211–220 of 459 posts
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This could seriously be a good commercial product!
I’m all for tangible, tactical solutions to problems that are currently enabled by software. For example, a phone tells the time, but it’s not always as straight forward as looking at a clock.
I have actually won against doomscroll. I used to spend 5-6 hours per day, and it peaked at 10 hours per day for some days of the year. I realized that doomscrolling is not only clever algorithms trying to get me hooked, but also a symptom of deeper problems that I had. And I realized that I was unhappy because I spent most of my doing things that I didn't like. I was deep frustrated. I did not want to spend my brain…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concept of physical vs psychological dependence is kind of outdated, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EaiP31qWf0 I don't see anything wrong with talking about a video game or social media addiction. Of course it's nowhere near the same level of danger as a heroin addiction, but if it's counter-productive and there's the same kinds of behaviors involved, it can be a useful model. Just the same, you can be add…
> physical vs psychological dependence is kind of outdated I wouldn't say outdated, but I do agree it is 100% up for debate. Kurzgesagt did a really similar video[0] on addiction, but the basically walked it back from such a hard line stance in a correction/update video[1]. It's not so easy to tease apart the social vs the physical vs the pure mental. > Just the same, you can be addicted to coffee. Caffeine is a drug…
I don't think there's a problem in society with people equating coffee or videogames with highly addictive drugs. It's more the opposite. People don't realize that addiction is something that could happen to them, or that they have an addiction to something. Alcoholics and drug addicts often live in denial, even when it has really damaging consequences in their life. So, if someone is addicted to something that's not widely considered addictive, it's even easier to deny that this is even a problem.
When the idea of an addiction to porn or videogames is brought up in an online discussion thread, people are quick to dismiss that this even is a real problem. Consider though that gambling addiction is very much real, and a lot of gambling takes places with machines that are effectively simple videogames. Addiction to video games isn't as devastating, because you're not losing huge sums of money, just time, but presumably, the addictive mechanism is more or less the same.
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…
This could seriously be a good commercial product!
You can wait a couple of decades to realize, or accept, that social media is bad for your health and everyone else around you.
Or you can quit now.
I realized that most of what I was reading on Reddit was fabricated outrage (since then they’ve added subs like “makes your blood boil” and “idiots in cars” - check them out if you feel like you are not outraged regularly enough)
I was the type of person who would sit on Reddit, be bored and type Reddit in the url bar.
So I decided to quit Reddit and used habitica for the task. It’s a gamification for to-do lists and forming habits. I added “visiting Reddit” as a minus 1, and every time I realized I was on Reddit I opened habitica and gave myself a minus 1.
Fictive internet points are quite powerful. I also started flossing this way (flossing at night, +1)
I’m curious what the generational divide is for this. I’m 57, love tech and enjoy the positive side of the internet in limited doses. But I find most social media boring. There is incredible and AMAZING art, accidental moments, serious discussion and fascinating analysis of the world to be found online. But without grounding myself in genuine experience in the stinky, cruel real world of human interaction, nature, an…
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…
My /etc/hosts file on the machine I work on all day blocks 68k hosts 24/7. No social media sites at all except Twitter. No ads. Meanwhile, the Leechblock browser add-on stops me from using the few things I do otherwise (bits of Reddit, HN) allow between 09:00 and 17:00 which is not perfect but it's a start. Except ... I disable it a lot :(
Not sure if you know, but there are advanced options to put various roadblocks in your way, such as disabling access to the options menu, or disabling access to the add-ons menu entirely.