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How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

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Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#11

Post by PartiallyTyped »

nobrains wrote: post #7

But its more than that. I might visit Reddit and Hacker News, not because the app summoned me via notifications, but because my brain summoned the app, after just a 15 minute hiatus. The issue is that browser and certain apps are available to me on the phone instantly. And there are no good controls to help me me MINDFUL. What I want from the phone (I use an iPhone): - Upon every unlock, or upon every app open, I sho…

One of the worst decisions I have made, in my life, was purchasing Apollo for reddit, that's how good the app is. I have scrolled about 40km with my current reddit account over 40 days. Honestly, I don't want to know how many total.

I have tried setting up screentime, but I need a hard lock mode...

Apple allows you to setup focus modes with whitelists that use location and time, that might do the trick.

Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#14

Post by doublerabbit »

nobrains wrote: post #7

But its more than that. I might visit Reddit and Hacker News, not because the app summoned me via notifications, but because my brain summoned the app, after just a 15 minute hiatus. The issue is that browser and certain apps are available to me on the phone instantly. And there are no good controls to help me me MINDFUL. What I want from the phone (I use an iPhone): - Upon every unlock, or upon every app open, I sho…

Shuffle your app icons to different locations on the the home screen. Added bonus to folders.

Because all apps are in the same locations your muscles memory kicks in. If you shift your apps regularly, you actually have to hunt for the app disrupting the psychological behaviour conditioning.

It also gives you a mini panic attack but allows you to break free of the whole close app, reopen same app syndrome.

Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#15

Post by ElFitz »

nobrains wrote: post #7

But its more than that. I might visit Reddit and Hacker News, not because the app summoned me via notifications, but because my brain summoned the app, after just a 15 minute hiatus. The issue is that browser and certain apps are available to me on the phone instantly. And there are no good controls to help me me MINDFUL. What I want from the phone (I use an iPhone): - Upon every unlock, or upon every app open, I sho…

Perhaps the "focus mode" different home screens feature could do the trick?

Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#17

Post by WJW »

BxGyw2 wrote: post #2

Good read and solid point but who the fuck is injecting from crack cocaine? All that baking soda can't be good for you

First reported in 1996: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2136406/

People don't do it because it's healthy, obviously.

Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#18

Post by teekert »

Is miss this insight from the iOS screentime feature: The thing often reports: More time spend than last week, average 2.5 hours a day.

Yeah that's fine, but if half is Apple Maps because I had to drive somewhere far away, this result is meaningless.

I indeed also just want to know how much time I spend in soul sucking apps. Or rather, in soul sucking websites because I feel that using websites for ie reddit are what always keeps me there for a short time before annoyance allows me to quit (thank you reddit).

Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#19

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

A few weeks ago I made an effort to connect more with local reality and less with the internet and its mountain of suck. To that end I removed all social media apps from my phone (I only had one), and disabled the news feed, search, and browser. I still have all the features I find actually useful, like weather, maps, alarms, calendar, etc.

The first few times you mindlessly look at your phone after doing something like that are a real eye opener. You pull it out, unlock it, and stare at a screen full of nothing and ask yourself why you took it out in the first place.

My mood has improved significantly, and I find I suddenly have time for all those things I've wanted to get done but "haven't had the time for". Without a mindless dopamine trickle to default to I am forced to engage in actually meaningful and satisfying activity most of the time to alleviate boredom.

Do not kid yourself that the behaviors these things induce aren't intended. Marketers don't care about your quality of life, or the health of society itself, they just want your money and they will manipulate you into doom scrolling a bunch of barely interesting bullshit in order to shove ads down your throat without a second thought.

Re: How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul

#20

Post by mb5 »

ElFitz wrote: post #15
nobrains wrote: post #7

But its more than that. I might visit Reddit and Hacker News, not because the app summoned me via notifications, but because my brain summoned the app, after just a 15 minute hiatus. The issue is that browser and certain apps are available to me on the phone instantly. And there are no good controls to help me me MINDFUL. What I want from the phone (I use an iPhone): - Upon every unlock, or upon every app open, I sho…

Perhaps the "focus mode" different home screens feature could do the trick?

I've found Work and Personal focus modes on iPhone very helpful for cutting down on two of my mindless habits: checking [social media app] during work hours, and [work IM client] at evenings and weekends. The modes are scheduled to automatically kick in at the right time, and so far, so good.

It's a pretty simple setup: one set of home screens for each mode, silencing non-work notifications during Work focus, and snoozing work email during Personal focus. Although writing this, I realise I ought to look at blocking Reddit and HN websites...

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