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Smartphones and being present

• alchemist1e9 1y ago
  A big problem I find is that if you are a family and have kids you basically have to keep up and that means turning on notifications for messages and emails and then of course that leads to opening the phone, reading email, checking HN (obviously) and then posting a comment on it! urghh
  • coldpie 1y ago
    I don't have kids, so I can't 100% relate, but have you dug into the notifications settings on your phone? They're extremely flexible. I've set mine up so any non-chat notification gets batched into a group that shows at 5 AM and 5 PM. This lets me check on whatever happened the previous evening while I'm having breakfast, and whatever happened during the day after I get home from work. Once I've flipped through all the notifications and done whatever other time wasting things, it goes back in my pocket and largely does not disturb me for another 12 hours. Maybe something like that could work. If you find there are notifications that are disturbing you, but they really could have waited until the evening, toss 'em in the batch bucket. Eventually you'll tune out all the low-importance stuff and get your life back. Or find some other cadence that works for you. It takes some effort to tune these systems, but I think it's worth it.
    • titanomachy 1y ago
      I'm surprised that no one else I know uses this feature. It's helped me a lot.
  • wmeredith 1y ago
    My high schooler is in theatre and they post critical updates via Instagram. It drives me crazy. And don't get me started on all the custom apps cluttering my phone that these schools and sports leagues get sold on for sharing flyers and other info (Parent Square, Peach Jar, Playmetrics, Mojo, etc.) I guess it's a feature that most of those apps are not well designed and they don't suck you into addictive engagement loops like the big social media platforms.
  • qmr 1y ago
    Nah that's what FRS, GMRS, APRS and LoRA / Meshtastic are for. Come on, raise your kids right.
  • titanomachy 1y ago
    I followed the instructions here to cripple my phone using Apple Configurator: https://stopa.io/post/297 https://stopa.io/post/297 Now the browser doesn't work and I can't install new apps. I also turn on "Do Not Disturb" almost all the time, which allows through notifications from exactly 3 people.
    • jeanofthedead 1y ago
      I’m a big fan of the “Reduce Interruptions” focus mode.
  • ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    I was super-disappointed, attending my recent state townhall meeting, that the only way to participate was scanning a QR code to fill out a survey. After asking for a paper copy (which was never produced), I decided to participate in my own manner: I stood up and heckled my clown state representatives, for almost an hour, providing audience-appreciated commentary to what I perceive as our failed political system (US bipartisan). To their toothless grocery sales tax reduction legislation (which'll never pass), I suggested my fellow constituents just shop across the state line, in one of the many nearby grocery stores — just STOP giving our state this money, then maybe they'll consider legislative changes. Perhaps this fell upon deaf ears, but I wasn't the only audience member frustrated with our legislators' back-patting/inaction. I will vote/shop with my money, elsewhere. I wrote my state officials a letter afterwards, offering common-sense suggestions — hoping this geriatric remembers my participation (he turns 80 soon... just retire already, Congressman!).
    • alchemist1e9 1y ago
      What does this have to do with the post?
      • ProllyInfamous 1y ago
        Needing a cell phone app to participate in democracy (via a QR code).
• throwmeaway222 1y ago
  I think the most surprising thing about it, at least in the US - is that mobile bandwidth is THE most expensive. I imagine that's inverted or opposite elsewhere
  • kwanbix 1y ago
    How expensive? In spain you can get 20~30GB for 10 euros, which is more than enough for most people.
    • pessimizer 1y ago
      10GB for $30. https://cabletvinfo.com/internet-services/cricket-wireless-plans-prepaid/ https://cabletvinfo.com/internet-services/cricket-wireless-p... or 20GB for $35, with no talk or text. https://www.usmobile.com/blog/explore-cricket-wireless-simply-data-plans-for-affordable-highspeed-connectivity/ https://www.usmobile.com/blog/explore-cricket-wireless-simpl... edit: linking weird sites because I don't know how accessible US telecom site pricing is in Europe, but they are correct.
  • jlokier 1y ago
    For perspective, I pay USD $17.33 a month for unlimited 5G data - in the UK, in GBP, so really £13. Low quality home broadband costs more than that, and is slower, but with better latency. I've tested the unlimited claim, and they really do let you download terabytes. All my local LLMs are downloaded over mobile data. So yes, in my experience it's inverted over here. Mobile bandwidth is the cheapest if you can get a good deal and you're in an uncongested area with a good signal. Unfortunately that's not a combination I've found to be reliable anywhere I go, especially over the last 6 months. But the price is good!
    • sgt 1y ago
      I wonder how the telcos make money though. 4G/LTE/5G towers everywhere is a huge investment, even the maintenance.
