Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

When I got a new phone, I decided that I would only ever allow certain behaviors with it, and exclude all addictive behaviors. The trick: I kept my old phone, and allowed myself to continue my addictive phone behaviors, but only on my old phone. For my new phone, I've built a habit of reading books (via Kobo and Overdrive), and taking photos.

I also allow video chats, and basic messaging, and navigation. Everything else -- checking email, reading the news, browsing Facebook -- continues on my old phone. I've found that, over time, the addictive behaviors have lessened a lot. I still read the news on my old phone, but I often forget where it is, sometimes for a couple of days.

I think this has worked, because I've not tried to stop my addictive behaviors, which is an uphill battle. Instead, I've allowed them, while also building new (and better) habits on my new phone. I keep my new phone with me, and spend a lot of time reading on it, which I see as a good thing

I'll often spend 15 to 20 hours, or more, reading books on my phone. For me, that's great. I've done more reading (high quality reading) than ever before, since I've started this strategy. I'm hopeful that it will continue indefinitely, though there are no guarantees.

If I need to do something useful, or just lazy/addictive, I let myself do it, but on my old phone. I do sometimes enjoy, and benefit, from reading the news on my phone, or checking my email on my phone. I don't have to expend a lot of willpower preventing myself from doing this. I have to spend a little bit of willpower making sure it only happens on the old device. So far, this has been a very effective, and relatively easy strategy, and my addictive/wasteful phone use has gradually and consistently dropped to a very low level.

TLDR; Step 1: keep your phone as is, don't lockdown or brick it. Step 2: get a new phone, and choose the behaviors you want on it. Be strict about this. Step 3: allow the old bad habits to continue only on your old phone.

Another thing to try is to avoid pulling out your phone when you are idling. Try to get more comfortable being alone with your own thoughts rather than trying to have a constant drip of content from your phone.

It's unfortunate that we've created a world focused on capturing and selling our attention. For example, as various authors have noted, infinite scroll is really more of an antifeature. With traditional paging, people usually only go through the first few pages at most and then stop looking at it. How many people go beyond page 4 of HN? Probably a lot less people than if HN was a single stream of content.

Obviously I have no idea about your situation, not whether these are realistic for you, but there are two reasons I’m suggesting these.

1- Exercise has been frequently shown to be as beneficial as medication for anxiety and other problems, and of course it’s harder to use hands for phone stuff while they’re in use doing other things. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-exercise-help-treat-...

2- I personally tried to lose weight all my life and finally figured out that redirecting my activities and mentally recalibrating my expectations was the key to success. I’m speculating maybe the same mentality could help you. Trying to lock down my eating was setting up an impossible expectation to try and control temptations, that shamed any lapses. Realizing that feeling stuffed was bad and that I was supposed to feel less stuffed, and figuring out how to recalibrate made it so much easier to actually do, and even figure out how to allow myself treats and overages while still making progress.

For eye strain, use the Reduce White Point setting combined with minimum brightness at night.