5 ms·

How I’m successfully overcoming smartphone addiction

46 points by SnowHill9902 4y ago

- Every time you feel the urge to check your phone, don’t do it immediately. - Count to 10 so that your higher self is engaged. Now ask yourself “do I need this to achieve my goals?” The answer can be yes or no, of course. - You don’t have to avoid using the phone completely. You can answer yes at times if it’s justified. Just be able to intervene between the phone and your intuitive addictive self, and make a conscious decision.

night-rider 4y ago
Can you share some of your goals? I use my phone to seek for information that would help me achieve goals. Train your feeds to be nothing but positive and high signal and bookmark anything you find useful going forward. Ignore the Internet Hype Machine and reframe FOMO as JOMO / Joy of Missing Out.
anon2020dot00 4y ago
For me, it's not smartphone addiction but video addiction which can consume hours of my time, just watching on sites like Twitch. I was inspired by the recent Hacker News thread that talked about decreased attention span https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31874846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31874846 (My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span) My hypothesis is using phone for reading books is much better since it can be done in chunks at a time and is less addictive than watching video so I'm using my smartphone for long-form book reading.
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
A great help is to decide on a productive alternative. So, let's say, you have an urge to get the phone then reach for a book and read a few pages instead. Or, do a few push-ups, or what every you decide. Having a replacement activity helps a lot. It's interesting. It used to be that some addiction programs with the same idea but for drug addicts was to have them smoke a cigarette if they had an urge to do drugs. Yes, it helped with the drug addiction but they got hooked on cigarettes. You sort of wander if it was a solution.
Mikeb85 4y ago
Honestly I find I check my phone mostly when I'm bored. So I find productive or healthier but fun things to do. Also, IMO, phones aren't worse than what my parents' generation did to waste time which is watch TV.
- tharne 4y ago
  > Also, IMO, phones aren't worse than what my parents' generation did to waste time which is watch TV. I'd argue phones are much worse. The TV stayed in one spot in your house and you had to share it with others. You didn't put your TV in your pocket and take it to work with you then put in on your desk. You didn't take you TV with you on dates or social outings and check it when you where bored. You didn't fiddle with your television while you where driving, etc., etc., etc. If you knew someone who watched a lot of television in the 1990's, they perhaps where in the presence of a television 8 hours a day. That's a lot. However, by contrast, if you had your phone with you 8 hours a day and locked in a drawer the rest of the day, that you put you among the lighter phone users among us.
  - tintedfireglass 4y ago
    Do you mean 8hrs of screen time?
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Yeah "phone addiction" is just the new TV. Though there are some dark patterns used by social media to promote it, that's kinda true. In that sense it's more like social media addiction. Of course TV also had its dark patterns. Like the cliffhanger.
MilnerRoute 4y ago
One thing I've tried is switching the display to greyscale. (On some phones, it's a built-in option under "Bedtime mode.") The idea is it makes everything less attractive on your phone. And of course, turn off as many notifications as you can. (Sometimes I'll even power it off, and only power it back up when I need to do something.)
- muzani 4y ago
  It's on some new Android versions. It's only slightly less attractive but that slightness puts me to sleep a couple hours earlier.
gwnywg 4y ago
A few years ago I started developing addictions and as a result I just uninstalled everything. That is, LinkedIn, Youtube, chess.com, even personal gmail (I don't have facebook or any other 'social' app). I was still tempted to waste time on my laptop, so I turned off every functionality (i.e. javascript) on pages I was visiting, and I added custom rules on adblock, so it's too many steps to enable everything again. On pages I wanted to visit (Linkedin due to messages from recruiters) I added restrictive custom adblock rules that only allow accepting invites and replying to messages. I noticed I was becoming badly addicted to reading news and watching videos, also to chess. And somebody here adviced just to cut it off. It was good piece of advice.
- musicale 4y ago
  > I was becoming badly addicted to reading news and watching videos, also to chess Chess is the first step toward delinquency and madness.
  - gwnywg 4y ago
    I'm asking out of pure curiosity as I'm not native English speaker. Chess leading to madness - I think I get the joke here, and well, who knows, some grand masters have gone mad (although I'd guess some will dispute if there is clear link between madness and chess).. but delinquency? I'm not native English speaker so maybe I'm missing the full meaning of this word but translator tells me this word is clever way of saying 'crime', how on earth would chess lead to crime :) (other than, if played on paid time it is, well, crime of a sort, but same as browsing through social media).
    - yial 4y ago
      It might be a reference to: https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-society-1588675766 https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-societ...
    - ido 4y ago
      I think it's just a joke about how chess (generally considered somewhere between harmless to noble) was used as an example of contributing to negative behaviour by the poster they answered to.
Yizahi 4y ago
Let me speedrun for you the results of all these technical "solutions" to the quite real biological problem - after banning for yourself "fancy_thing_A" you will get distracted on the "fancy_thing_B" and so on and so on. It is literally impossible to run out of thing to distract you. At various points in my life I was distracted reading some absolutely shitty and uninteresting books, reading an introduction tutorial to the absolutely unnecessary tech for me at that time, watching a very interesting and educational video, cleaning years old stuff in the storage, organizing Documents dir on the laptop, sharpening a knife, writing a todo list (the fiftieth one), and so on. PS: I don't know a solution. Maybe meds, people suggest visiting a doc, but since I'm a professional at distractions I've yet to try it.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  The smartphone is just an example. The same applies to any other addictive stimulus.
- muzani 4y ago
  I did hit a point where I was sharpening knives for fun. At some point, it's just easier to learn to be passionate about things that matter vs trying to be too disciplined.
- jcrash 4y ago
  The difference is that smartphones and their apps are designed to be incredibly addicting. Dull knives and uninteresting books are not.
d--b 4y ago
> “do I need this to achieve my goals?” Will you stop it with your “goals”? Is calling your mom helping you achieving your goals? Is drinking with friends moving you forward in any way? Should you sing in the shower, or should you listen to the latest “how to get vc funding” podcast episode?
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  > Is calling your mom helping you achieving your goals? Yes. > Is drinking with friends moving you forward in any way? Possibly not.
muzani 4y ago
I tried that, didn't work well enough. What worked was uninstalling and deactivating social media, Facebook, Reddit, anything with sexy pictures (women/food/gaming). Also the instant gratification stuff like videos of people dodging death or people doing dumb stuff then getting punched in the face. Now I don't have to think too much about using my phone.
lurker137 4y ago
There is this surprisingly effective feature on a browser extension called Leech Block where you can add a short delay (like 15 seconds) before the distracting sites load. It basically forces you to go through the process you mentioned. That small extra friction is enough to break the habit of randomly visiting those sites.
marconey 4y ago
Switching to greyscale on iOS really helps reduce the attractiveness of wasting time Settings->Accessibility->Display&Text->Color Filters And you can activate with triple-click of side button also Settings->Accessibility->Accessibility Shortcut->Color Filters
- jakub_g 4y ago
  On Android this is called "Bedtime mode". You can also have a shortcut in the menu that slides from top.
- euroderf 4y ago
  Yes, greyscale works. Eye candy is seductively seductive. Shiny! Shiny!
p0d 4y ago
I found it helpful to remove shares and unnecessary bank account apps from my phone i.e. I kept my main bank account, the rest are checked monthly on the desktop. I find the need to login to a desktop app the best medicine for quickly losing interest.

