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Just speaking for myself, I've noticed that my habit is to eat what is in front of me, and clean my plate. I mean this both literally and figuratively. If I ha

Just speaking for myself, I've noticed that my habit is to eat what is in front of me, and clean my plate. I mean this both literally and figuratively. If I have dessert in the house, like a bag of chocolate, then I eat one after dinner. If I don't have it in the house, then I just don't eat dessert. If I have a social media feed full of content, then I'll scroll through all of it until there's nothing else that's new. So what I've been doing is not entirely quitting Internet stuff, but instead I just massively unsubscribing, unfollowing, and filtering all the feeds. Sort of a Marie Kondo thing. I go through every subreddit I'm in, every RSS feed, every account I follow on Twitter, and i strongly consider "is this really providing lots of joy and/or value?" If not, it gets the chop. I've cut out at least 2/3s of the stuff I was following since the peak, and it's only going down. Now when I doomscroll it's only for a few minutes. I hit the end of new content very very quickly. When that happens I start to look elsewhere. I've been reading a lot more actual books, done more chores, and been more productive overall. As for the things I unfollowed? They clearly had no value because not only do I not miss them, I can barely even remember what they were.

fma 4y ago
Switching Twitter to timeline mode rather than their poor excuse of an algorithm helps. Learned that from HN....but I have a browser plug-in that also removes all their recommended and "Joe also owed this tweet" junk.
- warkdarrior 4y ago
  Which browser plug is this? It sounds amazingly useful.
  - fma 4y ago
    https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/ https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/ If you need it for mobile, on my mobile (Android) I downloaded Kiwi Browser so I can install that plugin.
- Braini 4y ago
  Funny enough I have the opposite opinion regarding twitter: If I use it in timeline mode I have the urge to read through all of it until where I stopped last time as the OP described (same with my Feedly RSS feed) In algorithm mode its more like a "don't care, its garbled anyway, just a sea of stuff". That being said I am still mostly using timeline mode.
leodriesch 4y ago
Doing the same, but this does not really apply for algorithmic feeds. When you open YouTube the recommendations are always the first thing you see, same for TikTok and Twitter (although at least you can configure it there). Sure you can say “just don’t use recommendation systems” just as you can say “just don’t go on YouTube”.
- kradeelav 4y ago
  You can follow Youtube channels via RSS feeds, though, which removes the issue with recommendations.
  - alexktz 4y ago
    This is the way. https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist
- NoLinkToMe 4y ago
  True, but I exclusively watch YT on laptop and have the link to my subscriptions. It really does help.
- madars 4y ago
  I use the following user stylesheet to hide YouTube recommendations for exactly the reason you mention: /* hide main page */ ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] { display: none; }
  - evergreyskies 4y ago
    Nice. I'll have to incorporate this little gem for the Linux laptop. Thank you. When I'm home, I primarily watch YouTube on my TV, but I don't use YouTube. Rather, I use SmartTubeNext, which grabs the same videos as YouTube, but has no ads, tracking, kills sponsored content in the video, as well as no YouTube recommendations. I'm very happy with it. I run it off my Amazon Firestick. If you're interested, here is the how-to: https://troypoint.com/smarttubenext/ https://troypoint.com/smarttubenext/
Dave_TRS 4y ago
I'm the same way, keep me away from buffets, cupboards containing sweets, and any newsfeed. One thing I've founds success with was getting a digital Economist subscription (confession, just a shared password). Having a steady stream of high quality content without paywall nonsense helped me replace my regular trolling around internet with something more useful and less addictive. Perhaps paying a bit for something high quality can help fill void for those dopamine seeking internet impulses.
