6 ms·

This is a refreshingly wholesome startup. Well done! I am really interested in the social media blocking. I have been quitting social media for 5 or 6 years no

This is a refreshingly wholesome startup. Well done! I am really interested in the social media blocking. I have been quitting social media for 5 or 6 years now. The hardest for me was Quora, I think. I don't know why, they where like the mafia: "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in" What worked for me was blocking them on the router and the hosts files[0]. This meant there where two steps to unlocking a blocked site. And for extra friction I used a long router password and don't save it. The longer it takes you to reach the thing, the more opportunity to change your mind. The good news is that social media addiction is relatively quick and painless to cure. I stopped missing them after about a week. And there are a lot of positive outcomes from quitting this stuff (especially for doomscrollers and dopamine junkies ;) I have been quitting a lot of stuff recently like sugar, sweeteners, coffee, carbs and processed food! And for a little while it's rough. Quitting anything will be rough for at least a few days. But as you strip away more sources of artificial dopamine stimulation, the body compensates, or maybe you just become more sensitive to it. Real life starts to give you some of that dopamine buzz that you where chasing online (or in a can of diet soda!) But but now I start to feel little dopamine kicks whenever I take some small positive action like doing some exercise or fasting, or walking past the junk food. [0] crowd sourced hosts files to block ads, social-media and porn: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

zero_billion 5y ago
great to know that you were actually able to quit social media and other heavy dopamine stimulants. this is inspiring! any specific resources/framework/books that helped you along this journey?
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  Off the top of my head no, most of my insight came from observing addiction in others, and experimenting over the course of a decade. However, the two books which I guess started me on this journey are Why We Get Fat by Garry Taube [0] and The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris [1]. Both of these books take a scientific approach to diet (which is governed by habit and addiction, after all). I will say this, I am convinced that for a lot of addictions, all you can do is substitute one addiction for another. But if the new addiction is something healthy, then I think that is fine. But if you do become a diet addict, keep it scientific, don't follow every blogspam diet fad. For social-media, I substituted a typing instructor game. So when ever I felt the urge to go doomscrolling or something, I would fire up a typing game instead. I keep a windows VM on hand just to play TypingMaster. It takes 3-5 minutes to complete one of the training sessions (which is probably less than you would have wasted on twitter). This helps kill the urge, and break the cycle. Plus it makes me a better typist. And when you can do 90wpm on QWERTY, switch to DVORAK. If you have a common chemical addiction like smoking, coffee, pain killers, alchohol then the only safe approach is the taper/step down. Measure how much you take now and then commit to reducing that amount by about 10% per week. So you smoke 18 a day instead of 20 in your first week. That's not so hard, right? Whatever you do, NEVER try cold turkey quitting any chemical, at least not before seeing a doctor. Chemical withdrawals range from terrible headaches for coffee, to deadly DTs from alcohol. [0] http://garytaubes.com/works/books/why-we-get-fat http://garytaubes.com/works/books/why-we-get-fat [1] https://fourhourbody.com https://fourhourbody.com
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    I love your typing idea. I do something similar, but with puzzles on lichess.
  - SkittyDog 5y ago
    "Whatever you do, NEVER try cold turkey quitting any chemical, at least not before seeing a doctor." This is terribly wrong information, to the point of causing more harm to people who take it seriously. The ONLY common addictions that can possibly hurt you physically in withdrawal are Alcohol and Benzodiazapines (Valium, Xanax, Ativan, etc) and a family of related, common tranquilizers). And even then, you have to be a daily user to be at risk of harmful withdrawal... Unless you are actively getting drunk to avoid withdrawal symptoms, you are NOT in this risk group. It is NOT possible to physically hurt yourself by cold-turkey quitting caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA, hallucinogens, or opiates. You may feel like you're gonna die, but you simply cannot hurt yourself due to quitting these substances. Mostly, you'll just be uncomfortable. This distinction is REALLY important, because the fear of withdrawal (and life without a fix, generally) is already hugely terrifying to addicts who realize that they have a problem. But many (too many!) of these people have no access to a trusted doctor, and fear judgement, legal consequences, or termination of care if they seek medical help. Please correct your comment, and stop feeding uninformed myths that have zero medical basis. Educate yourself before you give people any more advice on how to deal with chemical addictions. (FWIW, I'm not a doctor, but I've spent plenty of time in 12-step meetings, and used & quit plenty of drugs.)
    - euthymiclabs 5y ago
      Psychiatrist here. This is true, and most people find recovery eventually without a formal program. Working with a doctor can make it much less comfortable in many cases--and in the case of opioids, can offer several options that can be lifesaving by preventing return to use and overdose.
      - 1_over_n 5y ago
        "This is terribly wrong information, to the point of causing more harm to people who take it seriously." ^ this is generally correct for many of the classes of substances mentioned; however, it is also terribly wrong information concerning Opiate withdrawal. I'm not sure in terms of case numbers - people can and do die from Opiate withdrawal due to vomiting and diarrhea leading to dehydration and/or heart failure due to elevated sodium levels. This is clearly very preventable from a harm reduction perspective with the correct information.
voxic11 5y ago
Do you not consider hackernews to be social media?
- snypher 5y ago
  It can be a dangerous trap to convince oneself that "they have quit before and can quit again if they choose".

