7 ms·

I Add 3-25 Seconds of Latency to Every Page I Visit (2020)

115 points by colinprince 2y ago

glitchc 2y ago
Addiction is a disease, it should be treated as such. We shouldn't be relying on the afflicted to heal themselves. It's no different than asking someone depressed to just "think happy thoughts" and expect them to magically will their condition away.
- digging 2y ago
  Actually, it is quite different. It's more like arranging a depressed person to be forced to walk through the woods for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom. It won't heal everything on its own and they may resent it, but it will mechanically combat their depression.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    > forced to walk through the woods for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom I love that idea. I wish I had a big enough piece of forested property to try that out. Put the kitchen in one place, bathroom in another, and bedroom in a third, all five minutes walking distance apart. I could probably still find ways to defeat it. But maybe it would help.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      > could probably still find ways to defeat it. Mini fridge in the bedroom and just pee outside on the forest floor. :)
    - digging 2y ago
      I would love it, too!
    - rootusrootus 2y ago
      Did the math, it is entirely plausible. ~2 acres, in the shape of an equilateral triangle, would do the trick. Expensive to do near a major metro, but in many places not terribly expensive. And in today's world of work-from-anywhere-starlink-works, a motivated individual could make this happen.
- Alupis 2y ago
  Right, and personal responsibility has nothing to do with addiction. We should, as a society, normalize impulsiveness and lack of personal responsibility, because people are incapable of being responsible. Look, it's not my fault I ate that tray of brownies after dinner. I'm just an addict. I need medicine and government intervention to save me from myself.
  - therouwboat 2y ago
    "It is your fault, just don't do it again. Oh, you did it again, well just don't. You keep doing it, somehow you can't seem to stop, but you should.." Helpful isn't it.
    - Alupis 2y ago
      How do you propose we stop them? We used to lock these people away until they were cured...
      - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
        Provide tools, strategies, and alternatives. They still have to use them (it can't be forced), but it's definitely possible to smooth the path. For example, if you have a friend who is trying to quit drinking, invite them to fun alcohol-free events.
        Alupis 2y ago
        > For example, if you have a friend who is trying to quit drinking, invite them to fun alcohol-free events. Then your friend goes home and drinks alone...
      - kortex 2y ago
        We also used to lock away basically any form of ASD or neurodivergence too far outside the norm (either directly via mental institutions, or indirectly via other harmful programs, mistreatment, or junk science). We also used to consider homosexuality a mental disorder. Moving forward is what society does. Addiction is largely driven by neurodevelopmental disorders (ADHD, ASD, MDD, sleep disorders, and many more), psychological disorders (anxiety, OCD, and many more), or both in combination. Most folks don't want to be addicts. At the heart of addiction is executive dysfunction caused by the above conditions, exacerbated by stressors. You treat it like any other mental health problem: therapy, medication, support systems, and a society that cares for its populace.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- brigadier132 2y ago
  > It's no different than asking someone depressed to just "think happy thoughts" and expect them to magically will their condition away This literally helped me with my depression. Like most depressed people I surrounded myself with depressing things. I would read existentialist books and listen to emo music. Stopping that helped a lot unsurprisingly. For some reason you think people with a disease have no agency or ability to cure themselves? Since when has this been the case? If you imagine yourself to have no agency, you will always be a victim and always have different "diseases" that are uncurable. There are some diseases that can be cured by effort on the sick persons part. There are some that can't be. A heroin addiction is very different from a reddit addiction.
  - CodeWriter23 2y ago
    You likely had situational not clinical depression.
    - brigadier132 2y ago
      No I had clinical depression but thanks for the diagnosis since my experience does not align with your preconceived notions of how the world works.
      - CodeWriter23 2y ago
        “Likely” is not a diagnosis. And no meds either, just thinking good thoughts was all you needed?
        brigadier132 2y ago
        I don't know where you read the word "likely" I took bupropion then prozac, saw real therapists, went to a psychiatrist. Yes, the thing that ultimately led to me stop taking those drugs was changing my mindset and belief system. I stopped exposing myself that made me sad or angry and put me deeper into the hole. I would even watch shows that I knew made me laugh when I started to feel sad.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  >We shouldn't be relying on the afflicted to heal themselves It's just unfortunately the case that ultimately you can bring a horse to water, at the gushing water well, surrounded by bottles of water, purified and fortified to a nutritional perfection, but if the horse itself doesn't want to drink, nothing you can do. Until we have a mind-control shot, people have to ultimately fix their addictions themselves.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > We shouldn't be relying on the afflicted to heal themselves. In a perfect world I absolutely agree with this sentiment. In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude. > It's no different than asking someone depressed The difference here is there is a third party with a vested interest in keeping you as addicted as possible.
  - romwell 2y ago
    >In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude. I took it not as a platitude, but as a call to change the status quo.
  - lemarchr 2y ago
