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

Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 266 posts

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#51

Post by tthayer »

I don't know what options are available to you where you live, but in the US there are local credit unions which have banking available via browser portals.

I use a Light Phone II which has a black-and-white e-ink display and no ability to display images or install applications beyond tools that they develop in-house. It's been great.

I, too, have problems with infinite scroll apps. It's been really beneficial to my mental health to ditch the smartphone and delete my twitter/instagram/facebook accounts.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#52

Post by dschuessler »

Some HN community member recently plugged his side project in another thread and it seems quite fitting here: https://pausbox.com/

It's a configurable phone enclosure that physically separates you from your phone but lets important calls get through.

There are surely cheaper and probably more efficient ways to address OP's question but I might throw it in here anyways since it's sufficiently related.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#53

Post by MuffinFlavored »

silicon2401 wrote: post #48

This is what works for me to cut down on phone time when I get tired of it: turn off/mute ALL notifications that aren't absolutely critical, crank up your notification/ringtone volume, keep your phone somewhere out of the way but within earshot like next to your front door or in the bathroom, and find other things to play with. Buy an instrument, video games, books, movies, whatever. When you get bored, you need some…

> video games

I'm curious why switching from scrolling Instagram/communicating with friends on WhatsApp should be "frowned upon" (this is what comes to my mind personally when I hear the words "phone addiction) if the alternative is to trade it with something even more hyper-stimulating, like a video game.

If the post this week is "how can I be less addicted to my phone", and you replace your phone with video games, won't the post next week just be "how can I be less addicted to video games"?

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#54

Post by davzie »

My time to shine! I spent 2 - 3 years going back and forth between dumb phones and smartphones with various different measures for the same reasons. Here is my video with my final summations on the topic and how some techniques I’ve found may help you (iOS specific): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-TKgRxdA5o

Feel free to follow me on Twitter too and chat about any questions you have. I’ve been playing around with these sorts of ideas for years and find it really fascinating / interesting. I can also recommend some fantastic books.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#55

Post by davzie »

davzie wrote: post #54

My time to shine! I spent 2 - 3 years going back and forth between dumb phones and smartphones with various different measures for the same reasons. Here is my video with my final summations on the topic and how some techniques I’ve found may help you (iOS specific): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-TKgRxdA5o Feel free to follow me on Twitter too and chat about any questions you have. I’ve been playing around with t…

One of the most insightful things I found was actually that simply feeling that phone use is bad makes it feel bad and puts you in a bad loop of “I’m so terrible I can’t stop checking my phone etc”. Also when I’m stressed with work, I focus and fixate on how much screen time I have. I would hazard a guess that you have more emotional / other issues that would benefit you to address. For me it was stress with work and feeling like I’m not good enough. Like I said, I’d love to chat to see if I can help.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#56

Post by twodave »

I found the below extremely effective at curbing addictive behaviors myself.

Find somebody you trust and have them password-protect your Screen Time settings and lock them down. Uninstall anything you don't want distracting you. Disable literally everything except the banking apps, texting and calling.

If you really need to get into your phone for whatever reason, there's a feature that allows you to request time.

You can also always wipe the phone using any computer with MacOS on it (or just take it to an Apple Store) if things become desperate.

DO NOT click the button that prompts you to persist your Screen Time settings to iCloud--that crap is nearly impossible to get rid of, and you'll be stuck creating a new iCloud account if your friend disappears for whatever reason.

If you can't do the above for whatever reason, then I'd suggest changing your banking memberships so that you no longer depend on phone apps. If you're really serious about solving your problems then you'll need to be ready to do "whatever it takes."

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#58

Post by kziemio »

1. Try using the web browser in "private" mode for all your browsing, so there's no autocomplete. Get rid of any bookmarks and don't install any apps. Instead, go to mobile.twitter.com/id_aa_carmack or whatever manually. This slows you down and makes it easy to forget to check Twitter for days and weeks at at time.

2. On the migraines and eye strain issues, this may be solvable by getting glasses or an updated prescription.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#60

Post by cle »

Any technical advice about how to block yourself is beating around the bush IMO. Not only is it easy to bypass most of that stuff, but you'll be way better off learning how to deal with this psychological issue directly instead of trying to avoid triggering it.

Edit: They are not mutually exclusive by any means, I just mean that you will benefit in the long-run by addressing the psychological problem that leads to this behavior and manifests in this way. It probably manifests in other ways too, outside of phone addiction.

Post reply on HN