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Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot
- bertwagner 1y agoI've never thought of using a smart plug button as a switch to run a script - pretty neat idea I might use for some other projects. I hope you have more luck than me with sticking with the switch instead of just editing /etc/hosts.
- montroser 1y agoI rigged up one of these so my wife could go push the button and her phone would play an alarm sound so she could find it when it goes missing. Was a good hack for a bit, but then the children figured out they could actually use the same button to _find their mom_, since the she was usually colocated with the phone!
- whacko_quacko 1y agoLove the idea! And thanks for sharing the script =)
- ozim 1y agoI can imagine that could be nice feature on a router. Trigger fw blocking automatically but to unlock you have to go to the router and press physical button. I guess I can implement that on raspberry pi.
- teddyh 1y agoI also hear that a rubber band on your wrist is useful for addiction.
- rob_c 1y agoIt's better than "I have to get off my arse" as it provides some real negative stimuli rather than appealling to sloth.
- noman-land 1y agoHow does this work?
- NoPicklez 1y agoWhenever you get the itch to do something like open social media you pull on the rubber band and let it slap your wrist
- noman-land 1y agoLove it. Great idea.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoA timer seems appropriate so it resets itself automatically.
- netsharc 1y agoMy anti-distraction setup uses multiple dnsmasqs, one of them has a long list of blocked (ad-)domains, and DNS tags, something like this (1). So the devices with the "black" tag have a different DNS server (it's the same computer, but it has 2 IPs), and has DNS-level ad-blocking (convenient for phones) and can't access reddit, Twitter, etc. One device doesn't have blocks, in case the aggressive blocking breaks something. I guess it'd be great to use a slow laptop to browse brainrot sites to discourage me from doing so. (1) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22467430/dnsmasq-tags-and-conditional-dns-server https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22467430/dnsmasq-tags-an...
- AstroBen 1y agomy problem with things like this is that it's trivially easy to just.. stop the script. What's the point when it adds so little friction?
- sokoloff 1y agoFor a lot of behavioral things, tiny nudges are just enough friction. At one point, I wrote a bit of CSS in stylus to hide the downvote button on HN to see how often I thought a downvote was really earned (not that often). It was trivial to undo [or use another browser], but gave just that small amount of friction to drive my own awareness.
- quitit 1y agoThe reason why social media and similar websites now have infinite scroll is because the next page button provided you with a circuit breaker to stop and reconsider if you actually wanted to continue or if you were just mindlessly scrolling. So if you have a genuine intention not to use certain websites at particular times (e.g. work time), then having any kind of forced interruption can be useful for changing that behaviour. If you're looking to create genuine change, then making those websites load slowly is even more effective than going cold turkey (because it minimises the dopamingeric effects.)
- AstroBen 1y agoHaving tried that many times, it just doesn't work for me Maybe others have better luck
- layer8 1y agoThe friction makes me want to disable the measure before it makes me want to stop the activity. And unlike paging in forums, I can disable it. That’s why these measures never work for me.
- quitit 1y agoFundamentally it comes down to what you value. If you don't actually want to stop, then these opportunities for pause do nothing, because in that pause you reaffirm that you do want to continue the behaviour. This ties into why addiction is so powerful, while many people know their addictions are bad, they enjoy them and don't actually want to stop. I.E. They don't value the results of cessation versus keeping the addiction. It's entirely possible to reach for your phone, then tap an app or load a website on your computer while being semi-aware of your actions, and this is typical for people with ingrained behaviours. These people can start scrolling instagram or twitter without really thinking about it. Having a forced circuit breaker gives these people an opportunity to stop and reconsider their actions. At the end of the day only you have full agency over yourself.
- neilv 1y agoAt top of my uBlock Origin "My Filters" tab, I have a list of the Web sites like the following, which I comment (by prefixing each line with `!`) and un-comment, as needed. ||reddit.com^$important ||ycombinator.com^$important This is sufficient to defeat whatever muscle-memory you have to visit the site. If your addiction/habit is stronger, you might need to invest that $8.
- diggan 1y agoAnother approach is adding them to /etc/hosts as 127.0.0.1, which makes it slightly more cumbersome to edit and also stops muscle-memory from going CTRL+T then press "N" then down arrow then enter. No, not for me personally, I'd never.
- Theodores 1y agoHow does this work? Silly question, but I don't get it. Do you have to get something onto the smart outlet? ELIF!!!
- Jackim 1y agoThe script on the computer checks to see if the smart plug is on or off. Depending on the state, the script blocks or unblocks the websites. The smart plug is just acting as a button that is connected to your WiFi.
- 65 1y agoSomething that works well is to block websites like YouTube or Instagram in regular browsing but keep them unblocked in Incognito mode. This forces you to sign in every time you want to use these sites.
