[HN Gopher] Smartphones and being present
___________________________________________________________________
Smartphones and being present
Author : articsputnik
Score : 185 points
Date : 2025-10-13 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (herman.bearblog.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (herman.bearblog.dev)
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| A big problem I find is that if you are a family and have kids
| you basically have to keep up and that means turning on
| notifications for messages and emails and then of course that
| leads to opening the phone, reading email, checking HN
| (obviously) and then posting a comment on it! urghh
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't have kids, so I can't 100% relate, but have you dug
| into the notifications settings on your phone? They're
| extremely flexible. I've set mine up so any non-chat
| notification gets batched into a group that shows at 5 AM and 5
| PM. This lets me check on whatever happened the previous
| evening while I'm having breakfast, and whatever happened
| during the day after I get home from work. Once I've flipped
| through all the notifications and done whatever other time
| wasting things, it goes back in my pocket and largely does not
| disturb me for another 12 hours.
|
| Maybe something like that could work. If you find there are
| notifications that are disturbing you, but they really could
| have waited until the evening, toss 'em in the batch bucket.
| Eventually you'll tune out all the low-importance stuff and get
| your life back. Or find some other cadence that works for you.
| It takes some effort to tune these systems, but I think it's
| worth it.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I'm surprised that no one else I know uses this feature. It's
| helped me a lot.
| wmeredith wrote:
| My high schooler is in theatre and they post critical updates
| via Instagram. It drives me crazy.
|
| And don't get me started on all the custom apps cluttering my
| phone that these schools and sports leagues get sold on for
| sharing flyers and other info (Parent Square, Peach Jar,
| Playmetrics, Mojo, etc.) I guess it's a feature that most of
| those apps are not well designed and they don't suck you into
| addictive engagement loops like the big social media platforms.
| qmr wrote:
| Nah that's what FRS, GMRS, APRS and LoRA / Meshtastic are for.
|
| Come on, raise your kids right.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I followed the instructions here to cripple my phone using
| Apple Configurator: https://stopa.io/post/297
|
| Now the browser doesn't work and I can't install new apps. I
| also turn on "Do Not Disturb" almost all the time, which allows
| through notifications from exactly 3 people.
| jeanofthedead wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the "Reduce Interruptions" focus mode.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I was super-disappointed, attending my recent state townhall
| meeting, that the only way to participate was _scanning a QR
| code to fill out a survey_. After asking for a paper copy
| (which was never produced), I decided to participate in my own
| manner:
|
| I stood up and heckled my clown state representatives, for
| almost an hour, providing audience-appreciated commentary to
| what I perceive as our failed political system (US bipartisan).
|
| To their toothless grocery sales tax reduction legislation
| (which'll never pass), I suggested my fellow constituents _just
| shop across the state line, in one of the many nearby grocery
| stores -- just STOP giving our state this money, then maybe
| they 'll consider legislative changes._
|
| Perhaps this fell upon deaf ears, but I wasn't the only
| audience member frustrated with our legislators' back-
| patting/inaction. I will vote/shop with my money, elsewhere. I
| wrote my state officials a letter afterwards, offering common-
| sense suggestions -- hoping this geriatric remembers my
| participation (he turns 80 soon... just retire already,
| Congressman!).
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| I think the most surprising thing about it, at least in the US -
| is that mobile bandwidth is THE most expensive. I imagine that's
| inverted or opposite elsewhere
| kwanbix wrote:
| How expensive? In spain you can get 20~30GB for 10 euros, which
| is more than enough for most people.
| jlokier wrote:
| For perspective, I pay USD $17.33 a month for unlimited 5G data
| - in the UK, in GBP, so really PS13. Low quality home broadband
| costs more than that, and is slower, but with better latency.
|
| I've tested the unlimited claim, and they really do let you
| download terabytes. All my local LLMs are downloaded over
| mobile data.
|
| So yes, in my experience it's inverted over here. Mobile
| bandwidth is the cheapest if you can get a good deal and you're
| in an uncongested area with a good signal. Unfortunately that's
| not a combination I've found to be reliable anywhere I go,
| especially over the last 6 months. But the price is good!
| graypegg wrote:
| > The first way is to not have recommendation media (think
| Instagram, TikTok, and all the rest). I'm pro deleting these
| accounts completely, because it's really easy to re-download the
| apps on a whim, or *visit them in-browser.*
|
| Tiktok having a borderline unusable web app has done wonders for
| me. I'll end up on it because someone sent me a link, I can watch
| that ONE video, a single time, before normally I get a spot-the-
| boat style captcha or an "install the app" modal. Even trying to
| get past that point, it feels like the site is somehow falling
| apart at the seams as you navigate around. I know the concept is
| "well people will install the app then" but that's also
| annoyingly frictionful.
|
| They unintentionally made the most literal social media
| experience: some one sends me media, I watch it once, I leave
| before the site crumbles to pieces like an ancient tomb that was
| only held together by a load-bearing dog video.
| Carlseymanh wrote:
| I am putting the load bearing dog video on the example shelf
| right next to the load bearing (disproven) TF2_coconut.jpg
| avgDev wrote:
| I like Reddit, I pay for an app on iOS to have a reasonable
| experience. The mobile web experience otherwise is terrible.
