Change your phone. Mudita Kompakt or Light Phone 2 would be a game changer
My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
311–320 of 330 posts
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
I blocked anything to do with Shorts because of how addictive they are.
Is it possible to block just YouTube shorts and not YouTube?
I have watch history off on YouTube, if I go onto the shorts tab on YouTube it says "recommendations are off, we rely on your watch history...".
It still shows me shorts from subscriptions on the subscriptions tab, which I don't mind. If you scroll on them it shows you ones from other subscriptions before stopping and showing that message again.
In searches it does show shorts, but will only let you scroll through ~5 before that message comes up again.
I really like this setup because I can see my subscriptions shorts, which are generally fine, and it doesn't let me spend more than like 2m scrolling.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#313Recently my coworker asked me if I could recommend any physical alarm clocks. He said that phone alarm causes him to pick up the phone the first thing in the morning and he wants to break away from this habit. I guess at some point the society as a whole will start fighting back.
I use a physical alarm clock, but what distracts me is I have to pick up my phone multiple times a day for stupid MFA prompts. It's so easy to have a quick check of an app.
I would really like a product for like £40 that's essentially a very small (4" screen maybe? maybe smaller?) locked down android phone that's entire purpose is to run 2fa apps (maybe including banks), this would not only separate my banks from my phone so I can flash whatever OS I want to it, solve the convenience issue of needing 2 big phones to do this otherwise, and stop 2fa apps from leading to distraction.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#314Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#315Does everyone really mean doom scrolling when they talk about these issues? For me personally, it's definitely about dopamine and not about negative emotions, yet everyone uses the phrase doom scrolling - am I the odd one out? For example, if I'm feeling stressed/anxious, I'll scroll/browse/distract myself to avoid the negative feelings. I'm not seeking them like doom scrolling says.
Doomscrolling == Channel Surfing.
"Doom" doesn't have to describe the content. It could be your state of mindlessness as you thoughtlessly iterate through your standard set of net waypoints and the content that's spoon fed to you therein.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#316I wouldnt say I am someone who struggles with doom scrolling but I do share how easy it can be to fall in a trap. I think its just easier for me because my smartphone is really for messaging and calls.. with some niceties of discord. I refuse to have TikTok or use typical social media on my phone.
To clarify, its not that "I refuse" its just I find little incentive to. On top of this, I do not view my smartphone as a replacement for my laptop. Yes, its great to have the internet and apps that can fit in my pocket. For many people, their smartphone replaced 90% of their activities on a desktop/laptop but not for me.
Sure when I go on youtube I watch a Short I find interesting. Before I know it, I am pressing down, down, down... etc.
I also admit that when I am learning or trying to solve a problem I can venture off to youtube or other sites. I can vaguely relate what it must be like for younger kids who grew up with the internet and smart phones. It is easy to get sidetracked.
Despite being in my 40s I hate to be that "back in my day" type of guy but the truth is, before the internet was common, we had little distraction on our PCs. We could only run what our computers had installed, right? Sure, we could still get distracted by our TVs or video games but they still exist today + everything else.
I try to teach my kids (one of which has a phone) that its easy to get caught up them... to be a third arm if you will. My eldest is slowly learning and, in my opinion, is a better example that my spouse.
Lastly, I have enjoyed reading other comments on here and their methods to improve their daily lifestyle choices.
Anyway -- a bit of fun for you...
Not long ago I was in an important meeting with 30 other people. The organiser had to leave to take a phone call. The moment he left EVERYONE took their phones out and all you could hear was 'tap, tap, tapping...'
I was the only one not on their phone. I didn't even bring it into the meeting room with me! I couldn't help but smirk look around the big table with everyone looking down on their phone.
^^ This was in 2011... 14 YEARS AGO!! This would be around the IPhone 3 era. As I looked around the room I started to hate the idea of a "smartphone" and how reliant the average person will be... and I consider myself an introvert! It was just a reflection on what the future holds. Personally, I am glad (even to this day) not to have a reliability towards it.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#317I wouldnt say I am someone who struggles with doom scrolling but I do share how easy it can be to fall in a trap. I think its just easier for me because my smartphone is really for messaging and calls.. with some niceties of discord. I refuse to have TikTok or use typical social media on my phone. To clarify, its not that "I refuse" its just I find little incentive to. On top of this, I do not view my smartphone as a…
How I phrase it is: my phone is for utility, not pleasure.
I check emails, I ePay, SMS/Discord messages, utility apps like hobby score tracking or taking notes, necessary company apps like airlines or resorts, etc.
I never use my phone for pleasure. If I look up a YouTube video, it's for a purpose and it ends at that purpose. If something takes me to a social media site, I read the post and end there.
I keep pleasure on my computer. When I step away from my computer, I'm disconnected from all the carcinogenics of the modern online life.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#318Recently my coworker asked me if I could recommend any physical alarm clocks. He said that phone alarm causes him to pick up the phone the first thing in the morning and he wants to break away from this habit. I guess at some point the society as a whole will start fighting back.
I use a Garmin watch for alarms. Frequent conversation: "oh you have a smartwatch" "no it's dumb in all the right ways, which is the point" Notably I have notifications but can't act on them, which prevents me from picking up the phone just to check notifications and then be drawn into doing actions. YMMV.
I don't think I'd handle a wearing a watch anymore, smart or not.
For waking up, something not technological but working 99% of the time for me: pets (or kids) though you'd want other reasons as well to have those beyond waking you up early in the morning...
Most of my life I've had cats or dogs and their internal clock is amazingly on time. They are actually smart and try different things if you don't wake up at first, adapting to their owner. They include waking mechanisms such as sound, touch, light pain, emotional rewards and possibly guilt tripping/punishment to keep you accountable if you fail to wake up. Birds can work too but I wouldn't recommend keeping a rooster in your bedroom for an alarm unless you're blaring-alarms-levels of hard to wake up and don't have neighbours or a partner, these guys don't have an indoor voice.
Point is you're then forced to care for the pet, wether it wakes you to go out, get food or get cuddles and bob's your uncle: your chances of picking up your phone and doomscrolling first thing in the morning are much lowered.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
>if you can't act on them, don't you have to pick up your phone anyway? Not necessarily. My smartwatch is basically a beeper. I see messages come in, then I mentally prioritize them. 90% of the time, it can wait at least an hour, maybe longer. It's conditioned me (and people around me) that instant reachability is neither necessary nor desirable. It makes it easier to focus on what's in front of me instead of constan…
I don't know how true this really is, but I read somewhere there is a generational divide now, where older people are happy to see an SMS and leave it to respond later, perhaps days later, while the younger generation would consider "being left on read" as an offence and therefore would feel compelled to immediately act on it to not offend.
oh interesting, how do you define older here though?
I'm a bit skeptical because i read a similar comment about answering calls immediately vs. letting it go to the answering machine already being such a divide.
Makes me feel old for thinking anyone offended by my taking hours if not days to respond to a non urgent text is welcome to go be someone else's friend.
Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really relevant but I'm going to say it anyway. I hate devices that tell me about "low" battery long in advance of actually going flat, it simply trains me to ignore the notification and then it unceremoniously dies on me at a later time.
In this particular case it's my use of NiMH batteries, which have a different discharge slope than normal Alkaline batteries. So it's not really a "feature" of the device but rather a limitation of the type of batteries used. With my alarm clock the signs when to charge the batteries are very obvious (the LCD starts fading away so it becomes hard to read, but the device is still functioning perfectly for some more we…
curious: why do alarm clocks run on batteries? Seems counter intuitive for a device that is just going to sit in one place to not be plugged in?