- jerlam 1y agoYouTube works fine in incognito mode so what am I missing? It just doesn't have any history or suggestions, until you watch a few videos.
- karaterobot 1y agoMullvad VPN's client blocks that stuff as well. That filter prevents me from unknowingly clicking a link here on HN and getting twitter on me.
- rob_c 1y agoIf editing the hosts file is enough to dissuade you... I'm guessing your not a distributed sysadmin by trade :/
- shinycode 1y agoInstead of adding friction, part of the work of oneself is about finding the root cause of why we go into those places and understand up to which point spending too much time on those is not only detrimental to society but to me personally. I mean, a doctor would tell me that « you have brain rot » would freak me so much that I would do anything to reverse or get rid of it asap. Idk, maybe after +20y of wasting time online I got that it’s a ressource I won’t ever get back and I resent wasting it too much now, which gets me off using all the links he blocked without efforts.
- mattbrewsbytes 1y agoCan switches like this also detect usage, like current flowing? It might be a fun and healthy twist to plug a walking pad/treadmill into a smart plug and then either make it so brainrot websites are only viewable when the treadmill is being used or make a small app that tracks the time the treadmill is used and then only allows that amount of time on brainrot websites.
- seemaze 1y agoI've deployed countless Sonoff S31[0] which are easily hackable and have current monitoring capabilies [0]https://sonoff.tech/product/smart-plugs/s31-s31lite/ https://sonoff.tech/product/smart-plugs/s31-s31lite/
- stavros 1y agoYes, a lot of them do. There are some $5 plugs I use that monitor current and work great: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005729080838.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005729080838.html The price varies a lot between listings, I think the cheapest I got them was $20 for 4 or so.
- cardanome 1y agoOne thing that finally worked for me was using: https://one-sec.app/ https://one-sec.app/ It basically forces you to do a little breathing exercise before you can visit the site that you have on its block list. It has been life changing. It adds enough friction for me to stop any impulsive visits but also is not so annoying that I would completely disable it in a weak moment. One Sec was developed by someone with ADHD, I think and it definitely shows. It is important to understand that not every solution will work for everyone. There can be many reasons why you struggle with social media addictions. Ultimately those corporations are spending millions and employ state of the art psychological manipulation tactics to keep you engaged so it is important to be kind to yourself. Don't give up. You might find something that works for you.
- bapak 1y agoI tried it and it literally could not last one launch on my phone. The only action that can save me from Instagram is uninstalling the app. I have the web app installed but it's too slow to feed my addiction, so I rarely open it.
- HK-NC 1y agoOnly works for one app with the free version.
- cardanome 1y agoThey have a 7 day free trial. Just cancel it immediately after setting it up so you don't forget it. You can still use the full 7 days. Though it is 14,99 Euro per YEAR, so pretty fair pricing, anyway.
- spacemadness 1y agoInteresting. How does this work with iOS? It seems like something Apple wouldn’t allow.
- elektor 1y agoIt used the Shortcuts app to essentially be a middle man between you and the distraction. So everyone I open Safari, it triggers the other app (the 5 second timer), then redirects me back to safari.
- rr808 1y agoAnyone know the state of IoT buttons? Most seem to have gone out of production. (An outlet seems like a great alternative )
- LeSaucy 1y agoIKEA remotes are inexpensive and work really well with a proper zigbee adapter and zigbee2mqtt. Home assistant you can build actions right from the web ui.
- layer8 1y agoThis would work (even?) better if it wasn’t a switch, but a push button with the unblocking automatically timing out after some interval. Otherwise you’re prone to just letting it stay on unblock. The Amazon Dash buttons could be hacked to do something like that.
- abound 1y agoSimilarly: https://flic.io/ https://flic.io/ Little programmable buttons, they're great. I've used them for similar habit formation stuff, in my case not ignoring my alarm, by making the button the only way to shut it off, and putting the button very far away from bed.
- layer8 1y agoNice, but pretty expensive at $35 for the simplest button. For comparison, an IKEA smart button/dimmer is only $10.
- Papazsazsa 1y agoThe best investment I have ever made was buying a forever license from https://freedom.to/ https://freedom.to/ timed and customizable blocklists, multiple devices
- amelius 1y agoWhat prevents you from killing the polling script and editing /etc/hosts back to its original state? I think a modified Pi-hole would serve this purpose better, as it would leave no other option than getting out of your chair and taking action (assuming you made it impossible to ssh into the device).
- Jotalea 1y agoFor some reason, I thought this switch altered the electrical power for the router and thus acting as a physical barrier, not allowing it to request those servers. I guess my imagination just went wild.
- msgodel 1y agoI've thought about putting mine on one of those mechanical timers to kill it outside business hours.
