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My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

alexanderell.is

61–70 of 459 posts

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#61

I'm still young so maybe my mind hasn't matured enough to where I can combat this well. So I went heavy-handed - I have a button on my desk that when I press it, my server's DNS server (through which all my devices and router resolve) begins rejecting requests to reddit, instagram, twitter, hackernews, news.google.com, etc. For the next two hours, there is nothing I can do outside of SSH'ing through my mobile device…

How do you stop yourself from just grabbing your phone and 5G?

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#62

I'm still young so maybe my mind hasn't matured enough to where I can combat this well. So I went heavy-handed - I have a button on my desk that when I press it, my server's DNS server (through which all my devices and router resolve) begins rejecting requests to reddit, instagram, twitter, hackernews, news.google.com, etc. For the next two hours, there is nothing I can do outside of SSH'ing through my mobile device…

The Freedom app has similar options where you can disable turning it off during a session or even disable Task Manager / Activity Monitor while it's active too.

https://freedom.to/

Anything that pisses me off works. Usually that's fully logging out of an app in a browser and not using any mobile apps.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#63
Trying to cut down on phone time/doom scrolling has been a focus of mine the past few weeks. I've been able to help mitigate but not get rid of it with the following:

1. Apollo for Reddit on iOS has a toggle for infinite scrolling, I have infinite scrolling off 2. Most of my time on my phone is spent either in bed, or in transit. Transit has a definite end, so being in bed was my main target. I now leave my phone so far away from my bed at night that I need to get up to get it. Instead of using it before bed, I read.

I do #2 in moderation, for example weekends, I just run free but my sleep is way better the nights I read and keep the phone away! I hope this helps some folks.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#64
> I don’t have any quick fixes or easy answers.

Oh but there are - and if we're being honest with ourselves we already know it. If you can't defeat it head on (and you can't) you have to take extreme actions - ditch your smartphone for something dumber, block the sites using something like nextdns. Maybe you could go even further, see Popey's brilliant blog entry on his command line only laptop - https://popey.com/blog/2021/02/command-line-only-laptop/

Good luck to anyone reading this! You can do it!

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#66
post #25
post #9

Small request. If you are a developer and you are forced to implement infinite scroll and you can't quit your job, at least make sure the back button works.

And a few more possibly good tweaks, it could also: - be pausable, allowing to reach the page's footer - be resumable from the latest viewing point on page reload - modify current URL periodically - preload new data slightly before reaching the end of last page - auto-pause at some point to prevent mental overload - be switchable, in part to "Click to continue" state, in options

Making all these things is too much effort, can I just use a good old paginated view instead?

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#67
post #61

I'm still young so maybe my mind hasn't matured enough to where I can combat this well. So I went heavy-handed - I have a button on my desk that when I press it, my server's DNS server (through which all my devices and router resolve) begins rejecting requests to reddit, instagram, twitter, hackernews, news.google.com, etc. For the next two hours, there is nothing I can do outside of SSH'ing through my mobile device…

How do you stop yourself from just grabbing your phone and 5G?

The DNS server is set in my phone as well (still works over data). But even if it wasn't, I live in a third-world country that still has crude data caps (the United States) so consuming video would probably quickly approach it.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#68
post #9

Small request. If you are a developer and you are forced to implement infinite scroll and you can't quit your job, at least make sure the back button works.

Where would they be “forced” to implement infinite scroll and also have the latitude to design/PM the product features?

I doubt any product of consequence would allow this to happen.

Doing your job as a rogue quasi-saboteur probably isn’t a better option than quitting.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#69
post #66
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a few more possibly good tweaks, it could also: - be pausable, allowing to reach the page's footer - be resumable from the latest viewing point on page reload - modify current URL periodically - preload new data slightly before reaching the end of last page - auto-pause at some point to prevent mental overload - be switchable, in part to "Click to continue" state, in options

Making all these things is too much effort, can I just use a good old paginated view instead?

Why not both with an options switch? Everything has its uses.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#70
post #25
post #9

Small request. If you are a developer and you are forced to implement infinite scroll and you can't quit your job, at least make sure the back button works.

And a few more possibly good tweaks, it could also: - be pausable, allowing to reach the page's footer - be resumable from the latest viewing point on page reload - modify current URL periodically - preload new data slightly before reaching the end of last page - auto-pause at some point to prevent mental overload - be switchable, in part to "Click to continue" state, in options

> - modify current URL periodically

This is a big one.

Without this it's so frustrating to infinite scroll down to the equivalent of 12 pages, leave the page and want to go back to roughly where page 12 is another time. Instead you have to start from the top and scroll down.

You'd likely save a good amount of server compute power just using push state to update the page in the URL as you go so folks can copy / paste it and jump right back to that page later.

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