- Metalbourne 4y ago
  I've always looked at paywall sites as obnoxious cash grabs that try to reel you in with small samples of quality content... But this makes me look at them differently now. Perhaps the fact that you gave them money allows them to forego excessive advertising and clickbait and provide you with quality content that is actually worth reading because they can focus on creating good content rather than pulling people in with free clickbait and just do anything possible to keep us scrolling and watching ads. The unfortunate part is that it doesn't really make sense to pay money to subscribe to every single website individually... Maybe if google had a quality version of google news... lol
haliskerbas 4y ago
Thought this was just me and it’s so refreshing to hear. I can never eat just part of a bag of chips. Or save the really good sandwhich for later. Or not drink another coffee because I already had one. Etc. etc Do lots of other folks experience this? I seem to only have self control when it hurts my job or income, and even then, barely.
- eterm 4y ago
  I'm similar, but I'm far from neurotypical, so I can't say whether it's typical or not.
- hemreldop 4y ago
- scruple 4y ago
  > Do lots of other folks experience this? I don't think we're alone but I doubt that we're "normal."
  - newbamboo 4y ago
    I’m normal.
    - doubled112 4y ago
      Anybody want to define "normal" ?
    - scruple 4y ago
      I'm Joe, nice to meet you.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  I think a lot of people with ADHD would relate, or have been able to at some point.
  - 4y ago
barbazoo 4y ago
This is great advice. Unsubscribing, especially from the stuff that triggers me, helps me not to waste too much time.
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  Yup, dashcam videos / crashes is a huge time sink which I have to ruthlessly unsubscribe from. It's one of those things where you can feel your blood pressure increase as you watch it.
gigaflop 4y ago
I used to spend a lot of time on youtube, in part because I had the free time to spend on it, and had gaps in my schedule that were convenient for watching certain content creators. Since moving into the workforce, my free time is no longer segmented into so many pieces. I don't get as much value as I used to from 10 to 15 minute chunks of entertainment, so I stop keeping up with the sources, and just lose touch. It isn't that the content I'm leaving behind is bad or 'cheap', it's just that I don't have the time and attention to keep up with most of it. My entertainment time is better spent on stuff that takes longer to engage with/consume, since those bigger things are often more valuable as entertainment.
- uoaei 4y ago
  I'm coming to a realization across all facets of my life, where I am interested or engaged in many more things than I have time for. I am starting to prepare myself for the uncomfortable process of sacrificing a few (in fact, many) things I've previously mentally and emotionally invested in, but I know it's going to be a big shift and the dread causes my feet to drag. There's just not enough time... and I don't believe that the solution is "improve focus and productivity" because that's a fast track to burnout and disengagement for all but the most obsessive of minds.
  - gigaflop 4y ago
    Curiosity can be a curse, and has killed several cats. I may have been on psychedelic mushrooms at the time, but something I took away from the trip was an acknowledgement of a feeling of 'shedding' in life, in terms of hobbies and interests. Stuff will get boring and be forgotten, or fall to the side and be ignored while it collects dust. This is something that I should expect to happen, and be prepared for. So long as you derived some value from those once-great things, it hasn't been a waste, and is just a symptom of time passing. Maybe you pick those things back up later, and maybe you don't. For myself, I think my 'best life' would be one where I had the space and tools to be able to pick up or put down whatever ideas come to me.
    - uoaei 4y ago
uoaei 4y ago
"Out of sight, out of mind" works great for me too. It's staying occupied so that your thoughts don't meander back to that thing, that makes the trick.
