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The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

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Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#281
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Throw the baby out with the bathwater; they said. I've deleted and re-installed Facebook countless times. It doesn't make me any holier, but having the choice of it there and choosing to go without seems like a stronger fight.

That's true, the general recommendation for drug addicts is to keep their drug of choice in their home and within an arm's reach, so that they can exercise their willpower for the sake of the stronger fight. Someday you'll be strong enough to break free! Keep at it!

If you're addicted to the phone, mine is obviously the wrong recommendation. If you're addicted to one specific service or industry of the phone, then perhaps it's a better solution.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there will always be people who choose trivial entertainment, and there will always be folks who chase knowledge and self improvement That's why the entire thing seems like a non-issue to me. If some people don't want to do anything useful with their lives, then who are we to prohibit them from continuing to do-nothing and thereby starving themselves? (Of course, we already, rightfully, prohibit people from harming…

I wouldn't have an issue except those who choose to waste their lives still get to take from those around them and society in general. If people who make no meaningful contribution to society have no entitlement to any benefit of society then i wouldn't care.

Indeed, the scenario you describe would be optimal.

Meanwhile, however, trying to make the current society function better under the ubiquitous-welfare thesis is a step in the wrong direction. Better to, instead, make the act of discarding ubiquitous-welfare a more and more serious+obvious+viable solution to more and more of society's problems.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#283
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Personally, I enjoy living in a world where my friends have overcome cancer, where I can spend < 1 hour a day focusing in food, and I am able to travel halfway around the world to experience machu picchu and be back by then next monday. At what point do you think we stopped productively progressing? Have you considered joining an Amish community?

I do think about amish lifestyle a lot. curing cancer is a worthy endeavor that is not on the same plane as most technology we spend time talking about (believe me I wish I could have saved some family members) experiencing machu picchu and coming back in a week .. feels pointless to me. time is required to experience things fully. there's a middle ground between risking your life on a boat for 6 months before reachi…

>The old agricultural system was too demanding it's true, but it's not removing it that makes life better. See how people eat shitty things, waste meat etc .. Also with proper education, one can go really far if he knows how to use energy, even without heavy industry behind.

>It's a shifting plane, new ideas create new societies, they don't make the previous one better.

Would you mind explaining this more? It sounds rather cryptic to me the way you are saying it.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#284
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Throw the baby out with the bathwater; they said. I've deleted and re-installed Facebook countless times. It doesn't make me any holier, but having the choice of it there and choosing to go without seems like a stronger fight.

I've told this to a lot of people around me... unfollow everyone on Facebook. This does two things: 1. No more facebook feed 2. No more facebook ads You still get to keep messenger as an extended contact book, people can still tag you in stupid things and pictures, you don't have to have that awkward conversation telling people you're no longer on facebook. I guarantee you'll never feel like you miss your feed. Nobod…

Interesting idea. Funny that it removes ads, too.

> I guarantee you'll never feel like you miss your feed. Nobody even has to know you've unfollowed them.

I just have messenger on my phone, right now. It's a nice solution to most of these problems for me. But most of my facebook tags happen directly in Messenger vs. someone's post that I have to go look at.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#285
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Throw the baby out with the bathwater; they said. I've deleted and re-installed Facebook countless times. It doesn't make me any holier, but having the choice of it there and choosing to go without seems like a stronger fight.

I've told this to a lot of people around me... unfollow everyone on Facebook. This does two things: 1. No more facebook feed 2. No more facebook ads You still get to keep messenger as an extended contact book, people can still tag you in stupid things and pictures, you don't have to have that awkward conversation telling people you're no longer on facebook. I guarantee you'll never feel like you miss your feed. Nobod…

I tried this once and I think the algorithm just readjusted weights or something because I still see friends on my news feed.

For desktop I have used the social fixer plugin though no longer do

Still haven't found the answer tbh

My most recent approach is to start blogging. If I like writing about interesting stuff I might as well do it properly.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘m pretty sure Apple won‘t do that, because they want you to buy your kids their own iPhone. Why doesn‘t the iPad have this sort of multi-user mode? An iPad is the perfect device for sharing. But no, if you don‘t want your kids to read your emails, you need to buy them their own iPad.

> if you don‘t want your kids to read your emails, you need to buy them their own iPad. You're right. But I still think I would buy my kid their own iPad even if my iPhone/iPad had a kid mode. My kid has their own iPad and I still find times when it would be ideal to give them access to the basic features on my phone/ipad. Frankly, if iOS just added the ability to password protect any app then that would be good enou…

Your last use-case is sort of covered by Android's screen pinning feature[0]. You have to enable it in settings, but it's useful, and seems to work well.

[0] https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/6118421?hl=en This link is for Nexus, but I think it's included in all version of Android since 5.0 Lollipop.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you do this without having a phone at all? Or does it have to have an iPhone "base station" to check in with at home?

AFAIK, you still need the iPhone, but it can remain plugged in at home.

Yeah. You need the iPhone. It's primarily used to configure the watch, I also suspect that the iPhone proxies some of the requests to the phone, though I'm not sure.

I just leave mine plugged in at home.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise; to this day I still talk about how Neopets' pet pages were my introduction to building web content.

Neopets, MySpace, Xanga, Angelfire, Tripod, Geocities...

Minus Xanga, I made heaps of terrible UI decisions on those platforms. Good times =)

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#289
"Matt Mayberry, who works at a California startup called Dopamine Labs, says it's common knowledge in the industry that Instagram exploits this craving by strategically withholding "likes" from certain users. If the photo-sharing app decides you need to use the service more often, it'll show only a fraction of the likes you've received on a given post at first, hoping you'll be disappointed with your haul and check back again in a minute or two."

If that's true, that's pretty genius and downright scary!

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#290

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

> I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. Hey smartphone makers, if you're listening: Let me set an alternate PIN that unlocks the phone in a limited access mode, or "kid mode." Only pre-approved apps are available. Only pre-approved contacts can be called/texted. In-game purchases require the more secure PIN. Maybe when the phone is in this mode I can track its location easily, and make it emit a noise.…

I do think the Fire Tablets have this feature.
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