• graypegg 1y ago
  > The first way is to not have recommendation media (think Instagram, TikTok, and all the rest). I'm pro deleting these accounts completely, because it's really easy to re-download the apps on a whim, or *visit them in-browser.* Tiktok having a borderline unusable web app has done wonders for me. I'll end up on it because someone sent me a link, I can watch that ONE video, a single time, before normally I get a spot-the-boat style captcha or an "install the app" modal. Even trying to get past that point, it feels like the site is somehow falling apart at the seams as you navigate around. I know the concept is "well people will install the app then" but that's also annoyingly frictionful. They unintentionally made the most literal social media experience: some one sends me media, I watch it once, I leave before the site crumbles to pieces like an ancient tomb that was only held together by a load-bearing dog video.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • Carlseymanh 1y ago
    I am putting the load bearing dog video on the example shelf right next to the load bearing (disproven) TF2_coconut.jpg
  • avgDev 1y ago
    I like Reddit, I pay for an app on iOS to have a reasonable experience. The mobile web experience otherwise is terrible. Social Media sucks now. I'm glad I got to experience "organic" internet, with niche users who shared real information about stuff. Not the marketing machine we have now.
    • andrepd 1y ago
      I'm firmly convinced we will, eventually, look back at algorithmic social media with the same revulsion as we now look at leaded gasoline or ubiquitous cigarretes. No less harmful.
      • api 1y ago
        The arc of social media is truly breathtakingly awful. At this point it’s hard for me to see any value in it at all. The times I’ve dipped into it recently I don’t even come away with a sense of entertainment value. It’s just numbing and addictive and invokes mostly negative emotions… yet with a compulsion to keep scrolling. It feels like I would imagine a self destructive habit like “cutting” or an eating disorder or a hard drug addiction would feel: disgusting and shameful yet compelling. It’s vile. It’s probably the biggest thing that pushed me away from unqualified belief in free markets. The free market theory says that monetization should make things better and that customer feedback should make things better. What I see is that it often makes things considerably worse. Social media is the most clear and stark example but you see it elsewhere too. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that it’s cheaper and easier and often more profitable to extract value rather than create it. A casino is more profitable than a school or a hospital. Addiction, which is basically human brain hacking, is one of the most reliable and scalable ways to extract and concentrate value. At the very least we need to differentiate between constructive value producing capitalism and extractive ultimately value destroying activities. The latter should perhaps be taxed into the ground.
• jdpigeon 1y ago
  A few years ago I traded my huge Google Pixel 6 for a 3 inch Uniherz Jelly. It's not perfect, as I still spend a lot of time on Reddit and HN on the tiny screen while commuting, but it's moved the needle for me.
  • carlosjobim 1y ago
    Get a Kindle and read good books while commuting. You shouldn't feel bad for not looking out the window.
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    Just curious, do you have to do anything to get Reddit fitting on that screen properly? I almost imagine it would need a reader mode kinda thing
  • qmr 1y ago
    Huh I came across some very similar looking phones on a similar looking website just yesterday. I guess these phones are rebadged?
  • throwaway243123 1y ago
    I've debated getting that phone heavily. My reasons not to: 1. it's gotta be bad for the eyes on a screen that small 2. the Pixel camera!
    • wltr 1y ago
      A small iPhone has pretty good cameras, e.g. 12 or 13 mini.
  • wltr 1y ago
    I researched this phone, and while being cool (I like the idea), it’s not practical for me to hunt it, it’s not trivial to buy in my area. However, I have a similar idea to others: an old tiny iPhone (4S or 5S if you can survive with the obsolete system, FaceTime and iMessage works there last time I checked, a year or two ago), or SE 1st gen (I use it as my second phone to my 12 mini), which is perfectly usable (Safari is stuck at whatever version it has from iOS 15). It’s not very practical everyday phone, but it works for most tasks, including navigation with maps. So if you’re hunting a small distraction free phone, an obsolete iPhone is a pretty decent thing to buy, and is usually cheap. I bet getting a new battery might be more expensive than the phone itself, unless you’re up to the task (it’s not complicated, if you have the basic instruments). I know it’s the opposite of an open phone with an easily swappable battery, but it’s a decent step into the direction. And I found an old iPhone being very usable for very basic tasks. If I had a Pro Max, I’d surely wasted much more time on it. I know because I had one before.
• ddtaylor 1y ago
  I'm really glad that for whatever reason my brain has completely rejected short-form content. It seems to be a serious problem for a lot of people. I don't understand it the same way I don't understand heroin addictions. My mind is just screaming "STOP DOING IT" and cannot get passed that concept very far.
  • layer8 1y ago
    You don’t enjoy the short-form comments on this forum?