46 points by SnowHill9902 4y ago

night-rider 4y ago

Can you share some of your goals? I use my phone to seek for information that would help me achieve goals. Train your feeds to be nothing but positive and high signal and bookmark anything you find useful going forward. Ignore the Internet Hype Machine and reframe FOMO as JOMO / Joy of Missing Out.

anon2020dot00 4y ago

For me, it's not smartphone addiction but video addiction which can consume hours of my time, just watching on sites like Twitch. I was inspired by the recent Hacker News thread that talked about decreased attention span https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31874846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31874846 (My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span) My hypothesis is using phone for reading books is much better since it can be done in chunks at a time and is less addictive than watching video so I'm using my smartphone for long-form book reading.

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago

A great help is to decide on a productive alternative. So, let's say, you have an urge to get the phone then reach for a book and read a few pages instead. Or, do a few push-ups, or what every you decide. Having a replacement activity helps a lot. It's interesting. It used to be that some addiction programs with the same idea but for drug addicts was to have them smoke a cigarette if they had an urge to do drugs. Yes, it helped with the drug addiction but they got hooked on cigarettes. You sort of wander if it was a solution.

Mikeb85 4y ago

Honestly I find I check my phone mostly when I'm bored. So I find productive or healthier but fun things to do. Also, IMO, phones aren't worse than what my parents' generation did to waste time which is watch TV.

tharne 4y ago
> Also, IMO, phones aren't worse than what my parents' generation did to waste time which is watch TV. I'd argue phones are much worse. The TV stayed in one spot in your house and you had to share it with others. You didn't put your TV in your pocket and take it to work with you then put in on your desk. You didn't take you TV with you on dates or social outings and check it when you where bored. You didn't fiddle with your television while you where driving, etc., etc., etc. If you knew someone who watched a lot of television in the 1990's, they perhaps where in the presence of a television 8 hours a day. That's a lot. However, by contrast, if you had your phone with you 8 hours a day and locked in a drawer the rest of the day, that you put you among the lighter phone users among us.
- tintedfireglass 4y ago
  Do you mean 8hrs of screen time?
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Yeah "phone addiction" is just the new TV. Though there are some dark patterns used by social media to promote it, that's kinda true. In that sense it's more like social media addiction. Of course TV also had its dark patterns. Like the cliffhanger.

