81–90 of 90 posts
Founder of Pavlok here. Awesome to read this!!
Meh, Reddit is a boring platform outside of your personal interests. I myself follow only one subreddit and check maybe other 4-5 for news/updates, but none of these are in the top 1000, maybe not even top 10,000 subreddits. I find Reddit culture to be bland and uninspiring. Even technical/niche subreddits get absolutely run over by "noobs" and people who have too many questions but too little patience to do research…
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They already killed the lightweight mobile version at i.reddit.com last month or so. I wouldn't be surprised if old.reddit.com is on the chopping block within the next few years.
I think the new design at https://sh.reddit.com/ (for desktop PC) is aimed at this. It's supposed to be better performant than the current design and dealing with criticized decisions like the heavy layered design, but I think another way to view it is that it's supposed to finally kill old.reddit.com once released, probably in a year or so.
What did Nitin replace Reddit with? Porn? Food? Drugs? Meditation? Exercise? Socializing?
I mean what does a former smoker replace cigarettes with? Maybe tea or candy or something but very often nothing at all.
Might be a rare anecdote but I've got similar experience myself when blocking apps. Suddenly the next best thing tend to replace it unless I schedule something to fill the void.
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I mean what does a former smoker replace cigarettes with? Maybe tea or candy or something but very often nothing at all.
Is that really true? My experience is that bad habits tend to fill voids and if you don't have a replacement in mind, another bad habit will replace it. For example, I had a distant friend who was food addicted. He got a gastric bypass and couldn't eat much food so he turned to gambling. Then he ran out of money and turned to drugs. Might be a rare anecdote but I've got similar experience myself when blocking apps. S…
Addiction almost always has its origins in a useful adaptive behavior. For example cigarettes, esp when not dependent on nicotine, are calming, and taking a little break to think your thoughts at points in the day can be effective at managing stress during intense work. Or social media on your phone can be a way to avoid moments of boredom, which often our minds find distressing. On the other end serious drug addicts are very often unknowingly self-medicating severe mental illness like anxiety, ptsd, depression, BPD.
Without addressing the underlying reason for the original use, a relapse or displacement addiction is much more likely. In the case of "lighter" ones like smoking or social media often no intentional change is necessary. In the intervening years you got better at your job and it's not experienced as so stressful anymore, or you're older now and just able to tolerate the boredom of the toilet better, etc. But yeah you're still gonna be bored waiting in line at the store or whatever, and you either figure out another way to handle that, or your mind will insist you handle it the way it is used to, with scrolling an app.
In your friend's case it seems likely he was using food to cope with something else, and when he removed food he didn't have the support and skills to address the underlying problem.
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Crazy thing I find is how even with apps off, how quickly you will subconsciously type in “Reddit” or something into google. I haven’t used social media in years, but I remember when I quit it how I would sometimes be on my laptop doing something and almost out of habit hit “Ctrl + T” for a new tab and type the first few letters of Reddit or instagram.
HN is still social media. Not as heavy as others on the one hand but It’s also not free from all issues other forms of social media have. I just engaged with you and you might feel compelled to engage back. You might see yourself get downvoted for odd reasons and spend time wondering why or being emotionally effected by it. Rinse, repeat, etc.
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Clearly Reddit is going the way of many previous platforms. What will be the next platform I wonder?
I hope there is at least some centrality to the next "cool place". All the new projects are decentralized (as in the communities are isolated from each other, not in infrastructure) to the point of being like a giant ant farm, it makes it impossible to find things and also makes whatever genuine information they give out really tenuous because you never know how long the particular instance of a platform or chat serv…
> To quit Reddit, I wanted the Pavlok to deliver a painful shock every time I visited Reddit That's a bit...extreme. Fortunately Reddit is doing a great job diminishing its own usability. When Reddit enables their paid API and locks out 3rd party clients in the process, there will be greater friction to browse. When they eventually kill old.reddit.com that'll be the nail in the coffin.
Agree. I think reddit will eventually die like Digg in a few years. I've been on reddit for 15 years now. It's been getting steadily worse.
If you're struggling with social media addiction, I would recommend deleting the native apps off your phone. The better, smoother UX and faster response time reduces any and all friction. I find that when I have to use the mobile sites, I can't stand them so I naturally want to leave. Reddit's mobile site is a dumpster fire so it's perfect for wanting to keep your sessions short. Instagram's is similar. Sadly, Twitte…
I do occasionally forget to block it after using it, and within a week I'm doom-scrolling again. But I eventually have a moment of clarity and block it, and I'm back to normal again.
I don't think people ever completely give things up unless they have one of those addictive personalities and find themselves tipsy on Monday morning, or completely plastered every night at 9pm. I don't have an addictive personality because I have this voice that tells me "you're doing this again,stop!" And that tends to work. So I treat Reddit like beer or chocolate. I self-moderate my intake. A blocker is enough. It's the equivalent of NEVER having a stash of beer or chocolate in the house. I actually need to plan my intake by explicitly adding them to a shopping list, and even then I just buy 2 small cans of some weird hazy IPA or a small-but-ridiculously-expensive chocolate. That way I can occasionally treat myself without falling off the wagon.