  • righthand 1y ago
    The trick of short form video isn’t the content itself but the channel flipping, hunting hook action. Changing the channel is fun when you actually land on something-good in the sea of garbage. And sometimes that something-good is a an endless handkerchief. One that you can keep pulling out good somethings with. Now you feel extra special like you’ve found something novel as you’ve completed the hunt and are satiated. And you keep that endless handkerchief you found. Soon you will have found many novel endless handkerchiefs. You mount them on your profile page like boar heads on a hunters wall. This pride is tied to happiness and you know how to hunt for more. I highly recommend the book Hooked by Nir Eyal[0]. It is the book that effortlessly detailed how to build short form video networks (as well as other addicting software over the last 10+ years). The people who built this stuff read it and the people who want to stop the addictions should read it. [0] https://search.worldcat.org/title/881418283 https://search.worldcat.org/title/881418283
  • boogieknite 1y ago
    for me its because i browse hn and the overwhelming cynicism "tastes" much worse than the entertainment provided
  • neutronicus 1y ago
    You're on HN, though. In some sense, reeling in people like you has been a solved problem for decades, since forums were invented. I apologize for what is doubtless egregious projection on my part. I am like you in the sense that I seem "immune" to TikTok/Reels, especially relative to my wife, who can definitely get sucked into it for 30-60 minutes. However, I'm easily-snared by things like "the last year of drama in the NixOS community". I can easily spend an hour I don't have reading forum threads in which people are accusing moderators of abusing their position in a forum about a piece of technology I don't use. So in some sense the tech industry didn't need to "innovate" in order to suck me in. I was getting sucked into reading about web forum drama 20 years ago.
• thenthenthen 1y ago
  Very occidental perspective. There are places where you need your phone practically 24/7, no affordance of escape. I can give an example of my day, which is basically completely phone centered, the only words I utter in a day is some digits to the taxi driver to verify my identity (when i can afford a ride that is). Edit: mute button is essential and don't allow any notifications outside important messages/apps
  • LeifCarrotson 1y ago
    Is this out of convenience or necessity? Do you have redundant devices so that if your primary glass slab is unusable for some reason, you're still able to make it home at the end of the day? Are you in some new role and lifestyle that wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago, or suffering from a disability for which the cell phone is your only means of achieving independence? The human race has survived for about 2 million years without a 24/7 tether. Our environment is the safest and most human-shaped it's ever been, you don't need to have constant anxiety about true emergency situations resolved by cell phone connections, those are unimaginably rare. It's totally feasible to go without a cell phone once in a while, just try it! Check your emails once a day, 5 days a week. Set up an auto-responder saying you're unavailable and can check messages at [time]. Navigate with your memory and the many signs that are posted, or with a paper map for aid. Write down things you need to remember with a pen and a piece of paper. Leave the phone behind and just go for a walk in a park with nothing but your surroundings and your thoughts. The world will keep turning for 30 minutes regardless of whether you're keeping tabs on it through the phone.
    • nemomarx 1y ago
      I think they're referring to (the especially common in Asia) scenario where all payments/ authentication/ local services are handled via smartphone applications? You can definitely go for a walk without it but you might not be able to get on transit, buy from shops, read a menu at a restaurant or so on.
      • floren 1y ago
• aaaashley 1y ago
  Speaking of using custom CSS with YouTube, I do the following for my experience: - Completely hide the recommended tab - Make every thumbnail grayscale (to mitigate eye-catching thumbnails) - Make every video title lowercase (to mitigate eye-catching titles) Here's my code, although I have to update it every once and a while when YouTube changes: yt-thumbnail-view-model { filter: grayscale(); } h3[title] { text-transform: lowercase; } .ytd-watch-flexy #secondary { display: none !important; } It's amazing how much a couple small changes can make on your browsing experience. The companies that own these products have a huge incentive to make every element purposefully addictive. I've also patched the iOS Instagram app to remove all Reels (using FLEXtool & Sideloadly), so I can keep up with my friends without falling into the traps. As developers, we have the ability to target these manipulative tactics and remove them, and I encourage you to do this as much as possible.
  • sogen 1y ago
    If you disable History, it automatically removes Recommendations across your devices.
    • the_af 1y ago
      What do you get instead of recommendations? Random junk or just nothing? I find YouTube recommendations very useful. I only get what I'm interested in or adjacent topics, no junk, no ragebait.
      • sogen 1y ago
        Nothing, you will get an empty start page.
    • nunodonato 1y ago
      The issue for me is that I really want History (sometimes I need to go back to a video I know I watched 3 weeks ago). It's bs that they need history disabled to also disable recommendations.
