9 ms·

How I Kicked My Smartphone Addiction, and Never Looked Back

owenwil 10y ago
There's actually some really solid advice in here – I never thought about Android as being "better" for reducing distractions, but the amount of control you can get over not having self-control seems useful. Apple, on the other hand, is busy trying to get you to open as many apps as you can every time by resisting adding change to the home screen, outside of those luring red (1) icons that show up constantly, often for no reason. I might consider switching to a Pixel for this alone.
- alexwoodcreates 10y ago
  Thanks - I got so frustrated with Apple not making it easy for me to control my own addiction. Good luck with the switch! Alex
- seltzered_ 10y ago
  I'm about to switch to an iphone (oddly been a cocoa/mac developer while being a android user for years), and have been a bit worried that it'll be a more distracting experience while watching friends more engaged with their phones than conversatin at dinner. This said, here's my tentative iphone-specific plan on managing myself from becoming addicted: - Generally, don't keep social apps on the phone. Use the web versions with content blockers. - Email: keep using gmail's importance filtering and set notifications only for 'important' messages - been doing this for years and it's mostly worked fine. - Content blockers - find a safari content blocker that lets me block social sites at certain times, or write one myself. - Keep using a smartwatch - I really like using my pebble to let me minimize phone use, ideally I can still do voice replies like I can on android.
- soylentcola 10y ago
  This is clearly a personal preference/weighting but one of the reasons I've always leaned toward Android is not so much because it "succeeds" better than iOS but because I find that it "fails" better, in that they both do what you want for the most part when using as the OS or app developer intends. But when I want to make a device do something other than the default behavior, I find that easier to do on Android. iOS has made some real leaps in this realm over the past few years and no longer do I need to jailbreak to make most of my common changes and alterations, but it's still been enough to keep me leaning toward Android.
dredmorbius 10y ago
1. Scrap your smartphone. 2. If you must, carry a dumbphone. 3. Keep that off except when necessary. 4. If you must have a device, consider either an ultralight laptop (vastly preferable: they are in fact generative devices) or a tablet, with severely pruned apps, and no G4 / cellular internet (WiFi only). I'm increasingly a fan of paper-based records and tracking systems -- index cards, etc. For books and research, online has certain advantages, largely bulk and weight -- I can carey a fairly formidable library in the palm of my hand, though the access, interface, and organisation leave much to be desired. I'm inclined to say there is no generally acceptable mobile device or OS presently, though I somewhat favour iOS over Android for a better privacy and surveillance environment. Whatever CyanogenMod calls itself this week might be slightly favourable. What I'd prefer is a generally tablet/folio form-factor (e.g., non-wired, non-integral keyboard, lapable or tablet mode, and no, Windows Surface doesn't work either, though it's a fair start -- rubber keyboards aren't acceptable), but running a Real Operating System (e.g., Linux). I'm keeping an eye on what's coming from Ubuntu, though without much hope.
- twostoned 10y ago
  I honestly love reading stuff like this, especially on a tech board like HN. Sometimes these days I feel like I'm not allowed to be disconnected. It is beautifully refreshing to hear about others who think that it's okay. Let's find ways to use tech to our advantage and not have it control our lives.
  - alexwoodcreates 10y ago
    Thanks! Loved writing it - I've been a tech writer for over 10 years and something just snapped with me. Feel so much better now I'm disconnected and back in the driving seat.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    I think working with computers breeds a sort of contempt for them and you start looking for alternatives. One of my hobbies is photography, and lately all I've wanted to do is shoot film. My big DSLRs can do some amazing things, but there's something about being limited to between 12 and 36 images, advancing the film by hand, controlling every aspect of the exposure, and standing at my kitchen sink for half an hour developing each roll that makes rattling off a thousand images in a blink then sitting in front of yet another screen a lot less appealing. I'm already sitting at a computer for 40 or more hours per week, why add another if I don't have to?
bungie4 10y ago
My Nexus 5 is circling the drain. When it finally goes, I'll be going back to my Sony-Ericsson feature phone. A quarter the size of my Nexus and true 14 day battery life. It's a pain in the ass to text on, and thats a good thing. After 30+ years in IT, I'm turning into a Luddite.
- Finnucane 10y ago
  Me, too. When I was younger, I liked being an early adopter. Now I am turning into a curmudgeon. IoT? Who needs that crap. I want things to work for me, not the other way around. This is one of the reasons I still maintain a wet darkroom--it is one of the ways I can be completely disconnected. (Even being out on my bike doesn't do that-- I take my phone with me and use the GPS maps instead of paper maps.)
  - bungie4 10y ago
    I hear you about the bike, I'm a LD rider (FJR). I travel with my Sena wired up to my phone (for calls and tunes - even though I don't ever recall listening to tunes while riding.) and my GPS for in-ear directions. Over the last couple of years, if the batteries dead in my Sena, oh well. Getting lost is kind of the point :D
6d6b73 10y ago
Few more ideas that helped me - Remove Play Store replace with FDroid - makes it harder to find and install crappy apps like FB, Snapchat etc. - Install AFWall+ or other firewall and make sure you disable internet access for most apps
bsharitt 10y ago