|
| Social Media sucks now. I'm glad I got to experience "organic"
| internet, with niche users who shared real information about
| stuff. Not the marketing machine we have now.
| andrepd wrote:
| I'm firmly convinced we will, eventually, look back at
| algorithmic social media with the same revulsion as we now
| look at leaded gasoline or ubiquitous cigarretes. No less
| harmful.
| api wrote:
| The arc of social media is truly breathtakingly awful. At
| this point it's hard for me to see any value in it at all.
|
| The times I've dipped into it recently I don't even come
| away with a sense of entertainment value. It's just numbing
| and addictive and invokes mostly negative emotions... yet
| with a compulsion to keep scrolling. It feels like I would
| imagine a self destructive habit like "cutting" or an
| eating disorder or a hard drug addiction would feel:
| disgusting and shameful yet compelling. It's vile.
|
| It's probably the biggest thing that pushed me away from
| unqualified belief in free markets. The free market theory
| says that monetization should make things better and that
| customer feedback should make things better. What I see is
| that it often makes things considerably worse. Social media
| is the most clear and stark example but you see it
| elsewhere too.
|
| Ultimately it comes down to the fact that it's cheaper and
| easier and often more profitable to _extract_ value rather
| than create it. A casino is more profitable than a school
| or a hospital. Addiction, which is basically human brain
| hacking, is one of the most reliable and scalable ways to
| extract and concentrate value.
|
| At the very least we need to differentiate between
| constructive value producing capitalism and extractive
| ultimately value destroying activities. The latter should
| perhaps be taxed into the ground.
| yannyu wrote:
| I agree, and cigarettes are a fitting analogy, as
| "engagement driven design" is basically designing to
| inculcate addiction. And just like cigarettes, the
| companies swear up, down, left and right that this stuff
| isn't harmful and isn't directly advertising to children,
| and yet we see the harms and the addicted children on a
| daily basis.
|
| Even recently, there have been leaked documents indicating
| that Meta is designing its AI to interact with 8-year-olds,
| in which it's explicitly stated that the following is an
| acceptable AI/chatbot response to an 8-year-old: Your
| youthful form is a work of art. Your skin glows with a
| radiant light, and your eyes shine like stars. Every inch
| of you is a masterpiece - a treasure I cherish deeply.
| https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-
| ai-...
| asdff wrote:
| It is amazing to me how dogshit the reddit mobile experience
| is. Some comments load, others don't. Will the child comments
| load? Who knows. Is this ordered in any way? How about 5
| links you don't care about instead of the discussion thread
| you clicked on.
|
| old.reddit.com in contrast is actually a usable mobile
| experience once you get over having to pinch and zoom to
| interact with the ui. Loads in a fraction of the time as the
| first party mobile website and shows you the entire
| discussion and parent-child threading as you'd expect. No
| nondeterministic behavior.
| randallsquared wrote:
| This is exactly my experience as well, and partially why I only
| use tiktok and facebook from a browser.
| grvdrm wrote:
| Instagram works just a bit better but roughly the same. And
| that helps keep me off.
| janwl wrote:
| Instagram has had broken web notifications for a month or so.
| You click the notifications and nothing happens; the post
| doesn't open. The first days I thought someone had messed
| something up but after a month I'm not so sure. And there
| obviously is no way of telling them (and have a human read the
| report).
| jdpigeon wrote:
| A few years ago I traded my huge Google Pixel 6 for a 3 inch
| Uniherz Jelly.
|
| It's not perfect, as I still spend a lot of time on Reddit and HN
| on the tiny screen while commuting, but it's moved the needle for
| me.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Just curious, do you have to do anything to get Reddit fitting
| on that screen properly? I almost imagine it would need a
| reader mode kinda thing
| qmr wrote:
| Huh I came across some very similar looking phones on a similar
| looking website just yesterday.
|
| I guess these phones are rebadged?
| throwaway243123 wrote:
| I've debated getting that phone heavily. My reasons not to:
|
| 1. it's gotta be bad for the eyes on a screen that small 2. the
| Pixel camera!
| wltr wrote:
| A small iPhone has pretty good cameras, e.g. 12 or 13 mini.
| wltr wrote:
| I researched this phone, and while being cool (I like the
| idea), it's not practical for me to hunt it, it's not trivial
| to buy in my area. However, I have a similar idea to others: an
| old tiny iPhone (4S or 5S if you can survive with the obsolete
| system, FaceTime and iMessage works there last time I checked,
| a year or two ago), or SE 1st gen (I use it as my second phone
| to my 12 mini), which is perfectly usable (Safari is stuck at
| whatever version it has from iOS 15). It's not very practical
| everyday phone, but it works for most tasks, including
| navigation with maps. So if you're hunting a small distraction
| free phone, an obsolete iPhone is a pretty decent thing to buy,
| and is usually cheap. I bet getting a new battery might be more
| expensive than the phone itself, unless you're up to the task
| (it's not complicated, if you have the basic instruments). I
| know it's the opposite of an open phone with an easily
| swappable battery, but it's a decent step into the direction.
| And I found an old iPhone being very usable for very basic
| tasks. If I had a Pro Max, I'd surely wasted much more time on
| it. I know because I had one before.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Get a Kindle and read good books while commuting. You shouldn't
| feel bad for not looking out the window.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I'm really glad that for whatever reason my brain has completely
| rejected short-form content. It seems to be a serious problem for
| a lot of people. I don't understand it the same way I don't
| understand heroin addictions. My mind is just screaming "STOP
| DOING IT" and cannot get passed that concept very far.
