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My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

alexanderell.is

81–90 of 459 posts

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#82
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read books I'm not joking, it's the best antidote to the thought-theft of "social media". Pick a subject in which you're interested, find a representively excellent text, and read. And then re-read, because unless you're a genius you won't absorb everything first time. Also it's wonderful to just curl up with a book and a cup of tea and let time pass you by as you ... learn the considered thought of others! This is c…

I would love to do this, but years of mindlessly browsing social media has seriously shortened my attention span. I used to read books all the time. I remember staying up late as a kid just to read the new Harry Potter book. Nowadays I pick up a book, read a few pages, then immediately lose interest and go do something else. Anybody know how to get back into reading?

For me it was moving in with my fiance. I read out loud to her every night till she falls asleep.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#83

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…

What stops you from just changing your DNS server?

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#84
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read books I'm not joking, it's the best antidote to the thought-theft of "social media". Pick a subject in which you're interested, find a representively excellent text, and read. And then re-read, because unless you're a genius you won't absorb everything first time. Also it's wonderful to just curl up with a book and a cup of tea and let time pass you by as you ... learn the considered thought of others! This is c…

I would love to do this, but years of mindlessly browsing social media has seriously shortened my attention span. I used to read books all the time. I remember staying up late as a kid just to read the new Harry Potter book. Nowadays I pick up a book, read a few pages, then immediately lose interest and go do something else. Anybody know how to get back into reading?

Just f*cking read :)

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#85
post #77
post #6

A very hacky solution that I've found to combat TikTok's infinite feed is to scroll up instead. I skip to the 20-th video in the feed, watch each video, and then exit once I'm done with the 20. Hitting the top gives you an off-ramp to get out of the app.

If you enjoy the product, this risks skewing the input to the recommendation algorithm. Presumably they use time spent to determine what content you enjoy.

Not sure I follow, it doesn’t sound like any particular post would be on screen any longer than normal, unless you’re suggesting that time since load is what is measured instead of time on screen (or time since last scroll), or that they use overall duration of the app session to infer things about all the posts that were loaded.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#86

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…

What stops you from just changing your DNS server?

That's a separate button

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#87

It’s honestly so bad. No matter how hard I try, I find myself re-downloading TikTok or Reddit (Apollo) every month and then wasting away all my free time for a week or two before re-deleting them out of disgust. I truly don’t know what the solution is. I would just get rid of my smartphone if life wasn’t quite inconvenient without it.

I use the Reddit website. It's slow and horrible enough that even though I visit every day, but don't get sucked into spending hours on it.

I also watch YouTube instead of TikTok. YouTube is slower paced and hasn't (yet) fallen into the trap of continual submersion in content without a break. You have to consciously choose to watch another video. I can also tell myself that I'm watching content that is pseudo-educational in nature (like Jay Foreman, Stuff Built Here, Jazza or Mark Rober).

I've started using TikTok a couple of times and it just seems like the perfect engagement machine. It's like a machine that drip-feeds dopamine. Pure evil, in my opinion.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#88
There's a kind of vicious cycle here where people feel disconnected from their surroundings and communities, and attention-stealing apps make a business of providing a surrogate through parasocial relationships and infinite access to the spectacle and new ways to interact with it.

Parasocial relationships aren't real relationships, and the spectacle replaces doing anything directly, there is no fulfilment and the cycle continues. There's an epidemic of people who can't have hold a conversation or relate to anyone without mediating the conversation through a common topic that they've experienced on mass or social media. They're addicted to watching a simulation of having a life, and not actually living the one life they have.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#89
post #16

I've removed everything with this from my life. Everyone knows how bad it is now, there's no excuse.

> Everyone knows how bad it is now, there's no excuse. I disagree. Ask any 20-30 year old and I don't think many will say that TikTok, Instagram, etc is "harmful to your health". Maybe a "bit addictive", maybe a few people who say "I have a problem with it". But never "I know this is very harmful for my attention span, my mental health, etc".

Sounds like the same mentality which lead to "cause cancer in California". All of the hysterical bullcrap with no sense of proportion leads to being ignored completely. It seems like even with the rise of drug legalization support they learned nothing from the failures of DARE and "scare them straight".

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#90

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…

What do you use for the button?

This article shows how to modify a red industrial button to add USB.

https://bikerglen.com/blog/usb-big-red-button/

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