I deleted my Twitter account, removed my Instagram and Facebook apps. I trimmed my Facebook account down to only my local table top gaming groups while deleting friends and family(who aren't associated with previously mentioned groups). I've disabled all notifications on my phone other than SMS(and the people who have my number is a small group). It's greatly reduced the amount of time I spend on my phone(and on social media off the phone too) now that it's not constantly alerting me to look at it. I won't be replacing it with a dumb phone because there are still plenty of times it's a useful tool, but now it's a tool that stays in my pocket until it's actually needed rather than a focus of activity itself.
kome 10y ago
I don't use a cellphone, AMA. I have a "Nokia 101" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_101) for emergency situations tho.
- backpropaganda 10y ago
  How do you manage if you needed to use Uber or Google Maps? Unfortunately, for me, these two apps are the only absolute reasons why I can't seem to abandon my smartphone.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    It's easy. For Uber, you don't use it, and you use cabs instead. Just use a convenient landline phone (or a pay phone) to call a local cab company and wait for them to send a cab. You might have to wait an hour or so, but that's no problem. For Google Maps, you instead buy a paper map, and then navigate with that unfolded while you're driving. Easy. /s
- amorphid 10y ago
  Without Google Maps, or functional equivalent, or do you ever manage to find your way anywhere? When I think about leaving the getting rid of my phone, my first thought is that not having maps would suck. I planned a bus trip from Point A to Point B yesterday, and without a phone, that would have sucked. And I like Lyft a lot. It'd be a pain to get rid of that.
  - backpropaganda 10y ago
    Funny how we both asked exactly the same question. I wonder if there's a niche for making phones which just have the basics + Maps and Uber/Lyft. Perhaps Uber or Lyft should try to make such "devices".
    - CalRobert 10y ago
      A GPS (Tomtom, garmin, etc.) with access to transit feeds would be really useful. We already have a standard for transmitting traffic information via FM radio; maybe it could be put to use transmitting bus/train info as well? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_message_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_message_channel Phones are pretty good at nav but I still really like having a standalone GPS.
overcast 10y ago
While I haven't gone cold turkey with my iPhone, I started to take the first steps a couple years ago. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and any other social app thing. All gone. Deleted the accounts. I've blocked ALL comments, except for essentially Hacker News, in all of my browsers. I disabled all notifications on my phone, except for actual incoming phone calls. All sounds are disabled, in fact the phone runs on mute permanently. The phone gets plugged in a couple hours before bed time, in the other room. I don't check anything on the phone, until I get to work. Even the Kindle has been relegated to be ONLY for flights. I've bought tons of hardcover novels in the last two years. I don't think getting rid of smart phones is necessary, just much better management. They've definitely saved my ass in more ways than one.
- kraftman 10y ago
  Why has the kindle been relegated in favor of hardcovers?
  - overcast 10y ago
    I want real paper, not a glowing interface.
    - FreezerburnV 10y ago
      Why not get an older eInk one that doesn't glow? Reads better in sunlight too. (I'm actually thinking about doing similar so I can read books I buy off Amazon away from my phone)
      - overcast 10y ago
        Because I just want to read a real book. Disconnect from technology as much as possible in my day.
        FreezerburnV 10y ago
        Fair enough, and I respect that! I have a good number of real books that I need to read as well. I guess the only real use case for using Amazon books for me currently is airplanes, where the bulk of books gets unwieldy for shoving under the seat in front of me.
soylentcola 10y ago
Honestly, I just don't install Facebook, Twitter, etc. so I only open the mobile or desktop sites when I want to read them (not every time I get a notification). Otherwise, I just keep notifications off for most things other than work email and leave my phone on silent for the vast majority of the time. I still get calls and messages but I'm not constantly being pulled away from what I'm doing because my phone is beeping again. As an ADHD-type person, it's one of many ways I've found to reduce distraction and interruption when I need or want to be doing something else. I do leave a charger at my bedside (and my desk, and my car, etc...basically anywhere I plan to be sitting for more than an hour at a time). This is probably just a throwback to the early smartphone days when you needed to keep your device topped off whenever possible since you never knew when you might need to (gasp) use it and kill the battery in a few hours. Not really an issue nowadays but the habit remains. Still, silent/quiet hours make a big difference.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  This is basically my approach too, and I haven't felt any need to step it up to the things in the article. I keep phone chargers at work and by the bed, but I've got an old phone that I don't trust to wake me up. At night, Twilight and silent mode mean I'm not having my sleep delayed or interrupted. During the day, texts and calls get vibrate, but everything else just gets a status bar icon. My news apps are slow to change (BBC) and social media only gets opened in browser via links. Problem solved.
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ptrptr 10y ago
What helped me personally was buying phone with smaller screen - iPhone SE have all the features of bigger phone I've might ever need but due to 4 inch screen I tend to use it as little as possible. For me it's more private communication device than internet machine - that what phone was suppose to be.
- vinay427 10y ago
