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It's not so much a function of character as a function of habit. Change your habit triggers to change your behavior. I'm currently going cold turkey on certain

by beat 8y ago

It's not so much a function of character as a function of habit. Change your habit triggers to change your behavior. I'm currently going cold turkey on certain social media (Facebook, Twitter). It's hard, because they're so compulsive - designed to be compulsive (I call my phone my "digital crack pipe"). So I'm addressing my habits. When I come home from work in the evening, I have a habit of going to the kitchen, grabbing a junk food snack, plopping down in my favorite chair, and opening my computer. It's destructive to my eating habits, my productivity, and encourages that nasty social media junkie thing. Even if I'm not on Facebook, I'll be checking Google News, weather, ANYTHING to get my fingers on the keyboard and mouse. So the habit to change? Sitting in my favorite chair when I get home. If I don't sit down in that spot, I don't have a place to eat junk food. I don't have a computer at hand. I have to go do something else.

richmarr 8y ago
> I'm currently going cold turkey on certain social media... Don't you consider HN to be social media?
- rhizome 8y ago
  For me the bare-minimum of required functionality for SM is friending and JWZ's Law, so no.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
    >JWZ's Law Could you expand the acronym? I've never seen it and search results aren't helpful.
    - gpderetta 8y ago
      jwz is Jamie Zawinski[1] of Netscape fame. The law states: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
    - rhizome 8y ago
      Whoops, yeah, I should have used the standard "Zawinsky's Law."
  - beat 8y ago
    I think of it more in terms of deliberately addictive behavior. HN is fun, but it doesn't have basic functions like infinite scrolling. The closest it has to addictive social media behavior is the upvote/downvote buttons. (See Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism for discussion about that problem.)
- beat 8y ago
  It is, but that's why I said "certain social media". Not trying to do it all. If HN started substituting for Facebook, I'd be worried, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
criddell 8y ago
> If I don't sit down in that spot, I don't have a place to eat junk food. Making that change still sounds like a function of character to me.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Some functions of character are easier to perform when we change the environment to encourage them -- that's the parent's the whole point. It's not like suddenly he would give a magic trick that involves no function of character at all.
- beat 8y ago
  It's a different thing... it's a change of habit. When I sit in that spot, I tend to get a snack for it. It doesn't matter whether I'm hungry or not... it's just a thing I do. Eating less snacks is a desirable goal. Eliminating a trigger that causes me to eat snacks is a change of habit. Now, you might say "I want to eat fewer snacks" is a function of character. But without a mechanism, it's about as relevant as "I want a million dollars", or "I want world peace", and only slightly more realistic. So I examine circumstances in which I eat unnecessary snacks, and try to change those circumstances. That's a process. That's a change of habit. And it's much more likely to be effective than anything about "character". This is not an act of willpower.
  - 40acres 8y ago
    I think this is called conditioned place preference. You've associated dopamine hits (junk food, social media, etc.) with the chair. You've also probably conditioned yourself to timing (after work) -- do you go this routine at other times? Say, on the weekend?
    - beat 8y ago
      Yeah. Similar routine in the morning, or on the weekend. Sitting there means goofing off, eating junk food and surfing the web. Which is bad when it also gets used for doing actual work on the computer, like coding. So there are conflicting signals. I'm thinking a lot about triggers as a way to change habits right now.
therealx 8y ago
Not to derail your point, but I do hate when people compare spending time on websites to crack. Its just so far from one another and belittles those who do have a serious drug problem.

by beat 8y ago

richmarr 8y ago

> I'm currently going cold turkey on certain social media... Don't you consider HN to be social media?

rhizome 8y ago
For me the bare-minimum of required functionality for SM is friending and JWZ's Law, so no.
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  >JWZ's Law Could you expand the acronym? I've never seen it and search results aren't helpful.
  - gpderetta 8y ago
    jwz is Jamie Zawinski[1] of Netscape fame. The law states: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
  - rhizome 8y ago
    Whoops, yeah, I should have used the standard "Zawinsky's Law."
- beat 8y ago
  I think of it more in terms of deliberately addictive behavior. HN is fun, but it doesn't have basic functions like infinite scrolling. The closest it has to addictive social media behavior is the upvote/downvote buttons. (See Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism for discussion about that problem.)
beat 8y ago
It is, but that's why I said "certain social media". Not trying to do it all. If HN started substituting for Facebook, I'd be worried, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

criddell 8y ago

> If I don't sit down in that spot, I don't have a place to eat junk food. Making that change still sounds like a function of character to me.

coldtea 8y ago
Some functions of character are easier to perform when we change the environment to encourage them -- that's the parent's the whole point. It's not like suddenly he would give a magic trick that involves no function of character at all.
beat 8y ago
It's a different thing... it's a change of habit. When I sit in that spot, I tend to get a snack for it. It doesn't matter whether I'm hungry or not... it's just a thing I do. Eating less snacks is a desirable goal. Eliminating a trigger that causes me to eat snacks is a change of habit. Now, you might say "I want to eat fewer snacks" is a function of character. But without a mechanism, it's about as relevant as "I want a million dollars", or "I want world peace", and only slightly more realistic. So I examine circumstances in which I eat unnecessary snacks, and try to change those circumstances. That's a process. That's a change of habit. And it's much more likely to be effective than anything about "character". This is not an act of willpower.
- 40acres 8y ago
  I think this is called conditioned place preference. You've associated dopamine hits (junk food, social media, etc.) with the chair. You've also probably conditioned yourself to timing (after work) -- do you go this routine at other times? Say, on the weekend?
  - beat 8y ago
    Yeah. Similar routine in the morning, or on the weekend. Sitting there means goofing off, eating junk food and surfing the web. Which is bad when it also gets used for doing actual work on the computer, like coding. So there are conflicting signals. I'm thinking a lot about triggers as a way to change habits right now.

therealx 8y ago

Not to derail your point, but I do hate when people compare spending time on websites to crack. Its just so far from one another and belittles those who do have a serious drug problem.