    > In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude. As an industry we went from treating engagement as an art form, to treating it as an optimisation problem. Along the way we got very, very good at it, at scale. While profitable, we now know that the methods used to drive this engagement are harmful. Many countries recognise this harm and have introduced legislation to limit or ban methods used on vulnerable groups, such as children. It is interesting that we, as an industry, do not talk more about the harm we are complicit in causing. Somewhere along the way we normalised and accepted the idea that addicting features are desirable, and that we are not responsible for the consequences. With all said, an industry is not an individual. You and I may care about this problem, but it is not clear how to fix it. At the very least, as individuals it would be good to avoid contributing to addicting features as a matter of principle wherever the opportunity arises, lest we become the equivalent of digital drug dealers.
- kortilla 2y ago
  People with diseases have agency and can most definitely have a significant if not fully self sufficient control over their healing. This attitude of “I have X disease, so it’s not my problem to solve” is toxic and it’s the reason for rampant obesity and type 2 diabetes.
- prewett 2y ago
  We do expect people with medical conditions to take actions. Have cancer, do chemotherapy or get surgery. Overweight, change diet (or take thyroid medication, depending). Celiac, don't eat gluten. Bacterial infection, take appropriate antibiotics. I might agree that addiction is a disease if we limit it to physical addiction. But colloquially "addiction" is used for what might be more precisely termed compulsive behavior, like spending hours on Facebook. This kind of "addiction" is more like self-medicating negative emotions, and negative emotions are generally telling us that we are "malnourished" in some area. So we might be FB-scrolling because we are bored (lack purpose, lack challenge, etc), or because we are lonely and want to feel connected. Until we figure out what FB-scrolling is doing for us and get that need met, we're going to feel "addicted" to FB.
  - glitchc 2y ago
    This is what I'm trying to get at. It's not about removing responsibility but rather about seeking treatment options, like we do for any disease, instead of stigmatizing it and saying the patient can think themselves out of it. That last bit minimizes the impact and extent of the disease. You can't think your way out of cancer, a broken foot, or even a plain old bacterial infection. So why do we think we can do that for addiction? To your second para, we don't know the root cause until we diagnose it. We don't know if it's physical, psychological (trauma), a hormonal/nutritional deficiency or a combination thereof. Right now society wants people to treat themselves without an adequate diagnosis and that's problematic on multiple fronts.
    - hatethissite42 2y ago
      The author is sharing a practical technique that helped him waste less time on internet crap. To me, that seems much closer to "seeking treatment options" than "stigmatizing it and saying the patient can think themselves out of it".
- lemonberry 2y ago
  As an alcoholic - 6 years without a drop - I'm confused by this statement. No one could get me sober except me. In my experience, most alcoholics agree with this. You want to not be an addict? Recognize it, take responsibility for it, and get sober. I would never tell my friends with depression to just "think happy thoughts". But I have suggested to some close friends that they need help and they could start by helping themselves by doing all of the things that we know to be beneficial for depression: exercise, change in diet, spend time outside, stop ruminating on social media about their mental health issues, etc. And if they can't do that a qualified medical professional can help get them to that point. Regardless of how bad someone's depression or addiction is, no one can make the first step towards healing except the sufferer. That said, a lot of support and compassion is crucial for a lot of people. Every time I hear someone took their life because of addiction or depression I get sad. I know what it's like to wake up everyday hating oneself and loathing life. It's not a fun place to be. If any of you out there are going through any of this, get help. Please, life on the other side of addiction is soooo much better. And no matter what you think, there will always be people that wished you were still around. A friend of friend took his own life this past week. He'd suffered a traumatic brain injury after falling drunk off of a deck at a party. I have no idea if he was an alcoholic or not. And doesn't matter. I'm rambling. Carry on.
digging 2y ago
I love the idea, and I love how it makes me feel revulsion. Would I do this to myself? No way - which makes it such a tempting idea to try, because I don't trust that gut reaction. That's the kind of gut reaction the brain will find any reason to justify because it is, as stated, an addiction. > This just feels like a beneficial dilution of the Internet. It feels like wine to the ancient Greeks, who drank wine but attacked the practice of drinking undiluted wine as tantamount to barbarism. As a classics major this was always one of my favorite tidbits about ancient Greek culture, so I love seeing it show up elsewhere. It speaks to why I like weak drinks as well... I enjoy drinking, and weak drinks let me drink more and have a higher degree of control. > Other possible dilutions Interestingly, I'm already about 60% of the way there without doing anything as intense as intentionally slowing down my web. Something I consistently find myself missing is old-style forums, which I believe are definitely what I want, but aren't easy to get to "stick", so I'm openly soliciting recommendations for any which care about and and enforce quality.
- romwell 2y ago
  >Other possible dilutions How about using a Core 2 Duo Windows 10PC with 3GB RAM as your web browsing machine? I still keep mine around, partly for that reason. (I also wish the developers used underpowered hardware for their work. Then, for once, "if it runs fine on my hardware, it'll probably run fine on yours" mantra would be true — and latency would far less likely to be as atrocious as it is)
  - digging 2y ago
