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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

#121

Post by dredmorbius »

bckr wrote: post #71
TeMPOraL wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps. This. I've concluded the same, observing my own interaction patterns. I use very little social media (would've ditched Facebook if no…

I made the move from Facebook > Reddit > HackerNews for similar reasons. I've been looking for the next step. Is it > magazines? > books? > phone calls? > irl networking? It’s all of these, yes, but I still open HN every time I get some down time. While it feels very useful to me, I feel that I would be better served with a more condensed version of what I’m after here. I think I’m proposing a mailing list?

It's ironic that whilst the Great Benefit of the Internet was supposed to be the elimination of gatekeepers ... I'm finding that the gatekeeping provided by traditional publishing is actually quite useful.

Much of what I read is books or magazine articles. Much of that published well before the Internet age.

I've been attempting to track most-salient items as well through what I call "BOTI", or best of the interval, a sort of round-robin file (think 43-folders, described in David Allen's Getting Things Done), where I keep track of the n best items I've encountered in the previous interval (day, week, month, year, etc.). The key is that the list is limited by both time period covered and slots on the list, and it rolls over when completed or filled.

My success in implementing that has been less than stellar, though I'm finding that making the system more flexible means I use it more consistently, even if it's far from the ideal description.

Another useful feature I've discovered is the Einkbro browser's "Save to EPub" feature. This can save not only an individual article to a file, but multiple articles to a file. I'm finding that my "BOTI-Jan-2023" is actually more of a "BOTI-2023" (or at least "BOTI-2023H1"), but it's becoming an impressive document.

It's also making clear just how much online content I'm attempting to read, as it's running (depending on formatting) about 400--500 pages of text. Which makes my lack of actually keeping up with my appetite somewhat less dispiriting.

(Though I'm still Far Too Easily Distracted by Teh Hawt New Shinay....)

Other discussions/descriptions of BOTI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>

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

#123

Post by 9witz »

bckr wrote: post #71
TeMPOraL wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps. This. I've concluded the same, observing my own interaction patterns. I use very little social media (would've ditched Facebook if no…

I made the move from Facebook > Reddit > HackerNews for similar reasons. I've been looking for the next step. Is it > magazines? > books? > phone calls? > irl networking? It’s all of these, yes, but I still open HN every time I get some down time. While it feels very useful to me, I feel that I would be better served with a more condensed version of what I’m after here. I think I’m proposing a mailing list?

The next step could be language learning via Duolingo (which is also highly addictive) or browsing memes on 9gag.

Maybe getting a small phone like the iPhone Mini is a solution, because while it does phone things (music playing, photos) great, the small screen discourages social media and web surfing. Add a book case to the phone so you only see the screen when you decide to see it. This may remove the need to constantly look at the phone.

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

#124

Post by 1Y3 »

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…

I'm prefacing this by saying I'm not affiliated in any way, but I found it very humorous that you basically described the app One Sec (iPhone only I think) to a tee. It uses uses shortcuts to put a barrier of your choice before opening specific apps, writing down the intention being one of them. The concept is pretty great (I actually tried building something similar using shortcuts before it existed) but in the end I found that it doesn't really work for me unfortunately. When my brain decides it wants to look at something, delay isn't enough to make it reconsider. So ymmv but I think it's worth to try it out.

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

#125

Post by dingleberry »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52
contravariant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just start drinking as well, you'll have to quit one habit or take up juggling.

Haha, no. I can smoke and drink and tap on the phone at the same time. Hold my beer while I show you.

skip the drink?

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

#126

Post by abwizz »

eimrine wrote: post #39

> It’s about whether your phone is a needy, attention-sucking vampire. What else outcomes might be awaited if "the phone" is running non-free software? I am exactly that kind of person whose healthy screen time of snoop phones is zero because of some attention obstructions - but I have no fatigue issues after heavy sessions behind a screen which is powered by Debian without opening any websites requiring JS.

exactly!

non-free means they want something in return - mostly our data and attention

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

#127

Post by tomjen3 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #19

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 l…

How did you disable the browser?

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

#128

Post by thriller »

Back in the dial-up days, my family's internet account was shaped by time. We had thirty hours of internet usage per month.

We had an notebook where you had to log what hours you intended to use it.

I always thought it an effective way that I have now adapted. I keep a notebook full of things I want to read or learn about. Especially if you have a partner to keep you accountable.

It also helps my children learn to use technology instead of it using them.

Not in the book? I don't look at it.

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

#129

Post by yadingus »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54
em500 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to moderate this is to remove them from your phone and just access them from a PC end of day. There is no value from 24/7 instant access to Reddit or HN (or the majority of network connected apps if you think about it), as opposed to browsing for an hour or two at the end of the day if you have some downtime.

I wholeheartedly agree. I wish it would work for me, though. In fact, I dislike browsing Reddit and HN on my mobile, as even though Reddit Is Fun (for Reddit) and Firefox (for HN) are excellent for consuming , I'm in it for participation, so I'm limited by touch keyboards, which universally suck. At this point I've pretty much given up. During my HN-satiated moments, I can't devise a plan that my HN-deprived self won…

Can you imagine a form of online social interaction that would lead to more fruitful results?

I recently replaced my reddit/hackernews morning habit with reading poetry and a website I really like.

I identified the driving emotion, novelty-seeking. It drives almost all of my social media use. So I thought of visiting websites where content is posted daily (and pretty much only daily) but highly curated. To my surprise it worked instantly with no friction. So much so that it took me days to realize I hadn't checked hn in a while.

Like you, responding and engaging with comments was what engaged me most with reddit, and at the same time it caused the most negative and wasteful emotions. But it wasn't really about the social aspect, it was all about that orange envelope. In that case, simply logging out helped a ton.

I think plans of rigorous prohibition don't work because they're one single point of failure. Instead, addiction like behaviors are best tackled on multiple fronts: some introspection, some amount of self control/will power, some blocks/hurdles, a more positive replacement. And overseeing all those, a mindfulness practice where you can identify when your emotions arise, both that pull you to your habit (nip those in the bud) and those that drive you away from it ("I should get up", do it right away).

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

#130

Post by yadingus »

bckr wrote: post #71
TeMPOraL wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps. This. I've concluded the same, observing my own interaction patterns. I use very little social media (would've ditched Facebook if no…

I made the move from Facebook > Reddit > HackerNews for similar reasons. I've been looking for the next step. Is it > magazines? > books? > phone calls? > irl networking? It’s all of these, yes, but I still open HN every time I get some down time. While it feels very useful to me, I feel that I would be better served with a more condensed version of what I’m after here. I think I’m proposing a mailing list?

As I mentioned in another comment, I took that next step. The replacement for me was articles from a website whose content I really appreciate, and reading a daily poem.

The problem with, for example books is that they might not fulfill that craving for something novel. The book is already there, and I already have a daily reading habit, it doesn't interfere with my brain going "I wonder what's new in X site".

At the end of the day it comes to quality before quantity. More curated content can lead to you engaging more fully with it, which means you pull away satisfied after a shorter amount of time.

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