7 ms·

I'm starting to get annoyed with these articles. Most people cannot use things like smartphones and Facebook "responsibly". To think you can compete with compan

by tharne 5y ago

I'm starting to get annoyed with these articles. Most people cannot use things like smartphones and Facebook "responsibly". To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. It's like telling a heroin addict to "rethink your relationship with heroin and use it more moderately". The only realistic way to reduce the grip of the these technologies on your mind is to use fewer of them and completely opt out of the worst offenders, like FaceBook, and TickTok. I've deleted most of my social media accounts at this point and gone back to a more basic phone and my life is noticeably better for it. Sure there are some inconveniences and some people think I'm a weirdo, but it seems like a small price to pay to get my brain back. So much of the power these technologies have over us is not that they're so useful or wonderful, but that there's a social expectation that we use them, i.e. people sending social invites via FaceBook, stigma against the "green bubble people", etc. We use them initially because of social pressure and then get hooked. If even a small and stubborn minority opted out of some of these technologies, say 9% of the population, reasonably distributed across ages and demographics, a lot of these expectations would disappear or at least reduce.

derwiki 5y ago
What basic phone did you switch to? I ended up getting a cellular Apple watch because it’s “smart” enough but no distraction apps (unless you count iMessage)
- tharne 5y ago
  The Sunbeam F1 Orchid: https://sunbeamwireless.com/ https://sunbeamwireless.com/ It's WAY more basic than most people are willing to live with, but it's been working surprisingly well for me. Like I said in my original comment, there are definitely some inconveniences, no way around that, but it's been worth it. Honestly, the biggest downside to using a flip phone is that you start noticing exactly how much people are on their phones and it becomes both creepy and annoying. You start to feel like you're the last man standing in a zombie movie. One thing I particularly like about the Sunbeam phone is that it's sold my a small American company with amazing customer service. I asked a question about the phone via the contact form on the website and got a prompt and very thoughtful answer from one of the owner's of the company.
  - benedikt 5y ago
    what’s the camera like ?
    - tharne 5y ago
      I'd classify it as "not bad, but not nearly as good as your iPhone"
- paganel 5y ago
  Not the OP but I'm personally using an iPhone SE. It's good enough for HackerNews and i.reddit.com but when it comes to apps like FB or Instagram I get bored pretty quickly, maybe the smaller screen plays a part in that, I can't tell exactly.
  - tharne 5y ago
    I used the SE for a long time too, for the exact same reason, the small screen. It's a fantastic phone. I have a fairly addictive personality when it comes to tech so I had to end up taking more extreme measures.
  - dont__panic 5y ago
    Still using a 2016 SE. I'm convinced that the small screen encourages me to read more text content (by discouraging me from consuming image content since it's only an OK viewing experience). And whether or not a site is unusable on the SE's 4" screen is an excellent litmus test of whether that site is worth visiting in the first place. Sites with giant popup banners that are so wide the "x" in the corner is off my screen? Not worth my time anyway.
    - ramesh31 5y ago
      >Still using a 2016 SE. Same. And I've got 2 new ones in the box sitting in my closet should this one break. I'll never buy a new phone again until Apple releases another 4 inch screen. The new "mini" iPhones are literally the size of an iPhone 6.
  - redisman 5y ago
    I’m on the SE and it’s really not curbing my addictions at all. Everything works if somewhat painful because it’s a bit smaller. I think I’ll need something much more restricted
rmah 5y ago
Um, I use social media "responsibly" and it's quite easy. I look at various social media sites I'm on perhaps two or three times a week. Takes up maybe 30 minutes of my time a week. I feel no addictive urge to use them more. Most people I know may use them a bit more, but not much. The only adults that I know who use social media a lot more do it for work. I submit that the majority of adults use social media sites are using them "responsibly" (i.e. occasionally and non-obsessively). My opinion (with no real evidence) is that the addictiveness is overblown for most adults.
- tharne 5y ago
  Perhaps we run in different circles. I constantly notice compulsive smart phone use. At work it's very common to see 8 people load into an elevator and like clockwork 6 or 7 of them will instantly pull out their phones. Any little piece of downtime where folks might have to be alone with their thoughts, or make small talk with people they don't already know, you can see people mindlessly grabbing their phones. You see this in line at the grocery store, kids and adults in school while do this while class starts, or the very second it ends. You see a shocking number of people in restaurants who appear to be on dates where both people are glued to their phone. I'd certainly classify that as addictive behavior -- i.e. when a healthy young man is more interested in what's on his phone than he is in the attractive woman sitting across the table from him. Something is very wrong there.
  - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
    Im doing it at this exact moment!
  - adkadskhj 5y ago
    So i agreed with you until: > I'd certainly classify that as addictive behavior -- i.e. when a healthy young man is more interested in what's on his phone than he is in the attractive woman sitting across the table from him. Something is very wrong there. We can definitely debate online life vs "in the flesh" - but it seems small minded to me for you to suggest someones preferences for experience are only the result of unhealthy addiction. Many would argue your allowance of modern life, from TVs to cars to in city restaurants/etc. That you (or that person, i guess) didn't make a home cooked meal, or go experience nature together - to be an addiction to the modern and lacking in down to earth, honest and real connections. Not that i agree with any of that of course. My point is that i think there is a perfectly valid possible course where someone prefers to experience their life in cities, in the woods, or in more virtual spaces. The reality though, and where i agree with you - is that i don't think we actually have a virtual space that _isn't_ fueled entirely be addiction. Powered by highly financed and motivated teams of people. I just think we need to be cognizant of alternative life styles. Just because commonly certain lifestyles result in unhealthy behavior doesn't inherently mean that lifestyle shouldn't be followed at all. If that was the case i think this argument should probably switch to avoiding much of modern life. As it is full of unhealthy habits and poor balances. We'll be living in the woods pretty soon if we can't recognize the possible healthy and balanced ways to live in the unhealthy-unbalanced minefield that is so many alternate forms of life.
Calvin02 5y ago
I think you're cherry picking a bit. How much time do you spend on HN? HN is a social network for folks who are interested in technology and general interest topics -- much like other social networks. Do you think that people can use HN "responsibly"? The feed is algorithmic and designed to surface topics to elicit responses/engagement with the community.
- jetrink 5y ago
  > The feed is algorithmic and designed to surface topics to elicit responses/engagement with the community. I don't think that's entirely fair. For instance, posts with a large number of comments or a high ratio of comments to votes (I can't remember which) are actually penalized, since that is an indicator that the topic is controversial. The flag feature is another example in that it is a way for users to veto low value posts that might otherwise get high engagement.
- tharne 5y ago
  > How much time do you spend on HN? Too much :)
- wpasc 5y ago
  I don't think that's an apt comparison. The difference in degree becomes a difference in kind IMO. HN doesn't send you alerts or notifications that are optimally spaced based on A/B testing. HN isn't personalized per user to maximize each individuals HN time. The HN top doesn't refresh on command and provide a fully new page on each refresh (new topics come up but if you refresh the page every 12 seconds you will see very little change vs any engagement app that always tries to give you something new). HN can be a time draw, but it's based on a somewhat transparent vote/flag system. Features of other social media sites/apps like A/B testing, personalization, variably spaced notifications, daily digests to draw you in are features that are extraordinarily well designed for our dopamine-reward system.
- gnarbarian 5y ago
  hacker News is definitely part of the problem. I've started to use three rules to evaluate habits similar to hacker news. eliminate things that: 1) are unproductive 2) I do not enjoy 3) are pathological (This includes things that float around in your head and create negative thoughts after you do it. coming back to a very negative political argument as an example of this) I'm not perfect at applying them but it has dramatically improved my life because it has given me a tool to evaluate social media use And I have successfully ramped down use of social media that made my life worse.
throwawayswede 5y ago
This kind of article is mostly clickbait at this point. There's a lot of "interest" in these kinds of topics and they attract a lot of attention on -funny enough- the same social media platforms. I believe the main problem with those social media apps is not an issue of time, but of productivity and determination/will-power. Think of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc... These are not social networks exactly, but all contain elements from it. I've deleted my Facebook account about 6 years ago now and slowly got off all the other ones after. Now I only use RSS to follow websites I care about. At first I felt like I'm out of a lot of loops and circles of friends, but I later realized that it was all useless anyway, people who I care about and who cared about me still text or call me. I didn't need to know about every