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Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

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61–70 of 266 posts

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#61

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…

Definitely NOT video games. If OP wants to replace staring at phone it needs to be something that will not constantly reward him.

Games, phones, social media are extremely addictive as they give us constant rewards. Reading an actual book becomes boring. I suffered from the same problem with games. I had to uninstall games and completely stop playing for a week or two before I had an itch to do something else like reading a book or studying. It is insanely scary, and for me it was bad. Even to a point that I would say that it is an addiction.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Europe. There's all kinds is new regulations around 2fa for banking apps that came out last year, logging in seems to absolutely require a phone now, and all my accounts use an app to do it.

Neither of my British accounts require a smartphone to log in, they send an SMS or make a voice call. My Danish account uses either an app or SMS. You probably can't use a startup bank, as the app is one way they cut costs. Use a boring bank.

Just curious: Doesn't you Danish account still support the little cardboard card with the one-time codes?

Personally I really hate that they want to kill the card, and go to an app model (with the option of a key fob). It's made even worse by the police (and others) pushing the idea that the app is safer. How is it safer to have your two-factor authentication app on the same devices as the apps that need the second factor? Those things should be separate.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#64
post #60

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 th…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#65
Everyone is offering tricks or hacks to help, is simply stopping an option?

I wasn't able to quit smoking until I really decided I wanted to quit and did it cold turkey. Same with both Facebook and reddit. I was blowing hours of my day on reddit. Then I decided I didn't like that for myself and quit cold turkey. It really really sucked at first, but I feel like until you really want to quit, no amount of hacks or tricks is really going to work.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#67
post #60

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 th…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#68
post #60

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 th…

Agreed. I would suggest OP speak to a licensed mental health professional about this. Blocking access to most of the phone is treating the symptoms, not the underlying issue.

Of course, some technical countermeasures to block some access might be a (short-term?) part of the treatment.

Another short-term option: switch bank accounts so you can access it from your laptop, and ditch the iPhone entirely.

Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

#69
Blocks don't work for me... I just had to stop. One thing that helped was going on walks and just leaving my phone entirely. It felt super weird... But when I would go into town if I didn't need my phone I left it cause I found myself ALWAYS browsing reddit or something even if I had just been on there 30 seconds before.

After a while of leaving my phone behind the urge went away. For technical people I don't think blocks help because you can just get around it easy.

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