Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

Thanks! And case in point: I can "feel" my brain delighting in your reply and resolving to try more things to make that happen again. We are funny creatures. :) Best of luck to you.

Reddit is also my biggest weakness, though in my opinion it's a special case of social media where it can be (occasionally) a very useful source for information. Coincidentally there's another thread on the front page right now about how Google search results have become increasingly worse quality over the last few years [0], I often find myself adding "site:reddit.com" to search queries to weed out all the crappy clickbait and algo-generated sites that seem to permeate the first few pages of search results these days.

It's definitely not without it's problems (e.g. I'm certain there are company-managed accounts stealth promoting products in smaller subreddits, so take any product recommendations with a grain of salt) but I do seem to trust content on reddit more than what I get through googling general queries.

And I don't think I can say all this stuff without reflecting on how it's a really sad state of affairs and shaking my fist angrily at adtech which is probably how we arrived in this situation.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136

Edit: Just saw there's another reply to this posted while I wrote the above which highlights the same problem. It's certainly a space which is begging for some disruption.

Absolutely: I think the one of the follow-on "secrets" after dealing with the bad habits is that you also have to pick the right good habits that will actually work for you. Take exercise. Some people love running; for me it's a horrible chore, but on the other hand I love long bike rides. Who knows why.

Maybe I think I "should" read a bunch of philosophy. But if it doesn't do anything for me, it won't develop into a habit. Maybe if I try a variation, like political philosophy, that will feel rewarding. And it might even lead back to the original thing.

The key I think on both the good habit and bad habit sides is being conscious of what you're doing. (Not to say this is easy though!) The new good habit you want can be hard but rewarding, or it can just be self-mortification, and you have to adjust somewhat to that reality.

> There are no cool tricks to improving yourself.

There are and many have been invented very long ago.

Arguably, the concept of "sin" in its original meaning was not a crime but a miss, like when you get disturbed by something and shoot a wrong way rather than straight your target. St. Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the religious order of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits) never meant his followers to be punished for every sin they commit, he in fact wisely expected them to commit numerous sins every day and train themselves to commit less of them gradually. As taught in his "Spiritual Exercises" scripture (which is the fundamental book of a Jesuit training) one should select one particular sin (eating sugar when not actually starving qualifies by all definitions) they want to fight at the time, do their best observing themselves, draw dots for every time they commit it, connect the dots with a line, recall the cases and observe the daily progress they make. Doing just this can be very effective for many. I encourage to study this text even if you are an atheist, for sake of extracting applicable psycho-technology and some philosophy to think about perhaps. If you consider yourself a Christian I would recommend that particularly strongly as it teaches exactly what to do to progress on your way to Salvation.

> If you want to stop eating sugar then stop eating it.

The problem is there is no single solid "you".

The first lie we tell ourselves is when we say 'I'. It is a lie because in saying 'I' we presume certain things: we presume a certain unity and a certain power. And if I say 'I' today and say 'I' to-morrow, it is supposed to be the same 'I', when in reality there is no connection between them. We are in this present state because of certain obstacles or certain facts in ourselves, and the most important fact that we do not understand is that we have no right to say 'I', for it will be a lie. When you begin to observe yourself you will see that it is really so: there are 'I's in you which do not know one another and never come into contact. For instance, begin to study your likes and dislikes and you will see that you can like one thing one moment and like another thing another moment, and the two are so opposed to one another that you will realize at once that those 'I's never meet. If you observe your decisions you will see that one 'I' decides and another has to carry out the decision, and this one is either unwilling to do it or never heard about it. (Peter D. Ouspensky, "The fourth way".)

The Jesuits' technique can hack this system by teaching the 'I' which makes the decision to persist awake.

Note that both the sources I cited have been written centuries ago :-) (both available on libgen nowadays)

Needless to say, in many cases there also are simple psychological and/or chemical solutions. Many can greatly decrease their craving to specific foods (or foods at all) by adjusting their diet to contain more of specific substances (i.e. specific vitamins, fiber, fatty acids, proteins) or by just healing some specific stress-inducing psychological trauma with assistance of a good psychotherapist.

Quitting social media is actually really interesting. My experience without facebook (I never had Twitter) for two years has been almost all positive. All you said is also reasonable but it’s a bit like saying that drug addicts should use drugs for fun. Some people need to quit, and they’ll be better that way. That doesn’t mean those who can manage should too; I envy you very much and wish all the best.