  • amilios 1y ago
• cubefox 1y ago
  For YouTube addicts I recommend uninstalling the app, using the website, and installing the Unhook browser extension for Chrome/Firefox/Edge. It can remove recommendations, shorts and a bunch of other stuff. https://unhook.app/ https://unhook.app/
  • fleebee 1y ago
    I second this. I had a tendency to get stuck watching YouTube videos before I hid all algorithmic recommendations and the Home page with Unhook. I can finally use YouTube without getting distracted, and there's no way I'm going back. I just wish I had an addon like this for, well, everything. The browser is such a great platform because you can have this much control over your experience--no such luck with mobile apps.
  • vovavili 1y ago
    Wonderful extension, but at times my dopamine-addicted brain keeps disabling it on an impulse instead of doing something creative or productive on my PC. I looked into making it impossible to disable this extension through registry editor, but so far none of the settings in Windows seem to stick.
• MountDoom 1y ago
  I always felt that I'm spending too much time in front of a computer, but it was at least somewhat meaningful because I had opportunities to create: write code, blog, and so on. When smartphones came out, I made a decision early on that I'm just not going to use them in a way that makes my internet footprint follow me everywhere I go. I set them up using a throwaway email account, turned off almost all notifications, and added just family and real-world friends. I think this served me well for nearly two decades. I really only use my phone for maps, photos, and maybe 2-5 messages a day. I honestly never found myself in a situation where I thought to myself, "gosh, I wish I could read my e-mail right now". But in the past five years, there's been this mounting pressure from app vendors to make sure I can no longer enjoy that. Every other time a friend sends me a web link, I get a popup that detects I'm on mobile and demands I install an app. And they increasingly can't be dismissed, so if I want to view that URL, I need to mail it to myself and open it on a desktop. If you work for a place that does that, I just hope you stub your toe every morning.
  • dripton 1y ago
    The phone vendors should support not telling the websites you're on mobile. I know they can guess based on resolution and such, but there should be a setting to lie and simulate a desktop. You can't rely on every single website not being run by jerks, but you should be able to buy a phone from a company that cares more about its customers than random jerks.
    • janwl 1y ago
      The phone vendors want you downloading and using apps.
      • SllX 1y ago
        Yep! The dickbar in Apple's iPhone Safari app to install an app for the website I'm currently viewing is one of the reasons I no longer use Safari on my iPhone. The fact that there's not even a setting to turn that off is grating, because I have increasingly found that for a lot of websites, given a choice between the website and the app, I vastly prefer the website. Not always, sometimes I prefer the app, but there are some really shitty apps trying to pass themselves off as website replacements. Also Wikipedia. I don't remember if I particularly disliked the first-party app, but I vastly prefer Wikipedia in a web browser.
• simgt 1y ago
  On top of what's suggested in the post, I found the following helpful: - having a "phone box", the small uncomfortable shoe bench now has a shelf above it for phones, phones shall only be used on that bench - only my partner knows the "screen time" password on iOS - putting away my laptop and using a desktop computer instead My current problem is listening to podcasts, I don't have a convenient way to listen to them without my phone.
  • wltr 1y ago
    I had a side gig that involved me driving every day for at least one hour, but usually more. I listened to all kinds of podcasts and audio books. But at some point, I realised I cannot process that much of information. That’s how I stopped, perhaps we humans aren’t designed to process that much daily.
    • emerongi 1y ago
      It feels validating that other people have a similar experience. I simply can't take in that much information. It eventually starts making me feel terrible. The big issue is that I'm not very good at moderating my intake. I'm a crack addict for information and one small dose will turn into a bender.
    • dustincoates 1y ago
      I think it's fine if you accept it as entertainment and nothing more. That's why I don't get how people listen to audiobooks on 3x. The goal isn't to ingest as much as you can--the goal is to enjoy it and maybe learn something useful here and there.
  • armonster 1y ago
    Get a secondary "podcast only" phone
    • nonethewiser 1y ago
      RIP mp3 players
    • 1y ago
• BoredPositron 1y ago
  You don't treat the symptoms; you treat the cause. dumbphones, minimalist phones, and crippled smartphones are as effective as a smoker throwing away a full pack, only to buy a new one when stressed or drunk. If you use doomscrolling as an escape, you will inevitably fall back to it when life hits. While a few may manage to change their habits with a restricted device if the stars align for long enough, it won't work for most. You need to first figure out why you do it.
  • oarsinsync 1y ago
    “You must figure out why you smoke in the first place, before you will be able to quit” isn’t a universal truth.
    • BoredPositron 1y ago
      Because you know why you are smoking because you are addicted to nicotine.