  This sounds like an interesting factor that I want to experiment with. I anecdotally have been using my phone far more than before (and more than desired) since I switched to a phone with a display about 6 inches in size.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  I'm really hoping Google will soon realize some people prefer 4 inch screens and make a Nexus. I'm guessing it'll be another year before we find out.
0x445442 10y ago
This is a great opportunity to make Blackberry great again! 1.) Great for calling and texting. 2.) Useful in a good way for email. 3.) Not enough apps available to be annoying.
kraftman 10y ago
It's funny how these articles always go completely over the top rather than being about learning self control. Buying too much stuff? Cancel amazon prime, throw away everything you own, go full digital nomad and spend the rest of your life moving from airbnb to airbnb so you can never own more than you can carry. On your smartphone too much? Man up! Don't just turn off notifications, delete the apps completely! Throw away your smartphone! Social media destroying your life? Delete it all, it's the only way! If you're really addicted to something I think it will take more than just these articles to help you, if not then you surely you can 'man up' enough to control yourself?
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  My analogous example is when I quit (behaviorally) drinking. Time was I'd come home, crack open a beer, make/order dinner, open a beer, eat dinner, open a beer, watch tv, open a beer. I knew it wasn't good for me but I enjoyed it at the time and didn't really care about the ramifications. At least, I didn't care enough to stop. After a particularly uncomfortable combination of beer and Mexican food, however, my system was so shocked that I swore off drinking entirely, at least until I got better. After a few weeks I had my first sip of alcohol again and realized I didn't actually enjoy it: I was mostly drinking out of inertia. I rarely drink now. If my mother is in town I can guzzle a bottle of wine over dinner and then stay dry for weeks without wanting even a sip of sake. The problem was never the alcohol to me. The problem was the habit. I imagine the same for smartphone addiction (or, perhaps, "compulsive use"): the problem is not the smartphone - it's the habit.
  - YCode 10y ago
    It was a long time ago and I wish I was less foggy on the details but I read this comment on Reddit by a purported neuroscientist or some such who was talking about how we don't actually enjoy social media. They described basically what you've said. We take the actions and get the tiny reward and our brain gets a little jolt of there you did it but when it comes right down to it we don't actually enjoy the activity. More importantly, we're no more satisfied when we finish the activity than we were when we started, we just do it because we've become conditioned to. I suppose a more concrete source would be the Extra Credits video on Skinner Boxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c
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bda5 10y ago
Contrary to this article, there is an easy way to block apps - and websites - on iOS. There's an app called Freedom that lets you create lists of sites that you'd like to block. Once blocked, their apps will not work either. I find it to be a phenomenal way of increasing my focus. When I compulsively grab my smartphone and realize that my usual time-waster sites and apps are blocked, I just put it right back down. Unfortunately it does cost money, but they regularly run promotions up to half-off on their "forever" plan.
kenjackson 10y ago
Am I the only that never really physically feels better doing these extreme things? I recently went with no sugar for January (my New Years Resolution). I actually ate some sugar, but it had to be "natural" (in fruits/vegetables) and no artificial sweeteners allowed. Everyone else who had done it (on the internet) spoke of how much better they felt after doing it. After a month I felt like I did before I started. I felt fine, but nothing special. I didn't feel bad before I started, but people described how incredible it made them feel and it didn't do that for me at all. I felt the same. The first day of February I had teriyaki chicken for lunch and had a snack of M&Ms. I felt completely the same. I also tried going vegan before and gluten free (both for time periods shorter than a month), and neither did anything either. I get that all these things may be healthier, but they didn't make me feel any better. Reading this guys account, I have a hard time believing that using my phone less would make me feel much better either. That said, I have been turning more notifications off as I do agree that there is very little that justifies interrupting what I'm doing to look at that app.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Everyone's body is different, and there's so many variables: age, fitness level, etc., so the sugar thing may work for some people and not be noticeable to you. Personally, FWIW, I had a bit of a weight problem ~12 years ago, and I was drinking soda a lot every day. I cut out the soda, among other things, and no longer have a weight problem. I attribute much of it to the sodas; there's a lot of calories there, and no fiber (as in fruit) to help you moderate it. The gluten free diet isn't likely to help you at all unless you have a problem with gluten. Gluten-free foods are NOT healthier (in fact, quite possible the opposite, to a small extent, according to recent research). The only reason to eat GF food is because you have Crohn's disease or some other gluten intolerance, which affects I believe about 5% of the population or so. If you don't have any of these problems, then stick with gluten. Vegan diets are not healthier. The main reason people adopt these is because they don't believe animals should be used for food, including animal products (eggs, milk, cheese, etc.). It's not for health. Of course, too many eggs isn't healthy either, so you might get some side-effect here, depending on what animal products you were eating before and how much, but this isn't the goal of veganism, it's all about an extreme view of using animals and their products as human food. If you think that meat is bad for you (which again isn't scientifically supported; we're omnivores), you can always just adopt a vegetarian diet. Or, if you think you're eating too much red meat (which is a common problem with Americans), you can always just eat less of it, instead of adopting an extreme diet. It sounds to me like you're young (under 30) and healthy, so of course you're not going to notice any difference with various diets unless they're cutting out something you really need or not supplying you enough calories.
