Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I made my phone slow on purpose

vinewallapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 217 posts

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#31

Post by garyfirestorm »

halapro wrote: post #26
Version467 wrote: post #24

I think more people should set up their iPhone using Apple Configurator, a Mac app used to control apples mdm solution. You do have to factory reset your phone for this once, but after that you have extremely granular control over what you can and can’t do. It’s much more powerful than the parental controls system and much harder to circumvent. I use it to straight up disallow a bunch of apps and websites (tiktok, Re…

> Not having a browser at all on your phone I would not last 5 minutes. I'm occasionally offline outside planes and the amount of times I pull out my phone to "google something really quick" is high. You can already disallow apps without an MDM, but I'm curious what else you can do with it. I generally uninstall apps like Instagram so it takes a minute to even download it again, but it gives me a way to download it,…

I found an incredibly simple solution for this. Screen time in iOS can block specific websites and apps installed on your device. Set harmless time limits - 5 min for instagram. 2 mins for Reddit.com etc.

Ask your spouse or a friend you trust to set screen time passcode. You can’t bypass it and you’re not going cold turkey either or losing an important utility like Safari.

Doom scroll all you want in 2 mins then it’s locked for the day.

I have succeeded and it’s been 3+ months.

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#32

Post by neves »

This guy is crippling a top notch device he paid good money for. This is crazy.

This isn't a personal problem. It is a social one, and there lies the solution. These apps are engineered for addiction, to Dubai our attention and lives. The companies behind them should br punished and their employees ashamed.

Society must curb socially and environmental nocive organizations.

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#33

Post by gausswho »

Tade0 wrote: post #28

This is a method, but it's the underlying issue that needs to be resolved. People doomscroll primarily to avoid certain thoughts/feelings/situations. The way out of it is to: 1. Note that you're avoiding something. 2. Identify what it is. 3. Face it. This is an addiction and reaching for the phone is just what gives relief to whatever pain one might be experiencing. Just removing that is laying ground for a substitut…

While a popular refrain, this is not the only reason one might engage in avoidance. Furthermore, even if it is rooted in a pain, not everyone will be motivated optimally by thinking of it as something that must be analyzed and extracted. One can simply be bored without it being a pathology.

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#35

Post by kixiQu »

Tade0 wrote: post #28

This is a method, but it's the underlying issue that needs to be resolved. People doomscroll primarily to avoid certain thoughts/feelings/situations. The way out of it is to: 1. Note that you're avoiding something. 2. Identify what it is. 3. Face it. This is an addiction and reaching for the phone is just what gives relief to whatever pain one might be experiencing. Just removing that is laying ground for a substitut…

> This is an addiction and reaching for the phone is just what gives relief to whatever pain one might be experiencing. Just removing that is laying ground for a substitute.

This model would not suggest the results seen in studies like this:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11846175/

(The intervention was not "face the roots of your problems", it was "stop using your phone so much", and it produced positive impact.)

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#36

Post by js98 »

Personally, my recent and surprisingly greatest win was to set up my old phone (samsung S21) with the addictive apps, removing them completely from my iPhone.

Quite literally "cold-turkey'ed" from 4.5-ish hours/day to 2 hours a day in a single day, consistent over the last few weeks.

I set up my second phone with a custom homescreen, and installing the 'bad' apps on there (Instagram, Youtube, NYTimes in particular). I dont use it for other apps.

Now if I want to scroll, which I still do sometimes, I have to walk to a specific chair next to which my 'addiction phone' is, I'll scroll for 10-15 minutes, and get back to the real world. I used to have particular issues with scrolling during vibe-coding sessions, and I'm genuinely surprised how well this approach worked for me.

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#38

Post by MisterTea »

herbertl wrote: post #9

I log out of every social media website/app because the act of logging in is just enough friction for me to be mindful: do I really want to do this? The sense of slowness creates the conditions for pausing and being mindful of what you're doing. In spirit, this reminds me of the return to slow/analog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084980 Consider it the no- or low-alcohol alternative to full speed. https://w…

At work I curbed most of my internet wandering by turning off all the autocomplete and history of the browser. When I close the browser, everything is wiped. This way I have to explicitly type in the site url instead of an autocomplete in the url bar or history suggestion. I don't do anything personal on a work computer anyway so I don't need to log into anything.

On my phones it's even easier: no apps save for absolutely necessary. If I need an app while traveling or whatever, I install it only for the necessary duration then uninstall it when done.

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#39

Post by kqp »

Tade0 wrote: post #28

This is a method, but it's the underlying issue that needs to be resolved. People doomscroll primarily to avoid certain thoughts/feelings/situations. The way out of it is to: 1. Note that you're avoiding something. 2. Identify what it is. 3. Face it. This is an addiction and reaching for the phone is just what gives relief to whatever pain one might be experiencing. Just removing that is laying ground for a substitut…

This should be at the top. It pisses people off because we reflexively think “I’m not a weak-willed procrastinator” or “I’m no addict” or “it’s not that simple”, but it is the truth, and the way to fix it, and harder than it sounds. We get frustrated looking for a dopamine hit elsewhere so we get it from a source we know. Running away from that source isn’t enough to end up running towards the behavior we want, there are a million different undesirable ways to get the hit.

Re: I made my phone slow on purpose

#40

Post by Groxx »

Tade0 wrote: post #28

This is a method, but it's the underlying issue that needs to be resolved. People doomscroll primarily to avoid certain thoughts/feelings/situations. The way out of it is to: 1. Note that you're avoiding something. 2. Identify what it is. 3. Face it. This is an addiction and reaching for the phone is just what gives relief to whatever pain one might be experiencing. Just removing that is laying ground for a substitut…

"don't change anything unless you can completely solve the root cause [assuming you have accurately identified it]" is really not backed up by research.
Post reply on HN