- toyg 4y ago
  A lot of addictions are borne and sustained out of boredom. When you find something else to fill time, they can be removed relatively easily.
kixiQu 4y ago
https://tokimeki-unfollow.glitch.me/ https://tokimeki-unfollow.glitch.me/ Presents the Twitter accounts you're following so you can decide whether they "spark joy"... pairs well with https://opml.glitch.me/ https://opml.glitch.me/ Which looks at the accounts you're following, looks at the links in their bios, sees if there's an RSS feed indicated at that link, and puts the whole thing together into an OPML feed (the standard XML-of-RSS-feeds format used for RSS reader import/export, among other things).
- higgins 4y ago
  this tool is great, thank you! i would love if a tool like this were made based on interactions I've had with authors. generally, i like comment or retweet content that "sparks joy". would be a good first pass filter
  - kixiQu 4y ago
    Glitch will let you fork ("remix") and modify -- I don't know if the Twitter APIs are real friendly anymore for that open-ended of use, but it'd be worth trying :)
- dewey 4y ago
  I just spend the past 20 minutes in the unfollow tool. Thanks for helping me waste so much time on the internet!
grvdrm 4y ago
Are there entire feeds that you've deemed too wasteful? I get that you can slash much of what you look at on Twitter and still get what you want. But what about things like Instagram, TikTok, etc. - did you delete those apps altogether or also aggressively trim (if you use them)?
- SamBam 4y ago
  I cut out Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Facebook I left a decade ago, for its ethical issues. Instagram I left because I felt the performance aspect was unhealthy: even in my only-friends-and-family circle, I'd still care too much about picking out the perfect photo of my kid or wherever. For Twitter I realized it was way too easy to get sucked down political/angry feeds. One day Twitter said my account has suspicious activity (maybe a bot tried to log in) and I needed to reply to an email to re-enable it. I never replied to the email. Somehow this meant that every time I followed a Twitter link, I'd get that alert, so I could never see content. I felt so much happier.
dotnet00 4y ago
I noticed the same about myself and have been doing something similar. I haven't been as focused on cutting down things I follow (actually even increasing), instead just paying attention to what I find valuable and aggressively cutting out everything I either dislike or find superfluous and spammy (eg if I see the same post multiple times on my reddit feed, I'll quickly check the poster's profile, if they spam the same content on several subreddits regularly I'll block them even if the content is something I enjoy).
amelius 4y ago
> If I have dessert in the house, like a bag of chocolate, then I eat one after dinner. I think for most with social media the equivalent would be to eat the entire bag.
- helpm33 4y ago
  Yes, he eats one. Bag :)
baby 4y ago
On the other hand I started following only “teaching chinese” accounts on instagram. Whenever I go on instagram I just watch stuff to learn chinese because it’s in my feed.
jbverschoor 4y ago
We are just monkeys smashing buttons in front of us
Forgeties79 4y ago
>I just massively unsubscribing, unfollowing, and filtering all the feeds. Nothing has been more effective for me than this, as well unfriending/following people or accounts that actively make me angry. Had to unfollow like 10 people tops and the quality of my feeds got noticeably better.
fdsfdsafds 4y ago
You're on the path, and the end is almost inevitable - no social media accounts at all, and no smartphone. It's wonderful.
- 331c8c71 4y ago
  Haven't been using social media for more than five years and it doesn't feel like I'm halfway there. Now I am using my smartphone pretty much in the same way I was using my PC when smartphones didn't exist (e.g. 20 years ago): quite a bit of browsing and few comments here and there. It's not that I can't do without smartphone: on holidays I can totally avoid using it for browsing. But that inevitably comes back to "normal". And I'm pretty sure I was distracting myself with literature in a similar way when I was even younger (e.g. 25 yrs ago). I read very fast and hardly retain anything:) Is it in any way healthier? Not so sure, it feels like binge reading is as addictive and unsatisfying -- I do that nowadays (rarely) too.
