My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
allthatjazz.me
My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
1–10 of 330 posts
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#2Recently my coworker asked me if I could recommend any physical alarm clocks. He said that phone alarm causes him to pick up the phone the first thing in the morning and he wants to break away from this habit. I guess at some point the society as a whole will start fighting back.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#3Brick has been very useful: https://getbrick.app/
Also, and slightly tangential, I added this to uBlock today:
www.linkedin.com#hashtag#main[aria-label="Main Feed"] .scaffold-finite-scroll__content
Which makes LinkedIn essentially write-only for content: I can share content I want to, but don't have to read brain-dead takes from other people.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#4I wonder if there's a "minimum viable connectivity threshold" in modern life - you literally cannot function below a certain baseline of digital access. You could model the failure of "delete everything" strategies as hitting against this hard constraint: banking, authentication, and basic services simply assume browser availability.
Maybe the key insight here is the pivot from prohibition to differential friction. By architecturing high activation energy for distractions (black UI, location blocks) while maintaining low friction for utilities, you've essentially created a "price spread" between productive and unproductive uses of the same capability.
I suspect we're seeing an inevitable arms race: platforms driving activation energy toward zero (think TikTok's frictionless feed) versus commitment devices manufacturing artificial friction. Perhaps the sustainable equilibrium isn't digital abstinence but rather carefully engineered friction differentials that respect our inescapable need for connectivity.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#5Quitting is easy. I just remember the Before Times and how peaceful my life was when I gave zero fucks about outrage headlines that I couldn't do anything about even if I wanted to.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#6Seems like solving the symptoms, not the cause, which is likely some deeper dissatisfaction
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#7Seems like solving the symptoms, not the cause, which is likely some deeper dissatisfaction
Shutting down the noise may help to find out the causes.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#8I use the strategy of not having any social media on my phone.
If I want to doom scroll, I have to open up the laptop.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#9Recently my coworker asked me if I could recommend any physical alarm clocks. He said that phone alarm causes him to pick up the phone the first thing in the morning and he wants to break away from this habit. I guess at some point the society as a whole will start fighting back.
I use a Garmin watch for alarms.
Frequent conversation:
"oh you have a smartwatch"
"no it's dumb in all the right ways, which is the point"
Notably I have notifications but can't act on them, which prevents me from picking up the phone just to check notifications and then be drawn into doing actions. YMMV.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#10The only thing that ever really sucked me in like that was Tumblr. The stigma-less repost culture where most of what you encounter is reposted made it feel like I was building something by being on there and reposting things. It really just tickled the right part of my brain. My wife and I would spend literal hours every night scrolling Tumblr.
I've never really gotten anything near that level of enjoyment from another social network.
I still go on from time to time but knowing my friends are never going to see my feed kind of discourages major time investment.