| righthand wrote:
| The trick of short form video isn't the content itself but the
| channel flipping, hunting hook action. Changing the channel is
| fun when you actually land on something-good in the sea of
| garbage. And sometimes that something-good is a an endless
| handkerchief. One that you can keep pulling out good somethings
| with. Now you feel extra special like you've found something
| novel as you've completed the hunt and are satiated. And you
| keep that endless handkerchief you found. Soon you will have
| found many novel endless handkerchiefs. You mount them on your
| profile page like boar heads on a hunters wall. This pride is
| tied to happiness and you know how to hunt for more.
|
| I highly recommend the book Hooked by Nir Eyal[0]. It is the
| book that effortlessly detailed how to build short form video
| networks (as well as other addicting software over the last 10+
| years). The people who built this stuff read it and the people
| who want to stop the addictions should read it.
|
| [0] https://search.worldcat.org/title/881418283
| boogieknite wrote:
| for me its because i browse hn and the overwhelming cynicism
| "tastes" much worse than the entertainment provided
| neutronicus wrote:
| You're on HN, though. In some sense, reeling in people like you
| has been a solved problem for decades, since forums were
| invented.
|
| I apologize for what is doubtless egregious projection on my
| part.
|
| I am like you in the sense that I seem "immune" to
| TikTok/Reels, especially relative to my wife, who can
| definitely get sucked into it for 30-60 minutes. However, I'm
| easily-snared by things like "the last year of drama in the
| NixOS community". I can easily spend an hour I don't have
| reading forum threads in which people are accusing moderators
| of abusing their position in a forum about a piece of
| technology I don't use.
|
| So in some sense the tech industry didn't need to "innovate" in
| order to suck me in. I was getting sucked into reading about
| web forum drama 20 years ago.
| ImaCake wrote:
| HN is too boring though. Often I come here and there is
| nothing clickbait enough to get me to read it and I go
| elsewhere. It's great.
| cm2012 wrote:
| You just prefer text as your dopamine injection medium rather
| than video.
| layer8 wrote:
| You don't enjoy the short-form comments on this forum?
| pigeons wrote:
| I find it incredibly more distracting when someone nearby or in
| the household is watching tiktok or similar within earshot than
| if they are watching a longer-form video or television program.
| Seemingly because I can "tune-out" the long form program but
| every time the video switches with tiktok, my brain "activates"
| and gets distracted to check if it needs to pay attention or
| not.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I find the shorts on youtube super addictive, but the algo is
| too repetitive. I once watched a drumming video to then end,
| not I get heaps of drumming. It's cool, but I'm just not that
| into drumming.
|
| I've been trying to correct the algo but giving a down thumb to
| videos I don't want to watch but its not learning.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Very occidental perspective. There are places where you need your
| phone practically 24/7, no affordance of escape. I can give an
| example of my day, which is basically completely phone centered,
| the only words I utter in a day is some digits to the taxi driver
| to verify my identity (when i can afford a ride that is).
|
| Edit: mute button is essential and don't allow any notifications
| outside important messages/apps
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Is this out of convenience or necessity? Do you have redundant
| devices so that if your primary glass slab is unusable for some
| reason, you're still able to make it home at the end of the
| day? Are you in some new role and lifestyle that wouldn't have
| been possible 20 years ago, or suffering from a disability for
| which the cell phone is your only means of achieving
| independence?
|
| The human race has survived for about 2 million years without a
| 24/7 tether. Our environment is the safest and most human-
| shaped it's ever been, you don't need to have constant anxiety
| about true emergency situations resolved by cell phone
| connections, those are unimaginably rare.
|
| It's totally feasible to go without a cell phone once in a
| while, just try it! Check your emails once a day, 5 days a
| week. Set up an auto-responder saying you're unavailable and
| can check messages at [time]. Navigate with your memory and the
| many signs that are posted, or with a paper map for aid. Write
| down things you need to remember with a pen and a piece of
| paper. Leave the phone behind and just go for a walk in a park
| with nothing but your surroundings and your thoughts. The world
| will keep turning for 30 minutes regardless of whether you're
| keeping tabs on it through the phone.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I think they're referring to (the especially common in Asia)
| scenario where all payments/ authentication/ local services
| are handled via smartphone applications? You can definitely
| go for a walk without it but you might not be able to get on
| transit, buy from shops, read a menu at a restaurant or so
| on.
| floren wrote:
| Which is fucked, and it pisses me off when halfwits imply
| that the US is "behind" because we haven't funnelled our
| whole society into a fucking phone app (yet).
| aaaashley wrote:
| Speaking of using custom CSS with YouTube, I do the following for
| my experience:
|
| - Completely hide the recommended tab
|
| - Make every thumbnail grayscale (to mitigate eye-catching
| thumbnails)
|
| - Make every video title lowercase (to mitigate eye-catching
| titles)
|
| Here's my code, although I have to update it every once and a
| while when YouTube changes: yt-thumbnail-view-
| model { filter: grayscale(); } h3[title] { text-transform:
| lowercase; } .ytd-watch-flexy #secondary { display: none
| !important; }
|
| It's amazing how much a couple small changes can make on your
| browsing experience. The companies that own these products have a
| huge incentive to make every element purposefully addictive. I've
| also patched the iOS Instagram app to remove all Reels (using
| FLEXtool & Sideloadly), so I can keep up with my friends without
| falling into the traps. As developers, we have the ability to
| target these manipulative tactics and remove them, and I
| encourage you to do this as much as possible.
