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My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

allthatjazz.me

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Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#51

Post by skydhash »

JohnMakin wrote: post #36

as a former sysadmin, dont mix work and personal profiles on same machine. treat your machine as not your property, please, unless you have a byod policy - it is simply bad practice. i understand the realities of super federated logins and am not innocent of some of this behavior, but if anyone interested cares to go digging, they probably can figure out exactly what you’re up to on a work device and that’s just not…

This pretty much. The last time, I had a work machine, the only data there was my picture profile, that I needed for setting up account. I also needed to log in my github account. Apart from that, anything else I needed to do can be done on my personal computer or my phone.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#52

Post by weberer »

jon-wood wrote: post #27
TonyTrapp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes with other benefits as well. Not even the cheapest alarm clock has ever failed me. Sure, it can run out of battery power but the low power icon shows up months before it runs out of juice. Phone alarms on the other hand? I had them not triggering at all, or the vibration motor in the phone being stuck (?) and thus not working temporarily, etc... Hence I also prefer physical alarm clocks without software that…

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.

Its a difficult problem to estimate remaining battery life with alkaline batteries. Devices can only use the voltage reading to make estimates.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#53

Post by crabmusket »

I'm currently reading Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism". Something about his approach that I really appreciate is that he doesn't just recommend abstention and ways to disconnect from social media.

His approach is on the one hand to focus on other rewarding offline activities that are creative or which help grow deep in-person relationships. And on the other hand, to engage with technology in specific ways when that usage is justified by being the best way to solve a particular need.

For an example of the latter, one suggested practise is to always keep your phone on do-not-disturb (except for certain important contacts who may genuinely need to phone you in an emergency) and then to triage any notifications only at specific limited times of the day. Avoid the buzzes and pings, but carry on conversations when you aren't trying to focus on something else.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#54

Post by latexr »

gman83 wrote: post #45

It's really too bad that you can't disable YouTube shorts. I like watching YouTube videos on my phone, but the shorts is too tempting and I find myself wasting so much time with totally useless content. I'll probably have to remove YouTube entirely.

This may not apply to you, but the way I consume YouTube is by turning off history and subscribing to the creators I want via RSS. That way I seldom even remember Shorts exist; they simply do not appear for me.

If that wouldn’t work for you, consider removing the app and accessing YouTube via the browser. I would be surprised it there’s not an extension or blocker which can disable those.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#55

Post by skydhash »

barrkel wrote: post #26

I've been trying to switch from scrolling to reading my Kindle. I aggressively curate who I do follow; on Twitter, I mainly use lists. At this point, I'm mostly just interested in AI news. I'm also subscribed to an AI newsletter, but it isn't as tightly scoped as my set of feeds. I guess I could apply AI to this problem. I'd like a tool a bit like Yahoo Pipes, with email and Twitter integrations, and LLM transformati…

I was trying to do that, then stumbled on the api costs for accessing anything other than your own posts. In the end, I don’t care going on Twitter again.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#56

Post by boomskats »

A little over a year ago I gave away my flagship samsung phablet and bought one of their flip phones, in an attempt to change my habits by consciously making myself doubtful/anxious about the longevity of the flip phone's infamous hinge. The idea was that the little front screen would do everything that a semi-dumb phone replacement could (notifications, camera, calls, timers, calculator, calendar), but I'd also have a 'real smartphone' whenever I needed one - it's just that with this one, using it came at a cost. Every time I'd go to use the big screen I'd remember there was an anxious moment that stood in the way, and the paranoia would make me just anxious enough to question whether I really needed to do what I was about to do.

It's been about 15 months, and I haven't really had to compromise or sacrifice anything: I haven't uninstalled any social media apps, my banking apps are all still there, I have contactless payments on hand, etc.. However, I can say with absolute certainty that my habits have changed _drastically_. Interestingly, I'm not even hesitant to use the phone when I need to, I use it all the time - but when I use it I now use it intentionally, and very briefly; gone are the days of catching myself somehow scrolling through instagram just because 5 minutes ago I opened a whatsapp notification from my mum. It's like night and day, and what's more I feel like I barely had to try.

This is obviously sample of one anecdata, but I'm genuinely surprised at how successful it's been. A real 'life hack'.

(And no I don't have any samsung coupon codes nor do I particularly care for them as a company. Worth mentioning though - the hinge on the zf5 is still really solid 15 months in)

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#57

Post by ramses0 »

iNic wrote: post #4

I wonder if there's a "minimum viable connectivity threshold" in modern life - you literally cannot function below a certain baseline of digital access. You could model the failure of "delete everything" strategies as hitting against this hard constraint: banking, authentication, and basic services simply assume browser availability. Maybe the key insight here is the pivot from prohibition to differential friction. B…

There was a great UX principle around alternative mechanisms or backups. You can't have two rolls of toilet paper easily accessible in a public bathroom because people will naturally use them up at a similar rate.

You need to make ONE OF THEM more inconvenient to use, so that overall your bathroom experience remains useful and convenient. (You'll see this often with a sliding door between two installed rolls of paper, usually with a visible window showing the amount remaining)

Introducing "artificial" inconvenience can be a very powerful usability improvement.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#58

Post by DanielleMolloy »

Deleting apps doesn't work for me because there are topics I actually want to follow on places like X (e.g. ML / AI news). As soon as I reinstall, it will easily suck you in again with some distracting emotionalised / partisan current event.

There is an app called ScreenZen that was immediately effective in breaking my habit. It made me use social media much more consciously.

My go-to "social media" page has been GoodReads for a while, and I don't see a problem with it – not only because it is rewarding reading books, but because it doesn't have dark distraction patterns and is much more like the mid 2000s internet. Half my family is doing the reading challenges now.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#59

Post by Lutzb »

We need an app that starts a user defined timer when I open a doom scrolling app. Unless the timer reaches 0, I cannot use the app. So for example, in order to browse reddit, I need to wait a minute. Delayed gratification.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#60

Post by arccy »

lloeki wrote: post #9
benterix wrote: post #2

Recently 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.

if you can't act on them, don't you have to pick up your phone anyway? if it was a bit smarter you can quickly act on it, but using a smartwatch is so uncomfortable you wouldn't want to use it for anything unnecessary.
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