      • nonethewiser 1y ago
        so the symptom is the cause
        • BoredPositron 1y ago
          The cause why you started smoking might have gone away but you are still addicted to the substance. We don't have the same chemical addiction with doom scrolling.
          • nonethewiser 1y ago
            hey man, it was your analogy
            • BoredPositron 1y ago
              And it still stands.
• mukti 1y ago
  I heavily use android's focus mode to keep myself from being too distracted. Originally I tried using app timers, but I found myself just constantly bumping them to the point where I wasn't getting a benefit. Whenever I notice an app being noisy with notifications (even if I appreciate them when I'm not busy), I add it into the list of distracting apps. I have a daily focus timer that enabled when I get to work and ends when I (generally) leave work. This keeps me focused during the day, but I also occasionally enable this when I want to focus on other things, or if I find myself spending too much time on random apps. Because of the way that the breaks work, I have to keep asking for 5/15/30min and I'm very aware of how much time I'm wasting. I also enable flip-to-shh mode, which disables all notifications when my phone is face down on a surface. I realize that focus mode and flip-to-shh can seem extreme, but I noticed this works well worked for me. https://blog.google/products/android/android-focus-mode/ https://blog.google/products/android/android-focus-mode/
  • dionian 1y ago
    same for iphone, i always have it in a focus mode that hides almost all notifications. so much better
  • cryzinger 1y ago
    +1 to focus mode; at least on Samsung-flavored Android, you can set a recurring schedule so that focus mode (or any mode) automatically kicks in on certain days/times, which I use to block notifications from and access to certain apps during peak working hours. Another feature I really like that also might be unique to Samsung-flavored Android--it's been a decade since I've had a device running Vanilla android, lol--is the overall daily screentime tracker. It's purely observational, so there's no penalty for going over, but unlike the app time limits that you can snooze there isn't a way to subtract time that you actually spent, which helps keep me accountable. Mainly I like having a widget that tracks the day's stats on my home screen, because being able to go "oof, did I really spend 45 minutes on <app> today already?" is a strong motivator for me to shape up. As a bonus, you can also _exclude_ certain apps from the time limit tracker, which I like because it nudges me towards more constructive habits. Stuff like my notes app and Waze don't count towards the timer, nor does my e-reader of choice, which means I'm more likely to read a few pages of a book if I have time to kill since it's "free" against my daily screen goal.
• smugglerFlynn 1y ago
  > While I still have the twitch to check my phone when I'm waiting for a coffee, or in-between activities—because my brain's reward system has been trained to do this—I'm now rewarded with nothing For those looking to drop a(ny) habit: this seems to be the key
• abhaynayar 1y ago
  I have a similar great+simple system for curbing consumptive screen-time, i.e. I don't keep any of those apps on the phone, I block all of those websites on phone/laptop web-browser using an extension like Leech-Block and Un-Hook (YT). Some things that I allow are - YT long-form videos from subscriptions only, Hacker-News, and Linked-In. THE biggest impediment for me has been stuff like getting sick. When I am sick, I just cannot lie there and do nothing. And it is TOO difficult to do stuff like read books or go out and talk to people or whatnot, it's too much effort. I HAVE to get back on consumptive screen-time. And then it devolves into something uglier - an ugly spiral, of gluttony & consumption, and I keep at it even beyond getting better. Then it takes days or weeks of laziness and excuses to get back on track. And not just sickness but anything of that level. Anything that just kinda derails my life for a bit. I really need to find a middle-ground solution for the worst-case scenarios. I'm still working on it. I think I should be able to figure it out. It took me a while to figure out my best-case system as well.
  • portaouflop 1y ago
    For me reading books works well when I’m sick in bed. You probably need to force yourself for a while but it’s worth it. That being said i was a voracious reader in the past so it might not tickle your toes in the same way
  • wltr 1y ago
    Ditto! I try reading some silly things, play some old silly games (e.g. Warcraft, not arcades), or just watch some YouTube. But I don’t watch YouTube in my daily life, so I’m not addicted to it.
  • ryandrake 1y ago
    I just use an old phone. App developers are lazy and very quick to pull support for devices that are even a little old. A large number of apps won't even install or start, or complain to you to try to shame you into buying a new phone. Use developers' laziness to your advantage.
• andrewinardeer 1y ago
  I believe that short form video coupled with infinite scroll mesmerizes humans. It keeps them in a trance by using suspense. The brain absolutely must know how the video plays out whether that be waiting for the punchline, a fight to break our or a fact to be delivered. Once the brain has locked eyes on the video the user must put significant energy into making a conscious decision to look away. Even OpenAI's latest Sora app leans into this format and the videos there are literally the poorest quality on the Internet. 99.999% of them are eight seconds of unintelligent, unintelligible, low grade digitally created excrement. There should be a law against it. Big Tech knows this. They have teams of people with doctorates making apps engaging.