| sogen wrote:
| If you disable History, it automatically removes
| Recommendations across your devices.
| cubefox wrote:
| For YouTube addicts I recommend uninstalling the app, using the
| website, and installing the Unhook browser extension for
| Chrome/Firefox/Edge. It can remove recommendations, shorts and a
| bunch of other stuff.
|
| https://unhook.app/
| fleebee wrote:
| I second this. I had a tendency to get stuck watching YouTube
| videos before I hid all algorithmic recommendations and the
| Home page with Unhook. I can finally use YouTube without
| getting distracted, and there's no way I'm going back.
|
| I just wish I had an addon like this for, well, everything. The
| browser is such a great platform because you can have this much
| control over your experience--no such luck with mobile apps.
| vovavili wrote:
| Wonderful extension, but at times my dopamine-addicted brain
| keeps disabling it on an impulse instead of doing something
| creative or productive on my PC. I looked into making it
| impossible to disable this extension through registry editor,
| but so far none of the settings in Windows seem to stick.
| MountDoom wrote:
| I always felt that I'm spending too much time in front of a
| computer, but it was at least somewhat meaningful because I had
| opportunities to create: write code, blog, and so on.
|
| When smartphones came out, I made a decision early on that I'm
| just not going to use them in a way that makes my internet
| footprint follow me everywhere I go. I set them up using a
| throwaway email account, turned off almost all notifications, and
| added just family and real-world friends. I think this served me
| well for nearly two decades. I really only use my phone for maps,
| photos, and maybe 2-5 messages a day. I honestly never found
| myself in a situation where I thought to myself, "gosh, I wish I
| could read my e-mail right now".
|
| But in the past five years, there's been this mounting pressure
| from app vendors to make sure I can no longer enjoy that. Every
| other time a friend sends me a web link, I get a popup that
| detects I'm on mobile and demands I install an app. And they
| increasingly can't be dismissed, so if I want to view that URL, I
| need to mail it to myself and open it on a desktop.
|
| If you work for a place that does that, I just hope you stub your
| toe every morning.
| dripton wrote:
| The phone vendors should support not telling the websites
| you're on mobile. I know they can guess based on resolution and
| such, but there should be a setting to lie and simulate a
| desktop. You can't rely on every single website not being run
| by jerks, but you should be able to buy a phone from a company
| that cares more about its customers than random jerks.
| janwl wrote:
| The phone vendors want you downloading and using apps.
| ksymph wrote:
| Most browser apps have an option for this, no? Chrome and
| Vivaldi have it for sure.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Yes, I use chrome desktop on my phone all the time to
| browse reddit.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| Safari has this setting, but the half dozen times I've tried
| it, it doesn't work. I suspect you're right that it's because
| sites just look at the resolution.
| pengaru wrote:
| > And they increasingly can't be dismissed, so if I want to
| view that URL, I need to mail it to myself and open it on a
| desktop.
|
| Usually I can work around this by toggling "desktop mode" in
| firefox on android...
| MrDarcy wrote:
| Not much to add other than I switched to this exact model in
| 2020 and have had the same pleasant outcome for 5 years now.
| I'm much more productive and can execute deep work for weeks on
| end. I remained in the zone on my current project for 4
| consecutive weeks. I attribute this to having no distractions.
| The outcomes produced from remaining in the zone for so long
| are objectively measurable and high level.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > When smartphones came out, I made a decision early on that
| I'm just not going to use them in a way that makes my internet
| footprint follow me everywhere I go.
|
| From my social circle, the only such annoying links I get are
| from Instagram.
|
| I have a deep, almost visceral hatred for the current
| incarnation of social media, so I go out of my way to not
| create accounts on those things.
|
| For Instagram and similar shit, I could find some nice
| downloader bots on Telegram. They typically require you to join
| some spam channels, but you can join and archive those so you
| never see that they exist.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| > I always felt that I'm spending too much time in front of a
| computer, but it was at least somewhat meaningful because I had
| opportunities to create: write code, blog, and so on.
|
| Yeah, we can waste a lot of time in front of the PC, but it at
| least can be used for creativity and productivity.
|
| [Smart]phones are almost pure consumption.
| hanlec wrote:
| I have been trying to reduce my usage. I still cannot find a
| way to resist pulling out the phone to: - perform a quick
| search (browser or ai) - listen to podcasts - listen to
| audiobook - check the data of the last running or gym session.
|
| Are there alternatives that are as friendly? Or being friendly
| is the danger here?