Vladimof 4y ago
> If I have a social media feed full of content, then I'll scroll through all of it until there's nothing else that's new. I could never do that with Facebook as it is mostly all useless crap and ads
dclowd9901 4y ago
In weight watchers (yes, weight watchers), we classified certain foods as "red flag foods"; these were foods that we _knew_ we could not control ourselves around. The kind of food where you have one, and then suddenly you've finished the bag/box. I tend to agree with you: if it's there, you're going to go for it. We all have things like this. "Cleaning your plate" is a good metaphor, but I'm betting you don't "clean your plate" when it comes to exercise or other things that may be less enjoyable. Identify the things in your life that are red flags, and consciously keep them out of your life. It's hard at first, but soon, you don't even miss them.
lowbloodsugar 4y ago
So many threads on HN are basically "What does neurodiversity look like?"
RC_ITR 4y ago
I think a corollary to this is the relatively modern idea that life needs purpose in the form of measurable accomplishments. Looking back at how most people lived their lives, it was sustenance, interspersed with things like family, religion, and friendship (if you were lucky). Nearly nobody owned much, nearly nobody 'did cool things,' nearly nobody was famous. They all just had a part of life (surviving) that they knew was bad and hard work, then they tried as hard as they could to escape that briefly. Now, we expect work to be fulfilling and non-work to be fulfilling. For the majority of people where that isn't true, it feels really depressing, which is compounded by the fact that society pushes you to spend more time on improving the work side of things (which again for most people will not be intrinsically fulfilling no matter how hard they try), so they end up feeling lonely and sad.
jimbokun 4y ago
There was a study with a soup bowl that would automatically refill, and found people ate a lot more than they would if just given a regular soup bowl. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15761167/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15761167/ It strikes me the Internet is now a bottomless soup bowl of content, and we have know indicators to tell us when we should stop.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- spupe 4y ago
  It's a good analogy, but that study was retracted: https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/16/mindless-eating-brian-wansink-is-there-something-rotten-behind-the-research https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/1...
u2077 4y ago
> my habit is to eat what is in front of me This! I often let my phone run out of battery and avoid plugging it in so I can do other things. From a similar thread, someone mentioned that phones are only good for content consumption. When I’m on the computer, I’m at least somewhat productive and the distractions aren’t quite as strong.
- haxiomic 4y ago
  It’s what’s keeping me running an old phone; short battery life has its advantages!
hinkley 4y ago
In the world of food it was a watershed moment for me in controlling my waistline when I stopped checking the unit price on items at the store. The brain invents its own portion sizes that are more dependent on the size of the container than the total supply. I don't know how you introduce portion control to the Internet, but we definitely need it. Some people have strategies for avoiding a shopping cart full of junk food. I wonder how far you can stretch that into media consumption before the analogy tears.
- number6 4y ago
  Interesting, I had the same thought about the size / price ratio recently. I want most bang for the buck but it kills my waistline
jokethrowaway 4y ago
That happens when I'm depressed, almost word by word. I also treat it in the same way by cutting everything. That doesn't fix the problem though, and eventually I replace the bad habits with new ones. For a proper fix for that you need to solve the underlying causes of your depression.