  • StickyRibbs 1y ago
    dopamine reward feedback loop. Video scrolling is an insidious form of it because the feedback time is so short that you end up hooked on it for hours, feeling bad afterwards; seriously potent stuff.
    • nonethewiser 1y ago
      aka a drug
    • Gigachad 1y ago
      It’s insane. And once you’ve got a habit for it it’s so hard to stop. Without thinking about it you end up back on there scrolling slop. I’ve started to look at using the Screen Time feature on iOS, but it’s hard when some apps have a dual function like YouTube I use for music but also has Shorts.
      • integralid 1y ago
        Maybe consider getting a different, dedicated program for music (line Spotify)? Sometimes doing thinks just to work around your brain is the right thing to do.
  • the_snooze 1y ago
    It's a slot machine. Everything social media and e-commerce is a slot machine. Each scroll is a pull of the arm, hoping that the algorithmic gods will smile kindly on you and give you some sweet content or deal.
• egypturnash 1y ago
  ooh deleting and pausing off youtube's watch history is nice, no more getting sucked into videos of someone beating dark souls by only pressing the Z button or whatever other bullshit Google has realized I will waste hours on.
  • jeanofthedead 1y ago
    I use SocialFocus for iOS/macOS to block recommended videos, etc. It’s incredibly useful.
• HelloUsername 1y ago
  > I care about living an intentional and meaningful life, nurturing relationships, having nuanced conversations, and enjoying the world around me. These.. are all possible with a smartphone?
• Desafinado 1y ago
  The opposing viewpoint is that smartphones do fill a need of the modern world, and that is that most people have been separated from their families due to the logistics of finding paying work. Some of my relatives in the 90s, things weren't much better without smartphones. You had long distance calling and TV, or otherwise you were alone. One of my relatives attempted suicide when she was very young, you can guess why. But yes, it obviously makes sense to use smartphones intelligently. Meta products and Tik Tok are poison for the mind. And unless you're at home it's a good idea to just shut the smartphone off.
  • ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    I'm the only middle-aged person I know that doesn't use/carry a smart phone (I also don't use email). >One of my relatives attempted suicide when she was very young, you can guess why. This misses that even more young ladies are attempting, today, albeit for entirely different reasons. I'll let you guess why.
    • fsiefken 1y ago
      If you don't use e-mail, what do you use for electronic one to one communication or do you write letters and sent them by post?
      • ProllyInfamous 1y ago
        >Write letters and send them by post. Lots of memes/postcards. I also have a part-time secretary (only for scheduling/mailing). If I need to "sign up" somewhere, I use a burner/temporary email. Free-est man alive.
        • fsiefken 1y ago
          That's great and that's what I aspire, but as it's so easy and quick typing and sending a mail I just send it like that. I remember the days before when I hand wrote the occasional letter and delivered it myself or sent it by post. Would you consider handwriting a letter and then fax2email it also an option, if not why not? Writing a letter can be much more intentional, but the sending process could be automated. I remember I bought a german book with bundled talks/essays at the Goetheanum bookshop last year about how to relate to the digital revolution. Distracted by the internet I haven't had time yet to read the book. "Das Ende des Menschen? Wege durch und aus dem Transhumanismus" (The End of Man? Ways Through and Out of Transhumanism), edited by Ariane Eichenberg and Christiane Haid.
• eimrine 1y ago
  Why disabling youtube recommendation? It is literally the only recommendation engine that works, just don't watch shite (at least from your account) and you will never be recommended of that. Other smartphone services are irrepairely wrong, but youtube is a search engine for what you dream. Everything you are searching in google or mentioning somewhere on youtube forum will be added to your "interests". Regular search is broken but the recommendation "search" is the best service I ever had, it is like an oldschool librarian who knows what book will interest you.
  • platevoltage 1y ago
    I concur. The YouTube algorithm actually appears to work, and doesn't feel like it's trying to steer me away from my interests. My only issue is that it will suggest "current event" type content that is years old sometimes.
    • eimrine 1y ago
      Youtube does that for some channels or persons which are so favorable for me that I use to watch all of their videos. My recommendation about human interests and yt consuming is not to close yourself in your shell, but actively explore what are there any interesting. I become cold turkey to any other recommendation services since I have unleashed the power of Yt.
