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I am addicted to twitter and reddit. Especially reddit. It often takes the place of reading, hobbies, quiet moments, improving my home, talking with my spouse,

• pde3 4y ago
  A possible experiment to try: what happens when you only browse Reddit through an anonymous, not-logged-in browser and IP address? And then only use your account when you are actually sure you want to post something?
  • recursive 4y ago
    For me, it's enough just to log out. The friction of logging in is just the right amount of friction.
  • tayo42 4y ago
    I do this,I find my self scrolling a lot still. Though its helped avoid alot of the stupid back and forths I used to let me self get into.
• rvbissell 4y ago
  I almost never regret time spent reading a book. But I frequently regret time spent on Reddit/Youtube/Twitter, even if I enjoyed the content at the time.
  • wrycoder 4y ago
    I'm more likely these days (as the decades pile up) to deliberately stop reading a book, if it hasn't engaged me by the time I've read 20% of it. Of course, many never get started, once I do a quick scan. I estimated how many more books I would likely read before I die, and it's a shockingly small number, even though I read a lot! So - choose wisely.
• codq 4y ago
  I am absolutely caught in a loop between refreshing reddit, hopping to twitter, hopping to Instagram, and then back to reddit — a cycle that takes just long enough for all three platforms to re-popluate with more content. It's not healthy, and I feel bad about it. They have got me exactly where they want me. And like you, it's very clear that this is not conducive to human flourishing. Unfortunately, I've been caught in this, and similar loops for so long that I have a hard time knowing what flourishing even looks like anymore. EDIT: One thing that did help me, for a time, was finding a REALLY good book, one that completely sucked me in—in this case it was David Mitchell's latest, 'Utopia Avenue'. It's been a long time since I found a really fantastic book, when you do, there's nothing better. And I realized that the next morning, when you wake up after a long evening of reading a good book, you remember it. You remember it as being a great use of time, something you can be proud of. An evening spent scrolling through social media is never memorable. It's never something you're proud of, something you want to tell people about. A good night with a good book is a good use of time. I need to remember this more often, myself.
  • hackernewds 4y ago
    that is the distinction. I scroll reddit obsessively but I don't enjoy it. I read books obsessively but I enjoy it.
• psyc 4y ago
  I’m the same, and I’ve been struggling with it for a couple of years. I’ve even addressed it in therapy, and it hasn’t helped. The only thing that has helped at all is a site blocker. Twitter and HN mostly fill me with frustration, loathing, and angst. Like the cigarettes I smoke fill me with tar and carcinogens. Reddit at least I occasionally find something interesting, due to carefully curated subs. It’s just addiction, nothing more.
  • jansan 4y ago
    Site blocking helps. For about two weeks. I do not even remember why I removed twitter again from my router's blacklist.
    • dazc 4y ago
      A moment of madness, perhaps?
  • darkerside 4y ago
    Unfollow everybody on Twitter. Why does HN bother you like that?
    • chrsig 4y ago
      There are a lot of incredibly frustrating, problematic, and exasperating opinions and personality types to be found on HN. The particular members of any of those sets will differ based on the eyes of the beholder. There's no shortage of passive aggression, angst, oneupsmanship,virtue signaling, dogwhistling, etc. It just so happens that there's a sufficient about of incredibly useful opinions and comments from subject matter experts that make it worth consuming in spite of the fact that it's a forum on the internet, and all of the baggage that entails. (side note: this isn't intended as a dig on HN moderation - you probably all do a better job than most other venues. kudos.)
      • darkerside 4y ago
        I find HN with its moderation to be night and day difference from many other forums.
• ravenstine 4y ago
  > But in reality, there's almost no positive relationship between my engagement with social media and my personal human flourishing. I think these products are mostly poison for my soul. This is why "engagement" is something only corporate f---splats say under normal circumstances. Either they secretly know it's a form of psychological enslavement or they're oblivious to the problems inherent in trying to measure it.
• tayo42 4y ago
  my problem with reddit (and here i guess?) is idk what else to do with like 5-30minutes of down time. I dont really have my life optimized for constant activity and idk what else to fill that with now.
  • desas 4y ago
    Something like Duolingo? Read a book?
  • dchuk 4y ago
    Be bored. I’m not good at this yet, but I’m practicing just sitting there in those idle periods. It’s what we evolved to do, and what our phones are breaking us about
  • hackernewds 4y ago
    start a hobby. exercise. music. a side hustle. something that has a positive reward loop
• nvusuvu 4y ago
  As a married husband (almost 20 yrs) and father of five kids, allow me to share some wisdom. Spouse time is vital to a healthy, strong, vibrant, lasting relationship. Reddit doesn't care about you like your spouse does. And kids grow up way too fast. Treasure every moment.
  • v-erne 4y ago
    >> Spouse time is vital to a healthy, strong, vibrant, lasting relationship Hear! Hear! This cannot be overstated. >> And kids grow up way too fast. Treasure every moment. And this on the other hand ... works only if You somehow like children (and who does not like small psychopats with dictatorial aspirations). For the others (I believe most of people who lives in my housing estate can be counted) I observe that the moments they really treasure are those when their children are is safe distance from them taking care of themselves.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • TimWillebrands 4y ago
      Interestingly, not caring about your children will likely result in little dictators. You might not want to give them attention, they do want it, and they'll get it one way or another.