little random thing that happens in the world unless I specifically choose to know about it. It later felt really liberating. People were taking about who marked who safe and I just managed with a text message. People talk endlessly about how good/bad social media is and I'm totally out of the entire conversation. Still to this day I meet people who find it very weird that I'm not on Facebook, or if they are as well not on Facebook then probably because they have Reddit/Tiktok/etc. I can't stress this enough, but I really felt like my productivity was fading away about 6 years ago, after quitting I find the energy to work on the most random stuff that take weeks of work, I don't get interrupted and my interest doesn't fade away from over exposure to random stuff (even if interesting). I've asked friends who felt the same way to try to delete Tiktok (and video games from their PCs) for a month to try to work on something and they all reported great results. Every single one said that they wouldn't have been able to do it if they didn't delete app X. My point is this; it's not about time, it's about what you get exposed to. If you feel unproductive (compared to what you were before) or think "what could 10 minutes on Tiktok do", try deleting these apps one by one. The difficulty won't be the same for all people, but it'll be manageable for EVERYONE. It's not about being on your phone all the time, it's about being on your phone because you want to do something, not just for mindless scrolling. (I intentionally did not mention tracking or privacy reasons from this because that's whole other beast of a topic.) I love this quote from Stephen Fry: > Jacking out of the matrix would cast one as a hero of the kind of dystopian film that proved popular in the 70s, Logan’s Run, Zardoz, Soylent Green, Fahrenheit 451 … on the run from The Corporation, with the foot soldiers of The System hard on your heels. We really are starting to live in that kind of movie, mutatis mutandis, so surely it’s time to join the Rebels, the Outliers, the Others who live beyond the Wall and read forbidden books, sing forbidden songs and think forbidden thoughts in defiance of The One. https://www.stephenfry.com/2016/04/off-the-grid/ https://www.stephenfry.com/2016/04/off-the-grid/
yann2 5y ago
How is HN any different? Endless stream of attention capture just like Tiktok and FB. And the people who point at the pluses sound exactly like ppl on FB and Tiktok. HN is a good laboratory to see if your suggestions work. If it doesnt work on the few thousand here mindlessly scrolling and jabbering away where is it going to work on 2 billion. The chimp troupe is fucked.
- tboyd47 5y ago
  There are some subtle ways HN is different. I think GP's important insight here is that people need to start being selective about their social media engagement and ditching their smartphones entirely. I've used a flip phone for a couple of years now and I would never go back to a smartphone. Having a rich interface to the internet in my pocket is too addictive and does not enrich my life at all. More importantly, I feel like I'm part of the solution to the world's vanishing privacy problem. Yes, I'm just 1 person without a smartphone against 1,000 with smartphones, but by existing this way, I am preserving a lifestyle of deliberate technology use that I know is smarter, healthier, and worth preserving.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    You're not alone, man. I sometimes still use my smartphone, but I'm trying to ditch it completely. It's too tempting, to the extent where it's life-damaging or life-destroying.
MuffinFlavored 5y ago
> to get my brain back. What do you do all day that is so different? I use social media (and this website) to kill time. I have too much time as it is to do nothing/nothing to capture my attention, I don't need more of it just wishing I was doom scrolling on Instagram. At least on this website I learn stuff periodically throughout the day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tharne 5y ago
  > What do you do all day that is so different? I read (paper books) more, exercise more, started doing yoga more frequently. I've made it a point to call friends more too. At this stage in my life, time is at premium so I think we're in very different situations.
  - MuffinFlavored 5y ago
    50%+ of my friend interactions are me staying in touch (text/ messaging) by sending them a funny meme from Instagram
tboyd47 5y ago
Agreed. The tech is just more powerful than the human will. Going back to a basic phone (or even no phone) seems to be the only way out of this.
ramesh31 5y ago
>To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. The problem is that ordinary people have absolutely no concept whatsoever of what all goes into an app like Facebook. They load it on their phones, open it up, and it's just a magical screen that shows them images and text. There's no understanding of it beyond that. They don't know that there is a huge office building in California full of thousands of some of the smartest people on earth who spend their entire working lives and billions of dollars to figure out how to hack your brain more effectively. Big tech really needs the Upton Sinclair treatment. But even then I doubt people will care.