    Er, that seems like a more difficult, more wasteful way to get the same dilution (slower web browsing).
  - amoss 2y ago
    One easy workaround here is to keep the hardware modern, but install Teams on it. Then you can feel the ancient hardware vibrate for all other applications.
rootusrootus 2y ago
Back in 2020 this got a lot of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22319383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22319383 Edit: And there are some really insightful comments there. No surprise, of course. But worth looking back at. I already got some good advice for my HN disease. Somehow I missed this discussion the first time around.
iwontberude 2y ago
I recently started using “one sec” on iOS to help control my habits. I highly recommend it after my first week of use. It has you take a breath and keeps track of how much time you saved (predicted) by declining to click through after the pause by integrating with Screen Time. You can customize your tags for overriding in case you need to “learn” or “troubleshoot” with a bounded app.
Alifatisk 2y ago
I added a grayscale filter to my phone which has cut down my phone usage from 8 hours to almost 4 hours per week. I’ve been doing it for 2 months now I think. I can’t even describe how boring it is to use my phone now, which is exactly how I want it. If anyone is curious to trying this, I highly suggest combining this with one of those minimalistic launcher apps. There are multiple options, one is called Dumbify on iOS (not free), but I've stuck to "Blank Spaces App" (trial, not free).
- mastermedo 2y ago
  By grayscale filter you mean a physical screen protector that is passthrough only for gray colour?
  - elzbardico 2y ago
    I think you can find in on accessibility, on the options for dealing with color-blindness. Too lazy to check it now, but I am fairly sure that's where you'll find it.
  - Alifatisk 2y ago
    No, it's a color filter in the accessability settings (I'm on iOS). There is another comment explaining where exactly.
- jrussino 2y ago
  How? Is something like this possible on iOS? (My expectation is "no" but if I'm wrong about that this is something I might try)...
  - coffeebeqn 2y ago
    Color filters in Accessibility / Display & Text
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    It is: https://dumbph.com/turn-iphone-into-dumb-phone/#grayscale-only-display https://dumbph.com/turn-iphone-into-dumb-phone/#grayscale-on...
mendor 2y ago
test rendering sucks on this website
mendor 2y ago
text rendering sucks on this particular website (chrome windows)
pikma 2y ago
I absolutely want to do something like this to help me and my family spend less time watching our phones in the evening. Does anybody know of a reasonably-simple way of either increasing the latency or throttling the bandwidth, per-device, with programmable hours? For example, is there any wifi router that lets you do this?
- lstodd 2y ago
  You'll only get frustration and lashing-out as a result. This is a wrong approach. Get some activities for that evening organized first.
was_a_dev 2y ago
This has reminded me how much my Reddit usage has dropped off a cliff after the third-party apps debacle. At first, it was as a futile protest, but then the inevitable addiction hunger kicked in. But this time, I had no choice to use the offical Reddit app. The sluggishness of that app added enough latency, that my Reddit consumption is now non-existent
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  I'm curious how it has all played out since the debacle. Has there been a noticeable decrease in traffic? Anecdotally, the bot traffic is quite high now, but that was going up already. I refuse to install the app. Reddit aggressively tags random posts as NSFW and then offers "anonymous" browsing if only I install the app. What? That's silly. And creepy. Going to old.reddit.com still works if there is something I want to see, but I suppose eventually they will close that loophole. And thus will end my reddit experience. I already got rid of my own account ages ago, so I only read, and that cut my interaction time way down. Force me to use the app and we're done.
  - hamandcheese 2y ago
    > Reddit aggressively tags random posts as NSFW and then offers "anonymous" browsing if only I install the app. What? That's silly. "Request desktop site" setting in mobile Safari also works for me to bypass this.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
      Old Reddit Redirect and Reddit Enhancement Suite on Firefox cut out all of their BS.
      - Onawa 2y ago
        Only for as long as they allow old.reddit.com to exist. The rug can get pulled at anytime.
ricardobayes 2y ago
What the author describes is basically the digital alternative to moving to a "higher rent area". You can choose to filter out the issues that the average person has, but that doesn't make them go away.
anilshanbhag 2y ago
Planning to add this as an option into my extension SuperFocus https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/superfocus-ultimate-distr/dboceidahklphhjpfbpnicodnbkoiokn https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/superfocus-ultimate... It currently lets you hide all the distracting elements in YouTube - one of the methods the author references. YouTube is my #1 time suck. From personal experience, this alone makes a lot of difference.
Animats 2y ago
Oh, I thought he was going to talk about Bing. Bing outbound links redirect through Bing, and Bing's redirector is so slow that can add seconds of delay.
agile-gift0262 2y ago
It reminds me of when years ago I disabled watch history on YouTube and I realised that with that, recommendations became significantly worse, which in turn made me watch YouTube less, and have a tighter control, through subscriptions, on what YouTube recommends me. By making YouTube worse, I made my YouTube experience better. Now I always pay attention to these kinds of things to see how can I get more control over personalised recommendations if I can't avoid them
cchance 2y ago
I need an extension that forbids responding to comments on reddit, like just hide it almost NEVER has responding to comments come out well and always devolves into an argument, but i like reading comments to see the funny things hell most of the best things on an article are the first or second comment, but dear god its so hard to refuse to click the reply to some annoying asshat.