titanix2 10y ago
Article advice #5 is totally the opposite of what I do: because my email app (outlook) categorize important messages and only display notifications from them I can keep my mailbox closed while working on the PC. Surprisingly buying an Apple Watch greatly reduce the time I spend on my phone and the stress related to where it lies on my house: I don't need to be close of it anymore and notifications are displayed as a red dot. If a notification is irrelevant* I can dismiss it on the spot without any temptation to use the phone for something else. * I already highly curated app allowed to notify me. Only mail & chat (fb messenger, Line, etc.) apps remains.
analogmemory 10y ago
The comments so far seem to be in response to ways that phones and other tech distract us. I feel like the author glossed over a key part. Where before his experiment he would wake up tired and feeling hung over. To me this is a sign of poor sleep habits and/or waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle. I've had better sleep habits and have been waking up refreshed after I paid attention to the needs of my body. I go to bed at a consistent time, 10:30, fall asleep by 11, and wake up 7am. I've been doing it consistently now for the past 3 months. I have the phone alarm set and usually wake up a few minutes before it goes off. Phones are a distraction, but the real goal should be in learning to make them work for you. Going cold turkey feels like a bandaid solution to a larger problem of learning to change your habits.
- Starwatcher2001 10y ago
  I do similar, bed around 10pm and sleep until I wake naturally. I have my watch alarm set for 7:30am (just in case), but haven't needed it for months. I just wake up when my body is ready, usually around 5:30am. Not having an alarm jolting me awake and letting my body wake at the right time in my sleep cycle has made a big difference to the energy I have, especially at the start of the day. I hit the office at 6:30am, couple of golden hours to go deep without the phone ringing... and home every evening on time.
forgottenpass 10y ago
Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics. Does nobody notice when they're writing software with features designed around user "engagement" and "retention" that they're doing a disservice to their users? If not outright building addictions? I think a most developers do notice pieces of it, but don't connect the dots and/or rationalize it with some "mutual benefit" mental hand-waving. Taking ethics seriously would force us to confront the idea of software built for addiction. Show us how to spot it, and remove the mental wiggle room to minimize it. There is a set of common software practices that rise from iterating designs and throwing ideas up to A/B test that are so psychologically manipulative it would seen as downright sociopathic if it was planned from the get-go. - I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but if we can't even get rid of those, what chance do we have overall?
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics. What good is that going to do? Software developers write software that they're told to. If you say "this is unethical and I'm not doing it", your employer will fire you on the spot and find someone else. Also, what you're talking about is something that's far more visible to someone working at a high level, e.g. the architect. An individual developer not only has no real power to change the system design, he also has limited visibility.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics. What good is that going to do? Software developers write software that they're told to. If you say "this is unethical and I'm not doing it", your employer will fire you on the spot and find someone else. Also, what you're talking about is something that's far more visible to someone working at a high level, e.g. the architect. An individual developer not only has no real power to change the system design, he also has limited visibility.
timsayshey 10y ago
If you want to go nuclear you can add OpenDNS to your router and block specific sites or categories of sites. This will work for all devices on your network, android, iphone, laptops, etc. Or edit your hosts file and 127.0.0.1 the sites you want to block. To do this on android you have to root or you install Firefox and add Ublock Origin and blacklist the sites you don't want.
wriggler 10y ago
I found myself spending far too much time on my iPhone, and most of this time was spent using Safari and Twitter for mindless browsing. My approach to this was to uninstall all "problematic" apps, especially Twitter. Then I used my iPhone's Restrictions settings to hide Safari, and to prevent the installation of new apps. I then asked a friend to set a passcode on "Restrictions" so that I was unable to reinstall Safari, Twitter or anything else even if I wanted to. After a few weeks, I got hold of the passcode again (to install something "essential" :)) but I have never since reinstalled Safari or Twitter. The habit was broken. Result: no longer do I walk down the street browsing the news, nor do I find myself staying up too late browsing in bed. It's been a positive change for me.
dbg31415 10y ago
Traveling... driving to new places, exploring new cities... I know we had maps in the past but man... I just cringe at having to plot routes manually. Anyone have a reliable solution that isn't a smartphone for this? I have an old GPS I could fire up, but I think the battery is dead and not sure it works when it's not plugged into my car...