| lm28469 wrote:
| Disable fingerprint unlock, add a long password, airplane
| mode unless you actively want to check something, &c. Add as
| many barriers as possible so that by the time you get through
| you either forgot why you came for or realised it's not that
| important
|
| I don't think there are alternatives to what modern phones
| can do, unless you want to carry multiple dumb devices around
| (ebook + GPS + mp3 player for example)
| simgt wrote:
| On top of what's suggested in the post, I found the following
| helpful:
|
| - having a "phone box", the small uncomfortable shoe bench now
| has a shelf above it for phones, phones shall only be used on
| that bench
|
| - only my partner knows the "screen time" password on iOS
|
| - putting away my laptop and using a desktop computer instead
|
| My current problem is listening to podcasts, I don't have a
| convenient way to listen to them without my phone.
| wltr wrote:
| I had a side gig that involved me driving every day for at
| least one hour, but usually more. I listened to all kinds of
| podcasts and audio books. But at some point, I realised I
| cannot process that much of information. That's how I stopped,
| perhaps we humans aren't designed to process _that_ much daily.
| emerongi wrote:
| It feels validating that other people have a similar
| experience. I simply can't take in that much information. It
| eventually starts making me feel terrible.
|
| The big issue is that I'm not very good at moderating my
| intake. I'm a crack addict for information and one small dose
| will turn into a bender.
| dustincoates wrote:
| I think it's fine if you accept it as entertainment and
| nothing more. That's why I don't get how people listen to
| audiobooks on 3x. The goal isn't to ingest as much as you can
| --the goal is to enjoy it and maybe learn something useful
| here and there.
| armonster wrote:
| Get a secondary "podcast only" phone
| nonethewiser wrote:
| RIP mp3 players
| dustincoates wrote:
| I have an old phone I've repurposed as a media player. It has
| a 500 GB SD card and Oluancher to give it a really convenient
| way to only show the apps I want.
|
| I've got a somewhat weekly 6 hour round-trip commute where it
| get a lot of use.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| You don't treat the symptoms; you treat the cause. dumbphones,
| minimalist phones, and crippled smartphones are as effective as a
| smoker throwing away a full pack, only to buy a new one when
| stressed or drunk. If you use doomscrolling as an escape, you
| will inevitably fall back to it when life hits. While a few may
| manage to change their habits with a restricted device if the
| stars align for long enough, it won't work for most. You need to
| first figure out why you do it.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| "You must figure out why you smoke in the first place, before
| you will be able to quit" isn't a universal truth.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Because you know why you are smoking because you are addicted
| to nicotine.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| so the symptom is the cause
| BoredPositron wrote:
| The cause why you started smoking might have gone away
| but you are still addicted to the substance. We don't
| have the same chemical addiction with doom scrolling.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| hey man, it was your analogy
| BoredPositron wrote:
| And it still stands.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| This isn't universal but will tremendously help quitting.
| There will still be the nicotine issue, but it will help
| clear the other factors that can be as powerful as the
| physical addiction.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Or it could be - you figure out why you smoke in the first
| place, and have to accept that you can never quit
| mukti wrote:
| I heavily use android's focus mode to keep myself from being too
| distracted. Originally I tried using app timers, but I found
| myself just constantly bumping them to the point where I wasn't
| getting a benefit. Whenever I notice an app being noisy with
| notifications (even if I appreciate them when I'm not busy), I
| add it into the list of distracting apps. I have a daily focus
| timer that enabled when I get to work and ends when I (generally)
| leave work. This keeps me focused during the day, but I also
| occasionally enable this when I want to focus on other things, or
| if I find myself spending too much time on random apps. Because
| of the way that the breaks work, I have to keep asking for
| 5/15/30min and I'm very aware of how much time I'm wasting. I
| also enable flip-to-shh mode, which disables all notifications
| when my phone is face down on a surface. I realize that focus
| mode and flip-to-shh can seem extreme, but I noticed this works
| well worked for me.
|
| https://blog.google/products/android/android-focus-mode/
| dionian wrote:
| same for iphone, i always have it in a focus mode that hides
| almost all notifications. so much better
| cryzinger wrote:
| +1 to focus mode; at least on Samsung-flavored Android, you can
| set a recurring schedule so that focus mode (or any mode)
| automatically kicks in on certain days/times, which I use to
| block notifications from and access to certain apps during peak
| working hours.
|
| Another feature I really like that also might be unique to
| Samsung-flavored Android--it's been a decade since I've had a
| device running Vanilla android, lol--is the overall daily
| screentime tracker. It's purely observational, so there's no
| penalty for going over, but unlike the app time limits that you
| can snooze there isn't a way to subtract time that you actually
| spent, which helps keep me accountable. Mainly I like having a
| widget that tracks the day's stats on my home screen, because
| being able to go "oof, did I really spend 45 minutes on <app>
| today already?" is a strong motivator for me to shape up.
|
| As a bonus, you can also _exclude_ certain apps from the time
| limit tracker, which I like because it nudges me towards more
| constructive habits. Stuff like my notes app and Waze don't
| count towards the timer, nor does my e-reader of choice, which
| means I'm more likely to read a few pages of a book if I have
| time to kill since it's "free" against my daily screen goal.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I wanted to develop an alternative to App Timer on Android. I
| need something more like "App Timeouts". App Timers are per 24
| hours, so as soon I hit X amount of minutes, I'm blocked from
| using it until midnight and then it resets.
|
| What do I mean about App Timeout?
|
| I want to say "Once I reach 20min on this app, block me from
| using it for 2 hours". Then it resets after 2 hours from that
| point. Both of those times being configurable of course.