- ordu 2y ago
  Try to start with small things, like writing your comment but not sending it. You'll see it is really easier to not send a written comment then to not write it. After a while you'll see that you don't need to write your comments, but if you cannot resist you will be able to return to a practice of writing but not sending.
1oooqooq 2y ago
that's wasteful. disable all prefetch in the browser (which mostly server to tell google about links on the pages you visit). use only quad9 dns. enable all worldwide AdBlock filters (in uBlockOrigin obviously) enable browser process sandbox (firejail if you're lazy) so it can only every access ~/Downloads and you have to artisanaly curate and move files beforehand. disable JS globally on uBlockOrigin and see the site without it, and then think for a brief second before deciding if you will abandon or enable js on that domain. there are so many GOOD ways to add that latency with a LOT of return.
- Vicinity9635 2y ago
  [dead]
PcChip 2y ago
interested in the old-style forums you pay money for
- snthd 2y ago
  https://somethingawful.com/ https://somethingawful.com/ https://www.metafilter.com/ https://www.metafilter.com/
snthd 2y ago
Searching for "XKCD 862"[0] finds implementations. I never found a good one for firefox. [0] check the alt-text https://m.xkcd.com/862/ https://m.xkcd.com/862/ (2011)
fxtentacle 2y ago
I wonder how social media would turn out if people combined this with AdNauseam. Every time you visit a website, your PC will show you an empty page and in the background it'll click all ads for 8 seconds, then it'll switch to hiding all ads and showing you the content. Most likely, all ad networks will quickly block you for ghost clicks. But I wonder what they'll do next? Can the ad network report you to publishers' pages? Or will you still see the content but all ads will be missing because the ad network refuses to show you anything?
BeetleB 2y ago
Somewhat related: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2021/Dec/consuming-articles-offline/ https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2021/Dec/consuming-articles-off... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739940) And: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2024/Apr/reading-articles-via-podcast-software/ https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2024/Apr/reading-articles-via-p... It's rare that I read anything other than very short articles via my screen. I haven't posted followups, but one thing you notice when reading offline is that the things that compete for your attention are quite different vs when reading via a screen. When reading on a monitor/phone, you are (only) competing with other things on the PC/phone. Other apps, other tabs on your browser, etc. After reading offline for a while, my brain realized that next to my pile of articles is a bookshelf with books I've accumulated for years, and not read. As a result, even though I continue to print articles to read offline, I read very little of those, and spend more time reading actual books. The quality is higher, as well. Likewise, while I still listen to articles via the podcasting solution above, I spend more time listening to audiobooks instead. I firmly believe that had I not gone the offline reading/listening route, I would never had read those books.
amflare 2y ago
Does anyone know of a way to implement this at the network level? Maybe with a pihole or something?
- abracadaniel 2y ago
  That's what I'd love to see. Have the ability to set a desired latency for specific domains and have it apply to all traffic on the network.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Probably by modifying the source code of https://tinyproxy.github.io https://tinyproxy.github.io (it's a lightweight proxy, but modifying the source would be not a 5-minute thing...)
amelius 2y ago
Tip: play some modem sounds while waiting.
flymasterv 2y ago
I have been intentionally spending Sundays at the command line only: Browsing using various TUI site-specific clients, and elinks with my own customizations for sites that I use a lot. I write code in a console editor, and I just don't use GUIs for anything. Having an arbitrary set of constraints has made me more mindful of my use of technology, and has given me reason to delve into lots of random projects to scratch an itch.
tuttyboy 2y ago
You could do this, or you could use the distractions as a practice for ignoring the distractions. This is quite a powerful practice for improving your ability to focus on what matters, in and outside the web.
alganet 2y ago
Beer? My settings taste like rancid fish oil. No JavaScript by default. Each JavaScript file or snippet MUST be whitelisted FOR THAT DOMAIN. My whitelist has about 50 permanent websites. Cookies vanish when I close each tab. I can whitelist specific domains that won't do that. I never accept third party cookies. I have about 5 domains whitelisted for that. No browser history. I have around 5 bookmarks. My bookmarks bar is on the same row as the address bar, if I put too much bookmarks I loose address bar space and get uncomfortable, forcing me to clean it up. My phone only have about 20 apps (including default ones) on the home screen. Single page, only the bare essentials. Everything else is browser based. I don't even have GMail, for example (disabled it). The only things that can notify me are calls, sms and alarm clock. I have zero permanent contacts (memorized phones of closer people). Result: - I can't keep logged in on almost anything. Most my accounts require 2FA. Huge discouragement for all kinds of things. - Most of the web feels completely broken and miserable (because it is, all things I turned off are supposed to be optionals). - My phone feels sterile. Text, clock, occasional Maps navigation, bank, pagerduty, etc. I hardly look at it. I am still fairly addicted to YouTube though. History off, comment box hidden and recommendations hidden helps, but I still spend too much time on it. I once did the thing of hiding thumbnails, votes, description and channel name (only title and duration visible). It was good, I need to try that again.
threecheese 2y ago
When I read TF I was hoping to hear that the latency injection impacted the authors ad tracking. I wonder if signaling a low quality network or device would change the behavior of advertisement injection during browsing?