by tharne 5y ago

derwiki 5y ago

What basic phone did you switch to? I ended up getting a cellular Apple watch because it’s “smart” enough but no distraction apps (unless you count iMessage)

tharne 5y ago
The Sunbeam F1 Orchid: https://sunbeamwireless.com/ https://sunbeamwireless.com/ It's WAY more basic than most people are willing to live with, but it's been working surprisingly well for me. Like I said in my original comment, there are definitely some inconveniences, no way around that, but it's been worth it. Honestly, the biggest downside to using a flip phone is that you start noticing exactly how much people are on their phones and it becomes both creepy and annoying. You start to feel like you're the last man standing in a zombie movie. One thing I particularly like about the Sunbeam phone is that it's sold my a small American company with amazing customer service. I asked a question about the phone via the contact form on the website and got a prompt and very thoughtful answer from one of the owner's of the company.
- benedikt 5y ago
  what’s the camera like ?
  - tharne 5y ago
    I'd classify it as "not bad, but not nearly as good as your iPhone"
paganel 5y ago
Not the OP but I'm personally using an iPhone SE. It's good enough for HackerNews and i.reddit.com but when it comes to apps like FB or Instagram I get bored pretty quickly, maybe the smaller screen plays a part in that, I can't tell exactly.
- tharne 5y ago
  I used the SE for a long time too, for the exact same reason, the small screen. It's a fantastic phone. I have a fairly addictive personality when it comes to tech so I had to end up taking more extreme measures.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  Still using a 2016 SE. I'm convinced that the small screen encourages me to read more text content (by discouraging me from consuming image content since it's only an OK viewing experience). And whether or not a site is unusable on the SE's 4" screen is an excellent litmus test of whether that site is worth visiting in the first place. Sites with giant popup banners that are so wide the "x" in the corner is off my screen? Not worth my time anyway.
  - ramesh31 5y ago
    >Still using a 2016 SE. Same. And I've got 2 new ones in the box sitting in my closet should this one break. I'll never buy a new phone again until Apple releases another 4 inch screen. The new "mini" iPhones are literally the size of an iPhone 6.
- redisman 5y ago
  I’m on the SE and it’s really not curbing my addictions at all. Everything works if somewhat painful because it’s a bit smaller. I think I’ll need something much more restricted

rmah 5y ago

Um, I use social media "responsibly" and it's quite easy. I look at various social media sites I'm on perhaps two or three times a week. Takes up maybe 30 minutes of my time a week. I feel no addictive urge to use them more. Most people I know may use them a bit more, but not much. The only adults that I know who use social media a lot more do it for work. I submit that the majority of adults use social media sites are using them "responsibly" (i.e. occasionally and non-obsessively). My opinion (with no real evidence) is that the addictiveness is overblown for most adults.