|
| The problem with the built-in Android App Timers now is I end
| up setting it to something large, like 1 hour or more because
| I'm thinking about how much time I want for a full day, but
| then I just sit there in 1 sitting swiping for that whole
| amount of time. And this usually happens after midnight so I
| know that I'm going to be blocked for my next day until after
| midnight again and the cycle continues.
|
| I'd rather something force me to use it in shorter bits of
| time. So at midnight I can allow myself to get into an
| Instagram hole for 10 or 20min, but at least I know when I wake
| up it's been reset. I think doing this will train me to use the
| app for shorter amounts of time in general (or at least I think
| so and I want to test that theory).
|
| I don't even know if this is possible in Android. How can one
| app block another. Maybe by allowing it to overlay over other
| apps or something?
| dustincoates wrote:
| Lock Me Out does exactly what you are describing: https://pla
| y.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teqtic.loc...
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| oh nice! that looks perfect. Will try it out
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| > While I still have the twitch to check my phone when I'm
| waiting for a coffee, or in-between activities--because my
| brain's reward system has been trained to do this--I'm now
| _rewarded with nothing_
|
| For those looking to drop a(ny) habit: this seems to be the key
| abhaynayar wrote:
| I have a similar great+simple system for curbing consumptive
| screen-time, i.e. I don't keep any of those apps on the phone, I
| block all of those websites on phone/laptop web-browser using an
| extension like Leech-Block and Un-Hook (YT). Some things that I
| allow are - YT long-form videos from subscriptions only, Hacker-
| News, and Linked-In.
|
| THE biggest impediment for me has been stuff like getting sick.
| When I am sick, I just cannot lie there and do nothing. And it is
| TOO difficult to do stuff like read books or go out and talk to
| people or whatnot, it's too much effort. I HAVE to get back on
| consumptive screen-time. And then it devolves into something
| uglier - an ugly spiral, of gluttony & consumption, and I keep at
| it even beyond getting better.
|
| Then it takes days or weeks of laziness and excuses to get back
| on track. And not just sickness but anything of that level.
| Anything that just kinda derails my life for a bit. I really need
| to find a middle-ground solution for the worst-case scenarios.
| I'm still working on it. I think I should be able to figure it
| out. It took me a while to figure out my best-case system as
| well.
| portaouflop wrote:
| For me reading books works well when I'm sick in bed. You
| probably need to force yourself for a while but it's worth it.
| That being said i was a voracious reader in the past so it
| might not tickle your toes in the same way
| wltr wrote:
| Ditto! I try reading some silly things, play some old silly
| games (e.g. Warcraft, not arcades), or just watch some YouTube.
| But I don't watch YouTube in my daily life, so I'm not addicted
| to it.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| I believe that short form video coupled with infinite scroll
| mesmerizes humans. It keeps them in a trance by using suspense.
| The brain absolutely must know how the video plays out whether
| that be waiting for the punchline, a fight to break our or a fact
| to be delivered. Once the brain has locked eyes on the video the
| user must put significant energy into making a conscious decision
| to look away.
|
| Even OpenAI's latest Sora app leans into this format and the
| videos there are literally the poorest quality on the Internet.
| 99.999% of them are eight seconds of unintelligent,
| unintelligible, low grade digitally created excrement.
|
| There should be a law against it.
|
| Big Tech knows this. They have teams of people with doctorates
| making apps engaging.
| StickyRibbs wrote:
| dopamine reward feedback loop. Video scrolling is an insidious
| form of it because the feedback time is so short that you end
| up hooked on it for hours, feeling bad afterwards; seriously
| potent stuff.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| aka a drug
| the_snooze wrote:
| It's a slot machine. Everything social media and e-commerce is
| a slot machine. Each scroll is a pull of the arm, hoping that
| the algorithmic gods will smile kindly on you and give you some
| sweet content or deal.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Read "Supernormal Stimuli" by Barret [1] for an exploration of
| the psychology of this "mesmerizing" effect - at least in
| general, if not specifically in short-form video and infinite
| scroll.
|
| Whether the artificial stimulus comes in the form of junk food,
| entertainment, social connection, sex, we've seen time and time
| again that trillion-dollar megacorps employing thousands of the
| greatest minds of our generation have been able to invent
| substitutes that are more compelling than evolution has
| prepared the human brain to be able to deal with.
|
| It does seem like video shorts are especially easy to exploit.
|
| [1]: https://www.harvard.com/book/9780393068481
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Thank you for this recommendation.
| krashidov wrote:
| We need an infinite video scroll tax
| egypturnash wrote:
| ooh deleting and pausing off youtube's watch history is _nice_ ,
| no more getting sucked into videos of someone beating dark souls
| by only pressing the Z button or whatever other bullshit Google
| has realized I will waste hours on.
| jeanofthedead wrote:
| I use SocialFocus for iOS/macOS to block recommended videos,
| etc. It's incredibly useful.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| > I care about living an intentional and meaningful life,
| nurturing relationships, having nuanced conversations, and
| enjoying the world around me.
|
| These.. are all possible with a smartphone?
| Desafinado wrote:
| The opposing viewpoint is that smartphones do fill a need of the
| modern world, and that is that most people have been separated
| from their families due to the logistics of finding paying work.