There's actually some really solid advice in here – I never thought about Android as being "better" for reducing distractions, but the amount of control you can get over not having self-control seems useful. Apple, on the other hand, is busy trying to get you to open as many apps as you can every time by resisting adding change to the home screen, outside of those luring red (1) icons that show up constantly, often for no reason. I might consider switching to a Pixel for this alone.

alexwoodcreates 10y ago
Thanks - I got so frustrated with Apple not making it easy for me to control my own addiction. Good luck with the switch! Alex
seltzered_ 10y ago
I'm about to switch to an iphone (oddly been a cocoa/mac developer while being a android user for years), and have been a bit worried that it'll be a more distracting experience while watching friends more engaged with their phones than conversatin at dinner. This said, here's my tentative iphone-specific plan on managing myself from becoming addicted: - Generally, don't keep social apps on the phone. Use the web versions with content blockers. - Email: keep using gmail's importance filtering and set notifications only for 'important' messages - been doing this for years and it's mostly worked fine. - Content blockers - find a safari content blocker that lets me block social sites at certain times, or write one myself. - Keep using a smartwatch - I really like using my pebble to let me minimize phone use, ideally I can still do voice replies like I can on android.
soylentcola 10y ago
This is clearly a personal preference/weighting but one of the reasons I've always leaned toward Android is not so much because it "succeeds" better than iOS but because I find that it "fails" better, in that they both do what you want for the most part when using as the OS or app developer intends. But when I want to make a device do something other than the default behavior, I find that easier to do on Android. iOS has made some real leaps in this realm over the past few years and no longer do I need to jailbreak to make most of my common changes and alterations, but it's still been enough to keep me leaning toward Android.

dredmorbius 10y ago

1. Scrap your smartphone. 2. If you must, carry a dumbphone. 3. Keep that off except when necessary. 4. If you must have a device, consider either an ultralight laptop (vastly preferable: they are in fact generative devices) or a tablet, with severely pruned apps, and no G4 / cellular internet (WiFi only). I'm increasingly a fan of paper-based records and tracking systems -- index cards, etc. For books and research, online has certain advantages, largely bulk and weight -- I can carey a fairly formidable library in the palm of my hand, though the access, interface, and organisation leave much to be desired. I'm inclined to say there is no generally acceptable mobile device or OS presently, though I somewhat favour iOS over Android for a better privacy and surveillance environment. Whatever CyanogenMod calls itself this week might be slightly favourable. What I'd prefer is a generally tablet/folio form-factor (e.g., non-wired, non-integral keyboard, lapable or tablet mode, and no, Windows Surface doesn't work either, though it's a fair start -- rubber keyboards aren't acceptable), but running a Real Operating System (e.g., Linux). I'm keeping an eye on what's coming from Ubuntu, though without much hope.

twostoned 10y ago
I honestly love reading stuff like this, especially on a tech board like HN. Sometimes these days I feel like I'm not allowed to be disconnected. It is beautifully refreshing to hear about others who think that it's okay. Let's find ways to use tech to our advantage and not have it control our lives.
- alexwoodcreates 10y ago
  Thanks! Loved writing it - I've been a tech writer for over 10 years and something just snapped with me. Feel so much better now I'm disconnected and back in the driving seat.
- iamatworknow 10y ago
  I think working with computers breeds a sort of contempt for them and you start looking for alternatives. One of my hobbies is photography, and lately all I've wanted to do is shoot film. My big DSLRs can do some amazing things, but there's something about being limited to between 12 and 36 images, advancing the film by hand, controlling every aspect of the exposure, and standing at my kitchen sink for half an hour developing each roll that makes rattling off a thousand images in a blink then sitting in front of yet another screen a lot less appealing. I'm already sitting at a computer for 40 or more hours per week, why add another if I don't have to?

bungie4 10y ago

My Nexus 5 is circling the drain. When it finally goes, I'll be going back to my Sony-Ericsson feature phone. A quarter the size of my Nexus and true 14 day battery life. It's a pain in the ass to text on, and thats a good thing. After 30+ years in IT, I'm turning into a Luddite.

Finnucane 10y ago
Me, too. When I was younger, I liked being an early adopter. Now I am turning into a curmudgeon. IoT? Who needs that crap. I want things to work for me, not the other way around. This is one of the reasons I still maintain a wet darkroom--it is one of the ways I can be completely disconnected. (Even being out on my bike doesn't do that-- I take my phone with me and use the GPS maps instead of paper maps.)
- bungie4 10y ago
  I hear you about the bike, I'm a LD rider (FJR). I travel with my Sena wired up to my phone (for calls and tunes - even though I don't ever recall listening to tunes while riding.) and my GPS for in-ear directions. Over the last couple of years, if the batteries dead in my Sena, oh well. Getting lost is kind of the point :D

