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Making the Internet Boring

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Re: Making the Internet Boring

#61

Post by tancop »

getpokedagain wrote: post #51
CommenterPerson wrote: post #42

Here are some things I try: Turn off Notifications. Turn off location services except when navigating or calling the taxi. Uninstall as many apps as possible, use browser. Use adblocking anti tracking browser (I use Duck, alt suggestions welcome). Report unknown / unwanted senders as spam. That said, I am a NEWS ADDICT. There are four world leaders whose downfall I eagerly await, and frequently check the news for thi…

Why are people not guessing Putin Trump Xi Modi

Replace Modi with Netanyahu and maybe Xi with Kim. These two are dictators but don't really care about things outside of their region (other than Chinese exploitation in Africa). They want to stay in power not take over the whole world.

Israel is abusing Holocaust guilt in Europe to get away with genocide and massive cyber ops against their own allies and open bribery in US elections. And North Korea is so insane that the power transition will be fun to watch. All the generals and family members are waiting on him to die, and when he does there might be a military coup or even a civil war.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#62

Post by mattcasmith »

I’ve taken a lot of these same steps with mixed success, but nice to see somebody else’s thoughts and results.

For the iPhone users, I got similar results to Olauncher using the iOS Shortcuts app, and then linked it to the action button for easy access. I have a blog post in the works with the detail.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#63

Post by anna_1101 »

bratbag wrote: post #59
anna_1101 wrote: post #57

This is absolutely what I need. I was so shocked when I checked my screen time and saw how many hours I've wasted on those "stupid" apps. But I am also hesitated to try that because of FOMO. What if my friends talk about some trendy/funny on the Internet but I can't catch up/follow?

Do things away from your screen in the real world and form friendships around that. An addict with addict friends needs to find non addicted friends to escape the addiction.

lol good point!

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#64

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ChickeNES wrote: post #21
ViktorRay wrote: post #2

Some more good advice: Turn off your YouTube watch history. This disables video suggestions when you open the website or the app.

This is so weird to me, I curate my watch history, and the vast majority of suggestions I get are relevant to me. Am I the only one who does this? (I especially make sure to open any unknown or political videos in a private browser as well). And if any garbage appears in my recs, I just tell it "don't recommend this" and it seems to work?

Some of us don't want suggestions that are relevant to us. Targeted suggestions are more likely to draw you into the machine.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#66

Post by account42 »

tancop wrote: post #61
getpokedagain wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people not guessing Putin Trump Xi Modi

Replace Modi with Netanyahu and maybe Xi with Kim. These two are dictators but don't really care about things outside of their region (other than Chinese exploitation in Africa). They want to stay in power not take over the whole world. Israel is abusing Holocaust guilt in Europe to get away with genocide and massive cyber ops against their own allies and open bribery in US elections. And North Korea is so insane tha…

The impact (both potential and current) of Xi on the rest of the world is much bigger than that of Kim and I don't think its fair to say that the Chinese are content to stay inside their walls. Kim is more of a puppet dictator of the Chinese and Russians than anything.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#67

Post by account42 »

ViktorRay wrote: post #2

Some more good advice: Turn off your YouTube watch history. This disables video suggestions when you open the website or the app.

I go even further and don't use the YouTube website much at all. When someone shares a YouTube link it goes straight to mpv which streams the video (and just the video) with the help of yt-dlp. No auto-playing the next video. No suggested videos. No comments. No dark patterns. No distractions.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#68

Post by account42 »

jasode wrote: post #28
Gecko4072 wrote: post #16

YouTube's only goal is to make more money. Most YouTubers' only goal is to get more views. Sure it can be useful but that's a perfect excuse to live on forever. People were fine before YouTube, and you can learn anything from words an images. I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.

>, and you can learn anything from words an images. A lot of info on Youtube is not available in alternative forms such as books or blogs with just words and images. E.g. A random person uploads a video on how he repaired my particular washing machine by isolating the relay that broke. It's not in blog form because the guy is not an HTML expert or WordPress user. Instead, he simply used his smartphone to record a 10…

Often the information is available in non-video form but just not surfaced by Google search.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#69

Post by account42 »

ikesau wrote: post #13

Blocking recommendations is the one thing I'd add to this list. You can easily do so with uBlock Origin, and it's made the biggest difference for me. Water still finds cracks, but it's about reducing the likelihood and increasing the time between binges (so that they mentally register as necessarily intentional and abnormal)

I wish the uBO element picker would make it easier to block elements by their content now that pretty much every websites uses optimized CSS with random class names that will change with each update.

Re: Making the Internet Boring

#70

Post by endemic »

rglover wrote: post #10

Putting in blockers and the like helps, but what I've found worked best was to consider this quote by Anthony DeMello: "When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power." When I learned to stop feeling bad/guilty/thinking this was a problem to solve and just let my mind drift, I found that my mind naturally learned when it was disciplined work time vs. browse…

The mantra I've heard is "resist and replace." It's not enough to fight a bad habit, you have to (learn to) replace it with something constructive (i.e. fill the void).
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