tharne 5y ago
Perhaps we run in different circles. I constantly notice compulsive smart phone use. At work it's very common to see 8 people load into an elevator and like clockwork 6 or 7 of them will instantly pull out their phones. Any little piece of downtime where folks might have to be alone with their thoughts, or make small talk with people they don't already know, you can see people mindlessly grabbing their phones. You see this in line at the grocery store, kids and adults in school while do this while class starts, or the very second it ends. You see a shocking number of people in restaurants who appear to be on dates where both people are glued to their phone. I'd certainly classify that as addictive behavior -- i.e. when a healthy young man is more interested in what's on his phone than he is in the attractive woman sitting across the table from him. Something is very wrong there.
- ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
  Im doing it at this exact moment!
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  So i agreed with you until: > I'd certainly classify that as addictive behavior -- i.e. when a healthy young man is more interested in what's on his phone than he is in the attractive woman sitting across the table from him. Something is very wrong there. We can definitely debate online life vs "in the flesh" - but it seems small minded to me for you to suggest someones preferences for experience are only the result of unhealthy addiction. Many would argue your allowance of modern life, from TVs to cars to in city restaurants/etc. That you (or that person, i guess) didn't make a home cooked meal, or go experience nature together - to be an addiction to the modern and lacking in down to earth, honest and real connections. Not that i agree with any of that of course. My point is that i think there is a perfectly valid possible course where someone prefers to experience their life in cities, in the woods, or in more virtual spaces. The reality though, and where i agree with you - is that i don't think we actually have a virtual space that _isn't_ fueled entirely be addiction. Powered by highly financed and motivated teams of people. I just think we need to be cognizant of alternative life styles. Just because commonly certain lifestyles result in unhealthy behavior doesn't inherently mean that lifestyle shouldn't be followed at all. If that was the case i think this argument should probably switch to avoiding much of modern life. As it is full of unhealthy habits and poor balances. We'll be living in the woods pretty soon if we can't recognize the possible healthy and balanced ways to live in the unhealthy-unbalanced minefield that is so many alternate forms of life.

Calvin02 5y ago

I think you're cherry picking a bit. How much time do you spend on HN? HN is a social network for folks who are interested in technology and general interest topics -- much like other social networks. Do you think that people can use HN "responsibly"? The feed is algorithmic and designed to surface topics to elicit responses/engagement with the community.

jetrink 5y ago
> The feed is algorithmic and designed to surface topics to elicit responses/engagement with the community. I don't think that's entirely fair. For instance, posts with a large number of comments or a high ratio of comments to votes (I can't remember which) are actually penalized, since that is an indicator that the topic is controversial. The flag feature is another example in that it is a way for users to veto low value posts that might otherwise get high engagement.
tharne 5y ago
> How much time do you spend on HN? Too much :)
wpasc 5y ago
I don't think that's an apt comparison. The difference in degree becomes a difference in kind IMO. HN doesn't send you alerts or notifications that are optimally spaced based on A/B testing. HN isn't personalized per user to maximize each individuals HN time. The HN top doesn't refresh on command and provide a fully new page on each refresh (new topics come up but if you refresh the page every 12 seconds you will see very little change vs any engagement app that always tries to give you something new). HN can be a time draw, but it's based on a somewhat transparent vote/flag system. Features of other social media sites/apps like A/B testing, personalization, variably spaced notifications, daily digests to draw you in are features that are extraordinarily well designed for our dopamine-reward system.
gnarbarian 5y ago
hacker News is definitely part of the problem. I've started to use three rules to evaluate habits similar to hacker news. eliminate things that: 1) are unproductive 2) I do not enjoy 3) are pathological (This includes things that float around in your head and create negative thoughts after you do it. coming back to a very negative political argument as an example of this) I'm not perfect at applying them but it has dramatically improved my life because it has given me a tool to evaluate social media use And I have successfully ramped down use of social media that made my life worse.

