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- I also need a solution for my addiction. I was thinking of blocking all addictive apps in my main (phone) account and set up a kids account for myself where all the drugs are installed. Then I need to ask myself for screen time. I hope this is annoying enough to not switch accounts constantly. If that doesn't work, I need to give another person the control over the screen time.by _ink_
- Man...reading that post gave me a similar feeling to when I hear someone playing meditation bowls. I tell you, I've taken almost the entirely same approach over the last couple of years, slowly adding (i.e. removing) more and more things in the same way you did. It started with blocking sites at the Terminal level and uninstalling distracting apps (or using time limiters). The one thing I hadn't done, which I just did thanks to your recommendation, is the grayscale. Aside from the realization that I was giving up so much time and energy, I needed to steal more of my time/energy back because of a personal project I started last year. Though it definitely gets easier and easier over time I've had to remain vigilant because I quickly realized that it wasn't a certain site or app that was necessarily drawing me in. Often it was just "doing something" on the phone or computer. Even if I blocked something I'd just aim the browser for something else. That was when I added a lot of little psychological tactics to reduce the feelings that led to the behavior.
Another thing, the thing that really stuck out to me was this approach aimed at "boredom." I'd recently seen that video you mentioned with Arthur Brooks. In fact, last year he had another called "You Need to Be Bored. Here's Why." posted on Harvard Business Review's YouTube channel. So getting comfortable with "boring" really can be a viable approach.
by shant_extry - Blocking recommendations is the one thing I'd add to this list. You can easily do so with uBlock Origin, and it's made the biggest difference for me.
Water still finds cracks, but it's about reducing the likelihood and increasing the time between binges (so that they mentally register as necessarily intentional and abnormal)
by ikesau - Some more good advice:
Turn off your YouTube watch history. This disables video suggestions when you open the website or the app.
by ViktorRay - YouTube's only goal is to make more money. Most YouTubers' only goal is to get more views. Sure it can be useful but that's a perfect excuse to live on forever. People were fine before YouTube, and you can learn anything from words an images.
I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.
by _6wbq - Here are some things I try:
Turn off Notifications.
Turn off location services except when navigating or calling the taxi.
Uninstall as many apps as possible, use browser.
Use adblocking anti tracking browser (I use Duck, alt suggestions welcome).
Report unknown / unwanted senders as spam.
That said, I am a NEWS ADDICT. There are four world leaders whose downfall I eagerly await, and frequently check the news for this ;-) .. you might be able to guess three but not the fourth.
- Putting in blockers and the like helps, but what I've found worked best was to consider this quote by Anthony DeMello:
"When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power."
When I learned to stop feeling bad/guilty/thinking this was a problem to solve and just let my mind drift, I found that my mind naturally learned when it was disciplined work time vs. browse the internet time. Personally, I noticed that when I didn't have any artificial restriction, I was less inclined to waste time on those things.
In practice: "oh, my mind doesn't want to do that other thing right now but it does want to go look at this thing; let it." The more I've loosened my grip, the less distractions have affected my productivity.
by rglover - For me, adaptive friction has been very helpful - allow access to distracting apps/sites, but make them progressively harder to use.
For phones, ScreenZen is great at this. Makes you pause before visiting an app or site, and you can configure the pause to grow each time you use it. You can also set a timeout on the app. Very flexible settings.
For desktop, I recently built a free browser extension called MooBlock - it's similar to ScreenZen in that it adds a forced pause before you reach a distracting site. But once you reach the site, a herd of cows start walking all over your screen to make the website less appealing.
It's available in both the Chrome and Firefox extension stores. Hoping to make an Android version later this year too.
Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehd...
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/?utm...