zero_billion 5y ago

great to know that you were actually able to quit social media and other heavy dopamine stimulants. this is inspiring! any specific resources/framework/books that helped you along this journey?

irthomasthomas 5y ago
Off the top of my head no, most of my insight came from observing addiction in others, and experimenting over the course of a decade. However, the two books which I guess started me on this journey are Why We Get Fat by Garry Taube [0] and The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris [1]. Both of these books take a scientific approach to diet (which is governed by habit and addiction, after all). I will say this, I am convinced that for a lot of addictions, all you can do is substitute one addiction for another. But if the new addiction is something healthy, then I think that is fine. But if you do become a diet addict, keep it scientific, don't follow every blogspam diet fad. For social-media, I substituted a typing instructor game. So when ever I felt the urge to go doomscrolling or something, I would fire up a typing game instead. I keep a windows VM on hand just to play TypingMaster. It takes 3-5 minutes to complete one of the training sessions (which is probably less than you would have wasted on twitter). This helps kill the urge, and break the cycle. Plus it makes me a better typist. And when you can do 90wpm on QWERTY, switch to DVORAK. If you have a common chemical addiction like smoking, coffee, pain killers, alchohol then the only safe approach is the taper/step down. Measure how much you take now and then commit to reducing that amount by about 10% per week. So you smoke 18 a day instead of 20 in your first week. That's not so hard, right? Whatever you do, NEVER try cold turkey quitting any chemical, at least not before seeing a doctor. Chemical withdrawals range from terrible headaches for coffee, to deadly DTs from alcohol. [0] http://garytaubes.com/works/books/why-we-get-fat http://garytaubes.com/works/books/why-we-get-fat [1] https://fourhourbody.com https://fourhourbody.com
- Y_Y 5y ago
  I love your typing idea. I do something similar, but with puzzles on lichess.
- SkittyDog 5y ago
  "Whatever you do, NEVER try cold turkey quitting any chemical, at least not before seeing a doctor." This is terribly wrong information, to the point of causing more harm to people who take it seriously. The ONLY common addictions that can possibly hurt you physically in withdrawal are Alcohol and Benzodiazapines (Valium, Xanax, Ativan, etc) and a family of related, common tranquilizers). And even then, you have to be a daily user to be at risk of harmful withdrawal... Unless you are actively getting drunk to avoid withdrawal symptoms, you are NOT in this risk group. It is NOT possible to physically hurt yourself by cold-turkey quitting caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA, hallucinogens, or opiates. You may feel like you're gonna die, but you simply cannot hurt yourself due to quitting these substances. Mostly, you'll just be uncomfortable. This distinction is REALLY important, because the fear of withdrawal (and life without a fix, generally) is already hugely terrifying to addicts who realize that they have a problem. But many (too many!) of these people have no access to a trusted doctor, and fear judgement, legal consequences, or termination of care if they seek medical help. Please correct your comment, and stop feeding uninformed myths that have zero medical basis. Educate yourself before you give people any more advice on how to deal with chemical addictions. (FWIW, I'm not a doctor, but I've spent plenty of time in 12-step meetings, and used & quit plenty of drugs.)
  - euthymiclabs 5y ago
    Psychiatrist here. This is true, and most people find recovery eventually without a formal program. Working with a doctor can make it much less comfortable in many cases--and in the case of opioids, can offer several options that can be lifesaving by preventing return to use and overdose.
    - 1_over_n 5y ago
      "This is terribly wrong information, to the point of causing more harm to people who take it seriously." ^ this is generally correct for many of the classes of substances mentioned; however, it is also terribly wrong information concerning Opiate withdrawal. I'm not sure in terms of case numbers - people can and do die from Opiate withdrawal due to vomiting and diarrhea leading to dehydration and/or heart failure due to elevated sodium levels. This is clearly very preventable from a harm reduction perspective with the correct information.

voxic11 5y ago

Do you not consider hackernews to be social media?

snypher 5y ago
It can be a dangerous trap to convince oneself that "they have quit before and can quit again if they choose".