115 points by colinprince 2y ago

Addiction is a disease, it should be treated as such. We shouldn't be relying on the afflicted to heal themselves. It's no different than asking someone depressed to just "think happy thoughts" and expect them to magically will their condition away.

digging 2y ago
Actually, it is quite different. It's more like arranging a depressed person to be forced to walk through the woods for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom. It won't heal everything on its own and they may resent it, but it will mechanically combat their depression.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > forced to walk through the woods for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom I love that idea. I wish I had a big enough piece of forested property to try that out. Put the kitchen in one place, bathroom in another, and bedroom in a third, all five minutes walking distance apart. I could probably still find ways to defeat it. But maybe it would help.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    > could probably still find ways to defeat it. Mini fridge in the bedroom and just pee outside on the forest floor. :)
  - digging 2y ago
    I would love it, too!
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    Did the math, it is entirely plausible. ~2 acres, in the shape of an equilateral triangle, would do the trick. Expensive to do near a major metro, but in many places not terribly expensive. And in today's world of work-from-anywhere-starlink-works, a motivated individual could make this happen.
Alupis 2y ago
Right, and personal responsibility has nothing to do with addiction. We should, as a society, normalize impulsiveness and lack of personal responsibility, because people are incapable of being responsible. Look, it's not my fault I ate that tray of brownies after dinner. I'm just an addict. I need medicine and government intervention to save me from myself.
- therouwboat 2y ago
  "It is your fault, just don't do it again. Oh, you did it again, well just don't. You keep doing it, somehow you can't seem to stop, but you should.." Helpful isn't it.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    How do you propose we stop them? We used to lock these people away until they were cured...
    - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
      Provide tools, strategies, and alternatives. They still have to use them (it can't be forced), but it's definitely possible to smooth the path. For example, if you have a friend who is trying to quit drinking, invite them to fun alcohol-free events.
      - Alupis 2y ago
        > For example, if you have a friend who is trying to quit drinking, invite them to fun alcohol-free events. Then your friend goes home and drinks alone...
    - kortex 2y ago
      We also used to lock away basically any form of ASD or neurodivergence too far outside the norm (either directly via mental institutions, or indirectly via other harmful programs, mistreatment, or junk science). We also used to consider homosexuality a mental disorder. Moving forward is what society does. Addiction is largely driven by neurodevelopmental disorders (ADHD, ASD, MDD, sleep disorders, and many more), psychological disorders (anxiety, OCD, and many more), or both in combination. Most folks don't want to be addicts. At the heart of addiction is executive dysfunction caused by the above conditions, exacerbated by stressors. You treat it like any other mental health problem: therapy, medication, support systems, and a society that cares for its populace.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
brigadier132 2y ago
> It's no different than asking someone depressed to just "think happy thoughts" and expect them to magically will their condition away This literally helped me with my depression. Like most depressed people I surrounded myself with depressing things. I would read existentialist books and listen to emo music. Stopping that helped a lot unsurprisingly. For some reason you think people with a disease have no agency or ability to cure themselves? Since when has this been the case? If you imagine yourself to have no agency, you will always be a victim and always have different "diseases" that are uncurable. There are some diseases that can be cured by effort on the sick persons part. There are some that can't be. A heroin addiction is very different from a reddit addiction.
- CodeWriter23 2y ago
  You likely had situational not clinical depression.
  - brigadier132 2y ago
    No I had clinical depression but thanks for the diagnosis since my experience does not align with your preconceived notions of how the world works.
    - CodeWriter23 2y ago
      “Likely” is not a diagnosis. And no meds either, just thinking good thoughts was all you needed?
      - brigadier132 2y ago
        I don't know where you read the word "likely" I took bupropion then prozac, saw real therapists, went to a psychiatrist. Yes, the thing that ultimately led to me stop taking those drugs was changing my mindset and belief system. I stopped exposing myself that made me sad or angry and put me deeper into the hole. I would even watch shows that I knew made me laugh when I started to feel sad.
Workaccount2 2y ago
>We shouldn't be relying on the afflicted to heal themselves It's just unfortunately the case that ultimately you can bring a horse to water, at the gushing water well, surrounded by bottles of water, purified and fortified to a nutritional perfection, but if the horse itself doesn't want to drink, nothing you can do. Until we have a mind-control shot, people have to ultimately fix their addictions themselves.
akira2501 2y ago
> We shouldn't be relying on the afflicted to heal themselves. In a perfect world I absolutely agree with this sentiment. In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude. > It's no different than asking someone depressed The difference here is there is a third party with a vested interest in keeping you as addicted as possible.
- romwell 2y ago
  >In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude. I took it not as a platitude, but as a call to change the status quo.
- lemarchr 2y ago
  > In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude. As an industry we went from treating engagement as an art form, to treating it as an optimisation problem. Along the way we got very, very good at it, at scale. While profitable, we now know that the methods used to drive this engagement are harmful. Many countries recognise this harm and have introduced legislation to limit or ban methods used on vulnerable groups, such as children. It is interesting that we, as an industry, do not talk more about the harm we are complicit in causing. Somewhere along the way we normalised and accepted the idea that addicting features are desirable, and that we are not responsible for the consequences. With all said, an industry is not an individual. You and I may care about this problem, but it is not clear how to fix it. At the very least, as individuals it would be good to avoid contributing to addicting features as a matter of principle wherever the opportunity arises, lest we become the equivalent of digital drug dealers.
kortilla 2y ago
People with diseases have agency and can most definitely have a significant if not fully self sufficient control over their healing. This attitude of “I have X disease, so it’s not my problem to solve” is toxic and it’s the reason for rampant obesity and type 2 diabetes.
prewett 2y ago
We do expect people with medical conditions to take actions. Have cancer, do chemotherapy or get surgery. Overweight, change diet (or take thyroid medication, depending). Celiac, don't eat gluten. Bacterial infection, take appropriate antibiotics. I might agree that addiction is a disease if we limit it to physical addiction. But colloquially "addiction" is used for what might be more precisely termed compulsive behavior, like spending hours on Facebook. This kind of "addiction" is more like self-medicating negative emotions, and negative emotions are generally telling us that we are "malnourished" in some area. So we might be FB-scrolling because we are bored (lack purpose, lack challenge, etc), or because we are lonely and want to feel connected. Until we figure out what FB-scrolling is doing for us and get that need met, we're going to feel "addicted" to FB.
- glitchc 2y ago
  This is what I'm trying to get at. It's not about removing responsibility but rather about seeking treatment options, like we do for any disease, instead of stigmatizing it and saying the patient can think themselves out of it. That last bit minimizes the impact and extent of the disease. You can't think your way out of cancer, a broken foot, or even a plain old bacterial infection. So why do we think we can do that for addiction? To your second para, we don't know the root cause until we diagnose it. We don't know if it's physical, psychological (trauma), a hormonal/nutritional deficiency or a combination thereof. Right now society wants people to treat themselves without an adequate diagnosis and that's problematic on multiple fronts.
  - hatethissite42 2y ago
    The author is sharing a practical technique that helped him waste less time on internet crap. To me, that seems much closer to "seeking treatment options" than "stigmatizing it and saying the patient can think themselves out of it".
lemonberry 2y ago
As an alcoholic - 6 years without a drop - I'm confused by this statement. No one could get me sober except me. In my experience, most alcoholics agree with this. You want to not be an addict? Recognize it, take responsibility for it, and get sober. I would never tell my friends with depression to just "think happy thoughts". But I have suggested to some close friends that they need help and they could start by helping themselves by doing all of the things that we know to be beneficial for depression: exercise, change in diet, spend time outside, stop ruminating on social media about their mental health issues, etc. And if they can't do that a qualified medical professional can help get them to that point. Regardless of how bad someone's depression or addiction is, no one can make the first step towards healing except the sufferer. That said, a lot of support and compassion is crucial for a lot of people. Every time I hear someone took their life because of addiction or depression I get sad. I know what it's like to wake up everyday hating oneself and loathing life. It's not a fun place to be. If any of you out there are going through any of this, get help. Please, life on the other side of addiction is soooo much better. And no matter what you think, there will always be people that wished you were still around. A friend of friend took his own life this past week. He'd suffered a traumatic brain injury after falling drunk off of a deck at a party. I have no idea if he was an alcoholic or not. And doesn't matter. I'm rambling. Carry on.