  • zamadatix 1y ago
    Spend every day for a year watching the highest quality YouTube content and it won't get you as far as spending every day for a month directly engaging with content yourself, or some other use of the same time. It's fun, engaging, and easy enough to turn into something you can argue "but it's not slop, it's <x>!". At the end of the day though... it's still 95% entertainment. I spend a lot of time "protecting" my YouTube recommendations (clearing garbage videos from my history, blocking certain channels, opening links from friends separately) but I still try to immensely limit the amount of time I spend on the site, and the recommendations go directly against that.
    • 1y ago
• will-burner 1y ago
  The advice about deleting youtube history and setting and auto-delete cadence (though every 3 months looked like the most frequent possibility for me) is good and I wasn't aware of it. I don't have social media, but I do have a personal gmail email address, which links to youtube making it hard to avoid spending time on my phone watching youtube videos.
• Void_ 1y ago
  I've been running dumbified version of iOS for a few months now, and I'm very happy with it. I removed every 'fun' app except for a few exceptions: - ChatGPT, but mostly in voice mode, and with other people - as a party trick. - Whisper Memos (https://whispermemos.com/ https://whispermemos.com/), I record voice memos and they end up in my email, so I can continue with that idea when I'm on a computer (whether that is a prompt for AI, or a todo.) - Bevel (https://www.bevel.health/ https://www.bevel.health/), to track sleep factors, such as whether I wore a nasal strip - Overcast (https://overcast.fm/ https://overcast.fm/), for playing podcasts. - Liftosaur (http://liftosaur.com/ http://liftosaur.com/), for tracking gym - Basics like Banking, EV charging, Maps, Parking, Messages, Weather, Authenticator, Reminders, etc. I removed App Store as well as Safari, so these apps is all I can do on my iPhone. In the beginning, I set up a Screen Time code so I wouldn't be able to cheat. But in a few weeks I got used to it. So App Store and Safari are enabled again, but I never use them. (Maybe Safari is disabled. I have no idea to be honest.) The biggest downside is I never know where my phone is. However, I'll gladly accept this downside.
• xg15 1y ago
  > If we assume people sleep roughly 8 hours per day I'd strongly question that assumption. Based on what I've heard from friends (and also personal experience), I think there is quite a large number if people who spend too much time on the phone, but also still want to do activities/work on projects, etc - all in addition to work, family life and chores. The result is that the time is taken from the activity that appears most "compressible" at first glance, which is sleep.
  • indoordin0saur 1y ago
    When I got in the habit of putting my phone in a KitchenSafe at 9:30PM every night my sleep (according to my watch sleep tracker) increased by a full hour. From 10:30 I'd get into bed and peruse Reddit or Twitter on my phone, often past midnight. Now I just read a book for 30 minutes until I'm too tired and doze off.
    • pessimizer 1y ago
      > Now I just read a book for 30 minutes until I'm too tired and doze off. Hard books are the real soma: I have all these books that I want to read because I want to understand and know what's in them, but there are so many charts, graphs, maps, equations and simply complex-ass thoughts that they're hell to get through during leisure time without waking up falling out of your chair. That's perfect night table insomnia reading. Either they put you to sleep just by a couple glances at the page you left off at; or you in fact have real insomnia, and that's going to be your wings to get you through them. Added bonus: sometimes you fall asleep and have complex dreams, and understanding that argument ends up like when you're debugging in your sleep.
• anteloper 1y ago
  Great article, I'm a cofounder of Clearspace and think about this a lot. > I'm an adult, I know how to circumvent these limits, and I will if motivation is low. It's impossible to build systems that perfectly prevent you from doing this, but it is possible to build systems that can perfectly deter you from doing it. You could set up one - for example - that texts your spouse if you delete it. Or charges your bank account. Or whatever other doomsday device you want to rig up. > Time limits don't affect the underlying addiction. You don't quit smoking by only smoking certain hours of the day. Yeah but if you could encode cigarettes to ween you off of them by force, that'd be a big help. Also cigarettes don't have any real utility, so cold turkey is a reasonable strategy. Unfortunately the social media platforms have real utility, so a guardrail strategy makes more sense. > The companies that build these apps have tens of thousands of really smart people (and billions of dollars) trying to get me hooked and keep me engaged. The only way to win this game isn't by trying to beat them (I certainly can't), but by not playing. When it's all said and done, someone is going to build the right set of digital environment modification tooling that does beat them. It has to be possible, the internet is intrinsically customizable
• lencastre 1y ago
  the cable company asked me to accept their generous 50pct monthly discount provided I would not cancel the subscription service but I said I am trying to watch less tv, and that was that
• asdff 1y ago
  Another tip for getting more out of youtube, is if your topic of interest is potentially not dependent on current events, you get higher signal to noise ratio searching for videos from 10+ years ago exclusively. Earlier the better. Youtube was so much better when you didn't see the uploaders face and there wasn't incentive to pad video duration.