fma 4y ago

Switching Twitter to timeline mode rather than their poor excuse of an algorithm helps. Learned that from HN....but I have a browser plug-in that also removes all their recommended and "Joe also owed this tweet" junk.

warkdarrior 4y ago
Which browser plug is this? It sounds amazingly useful.
- fma 4y ago
  https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/ https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter/ If you need it for mobile, on my mobile (Android) I downloaded Kiwi Browser so I can install that plugin.
Braini 4y ago
Funny enough I have the opposite opinion regarding twitter: If I use it in timeline mode I have the urge to read through all of it until where I stopped last time as the OP described (same with my Feedly RSS feed) In algorithm mode its more like a "don't care, its garbled anyway, just a sea of stuff". That being said I am still mostly using timeline mode.

leodriesch 4y ago

Doing the same, but this does not really apply for algorithmic feeds. When you open YouTube the recommendations are always the first thing you see, same for TikTok and Twitter (although at least you can configure it there). Sure you can say “just don’t use recommendation systems” just as you can say “just don’t go on YouTube”.

kradeelav 4y ago
You can follow Youtube channels via RSS feeds, though, which removes the issue with recommendations.
- alexktz 4y ago
  This is the way. https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist
NoLinkToMe 4y ago
True, but I exclusively watch YT on laptop and have the link to my subscriptions. It really does help.
madars 4y ago
I use the following user stylesheet to hide YouTube recommendations for exactly the reason you mention: /* hide main page */ ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] { display: none; }
- evergreyskies 4y ago
  Nice. I'll have to incorporate this little gem for the Linux laptop. Thank you. When I'm home, I primarily watch YouTube on my TV, but I don't use YouTube. Rather, I use SmartTubeNext, which grabs the same videos as YouTube, but has no ads, tracking, kills sponsored content in the video, as well as no YouTube recommendations. I'm very happy with it. I run it off my Amazon Firestick. If you're interested, here is the how-to: https://troypoint.com/smarttubenext/ https://troypoint.com/smarttubenext/

Dave_TRS 4y ago

I'm the same way, keep me away from buffets, cupboards containing sweets, and any newsfeed. One thing I've founds success with was getting a digital Economist subscription (confession, just a shared password). Having a steady stream of high quality content without paywall nonsense helped me replace my regular trolling around internet with something more useful and less addictive. Perhaps paying a bit for something high quality can help fill void for those dopamine seeking internet impulses.

Metalbourne 4y ago
I've always looked at paywall sites as obnoxious cash grabs that try to reel you in with small samples of quality content... But this makes me look at them differently now. Perhaps the fact that you gave them money allows them to forego excessive advertising and clickbait and provide you with quality content that is actually worth reading because they can focus on creating good content rather than pulling people in with free clickbait and just do anything possible to keep us scrolling and watching ads. The unfortunate part is that it doesn't really make sense to pay money to subscribe to every single website individually... Maybe if google had a quality version of google news... lol

haliskerbas 4y ago

Thought this was just me and it’s so refreshing to hear. I can never eat just part of a bag of chips. Or save the really good sandwhich for later. Or not drink another coffee because I already had one. Etc. etc Do lots of other folks experience this? I seem to only have self control when it hurts my job or income, and even then, barely.

eterm 4y ago
I'm similar, but I'm far from neurotypical, so I can't say whether it's typical or not.
hemreldop 4y ago
scruple 4y ago
> Do lots of other folks experience this? I don't think we're alone but I doubt that we're "normal."
- newbamboo 4y ago
  I’m normal.
  - doubled112 4y ago
    Anybody want to define "normal" ?
  - scruple 4y ago
    I'm Joe, nice to meet you.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
I think a lot of people with ADHD would relate, or have been able to at some point.
- 4y ago

barbazoo 4y ago

This is great advice. Unsubscribing, especially from the stuff that triggers me, helps me not to waste too much time.

VBprogrammer 4y ago
Yup, dashcam videos / crashes is a huge time sink which I have to ruthlessly unsubscribe from. It's one of those things where you can feel your blood pressure increase as you watch it.

gigaflop 4y ago

I used to spend a lot of time on youtube, in part because I had the free time to spend on it, and had gaps in my schedule that were convenient for watching certain content creators. Since moving into the workforce, my free time is no longer segmented into so many pieces. I don't get as much value as I used to from 10 to 15 minute chunks of entertainment, so I stop keeping up with the sources, and just lose touch. It isn't that the content I'm leaving behind is bad or 'cheap', it's just that I don't have the time and attention to keep up with most of it. My entertainment time is better spent on stuff that takes longer to engage with/consume, since those bigger things are often more valuable as entertainment.