digging 2y ago

I love the idea, and I love how it makes me feel revulsion. Would I do this to myself? No way - which makes it such a tempting idea to try, because I don't trust that gut reaction. That's the kind of gut reaction the brain will find any reason to justify because it is, as stated, an addiction. > This just feels like a beneficial dilution of the Internet. It feels like wine to the ancient Greeks, who drank wine but attacked the practice of drinking undiluted wine as tantamount to barbarism. As a classics major this was always one of my favorite tidbits about ancient Greek culture, so I love seeing it show up elsewhere. It speaks to why I like weak drinks as well... I enjoy drinking, and weak drinks let me drink more and have a higher degree of control. > Other possible dilutions Interestingly, I'm already about 60% of the way there without doing anything as intense as intentionally slowing down my web. Something I consistently find myself missing is old-style forums, which I believe are definitely what I want, but aren't easy to get to "stick", so I'm openly soliciting recommendations for any which care about and and enforce quality.

romwell 2y ago
>Other possible dilutions How about using a Core 2 Duo Windows 10PC with 3GB RAM as your web browsing machine? I still keep mine around, partly for that reason. (I also wish the developers used underpowered hardware for their work. Then, for once, "if it runs fine on my hardware, it'll probably run fine on yours" mantra would be true — and latency would far less likely to be as atrocious as it is)
- digging 2y ago
  Er, that seems like a more difficult, more wasteful way to get the same dilution (slower web browsing).
- amoss 2y ago
  One easy workaround here is to keep the hardware modern, but install Teams on it. Then you can feel the ancient hardware vibrate for all other applications.

rootusrootus 2y ago

Back in 2020 this got a lot of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22319383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22319383 Edit: And there are some really insightful comments there. No surprise, of course. But worth looking back at. I already got some good advice for my HN disease. Somehow I missed this discussion the first time around.

iwontberude 2y ago

I recently started using “one sec” on iOS to help control my habits. I highly recommend it after my first week of use. It has you take a breath and keeps track of how much time you saved (predicted) by declining to click through after the pause by integrating with Screen Time. You can customize your tags for overriding in case you need to “learn” or “troubleshoot” with a bounded app.