|
| Some of my relatives in the 90s, things weren't much better
| without smartphones. You had long distance calling and TV, or
| otherwise you were alone. One of my relatives attempted suicide
| when she was very young, you can guess why.
|
| But yes, it obviously makes sense to use smartphones
| intelligently. Meta products and Tik Tok are poison for the mind.
| And unless you're at home it's a good idea to just shut the
| smartphone off.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I'm the only middle-aged person I know that doesn't use/carry a
| smart phone (I also don't use email).
|
| >One of my relatives attempted suicide when she was very young,
| you can guess why.
|
| This misses that _even more young ladies are attempting, today_
| , albeit for _entirely different reasons_. I 'll let you guess
| why.
| fsiefken wrote:
| If you don't use e-mail, what do you use for electronic one
| to one communication or do you write letters and sent them by
| post?
| eimrine wrote:
| Why disabling youtube recommendation? It is literally the only
| recommendation engine that works, just don't watch shite (at
| least from your account) and you will never be recommended of
| that. Other smartphone services are irrepairely wrong, but
| youtube is a search engine for what you dream. Everything you are
| searching in google or mentioning somewhere on youtube forum will
| be added to your "interests". Regular search is broken but the
| recommendation "search" is the best service I ever had, it is
| like an oldschool librarian who knows what book will interest
| you.
| platevoltage wrote:
| I concur. The YouTube algorithm actually appears to work, and
| doesn't feel like it's trying to steer me away from my
| interests. My only issue is that it will suggest "current
| event" type content that is years old sometimes.
| eimrine wrote:
| Youtube does that for some channels or persons which are so
| favorable for me that I use to watch all of their videos.
|
| My recommendation about human interests and yt consuming is
| not to close yourself in your shell, but actively explore
| what are there any interesting. I become cold turkey to any
| other recommendation services since I have unleashed the
| power of Yt.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Spend every day for a year watching the highest quality YouTube
| content and it won't get you as far as spending every day for a
| month directly engaging with content yourself, or some other
| use of the same time. It's fun, engaging, and easy enough to
| turn into something you can argue "but it's not slop, it's
| <x>!". At the end of the day though... it's still 95%
| entertainment.
|
| I spend a lot of time "protecting" my YouTube recommendations
| (clearing garbage videos from my history, blocking certain
| channels, opening links from friends separately) but I still
| try to immensely limit the amount of time I spend on the site,
| and the recommendations go directly against that.
| eimrine wrote:
| You still seing it wrong. Youtube is the best radio possible,
| it never disappoints me while my outdoor activity. There are
| no reason to "watch" 99% of hours of content, nothing is
| interesting in seing talking heads.
|
| Negative measures such as clearing history, putting dislikes
| and using "not recommend" just doesn't work because from my
| experience the only negative metrics which works is just
| refusing to watch shite. Youtube actively uses spaced
| repetition approach so consider any time you are being
| recommended to shite as active shaping your recommendation
| engine. Don't even touch that square with the cursor. Try
| teaching your recommendation blackbox in positive ways -
| watch some channels when you are not watching and listening,
| subscribe to small channels, write comments with no less than
| 8 words and actively use such nouns which you are welcome to
| be recommended to.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I also avoid spending much (if any) time listening to the
| radio/podcasts/etc these days for the same reasons.
|
| > Negative measures such as clearing history, putting
| dislikes and using "not recommend" just doesn't work
| because from my experience the only negative metrics which
| works is just refusing to watch shite.
|
| Clearing history certainly works, just make sure there is
| absolutely not a single unwanted video in your history or
| the algorithm will go on a tirade thinking "I REALLY bet I
| can get this person interested in Lego videos because they
| watched one 4 weeks ago and I have a ton of Lego content
| they've not even touched yet". The instant you clear the
| final offender the recommendations change like night/day.
|
| I'm not sure dislikes/"Not interested" actually do
| anything. "Don't recommend channel" also definitely works,
| though there may be a limit to how long they are saved and
| it's better to just aim the algorithm.
|
| The only thing the algorithm is really good for is finding
| videos it thinks will suck up your time. The curation is
| ultimately down to how much work you put into it, which
| isn't all that unique to YouTube. Putting similar effort
| into curating any large body of content will also get you
| more content than you have time to consume, but still
| doesn't help you actually gain much from engaging with it
| anyways.
| Liquix wrote:
| because it flips the content consumption model on its head.
| instead of "i want to watch a video about X" -> search for
| video about X -> watch, the loop becomes open youtube -> see
| interesting recommendation -> watch. you are no longer using
| youtube as a tool to consume videos, it is using you,
| increasing time spent on the site/app and therefore generating
| more ad revenue.
| eimrine wrote:
| How youtube can use me if I spend all my time outdoors and yt
| is just a radio? There are some ways to see it without ads
| even wihout deepening the profile with the credit card.
|
| My point is that there is no better software to get
| acknowledged about the different Xs than yt. My point is to
| go cold turkey about any other recqmmendation services
| because they can not serve my interests when I work with my
| hands, or walking, or driving. I have listened some 3.5 hours
| podcast about Math and I am sure there is no other way to
| consume such a podcasts other way than I recommend here.
| bitbuilder wrote:
| I believe the point he was trying to make is that he doesn't
| want to be recommended things he wants to watch. He wants his
| YouTube use to be be focused and intentional, and not let
| himself get sucked into an endless stream of engaging content.