6d6b73 10y ago

Few more ideas that helped me - Remove Play Store replace with FDroid - makes it harder to find and install crappy apps like FB, Snapchat etc. - Install AFWall+ or other firewall and make sure you disable internet access for most apps

bsharitt 10y ago

I deleted my Twitter account, removed my Instagram and Facebook apps. I trimmed my Facebook account down to only my local table top gaming groups while deleting friends and family(who aren't associated with previously mentioned groups). I've disabled all notifications on my phone other than SMS(and the people who have my number is a small group). It's greatly reduced the amount of time I spend on my phone(and on social media off the phone too) now that it's not constantly alerting me to look at it. I won't be replacing it with a dumb phone because there are still plenty of times it's a useful tool, but now it's a tool that stays in my pocket until it's actually needed rather than a focus of activity itself.

kome 10y ago

I don't use a cellphone, AMA. I have a "Nokia 101" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_101) for emergency situations tho.

backpropaganda 10y ago
How do you manage if you needed to use Uber or Google Maps? Unfortunately, for me, these two apps are the only absolute reasons why I can't seem to abandon my smartphone.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  It's easy. For Uber, you don't use it, and you use cabs instead. Just use a convenient landline phone (or a pay phone) to call a local cab company and wait for them to send a cab. You might have to wait an hour or so, but that's no problem. For Google Maps, you instead buy a paper map, and then navigate with that unfolded while you're driving. Easy. /s
amorphid 10y ago
Without Google Maps, or functional equivalent, or do you ever manage to find your way anywhere? When I think about leaving the getting rid of my phone, my first thought is that not having maps would suck. I planned a bus trip from Point A to Point B yesterday, and without a phone, that would have sucked. And I like Lyft a lot. It'd be a pain to get rid of that.
- backpropaganda 10y ago
  Funny how we both asked exactly the same question. I wonder if there's a niche for making phones which just have the basics + Maps and Uber/Lyft. Perhaps Uber or Lyft should try to make such "devices".
  - CalRobert 10y ago
    A GPS (Tomtom, garmin, etc.) with access to transit feeds would be really useful. We already have a standard for transmitting traffic information via FM radio; maybe it could be put to use transmitting bus/train info as well? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_message_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_message_channel Phones are pretty good at nav but I still really like having a standalone GPS.

overcast 10y ago

While I haven't gone cold turkey with my iPhone, I started to take the first steps a couple years ago. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and any other social app thing. All gone. Deleted the accounts. I've blocked ALL comments, except for essentially Hacker News, in all of my browsers. I disabled all notifications on my phone, except for actual incoming phone calls. All sounds are disabled, in fact the phone runs on mute permanently. The phone gets plugged in a couple hours before bed time, in the other room. I don't check anything on the phone, until I get to work. Even the Kindle has been relegated to be ONLY for flights. I've bought tons of hardcover novels in the last two years. I don't think getting rid of smart phones is necessary, just much better management. They've definitely saved my ass in more ways than one.

kraftman 10y ago
Why has the kindle been relegated in favor of hardcovers?
- overcast 10y ago
  I want real paper, not a glowing interface.
  - FreezerburnV 10y ago
    Why not get an older eInk one that doesn't glow? Reads better in sunlight too. (I'm actually thinking about doing similar so I can read books I buy off Amazon away from my phone)
    - overcast 10y ago
      Because I just want to read a real book. Disconnect from technology as much as possible in my day.
      - FreezerburnV 10y ago
        Fair enough, and I respect that! I have a good number of real books that I need to read as well. I guess the only real use case for using Amazon books for me currently is airplanes, where the bulk of books gets unwieldy for shoving under the seat in front of me.

soylentcola 10y ago

Honestly, I just don't install Facebook, Twitter, etc. so I only open the mobile or desktop sites when I want to read them (not every time I get a notification). Otherwise, I just keep notifications off for most things other than work email and leave my phone on silent for the vast majority of the time. I still get calls and messages but I'm not constantly being pulled away from what I'm doing because my phone is beeping again. As an ADHD-type person, it's one of many ways I've found to reduce distraction and interruption when I need or want to be doing something else. I do leave a charger at my bedside (and my desk, and my car, etc...basically anywhere I plan to be sitting for more than an hour at a time). This is probably just a throwback to the early smartphone days when you needed to keep your device topped off whenever possible since you never knew when you might need to (gasp) use it and kill the battery in a few hours. Not really an issue nowadays but the habit remains. Still, silent/quiet hours make a big difference.

Bartweiss 10y ago
This is basically my approach too, and I haven't felt any need to step it up to the things in the article. I keep phone chargers at work and by the bed, but I've got an old phone that I don't trust to wake me up. At night, Twilight and silent mode mean I'm not having my sleep delayed or interrupted. During the day, texts and calls get vibrate, but everything else just gets a status bar icon. My news apps are slow to change (BBC) and social media only gets opened in browser via links. Problem solved.