Alifatisk 2y ago

I added a grayscale filter to my phone which has cut down my phone usage from 8 hours to almost 4 hours per week. I’ve been doing it for 2 months now I think. I can’t even describe how boring it is to use my phone now, which is exactly how I want it. If anyone is curious to trying this, I highly suggest combining this with one of those minimalistic launcher apps. There are multiple options, one is called Dumbify on iOS (not free), but I've stuck to "Blank Spaces App" (trial, not free).

mastermedo 2y ago
By grayscale filter you mean a physical screen protector that is passthrough only for gray colour?
- elzbardico 2y ago
  I think you can find in on accessibility, on the options for dealing with color-blindness. Too lazy to check it now, but I am fairly sure that's where you'll find it.
- Alifatisk 2y ago
  No, it's a color filter in the accessability settings (I'm on iOS). There is another comment explaining where exactly.
jrussino 2y ago
How? Is something like this possible on iOS? (My expectation is "no" but if I'm wrong about that this is something I might try)...
- coffeebeqn 2y ago
  Color filters in Accessibility / Display & Text
- notpushkin 2y ago
  It is: https://dumbph.com/turn-iphone-into-dumb-phone/#grayscale-only-display https://dumbph.com/turn-iphone-into-dumb-phone/#grayscale-on...

mendor 2y ago

test rendering sucks on this website

mendor 2y ago

text rendering sucks on this particular website (chrome windows)

pikma 2y ago

I absolutely want to do something like this to help me and my family spend less time watching our phones in the evening. Does anybody know of a reasonably-simple way of either increasing the latency or throttling the bandwidth, per-device, with programmable hours? For example, is there any wifi router that lets you do this?

lstodd 2y ago
You'll only get frustration and lashing-out as a result. This is a wrong approach. Get some activities for that evening organized first.

was_a_dev 2y ago

This has reminded me how much my Reddit usage has dropped off a cliff after the third-party apps debacle. At first, it was as a futile protest, but then the inevitable addiction hunger kicked in. But this time, I had no choice to use the offical Reddit app. The sluggishness of that app added enough latency, that my Reddit consumption is now non-existent

rootusrootus 2y ago
I'm curious how it has all played out since the debacle. Has there been a noticeable decrease in traffic? Anecdotally, the bot traffic is quite high now, but that was going up already. I refuse to install the app. Reddit aggressively tags random posts as NSFW and then offers "anonymous" browsing if only I install the app. What? That's silly. And creepy. Going to old.reddit.com still works if there is something I want to see, but I suppose eventually they will close that loophole. And thus will end my reddit experience. I already got rid of my own account ages ago, so I only read, and that cut my interaction time way down. Force me to use the app and we're done.
- hamandcheese 2y ago
  > Reddit aggressively tags random posts as NSFW and then offers "anonymous" browsing if only I install the app. What? That's silly. "Request desktop site" setting in mobile Safari also works for me to bypass this.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    Old Reddit Redirect and Reddit Enhancement Suite on Firefox cut out all of their BS.
    - Onawa 2y ago
      Only for as long as they allow old.reddit.com to exist. The rug can get pulled at anytime.

ricardobayes 2y ago

What the author describes is basically the digital alternative to moving to a "higher rent area". You can choose to filter out the issues that the average person has, but that doesn't make them go away.

anilshanbhag 2y ago

Planning to add this as an option into my extension SuperFocus https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/superfocus-ultimate-distr/dboceidahklphhjpfbpnicodnbkoiokn https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/superfocus-ultimate... It currently lets you hide all the distracting elements in YouTube - one of the methods the author references. YouTube is my #1 time suck. From personal experience, this alone makes a lot of difference.

Animats 2y ago

Oh, I thought he was going to talk about Bing. Bing outbound links redirect through Bing, and Bing's redirector is so slow that can add seconds of delay.

agile-gift0262 2y ago

It reminds me of when years ago I disabled watch history on YouTube and I realised that with that, recommendations became significantly worse, which in turn made me watch YouTube less, and have a tighter control, through subscriptions, on what YouTube recommends me. By making YouTube worse, I made my YouTube experience better. Now I always pay attention to these kinds of things to see how can I get more control over personalised recommendations if I can't avoid them

cchance 2y ago

I need an extension that forbids responding to comments on reddit, like just hide it almost NEVER has responding to comments come out well and always devolves into an argument, but i like reading comments to see the funny things hell most of the best things on an article are the first or second comment, but dear god its so hard to refuse to click the reply to some annoying asshat.

ordu 2y ago
Try to start with small things, like writing your comment but not sending it. You'll see it is really easier to not send a written comment then to not write it. After a while you'll see that you don't need to write your comments, but if you cannot resist you will be able to return to a practice of writing but not sending.