uoaei 4y ago
I'm coming to a realization across all facets of my life, where I am interested or engaged in many more things than I have time for. I am starting to prepare myself for the uncomfortable process of sacrificing a few (in fact, many) things I've previously mentally and emotionally invested in, but I know it's going to be a big shift and the dread causes my feet to drag. There's just not enough time... and I don't believe that the solution is "improve focus and productivity" because that's a fast track to burnout and disengagement for all but the most obsessive of minds.
- gigaflop 4y ago
  Curiosity can be a curse, and has killed several cats. I may have been on psychedelic mushrooms at the time, but something I took away from the trip was an acknowledgement of a feeling of 'shedding' in life, in terms of hobbies and interests. Stuff will get boring and be forgotten, or fall to the side and be ignored while it collects dust. This is something that I should expect to happen, and be prepared for. So long as you derived some value from those once-great things, it hasn't been a waste, and is just a symptom of time passing. Maybe you pick those things back up later, and maybe you don't. For myself, I think my 'best life' would be one where I had the space and tools to be able to pick up or put down whatever ideas come to me.
  - uoaei 4y ago

uoaei 4y ago

"Out of sight, out of mind" works great for me too. It's staying occupied so that your thoughts don't meander back to that thing, that makes the trick.

toyg 4y ago
A lot of addictions are borne and sustained out of boredom. When you find something else to fill time, they can be removed relatively easily.

kixiQu 4y ago

https://tokimeki-unfollow.glitch.me/ https://tokimeki-unfollow.glitch.me/ Presents the Twitter accounts you're following so you can decide whether they "spark joy"... pairs well with https://opml.glitch.me/ https://opml.glitch.me/ Which looks at the accounts you're following, looks at the links in their bios, sees if there's an RSS feed indicated at that link, and puts the whole thing together into an OPML feed (the standard XML-of-RSS-feeds format used for RSS reader import/export, among other things).

higgins 4y ago
this tool is great, thank you! i would love if a tool like this were made based on interactions I've had with authors. generally, i like comment or retweet content that "sparks joy". would be a good first pass filter
- kixiQu 4y ago
  Glitch will let you fork ("remix") and modify -- I don't know if the Twitter APIs are real friendly anymore for that open-ended of use, but it'd be worth trying :)
dewey 4y ago
I just spend the past 20 minutes in the unfollow tool. Thanks for helping me waste so much time on the internet!

grvdrm 4y ago

Are there entire feeds that you've deemed too wasteful? I get that you can slash much of what you look at on Twitter and still get what you want. But what about things like Instagram, TikTok, etc. - did you delete those apps altogether or also aggressively trim (if you use them)?

SamBam 4y ago
I cut out Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Facebook I left a decade ago, for its ethical issues. Instagram I left because I felt the performance aspect was unhealthy: even in my only-friends-and-family circle, I'd still care too much about picking out the perfect photo of my kid or wherever. For Twitter I realized it was way too easy to get sucked down political/angry feeds. One day Twitter said my account has suspicious activity (maybe a bot tried to log in) and I needed to reply to an email to re-enable it. I never replied to the email. Somehow this meant that every time I followed a Twitter link, I'd get that alert, so I could never see content. I felt so much happier.

dotnet00 4y ago

I noticed the same about myself and have been doing something similar. I haven't been as focused on cutting down things I follow (actually even increasing), instead just paying attention to what I find valuable and aggressively cutting out everything I either dislike or find superfluous and spammy (eg if I see the same post multiple times on my reddit feed, I'll quickly check the poster's profile, if they spam the same content on several subreddits regularly I'll block them even if the content is something I enjoy).

amelius 4y ago

> If I have dessert in the house, like a bag of chocolate, then I eat one after dinner. I think for most with social media the equivalent would be to eat the entire bag.

helpm33 4y ago
Yes, he eats one. Bag :)

baby 4y ago

On the other hand I started following only “teaching chinese” accounts on instagram. Whenever I go on instagram I just watch stuff to learn chinese because it’s in my feed.

jbverschoor 4y ago

We are just monkeys smashing buttons in front of us

Forgeties79 4y ago

>I just massively unsubscribing, unfollowing, and filtering all the feeds. Nothing has been more effective for me than this, as well unfriending/following people or accounts that actively make me angry. Had to unfollow like 10 people tops and the quality of my feeds got noticeably better.

fdsfdsafds 4y ago

You're on the path, and the end is almost inevitable - no social media accounts at all, and no smartphone. It's wonderful.

