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I did two things recently cause I've wasted just about half my life on reddit: - Blocked reddit at a dns level across my entire network via pihole (I run a per

I did two things recently cause I've wasted just about half my life on reddit: - Blocked reddit at a dns level across my entire network via pihole (I run a personal vlan so the rest of the house network wasn't affected). - Disable my internet completely on this vlan after working hours via a schedule in pfsense. I get around the reddit block sometimes by enabling a VPN, which is only a few button clicks. But since this work around causes me extra steps, it makes me pause to think 'do I really want to aimlessly browse reddit?' which the answer is usually no, so I usually stop in my tracks there and get back to work/whatever. The entire internet being cut was more about configuring a sleep schedule instead of blocking dopamine. The big take away: make it hard to access the content. The extra step makes you mindful of your time.

hh3k0 5y ago
Personally, I found Leechblock to provide adequate extra steps for what you're describing. I agree with your point, what generally needs to be done is adding some sort of brain-teasing inconvenience. Adding some sort of "roadblock" against your brain going auto-pilot is what always helped me making more conscious decisions.
- slickdork 5y ago
  I tried leechblock as well and it works well, but I ended up getting around it too easy. Setting up a barrier at the network level worked better for my brain.
qwerty456127 5y ago
> Blocked reddit Seems a rather bad idea to me because the most practically valuable search results you can get from Google usually are yielded when you add site:reddit.com to the search query.
- slickdork 5y ago
  Yes, I've ran into that issue. If I'm trying to solve a problem and reddit's the only source of a solution, that's when I enable the VPN.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Sounds reasonable. Adding an extra step of complexity on the way to getting there can probably make a difference and make you less likely to go there when you don't really need to.
- b3morales 5y ago
  I've used rule-based blockers in the past that would let me block the home/feed pages of sites but not individual article pages. That way search links still work but I can't go zombie out. Might be worth a try.
lawlorino 5y ago
Reddit is also my biggest weakness, though in my opinion it's a special case of social media where it can be (occasionally) a very useful source for information. Coincidentally there's another thread on the front page right now about how Google search results have become increasingly worse quality over the last few years [0], I often find myself adding "site:reddit.com" to search queries to weed out all the crappy clickbait and algo-generated sites that seem to permeate the first few pages of search results these days. It's definitely not without it's problems (e.g. I'm certain there are company-managed accounts stealth promoting products in smaller subreddits, so take any product recommendations with a grain of salt) but I do seem to trust content on reddit more than what I get through googling general queries. And I don't think I can say all this stuff without reflecting on how it's a really sad state of affairs and shaking my fist angrily at adtech which is probably how we arrived in this situation. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136 Edit: Just saw there's another reply to this posted while I wrote the above which highlights the same problem. It's certainly a space which is begging for some disruption.

hh3k0 5y ago

Personally, I found Leechblock to provide adequate extra steps for what you're describing. I agree with your point, what generally needs to be done is adding some sort of brain-teasing inconvenience. Adding some sort of "roadblock" against your brain going auto-pilot is what always helped me making more conscious decisions.

slickdork 5y ago
I tried leechblock as well and it works well, but I ended up getting around it too easy. Setting up a barrier at the network level worked better for my brain.

qwerty456127 5y ago

> Blocked reddit Seems a rather bad idea to me because the most practically valuable search results you can get from Google usually are yielded when you add site:reddit.com to the search query.

slickdork 5y ago
Yes, I've ran into that issue. If I'm trying to solve a problem and reddit's the only source of a solution, that's when I enable the VPN.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Sounds reasonable. Adding an extra step of complexity on the way to getting there can probably make a difference and make you less likely to go there when you don't really need to.
b3morales 5y ago
I've used rule-based blockers in the past that would let me block the home/feed pages of sites but not individual article pages. That way search links still work but I can't go zombie out. Might be worth a try.

lawlorino 5y ago

Reddit is also my biggest weakness, though in my opinion it's a special case of social media where it can be (occasionally) a very useful source for information. Coincidentally there's another thread on the front page right now about how Google search results have become increasingly worse quality over the last few years [0], I often find myself adding "site:reddit.com" to search queries to weed out all the crappy clickbait and algo-generated sites that seem to permeate the first few pages of search results these days. It's definitely not without it's problems (e.g. I'm certain there are company-managed accounts stealth promoting products in smaller subreddits, so take any product recommendations with a grain of salt) but I do seem to trust content on reddit more than what I get through googling general queries. And I don't think I can say all this stuff without reflecting on how it's a really sad state of affairs and shaking my fist angrily at adtech which is probably how we arrived in this situation. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136 Edit: Just saw there's another reply to this posted while I wrote the above which highlights the same problem. It's certainly a space which is begging for some disruption.