- warunsl 1y agoI have been using Foqos app since a month now and it’s been amazing on my iPhone. You can create a block list of apps and when you start “Foqos” those apps will be blocked. You have to unblock before using those apps. But here is the best part. The unblocking can be configured such that it does only when you tap on a NFC tag. I spend a lot of time on the phone as soon as I wake up. So I have been blocking before sleep and keeping the NFC tag in the garage. Amazing setup for me. This app I assume is exactly like the more mainstream Brick app but this app lets you configure any off the shelf NFC tags which you can get under $5.
- remuskaos 1y agoThis is insanely clever. I can't use ublock origin for that because I want all devices in my home to take advantage of this, so I've reimplemented this with Home Assistant, Adguard Home and the Adguard Home integration into Home Assistant.
- thingsilearned 1y agoI've used a similar smart outlet on a timer to just shut my wifi off at 9pm. I then put an alarm on my computer to give me a 15 minute wrap-up warning.
- parhamn 1y agoPro tip for macos/ios folks: - Macos: Install https://selfcontrolapp.com/ https://selfcontrolapp.com/, add every website and their alternatives you know, set it to 24 hours. Really hard to bypass this even if you know networking stuff - iOS: Enable downtime 24/7 ask someone else to set the password. I'm down to about 35 minutes a day of mobile usage, and laptop usage is only work related things. You really need two or three days to clear your head of news feeds. After a few days you really just crave working. (I'm in between a 24 hour session right now)
- dankwizard 1y agoGuarantee the OP used this for a week and never touched it again. Those without self control cannot be trusted if they hold the switch.
- mumbisChungo 1y agoHave you never willfully developed a habit before? I find the first week or two is challenging, then after that it's easy.
- msgodel 1y agoI think you'd be surprised how a little bit of difficulty can be enough to break binge cycles. I killed both my hackernews and reddit addictions years ago by just adding them to /etc/hosts. It was easy to change and sometimes I did but that was enough that I didn't dwell on those sites anymore. Recently I've written a chrome extension that does this much better. Hopefully it gets approved today or tomorrow. Maybe I'll post it to show HN.
- j45 1y ago/etc/hosts works great. A dedicated device for browsing such content is useful too.
- SlowTao 1y agoConvenience is the biggest drug of them all, if you can break that then you can go a long way to breaking a habit. Even just putting up minor inconvenience can help slow the habit formed behavior. If you have a food addiction, remove all the pre-packed easy stuff. If you have to cook a meal to get the calories, you now have a step speed bump to the habit. It doesn't mean you cannot eat, it just stops that grab and go mentality. Same thing with the fridges of the internet (social media).
- sodality2 1y agoSimilarly, convenience (reducing resistance) is the biggest factor in sticking to positive habits. Here’s an article on applying this to strength training: https://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/ https://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/
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- perfmode 1y agoWhy do we reflexively distract ourselves?
- Huxley1 1y agoAn $8 smart outlet helping reduce mental load and boost focus really surprised me. Looks like I’ve underestimated how much these small automation tools can free up mental space in daily life. Has anyone else used simple and affordable tech that surprisingly made a big difference in managing distractions or mental fatigue?
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- Saigonautica 1y agoAs a courtesy, I used to check in on client servers every morning to alert them if services were down. Eventually it became a chore, so I made some hardware server status boards that monitor them for me (8 each). Here in Asia they cost 5-8$ each to make depending on exact part choice (total cost including boards and components). I open sourced the hardware / firmware if you want some: https://github.com/seanboyce/servermon https://github.com/seanboyce/servermon I used to use scripts etc to do it. However this tells me what I need to know in a glance, so I like it better.
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoWhen androids finally be a thing the era of robots chasing procrastinating people around in the room finally becomes reality.
- absurdo 1y agoI have reservations about adding YouTube as it’s got a massive amount of useful content; a little curation and it won’t show you any nonsense. Reddit is a mid-range, so I can understand it. It’s hard to separate the good and the bad there I suppose, especially if you’ve gotten into constantly checking for updates. But I would almost certainly and without any qualms put HN on the default noallow list. The SNR and potential for learning things is atrocious to nonexistent most of the time - and you can find better sources than HN. No, I’m not joking unfortunately it’s just what the site has become over the years.
- kybernetyk 1y agoyeah, I just added offending sites to /etc/hosts the trouble of entering my root pw to edit the file usually is enough to make me reconsider if I really want to visit reddit or youtube or whatever works for me ... mainly because I'm uber lazy :)
- qustrolabe 1y agoWhy? What the point of just blocking several popular sites? Sounds like you just wasted time and money setting up weird thingy
- motbus3 1y agoBlocking JS and cookies related to these sites often work. I got rid of a 'minor' habit of checking social network by simply making it harder for me to access it so I could have time enough to identify I was doing something I shouldn't. It is a nice tool to have it automatically solved
- maguirre 1y agoI have been looking for something like this to control my pihole. Wife gets upset when her coupon websites tracking redirects stop working