throwawayswede 5y ago

This kind of article is mostly clickbait at this point. There's a lot of "interest" in these kinds of topics and they attract a lot of attention on -funny enough- the same social media platforms. I believe the main problem with those social media apps is not an issue of time, but of productivity and determination/will-power. Think of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc... These are not social networks exactly, but all contain elements from it. I've deleted my Facebook account about 6 years ago now and slowly got off all the other ones after. Now I only use RSS to follow websites I care about. At first I felt like I'm out of a lot of loops and circles of friends, but I later realized that it was all useless anyway, people who I care about and who cared about me still text or call me. I didn't need to know about every little random thing that happens in the world unless I specifically choose to know about it. It later felt really liberating. People were taking about who marked who safe and I just managed with a text message. People talk endlessly about how good/bad social media is and I'm totally out of the entire conversation. Still to this day I meet people who find it very weird that I'm not on Facebook, or if they are as well not on Facebook then probably because they have Reddit/Tiktok/etc. I can't stress this enough, but I really felt like my productivity was fading away about 6 years ago, after quitting I find the energy to work on the most random stuff that take weeks of work, I don't get interrupted and my interest doesn't fade away from over exposure to random stuff (even if interesting). I've asked friends who felt the same way to try to delete Tiktok (and video games from their PCs) for a month to try to work on something and they all reported great results. Every single one said that they wouldn't have been able to do it if they didn't delete app X. My point is this; it's not about time, it's about what you get exposed to. If you feel unproductive (compared to what you were before) or think "what could 10 minutes on Tiktok do", try deleting these apps one by one. The difficulty won't be the same for all people, but it'll be manageable for EVERYONE. It's not about being on your phone all the time, it's about being on your phone because you want to do something, not just for mindless scrolling. (I intentionally did not mention tracking or privacy reasons from this because that's whole other beast of a topic.) I love this quote from Stephen Fry: > Jacking out of the matrix would cast one as a hero of the kind of dystopian film that proved popular in the 70s, Logan’s Run, Zardoz, Soylent Green, Fahrenheit 451 … on the run from The Corporation, with the foot soldiers of The System hard on your heels. We really are starting to live in that kind of movie, mutatis mutandis, so surely it’s time to join the Rebels, the Outliers, the Others who live beyond the Wall and read forbidden books, sing forbidden songs and think forbidden thoughts in defiance of The One. https://www.stephenfry.com/2016/04/off-the-grid/ https://www.stephenfry.com/2016/04/off-the-grid/

yann2 5y ago

How is HN any different? Endless stream of attention capture just like Tiktok and FB. And the people who point at the pluses sound exactly like ppl on FB and Tiktok. HN is a good laboratory to see if your suggestions work. If it doesnt work on the few thousand here mindlessly scrolling and jabbering away where is it going to work on 2 billion. The chimp troupe is fucked.

tboyd47 5y ago
There are some subtle ways HN is different. I think GP's important insight here is that people need to start being selective about their social media engagement and ditching their smartphones entirely. I've used a flip phone for a couple of years now and I would never go back to a smartphone. Having a rich interface to the internet in my pocket is too addictive and does not enrich my life at all. More importantly, I feel like I'm part of the solution to the world's vanishing privacy problem. Yes, I'm just 1 person without a smartphone against 1,000 with smartphones, but by existing this way, I am preserving a lifestyle of deliberate technology use that I know is smarter, healthier, and worth preserving.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  You're not alone, man. I sometimes still use my smartphone, but I'm trying to ditch it completely. It's too tempting, to the extent where it's life-damaging or life-destroying.

MuffinFlavored 5y ago

> to get my brain back. What do you do all day that is so different? I use social media (and this website) to kill time. I have too much time as it is to do nothing/nothing to capture my attention, I don't need more of it just wishing I was doom scrolling on Instagram. At least on this website I learn stuff periodically throughout the day.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tharne 5y ago
> What do you do all day that is so different? I read (paper books) more, exercise more, started doing yoga more frequently. I've made it a point to call friends more too. At this stage in my life, time is at premium so I think we're in very different situations.
- MuffinFlavored 5y ago
  50%+ of my friend interactions are me staying in touch (text/ messaging) by sending them a funny meme from Instagram

tboyd47 5y ago

Agreed. The tech is just more powerful than the human will. Going back to a basic phone (or even no phone) seems to be the only way out of this.

ramesh31 5y ago

>To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. The problem is that ordinary people have absolutely no concept whatsoever of what all goes into an app like Facebook. They load it on their phones, open it up, and it's just a magical screen that shows them images and text. There's no understanding of it beyond that. They don't know that there is a huge office building in California full of thousands of some of the smartest people on earth who spend their entire working lives and billions of dollars to figure out how to hack your brain more effectively. Big tech really needs the Upton Sinclair treatment. But even then I doubt people will care.