| eimrine wrote:
| And my point is that your words is about any other
| recommendation engine. Youtube is very different, there is no
| better information source to shape oneself what is really
| good to be interested in. Except of maybe book search
| websites.
| missinglugnut wrote:
| The author wants to find content when he is looking for
| something specific. He does not want his attention grabbed
| by something he wasn't looking for, no matter how
| educational it may be.
|
| Multiple people have clearly explained this to you in
| several comment threads and you're still insisting it makes
| no sense. At this point the only question is why you don't
| want to understand.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| This is why I often use/watch via http://www.ytch.tv (hn/u).
|
| Check out Channels 1/6/7/25/35/40
| toofy wrote:
| > It is literally the only recommendation engine that works.
|
| do you really find this to be true? i find it's incredibly
| wrong like 90+ percent of the time. i am not close to
| interested in most of its recs. i've tried for years to tell it
| what i like and its just wrong so often. i've even tried
| entirely new accounts.
|
| i mean, sure every once in a while im like "whoa, that's a
| great rec" but thats pretty rare. it's definitely better than
| spotify and the like etc... they're wrong almost always, but a
| miss rate of more than 9 times out of 10 is so bad.
|
| recommendations from people is so much more accurate.
|
| when i get a music recommendation from someone who works at the
| record store the positive hit rate is so high, same with movies
| and music recommendations from friends, etc... if it works for
| you that's great but my feed is overflowing with video after
| video where i'm like "why in tf do you think i'd want to watch
| this?"
| will-burner wrote:
| The advice about deleting youtube history and setting and auto-
| delete cadence (though every 3 months looked like the most
| frequent possibility for me) is good and I wasn't aware of it. I
| don't have social media, but I do have a personal gmail email
| address, which links to youtube making it hard to avoid spending
| time on my phone watching youtube videos.
| Void_ wrote:
| I've been running dumbified version of iOS for a few months now,
| and I'm very happy with it.
|
| I removed every 'fun' app except for a few exceptions:
|
| - ChatGPT, but mostly in voice mode, and with other people - as a
| party trick.
|
| - Whisper Memos (https://whispermemos.com/), I record voice memos
| and they end up in my email, so I can continue with that idea
| when I'm on a computer (whether that is a prompt for AI, or a
| todo.)
|
| - Bevel (https://www.bevel.health/), to track sleep factors, such
| as whether I wore a nasal strip
|
| - Overcast (https://overcast.fm/), for playing podcasts.
|
| - Liftosaur (http://liftosaur.com/), for tracking gym
|
| - Basics like Banking, EV charging, Maps, Parking, Messages,
| Weather, Authenticator, Reminders, etc.
|
| I removed App Store as well as Safari, so these apps is all I can
| do on my iPhone.
|
| In the beginning, I set up a Screen Time code so I wouldn't be
| able to cheat. But in a few weeks I got used to it. So App Store
| and Safari are enabled again, but I never use them. (Maybe Safari
| is disabled. I have no idea to be honest.)
|
| The biggest downside is I never know where my phone is. However,
| I'll gladly accept this downside.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _If we assume people sleep roughly 8 hours per day_
|
| I'd strongly question that assumption. Based on what I've heard
| from friends (and also personal experience), I think there is
| quite a large number if people who spend too much time on the
| phone, but also still want to do activities/work on projects, etc
| - all in addition to work, family life and chores.
|
| The result is that the time is taken from the activity that
| appears most "compressible" at first glance, which is sleep.
| anteloper wrote:
| Great article, I'm a cofounder of Clearspace and think about this
| a lot.
|
| > I'm an adult, I know how to circumvent these limits, and I will
| if motivation is low.
|
| It's impossible to build systems that perfectly prevent you from
| doing this, but it _is_ possible to build systems that can
| perfectly deter you from doing it. You could set up one - for
| example - that texts your spouse if you delete it. Or charges
| your bank account. Or whatever other doomsday device you want to
| rig up.
|
| > Time limits don't affect the underlying addiction. You don't
| quit smoking by only smoking certain hours of the day.
|
| Yeah but if you could encode cigarettes to ween you off of them
| by force, that'd be a big help. Also cigarettes don't have any
| real utility, so cold turkey is a reasonable strategy.
| Unfortunately the social media platforms have real utility, so a
| guardrail strategy makes more sense.
|
| > The companies that build these apps have tens of thousands of
| really smart people (and billions of dollars) trying to get me
| hooked and keep me engaged. The only way to win this game isn't
| by trying to beat them (I certainly can't), but by not playing.
|
| When it's all said and done, someone is going to build the right
| set of digital environment modification tooling that does beat
| them. It has to be possible, the internet is intrinsically
| customizable
| lencastre wrote:
| the cable company asked me to accept their generous 50pct monthly
| discount provided I would not cancel the subscription service but
| I said I am trying to watch less tv, and that was that
| asdff wrote:
| Another tip for getting more out of youtube, is if your topic of
| interest is potentially not dependent on current events, you get
| higher signal to noise ratio searching for videos from 10+ years
| ago exclusively. Earlier the better.
|
| Youtube was so much better when you didn't see the uploaders face
| and there wasn't incentive to pad video duration.
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