      • engineer_22 4y ago
        Yeah it seems like with my own children good behavior is proportional to attention. They don't ask for much, but they don't like feeling like they're in my way. If I treat them decently, they'll let me do the things I need to do, and they know I'll come back to finish up with them later.
  • b555 4y ago
    could not agree more with this. social media exists out there, but spouse and kids are right in front of you each and every day. when done correctly, seeing the growth of your family and spending time with them can be extremely rewarding, even more than the dopamine produced by interacting with the social media
• vorpalhex 4y ago
  I would encourage you to not think of this in an addiction framework. Instead think of this as a self medicating framework. Why are you choosing reddit over spending time your baby? Do you fear handling the baby? Does handling the baby make you feel uncomfortable thoughts or feelings? Is there something, like ego, that reddit gives you? This is a good problem for self journaling, working with someone, or whatever your preferred form of self introspection is.
  • blacksmithgu 4y ago
    Chronic media consumption is not always based on avoidance. It is very easy to open social media during genuine downtime "for 5 minutes" only for an hour to pass before you know it. That is just bad self control due to dopamine addiction.
    • vorpalhex 4y ago
      Dopamine addiction isn't a real thing. You don't get addicted to going for a jog or eating chocolate.
  • Llamamoe 4y ago
    It gives a constant stream of novelty and instant gratification, two things the human mind is deeply biased to crave, delivered through an interface produced by decades of A/B testing and applied behavioral psychology. It absolutely is an addiction machine.
    • vorpalhex 4y ago
      Is chocolate an addiction machine? It tastes good. People really like it. Given the choice between rice cakes and chocolate, you'd probably choose chocolate. Chocolate manufacturers test chocolates and release the more successful ones.
      • Llamamoe 4y ago
        Does chocolate have teams of behavioral psychologists designing every aspect of the experience of its acquisition and consumption in order to create a situation in which a huge chunk of our society is unable to stop compulsively consuming it to a point where it's negatively affecting their lives?
• bvinc 4y ago
  Everyone else replying to you is trying to convince you with arguments that reddit isn't a good use of your time. As you already know, this won't work. You're already convinced. The only thing that works is a site blocker. It actually works. Convince yourself that the block is permanent. Delete the app. This of course won't completely stop you, because you could always unblock yourself. But it'll stop you from mindlessly pulling up reddit.
  • swayvil 4y ago
    everybody likes to put their reddit down. but we are just good friends. reddit man.
  • asdff 4y ago
    If you can't control your reddit consumption already I'd expect that the site blocker will end up disabled before long. I'd try to involve a therapist if the goal is getting to the bottom of this beyond even reddit or websites in general.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      Even just blocking everything but old.reddit was enough to help cut it out, though I suspect HN has replaced it now as the “waste time machine”
    • hackernewds 4y ago
      Start a habit tracker tracking # of days not browsed reddit. you can trick your brain, since it loves streaks. also tie it to some reward mechanism so it seems like you're earning something by not browsing vs a punishment.
    • neetle 4y ago
      Sometimes a simple "pattern interrupt" can break the cycle. If you've a habit of opening the page whenever you hop on your phone, that extra effort may be enough to push back against the potential incentive Anecdotally, a lot of digital addictions come down to ease of access vs dopamine hit. As soon as your access method is "futz with a hosts file" or "ask your wife to unlock the blocker" (I was pretty bad), it becomes easier to break the cycle. More people need to utilise their tendency toward lazyness, I swear
• bogwog 4y ago
  I had a similar addiction to reddit a couple of years ago, especially while I was in college. It just became something I did as part of my routine. In hindsight I don't know why, since I rarely had a good time on there. It felt like everyone was an asshole, the content was all repeats of the same shitty jokes and fake stories from people desperately trying to farm internet points. It all felt pathetic, and I knew it at the time, but something kept bringing me back. So one day I decided to just delete my account, and that was it. As soon as the account disappeared, so did my interest in the site. It was like a switch flipped in my head. I guess it was the internet points that were tickling the addiction part of my brain? Next time I find myself wasting too much time on a social network, I'm just going to delete the account and move on. Unfortunately, I don't think HN lets you delete your account, so I'll need to get creative if I decide to drop this site too (maybe do something to get myself banned?)
  • Crabber 4y ago
    >In hindsight I don't know why, since I rarely had a good time on there. Someone told me once that addiction is built more strongly with negative experiences and it blew my mind. I think it's probably true. Addiction isn't built by you getting a reward, it's built by you desperately chasing a reward you never quite reach. We call a book a "page turner" not because it's a satisfying book, but because every chapter ends in some bullshit cliff hanger. Same applies to TV shows. I would suggest that maybe you weren't addicted to reddit because it was actually giving you what you wanted, but because you were chasing some satisfaction that you never quite got. Satisfied users leave a site happy after 5 minutes and get on with life. People who have spent 2 hours opening 200 threads and still haven't got the happy feeling they came there for stay around to open "just one more thread" another 50 times.