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ptrptr 10y ago

What helped me personally was buying phone with smaller screen - iPhone SE have all the features of bigger phone I've might ever need but due to 4 inch screen I tend to use it as little as possible. For me it's more private communication device than internet machine - that what phone was suppose to be.

vinay427 10y ago
This sounds like an interesting factor that I want to experiment with. I anecdotally have been using my phone far more than before (and more than desired) since I switched to a phone with a display about 6 inches in size.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
I'm really hoping Google will soon realize some people prefer 4 inch screens and make a Nexus. I'm guessing it'll be another year before we find out.

0x445442 10y ago

This is a great opportunity to make Blackberry great again! 1.) Great for calling and texting. 2.) Useful in a good way for email. 3.) Not enough apps available to be annoying.

kraftman 10y ago

It's funny how these articles always go completely over the top rather than being about learning self control. Buying too much stuff? Cancel amazon prime, throw away everything you own, go full digital nomad and spend the rest of your life moving from airbnb to airbnb so you can never own more than you can carry. On your smartphone too much? Man up! Don't just turn off notifications, delete the apps completely! Throw away your smartphone! Social media destroying your life? Delete it all, it's the only way! If you're really addicted to something I think it will take more than just these articles to help you, if not then you surely you can 'man up' enough to control yourself?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
My analogous example is when I quit (behaviorally) drinking. Time was I'd come home, crack open a beer, make/order dinner, open a beer, eat dinner, open a beer, watch tv, open a beer. I knew it wasn't good for me but I enjoyed it at the time and didn't really care about the ramifications. At least, I didn't care enough to stop. After a particularly uncomfortable combination of beer and Mexican food, however, my system was so shocked that I swore off drinking entirely, at least until I got better. After a few weeks I had my first sip of alcohol again and realized I didn't actually enjoy it: I was mostly drinking out of inertia. I rarely drink now. If my mother is in town I can guzzle a bottle of wine over dinner and then stay dry for weeks without wanting even a sip of sake. The problem was never the alcohol to me. The problem was the habit. I imagine the same for smartphone addiction (or, perhaps, "compulsive use"): the problem is not the smartphone - it's the habit.
- YCode 10y ago
  It was a long time ago and I wish I was less foggy on the details but I read this comment on Reddit by a purported neuroscientist or some such who was talking about how we don't actually enjoy social media. They described basically what you've said. We take the actions and get the tiny reward and our brain gets a little jolt of there you did it but when it comes right down to it we don't actually enjoy the activity. More importantly, we're no more satisfied when we finish the activity than we were when we started, we just do it because we've become conditioned to. I suppose a more concrete source would be the Extra Credits video on Skinner Boxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

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bda5 10y ago

Contrary to this article, there is an easy way to block apps - and websites - on iOS. There's an app called Freedom that lets you create lists of sites that you'd like to block. Once blocked, their apps will not work either. I find it to be a phenomenal way of increasing my focus. When I compulsively grab my smartphone and realize that my usual time-waster sites and apps are blocked, I just put it right back down. Unfortunately it does cost money, but they regularly run promotions up to half-off on their "forever" plan.

kenjackson 10y ago

Am I the only that never really physically feels better doing these extreme things? I recently went with no sugar for January (my New Years Resolution). I actually ate some sugar, but it had to be "natural" (in fruits/vegetables) and no artificial sweeteners allowed. Everyone else who had done it (on the internet) spoke of how much better they felt after doing it. After a month I felt like I did before I started. I felt fine, but nothing special. I didn't feel bad before I started, but people described how incredible it made them feel and it didn't do that for me at all. I felt the same. The first day of February I had teriyaki chicken for lunch and had a snack of M&Ms. I felt completely the same. I also tried going vegan before and gluten free (both for time periods shorter than a month), and neither did anything either. I get that all these things may be healthier, but they didn't make me feel any better. Reading this guys account, I have a hard time believing that using my phone less would make me feel much better either. That said, I have been turning more notifications off as I do agree that there is very little that justifies interrupting what I'm doing to look at that app.

Arizhel 10y ago
Everyone's body is different, and there's so many variables: age, fitness level, etc., so the sugar thing may work for some people and not be noticeable to you. Personally, FWIW, I had a bit of a weight problem ~12 years ago, and I was drinking soda a lot every day. I cut out the soda, among other things, and no longer have a weight problem. I attribute much of it to the sodas; there's a lot of calories there, and no fiber (as in fruit) to help you moderate it. The gluten free diet isn't likely to help you at all unless you have a problem with gluten. Gluten-free foods are NOT healthier (in fact, quite possible the opposite, to a small extent, according to recent research). The only reason to eat GF food is because you have Crohn's disease or some other gluten intolerance, which affects I believe about 5% of the population or so. If you don't have any of these problems, then stick with gluten. Vegan diets are not healthier. The main reason people adopt these is because they don't believe animals should be used for food, including animal products (eggs, milk, cheese, etc.). It's not for health. Of course, too many eggs isn't healthy either, so you might get some side-effect here, depending on what animal products you were eating before and how much, but this isn't the goal of veganism, it's all about an extreme view of using animals and their products as human food. If you think that meat is bad for you (which again isn't scientifically supported; we're omnivores), you can always just adopt a vegetarian diet. Or, if you think you're eating too much red meat (which is a common problem with Americans), you can always just eat less of it, instead of adopting an extreme diet. It sounds to me like you're young (under 30) and healthy, so of course you're not going to notice any difference with various diets unless they're cutting out something you really need or not supplying you enough calories.

