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Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

neilchen.co

31–40 of 91 posts

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#31
post #13
post #8

my problem with things like this is that it's trivially easy to just.. stop the script. What's the point when it adds so little friction?

The reason why social media and similar websites now have infinite scroll is because the next page button provided you with a circuit breaker to stop and reconsider if you actually wanted to continue or if you were just mindlessly scrolling. So if you have a genuine intention not to use certain websites at particular times (e.g. work time), then having any kind of forced interruption can be useful for changing that b…

The friction makes me want to disable the measure before it makes me want to stop the activity. And unlike paging in forums, I can disable it. That’s why these measures never work for me.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#33
This would work (even?) better if it wasn’t a switch, but a push button with the unblocking automatically timing out after some interval. Otherwise you’re prone to just letting it stay on unblock.

The Amazon Dash buttons could be hacked to do something like that.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#34
post #32

Anyone know the state of IoT buttons? Most seem to have gone out of production. (An outlet seems like a great alternative )

IKEA remotes are inexpensive and work really well with a proper zigbee adapter and zigbee2mqtt. Home assistant you can build actions right from the web ui.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#35

One thing that finally worked for me was using: https://one-sec.app/ It basically forces you to do a little breathing exercise before you can visit the site that you have on its block list. It has been life changing. It adds enough friction for me to stop any impulsive visits but also is not so annoying that I would completely disable it in a weak moment. One Sec was developed by someone with ADHD, I think and it def…

Only works for one app with the free version.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#37
What prevents you from killing the polling script and editing /etc/hosts back to its original state?

I think a modified Pi-hole would serve this purpose better, as it would leave no other option than getting out of your chair and taking action (assuming you made it impossible to ssh into the device).

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#40
post #35

One thing that finally worked for me was using: https://one-sec.app/ It basically forces you to do a little breathing exercise before you can visit the site that you have on its block list. It has been life changing. It adds enough friction for me to stop any impulsive visits but also is not so annoying that I would completely disable it in a weak moment. One Sec was developed by someone with ADHD, I think and it def…

Only works for one app with the free version.

They have a 7 day free trial. Just cancel it immediately after setting it up so you don't forget it. You can still use the full 7 days.

Though it is 14,99 Euro per YEAR, so pretty fair pricing, anyway.

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