331c8c71 4y ago
Haven't been using social media for more than five years and it doesn't feel like I'm halfway there. Now I am using my smartphone pretty much in the same way I was using my PC when smartphones didn't exist (e.g. 20 years ago): quite a bit of browsing and few comments here and there. It's not that I can't do without smartphone: on holidays I can totally avoid using it for browsing. But that inevitably comes back to "normal". And I'm pretty sure I was distracting myself with literature in a similar way when I was even younger (e.g. 25 yrs ago). I read very fast and hardly retain anything:) Is it in any way healthier? Not so sure, it feels like binge reading is as addictive and unsatisfying -- I do that nowadays (rarely) too.

Vladimof 4y ago

> If I have a social media feed full of content, then I'll scroll through all of it until there's nothing else that's new. I could never do that with Facebook as it is mostly all useless crap and ads

dclowd9901 4y ago

In weight watchers (yes, weight watchers), we classified certain foods as "red flag foods"; these were foods that we _knew_ we could not control ourselves around. The kind of food where you have one, and then suddenly you've finished the bag/box. I tend to agree with you: if it's there, you're going to go for it. We all have things like this. "Cleaning your plate" is a good metaphor, but I'm betting you don't "clean your plate" when it comes to exercise or other things that may be less enjoyable. Identify the things in your life that are red flags, and consciously keep them out of your life. It's hard at first, but soon, you don't even miss them.

lowbloodsugar 4y ago

So many threads on HN are basically "What does neurodiversity look like?"

RC_ITR 4y ago

I think a corollary to this is the relatively modern idea that life needs purpose in the form of measurable accomplishments. Looking back at how most people lived their lives, it was sustenance, interspersed with things like family, religion, and friendship (if you were lucky). Nearly nobody owned much, nearly nobody 'did cool things,' nearly nobody was famous. They all just had a part of life (surviving) that they knew was bad and hard work, then they tried as hard as they could to escape that briefly. Now, we expect work to be fulfilling and non-work to be fulfilling. For the majority of people where that isn't true, it feels really depressing, which is compounded by the fact that society pushes you to spend more time on improving the work side of things (which again for most people will not be intrinsically fulfilling no matter how hard they try), so they end up feeling lonely and sad.

jimbokun 4y ago

There was a study with a soup bowl that would automatically refill, and found people ate a lot more than they would if just given a regular soup bowl. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15761167/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15761167/ It strikes me the Internet is now a bottomless soup bowl of content, and we have know indicators to tell us when we should stop.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
spupe 4y ago
It's a good analogy, but that study was retracted: https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/16/mindless-eating-brian-wansink-is-there-something-rotten-behind-the-research https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/1...

u2077 4y ago

> my habit is to eat what is in front of me This! I often let my phone run out of battery and avoid plugging it in so I can do other things. From a similar thread, someone mentioned that phones are only good for content consumption. When I’m on the computer, I’m at least somewhat productive and the distractions aren’t quite as strong.

haxiomic 4y ago
It’s what’s keeping me running an old phone; short battery life has its advantages!

hinkley 4y ago

In the world of food it was a watershed moment for me in controlling my waistline when I stopped checking the unit price on items at the store. The brain invents its own portion sizes that are more dependent on the size of the container than the total supply. I don't know how you introduce portion control to the Internet, but we definitely need it. Some people have strategies for avoiding a shopping cart full of junk food. I wonder how far you can stretch that into media consumption before the analogy tears.

number6 4y ago
Interesting, I had the same thought about the size / price ratio recently. I want most bang for the buck but it kills my waistline

jokethrowaway 4y ago

That happens when I'm depressed, almost word by word. I also treat it in the same way by cutting everything. That doesn't fix the problem though, and eventually I replace the bad habits with new ones. For a proper fix for that you need to solve the underlying causes of your depression.