titanix2 10y ago

Article advice #5 is totally the opposite of what I do: because my email app (outlook) categorize important messages and only display notifications from them I can keep my mailbox closed while working on the PC. Surprisingly buying an Apple Watch greatly reduce the time I spend on my phone and the stress related to where it lies on my house: I don't need to be close of it anymore and notifications are displayed as a red dot. If a notification is irrelevant* I can dismiss it on the spot without any temptation to use the phone for something else. * I already highly curated app allowed to notify me. Only mail & chat (fb messenger, Line, etc.) apps remains.

analogmemory 10y ago

The comments so far seem to be in response to ways that phones and other tech distract us. I feel like the author glossed over a key part. Where before his experiment he would wake up tired and feeling hung over. To me this is a sign of poor sleep habits and/or waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle. I've had better sleep habits and have been waking up refreshed after I paid attention to the needs of my body. I go to bed at a consistent time, 10:30, fall asleep by 11, and wake up 7am. I've been doing it consistently now for the past 3 months. I have the phone alarm set and usually wake up a few minutes before it goes off. Phones are a distraction, but the real goal should be in learning to make them work for you. Going cold turkey feels like a bandaid solution to a larger problem of learning to change your habits.

Starwatcher2001 10y ago
I do similar, bed around 10pm and sleep until I wake naturally. I have my watch alarm set for 7:30am (just in case), but haven't needed it for months. I just wake up when my body is ready, usually around 5:30am. Not having an alarm jolting me awake and letting my body wake at the right time in my sleep cycle has made a big difference to the energy I have, especially at the start of the day. I hit the office at 6:30am, couple of golden hours to go deep without the phone ringing... and home every evening on time.

forgottenpass 10y ago

Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics. Does nobody notice when they're writing software with features designed around user "engagement" and "retention" that they're doing a disservice to their users? If not outright building addictions? I think a most developers do notice pieces of it, but don't connect the dots and/or rationalize it with some "mutual benefit" mental hand-waving. Taking ethics seriously would force us to confront the idea of software built for addiction. Show us how to spot it, and remove the mental wiggle room to minimize it. There is a set of common software practices that rise from iterating designs and throwing ideas up to A/B test that are so psychologically manipulative it would seen as downright sociopathic if it was planned from the get-go. - I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but if we can't even get rid of those, what chance do we have overall?

Arizhel 10y ago
>Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics. What good is that going to do? Software developers write software that they're told to. If you say "this is unethical and I'm not doing it", your employer will fire you on the spot and find someone else. Also, what you're talking about is something that's far more visible to someone working at a high level, e.g. the architect. An individual developer not only has no real power to change the system design, he also has limited visibility.
Arizhel 10y ago
>Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics. What good is that going to do? Software developers write software that they're told to. If you say "this is unethical and I'm not doing it", your employer will fire you on the spot and find someone else. Also, what you're talking about is something that's far more visible to someone working at a high level, e.g. the architect. An individual developer not only has no real power to change the system design, he also has limited visibility.

timsayshey 10y ago

If you want to go nuclear you can add OpenDNS to your router and block specific sites or categories of sites. This will work for all devices on your network, android, iphone, laptops, etc. Or edit your hosts file and 127.0.0.1 the sites you want to block. To do this on android you have to root or you install Firefox and add Ublock Origin and blacklist the sites you don't want.

wriggler 10y ago

I found myself spending far too much time on my iPhone, and most of this time was spent using Safari and Twitter for mindless browsing. My approach to this was to uninstall all "problematic" apps, especially Twitter. Then I used my iPhone's Restrictions settings to hide Safari, and to prevent the installation of new apps. I then asked a friend to set a passcode on "Restrictions" so that I was unable to reinstall Safari, Twitter or anything else even if I wanted to. After a few weeks, I got hold of the passcode again (to install something "essential" :)) but I have never since reinstalled Safari or Twitter. The habit was broken. Result: no longer do I walk down the street browsing the news, nor do I find myself staying up too late browsing in bed. It's been a positive change for me.

dbg31415 10y ago

Traveling... driving to new places, exploring new cities... I know we had maps in the past but man... I just cringe at having to plot routes manually. Anyone have a reliable solution that isn't a smartphone for this? I have an old GPS I could fire up, but I think the battery is dead and not sure it works when it's not plugged into my car...