1oooqooq 2y ago

that's wasteful. disable all prefetch in the browser (which mostly server to tell google about links on the pages you visit). use only quad9 dns. enable all worldwide AdBlock filters (in uBlockOrigin obviously) enable browser process sandbox (firejail if you're lazy) so it can only every access ~/Downloads and you have to artisanaly curate and move files beforehand. disable JS globally on uBlockOrigin and see the site without it, and then think for a brief second before deciding if you will abandon or enable js on that domain. there are so many GOOD ways to add that latency with a LOT of return.

Vicinity9635 2y ago
[dead]

PcChip 2y ago

interested in the old-style forums you pay money for

snthd 2y ago
https://somethingawful.com/ https://somethingawful.com/ https://www.metafilter.com/ https://www.metafilter.com/

snthd 2y ago

Searching for "XKCD 862"[0] finds implementations. I never found a good one for firefox. [0] check the alt-text https://m.xkcd.com/862/ https://m.xkcd.com/862/ (2011)

fxtentacle 2y ago

I wonder how social media would turn out if people combined this with AdNauseam. Every time you visit a website, your PC will show you an empty page and in the background it'll click all ads for 8 seconds, then it'll switch to hiding all ads and showing you the content. Most likely, all ad networks will quickly block you for ghost clicks. But I wonder what they'll do next? Can the ad network report you to publishers' pages? Or will you still see the content but all ads will be missing because the ad network refuses to show you anything?

BeetleB 2y ago

Somewhat related: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2021/Dec/consuming-articles-offline/ https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2021/Dec/consuming-articles-off... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739940) And: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2024/Apr/reading-articles-via-podcast-software/ https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2024/Apr/reading-articles-via-p... It's rare that I read anything other than very short articles via my screen. I haven't posted followups, but one thing you notice when reading offline is that the things that compete for your attention are quite different vs when reading via a screen. When reading on a monitor/phone, you are (only) competing with other things on the PC/phone. Other apps, other tabs on your browser, etc. After reading offline for a while, my brain realized that next to my pile of articles is a bookshelf with books I've accumulated for years, and not read. As a result, even though I continue to print articles to read offline, I read very little of those, and spend more time reading actual books. The quality is higher, as well. Likewise, while I still listen to articles via the podcasting solution above, I spend more time listening to audiobooks instead. I firmly believe that had I not gone the offline reading/listening route, I would never had read those books.

amflare 2y ago

Does anyone know of a way to implement this at the network level? Maybe with a pihole or something?

abracadaniel 2y ago
That's what I'd love to see. Have the ability to set a desired latency for specific domains and have it apply to all traffic on the network.
netsharc 2y ago
Probably by modifying the source code of https://tinyproxy.github.io https://tinyproxy.github.io (it's a lightweight proxy, but modifying the source would be not a 5-minute thing...)

amelius 2y ago

Tip: play some modem sounds while waiting.

flymasterv 2y ago

I have been intentionally spending Sundays at the command line only: Browsing using various TUI site-specific clients, and elinks with my own customizations for sites that I use a lot. I write code in a console editor, and I just don't use GUIs for anything. Having an arbitrary set of constraints has made me more mindful of my use of technology, and has given me reason to delve into lots of random projects to scratch an itch.

tuttyboy 2y ago

You could do this, or you could use the distractions as a practice for ignoring the distractions. This is quite a powerful practice for improving your ability to focus on what matters, in and outside the web.

alganet 2y ago

Beer? My settings taste like rancid fish oil. No JavaScript by default. Each JavaScript file or snippet MUST be whitelisted FOR THAT DOMAIN. My whitelist has about 50 permanent websites. Cookies vanish when I close each tab. I can whitelist specific domains that won't do that. I never accept third party cookies. I have about 5 domains whitelisted for that. No browser history. I have around 5 bookmarks. My bookmarks bar is on the same row as the address bar, if I put too much bookmarks I loose address bar space and get uncomfortable, forcing me to clean it up. My phone only have about 20 apps (including default ones) on the home screen. Single page, only the bare essentials. Everything else is browser based. I don't even have GMail, for example (disabled it). The only things that can notify me are calls, sms and alarm clock. I have zero permanent contacts (memorized phones of closer people). Result: - I can't keep logged in on almost anything. Most my accounts require 2FA. Huge discouragement for all kinds of things. - Most of the web feels completely broken and miserable (because it is, all things I turned off are supposed to be optionals). - My phone feels sterile. Text, clock, occasional Maps navigation, bank, pagerduty, etc. I hardly look at it. I am still fairly addicted to YouTube though. History off, comment box hidden and recommendations hidden helps, but I still spend too much time on it. I once did the thing of hiding thumbnails, votes, description and channel name (only title and duration visible). It was good, I need to try that again.

threecheese 2y ago

When I read TF I was hoping to hear that the latency injection impacted the authors ad tracking. I wonder if signaling a low quality network or device would change the behavior of advertisement injection during browsing?