you still don't have WhatsApp, and the two of you assume the other isn't interested and you lose touch.

1 year later, you install WhatsApp and it delivers the message from your lunch meeting.

If only you'd known! This happened to a friend of mine.

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#292

Post by mollusk »

mschuster91 wrote: post #167
st1x7 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tomorrow on Ask HN: Which PAAS (psychedelic-as-a-service) would you pay the most money for?

Alcohol delivery services are already a thing everywhere, Berlin has "cocaine taxis", now all that's missing is pot delivery once it finally becomes legal...

Telegram has already got you covered.

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#293

Post by throwaway2245 »

Talanes wrote: post #189
maqp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few more ideas: 1. When I quit Facebook, I first started disabling my account but that didn't work, at all. It just brought me back. Every time. I realized it wasn't a feature for deleting account, it was a pressure relieve valve for people who need a quick break because they felt the service had taken control of too large a portion of their lives. FB didn't want people to quit and they didn't offer such feature. I s…

>This also applies to games. Every "headshot +100 points" is such a tiny dopamine spike. Games didn't used to have those. Meaningless points popping up on screen when you do a thing is at least as old as Pac-Man.

At least as old as Space Invaders (1978).

Nonetheless, meaningless points popping up on screen where the action is definitely went out of fashion for a long while.

I never cared at all about the points when playing either Mario or Sonic (although they were there, at the top of the screen): the achievement of beating the level was a much greater focus.

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#294

Post by criddell »

zajio1am wrote: post #172
criddell wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that a difference without a distinction? If the headline were about television addiction would you question if it’s the TV set or the shows?

Watching TV stations was the only purpose of TV set, while social network apps are just one of many purposes of mobile phones. Many people do not use such apps, but still use mobile phones.

Social networks are only one of the problematic class of apps. Games, texting, news and some other app categories were also called out in the article.

So I guess I agree - the problem isn’t the hardware but then nobody really ever thought it was. I think that’s why my tv analogy works.

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#295

Post by RedAlakazam »

Nbox9 wrote: post #175
mraza007 wrote: post #173

Here’s what I did to counter my phone addiction. I was mostly addicted to social media apps and it got worse as I wouldn’t go without spending at least 2hrs on these apps. So in order to counter my addiction I ordered a kitchensafe box to control my addiction. Now I just lock my phone for certain amount of time and try to do something else or engage myself into new things such as reading, learning new skills and etc…

What would you do if you got a phone call while it was in the kitchen safe?

My phone is in the kitchen safe most of the time as well. I've bought an Apple Watch recently and I was mightily afraid it would increase my phone addiction even more. Instead, it got way better and I keep my phone/watch in silent mode 99% of the time. Sudden notifications won't happen anymore and I definitely won't be starting to type out text messages on the watch or start browsing the internet. Important events, such as phone calls from 'favorite' contacts will still get through though and I still have the option to make phone calls in case of emergency.

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#296

Post by Symbiote »

chillwaves wrote: post #235
8note wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it surprising that there's no push for regulating engagement algorithms similar to tobacco and gambling. The same kinds of bad behaviours are being done by companies to profit off of addiction

Not only that, but loot boxes in games targeting children is just rampant.

Britain was looking into regulating (or simply banning, for children) loot boxes.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/jun/07/uk-could-class...

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#297

Post by layer8 »

Bakary wrote: post #112

Some ideas on this topic: 1. Inconvenience based solutions don't address the problem: using apps to restrict phone use, physically hiding the phone etc. Once you leave those carefully constrained conditions, you are more vulnerable than ever. Not to mention the contradiction with the core issue that it's a symptom rather than a cause. 2. Turning abstinence as an ongoing status condition (e.g. "X days since I did Y")…

Re urge surfing, I wonder if there’s something like aversion surfing. For me the urge is often triggered by an aversion to what I should really be doing at the given time. Thus not acting on the urge isn’t a complete solution, because it still leaves me with the aversion and has me seek some other avoidance behavior. Unlike the urge, which goes away by itself by “surfing” it, the aversion tends to subsist much longer, because you can’t sidestep the object of the aversion (unlike the object of the urge).

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#298

Post by bumby »

scotty79 wrote: post #270
bumby wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The society they are a part of does consider it a worthwhile skill, which is why they’ve created a niche for it. There may be disagreements on the individual level, but society creates institutions (like the military) and the policies they execute based on their aggregate values. Or in cliched terms, people get the government they deserve

> The society they are a part of does consider it a worthwhile skill, [...] It only mitgologizes it. That's not the same thing. When they rejoin economy nobody says "let me offer you a job or money or food or a place to live because now you can kill people on miltary command". The only places where people might find your "skill" worthwhile outside the place that conditioned you are criminal or borderline criminal.

It’s odd to me that you have a concept that the military is somehow not part of society as a whole. For better or worse, the military is interwoven throughout society. It is an institutional construct of society. It is a part of society like other institutions like Congress or the courts. I don’t know that your point of “rejoining they economy” holds up well in that context. People have felt the military is the strong arm of the economy for a long, long time. (If you disagree, look up War is a Racket, coincidently written by a Marine).

The point I was trying to make is that if society did not value that role it wouldn’t exist. Society as a whole has decided there is a need for a standing army, and funds the continuation of it. Again, individuals may disagree but society at large has decided its of enough value to keep in existence. We don’t do this because of it’s “mythology”, especially not to the tune of $700B a year. We can argue about whether society has a misguided value system, but I think it’s very hard to make a case that society doesn’t value the purpose of the military. That’s a high price tag for mythological storytelling.

The veterans I know would likely argue that the skills they were taught in the military go far beyond the ability to kill. I don’t disagree that (in Rumsfeld’s words) the base intent of the military is to “kill people and break their things” but this is similar to the oversimplification that the only purpose of a company is to make money, full stop. The Marines I know spent more time on humanitarian missions than combat missions.

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#299

Post by bumby »

watwut wrote: post #273
bumby wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The society they are a part of does consider it a worthwhile skill, which is why they’ve created a niche for it. There may be disagreements on the individual level, but society creates institutions (like the military) and the policies they execute based on their aggregate values. Or in cliched terms, people get the government they deserve

But once they leave, veterans don't do that great statistically. And you can't be marine forever.

That’s a good point and probably why there is an increased focus on the transition to civilian life. I suspect the distinctions between civilian and military life are what makes the transition difficult. The #1 thing they miss is the camaraderie, not the ability to blow shit up (although the adrenaline of the job is probably high on the list).

To the overall point of this thread, that lack of connection in society is part of what draws many back to rejoining

Re: How to overcome Phone Addiction

#300

Post by bumby »

greggman3 wrote: post #271
bumby wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marines do have an answer, although with a great cost. Do you mean an individual cost or societal cost? I think one of the ironies about the human condition is that we value things that we’ve sacrificed toward much more than the things we have not. E.g., Marines have esprit de corps in part because of their sacrifices not despite them. The strongest connections are often made through hardship. To think we can have…

> The strongest connections are often made through hardship. To think we can have that connection without a cost doesn’t seem congruent with how we’re wired This is the irony for me, my closest friends are people I crunched with at work. Going to breakfast together at 5am was a bonding experience. Staying overnight the day before shipping, etc... I'm not saying I want to force that on anyone but they are actually goo…

A good read is Sebastian Junger’s Tribe. To your point, the UK civilians he interviewed who lived through the WW2 bombings referred to them as “the good ol’ days”
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