• MrVandemar 4y ago
  Others have said, but spending time with your spouse is important. But, equally important (and it's a big part of having a good relationship) make sure you're stepping up and pitching in around the home with the chores. Nobody likes them, but if you're not doing 50/50 (or at least something mutally recognised as fair) and you don't occasionally overachieve to give your spouse a bit of a break, it can be a big issue. If Reddit/Twitter are prioritised over getting the basics done, get that sorted out.
• comboy 4y ago
  > I think these products are mostly poison for my soul. You spend time on reddit because you want to. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you don't. You have a cognitive disonance, logical contradiction that you just need to bring to the surface and follow through. When you are about to reddit ask yourself whether you want to or not. Not some idealized version of yourself in your head. Just what do you want right now. Then debug, introspect. Eliminate wishful thinking and accept reality - more time on reddit less time for other things. Do I want that? Answer yes is perfectly fine. You do what you want anyway, but in my case simply bringing these contradictions to my conscious mind (and sometimes looking for a moment where it is exactly - like, I know that it's A or B I can't be spending time on both things at the same time, If I want to learn X it requires time) is enough to eliminate them. I still spend time on reddit (not that much), but I don't think I'm doing anything I don't want to do or that it would be better to do anything else. We are always doing what we want to. Telling ourselves that we don't is needless suffering.
  • ebingdom 4y ago
    > You spend time on reddit because you want to. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you don't. This seems like a mischaracterization of how addiction works.
    • hackernewds 4y ago
      Replace "reddit" with "heroine" and not much changes, except to the same effect. I like to think of it as "I can't stop scrolling Reddit despite knowing I'm not enjoying Reddit". I deleted the Reddit app, and blocked reddit.com (which I found myself using next) to 0 minutes on Digital Well-being (on stock Android).
    • comboy 4y ago
      Addiction is just a pattern, a framework of looking at reality. You could say you are suffering addiction withdrawal when you are away from somebody or some place you love. Addiction framework and associated solutions seem to be pretty effective for things like stopping heroin usage. Quite likely it can work for reddit too, but I'm guessing PC already tried it. I'm just offering a different framework and way of looking at things, which works great for me - or to be even more precise, removes some suffering. One may just decide she wants to spend a lot of time on reddit, but being honest with oneself and trying not to hold logically contradicting things in one's head seems like a good thing.
• mr_mitm 4y ago
  The dangerous thing about reddit is the fact that it has these wonderful nuggets of information. Some really thoughtful opinion, or some unique perspective on things. I always use the example of someone writing essentially an essay on how to make neapolitan pizza [1], including a list of references, one of them being a scientific article. Where would I find this in a book or on the internet? Blog sites and similar things usually are only there to sell ads or something else, are padded with fluff or simply wrong. Here I have someone anonymous without any ulterior motive, without fluff, just exactly what I want: pure information in a useful structure. Similarly you can sometimes find really cool answers on /r/askscience or /r/askhistorians. Of course, this is in stark contrast to the vast amounts of low quality posts from people posting thoughtless one-liners while they are waiting on the bus, sitting on the toilet or about to fall asleep. Not to mention many toxic comments. But every now and then I find these little nuggets which keep me hooked. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/neapolitanpizza/comments/h8llnp/frequently_asked_questions_neapolitan_pizza/ https://old.reddit.com/r/neapolitanpizza/comments/h8llnp/fre...
• asddubs 4y ago
  I weaned myself off reddit by blocking everything except i.reddit.com in my hosts file. if i blocked everything, inevitably there would be some post that I'd need to read because i stumbled upon it on google or what have you. Now, if I really want to read a reddit post, I can. but half of the links break unless you manually change the url to include the "i." subdomain again, the interface isn't so great, but I can access all the content if i really want to, it's just inconvenient enough that you're not going to mindlessly scroll for all eternity
  • imperistan 4y ago
    I totally blocked Reddit in my hosts file. If I really need a post work purposes I go to Google translate, load the post and click 'see original'. Such a hassle that I hardly ever do it. YMMV. I think its funny that we both stumbled on a similar approach
• rr808 4y ago
  I'm addicted to reddit too. But before that I was addicted to newsgroups and other web forums. I dont think I can blame Reddit app, I think I just love talking with people online. What I've learned is that most people really dont care about my opinion. I now only comment on stuff that I have something useful to bring, and its a topic that is really relevant to the board/thread. Those rules can cut back commenting a lot.
• otikik 4y ago
  I logged off from Twitter and Reddit and blocked it with Leechblock NG [1] on my computer. That took care of 50% of the problem. I would still browse them on my phone. When I switched phones I decided to not install Twitter or Reddit on the new one for a week. After getting over some FOMO on the first week, I decided to extend it for 1 month. I have been "clean" for ~7 months now. Except for the occasional direct link from my mobile phone, and fortunately thanks to the ingrate mobile experience their webs provide, I will probably keep doing this for a while. I find other ways to distract myself, though (other websites, doing random queries in google, etc). I am working on the underlying problems I have. But for me getting the distractions out of the way first was easier than the alternative. [1] https://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/ https://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/