MilnerRoute 4y ago

One thing I've tried is switching the display to greyscale. (On some phones, it's a built-in option under "Bedtime mode.") The idea is it makes everything less attractive on your phone. And of course, turn off as many notifications as you can. (Sometimes I'll even power it off, and only power it back up when I need to do something.)

muzani 4y ago
It's on some new Android versions. It's only slightly less attractive but that slightness puts me to sleep a couple hours earlier.

gwnywg 4y ago

A few years ago I started developing addictions and as a result I just uninstalled everything. That is, LinkedIn, Youtube, chess.com, even personal gmail (I don't have facebook or any other 'social' app). I was still tempted to waste time on my laptop, so I turned off every functionality (i.e. javascript) on pages I was visiting, and I added custom rules on adblock, so it's too many steps to enable everything again. On pages I wanted to visit (Linkedin due to messages from recruiters) I added restrictive custom adblock rules that only allow accepting invites and replying to messages. I noticed I was becoming badly addicted to reading news and watching videos, also to chess. And somebody here adviced just to cut it off. It was good piece of advice.

musicale 4y ago
> I was becoming badly addicted to reading news and watching videos, also to chess Chess is the first step toward delinquency and madness.
- gwnywg 4y ago
  I'm asking out of pure curiosity as I'm not native English speaker. Chess leading to madness - I think I get the joke here, and well, who knows, some grand masters have gone mad (although I'd guess some will dispute if there is clear link between madness and chess).. but delinquency? I'm not native English speaker so maybe I'm missing the full meaning of this word but translator tells me this word is clever way of saying 'crime', how on earth would chess lead to crime :) (other than, if played on paid time it is, well, crime of a sort, but same as browsing through social media).
  - yial 4y ago
    It might be a reference to: https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-society-1588675766 https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-societ...
  - ido 4y ago
    I think it's just a joke about how chess (generally considered somewhere between harmless to noble) was used as an example of contributing to negative behaviour by the poster they answered to.

Yizahi 4y ago

Let me speedrun for you the results of all these technical "solutions" to the quite real biological problem - after banning for yourself "fancy_thing_A" you will get distracted on the "fancy_thing_B" and so on and so on. It is literally impossible to run out of thing to distract you. At various points in my life I was distracted reading some absolutely shitty and uninteresting books, reading an introduction tutorial to the absolutely unnecessary tech for me at that time, watching a very interesting and educational video, cleaning years old stuff in the storage, organizing Documents dir on the laptop, sharpening a knife, writing a todo list (the fiftieth one), and so on. PS: I don't know a solution. Maybe meds, people suggest visiting a doc, but since I'm a professional at distractions I've yet to try it.

SnowHill9902 4y ago
The smartphone is just an example. The same applies to any other addictive stimulus.
muzani 4y ago
I did hit a point where I was sharpening knives for fun. At some point, it's just easier to learn to be passionate about things that matter vs trying to be too disciplined.
jcrash 4y ago
The difference is that smartphones and their apps are designed to be incredibly addicting. Dull knives and uninteresting books are not.

d--b 4y ago

> “do I need this to achieve my goals?” Will you stop it with your “goals”? Is calling your mom helping you achieving your goals? Is drinking with friends moving you forward in any way? Should you sing in the shower, or should you listen to the latest “how to get vc funding” podcast episode?

SnowHill9902 4y ago
> Is calling your mom helping you achieving your goals? Yes. > Is drinking with friends moving you forward in any way? Possibly not.

muzani 4y ago

I tried that, didn't work well enough. What worked was uninstalling and deactivating social media, Facebook, Reddit, anything with sexy pictures (women/food/gaming). Also the instant gratification stuff like videos of people dodging death or people doing dumb stuff then getting punched in the face. Now I don't have to think too much about using my phone.

lurker137 4y ago

There is this surprisingly effective feature on a browser extension called Leech Block where you can add a short delay (like 15 seconds) before the distracting sites load. It basically forces you to go through the process you mentioned. That small extra friction is enough to break the habit of randomly visiting those sites.

marconey 4y ago

Switching to greyscale on iOS really helps reduce the attractiveness of wasting time Settings->Accessibility->Display&Text->Color Filters And you can activate with triple-click of side button also Settings->Accessibility->Accessibility Shortcut->Color Filters

jakub_g 4y ago
On Android this is called "Bedtime mode". You can also have a shortcut in the menu that slides from top.
euroderf 4y ago
Yes, greyscale works. Eye candy is seductively seductive. Shiny! Shiny!

p0d 4y ago

I found it helpful to remove shares and unnecessary bank account apps from my phone i.e. I kept my main bank account, the rest are checked monthly on the desktop. I find the need to login to a desktop app the best medicine for quickly losing interest.