• aloer 1y ago
  I recently tried to put my phone into black & white mode via iPhone accessibility shortcut (triple click on power button) This did not seem to work for me. I would forget about it and after a while just left it on color. Now I use a shortcut on the action button. By default my iPhone is black and white, pressing the action button gives me color for two minutes. The crucial step is that after this time it is automatically switching back to black and white. Even when the phone is locked. This now seems to actually help. And as a side effect I also enjoy looking at a few things in black and white. A new experience. All these great ideas for how to prevent you from doing something, they all need to allow me to bypass it when I want to, but they also need to automatically switch back to the “locked” mode. This needs to be seamless so that the “yes I am sure I want to read this” bypass does not become a new, meaningless habit. What is also interesting is that apparently, for me, a hard lock-out, a hard disable, is not good enough. Instead, reducing the joy (black & white filter) seems to work much better and does not motivate me to work around the restriction. I doubt I would be happy with a dumb phone either. So this is a good middle ground. One other thing I’ve always hoped to see is a kind of scheduled check in with me, where I am asked / reminded to get out of my Netflix / Reddit / YouTube tunnel vision. Hardware and software to do that is tricky. iOS locked down too much. But there are today quite capable and cheap Esp32 based smart watches (~$25) and I am trying to figure out how to integrate one of these into my life purely for tunnelvision-interrupting “are you really sure you want to do this right now?” notifications. I feel privileged to have had a childhood before smartphones. At least I can remember how we used to be. All of these measures are not because of how it is today but because I am afraid of where we will be a few years from now. Endlessly engaging generated AI content. Better try to build some boundaries while I still can.
• deleted 1y ago
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• getpokedagain 1y ago
  I may be on the outside here but I am all for using the phone or any more mobile computer. Humans are not designed to sit at desks all day and having a good computer with me all day is something I want. Its just that I want it to read books and take notes or sketch to free my mind. Not slurp down rage bait wrapped up with some shop at target. Supporting computers by inviting in the marketing money was a big fuckup.
• lrvick 1y ago
  In the 5 years since giving up a smartphone I started a new generation Linux Distro from 0, started a security consulting company, made hires, traveled the world, and learned several completely new skills, while having a fairly active family and social life. Having so much more time to do actually useful things means I am present when relaxing, and focused when working, and get a lot more out of both portions of my life. Anyone telling you that you need a smartphone to survive in the modern world is an apologist gaslighting you. Use cash, and offline tablet or nothing at all, and be digitally invisible and 100% present in the real world.
  • AxEy 1y ago
    > "Use cash, and offline tablet or nothing at all," Why would I have to use cash if I gave up my smartphone?
    • lrvick 1y ago
      Well at the point you give up your phone you are already inches away from having near zero location data brokers can purchase, if you also use cash. Pretty great privacy win on top of the mental health wins.
• carabiner 1y ago
  > 13 Oct, 2025 Ugh. D M Y date format does not use a comma.
• tolerance 1y ago
  I hate this, I think to myself as I lay on the couch and then type what I think onto the keys of my mobile phone’s screen. It’s not that I hate how the author feels or what he thinks. I hate that he feels he has to think all of this and that the phone is that great an impediment. I hate that I feel like the same way as him and that he’s expressing it so clear. I’m projecting. This is all so dumb. They’re just phones for crying out loud. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. I’ve been putting salt on top of boredom to make time taste better. What have I done.
  • cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]
• higgins 1y ago
  there is video playing in every house i visit
• voiceplugseo 1y ago
  [dead]
• littlecranky67 1y ago
  > I'm an adult, I know how to circumvent these limits, and I will if motivation is low. That point can be easily fixed as there are various online timelock services where you can put in your security code or password that will not reveal it to you within a certain timeframe [0][1]. [0]: https://lockmeout.online/ https://lockmeout.online/ [1]: https://password-locker.com/ https://password-locker.com/
• sgt 1y ago
  30 minutes per day on your iPhone each day is insane. I spend 2.5 hrs according to my phone, and that's about 50% necessity and 50% nonsense like Twitter.
  • netdevphoenix 1y ago
    Surprised that no one else has highlighted this. In 2025, this is an outlier worth talking about
  • basisword 1y ago
    It's especially amazing because it's so easy to fuck up. Read a few articles on the web. Scroll social media on a lunch break. Watch a video or two on YouTube. Listen to some music. Take care of some banking stuff. Suddenly you're at an hour or two and you've barely noticed. To keep it to 30mins you have to be so intentional.
  • zevon 1y ago
    May I ask what you do that requires doing it on the phone? If "necessity" means work-related: On my work-issued iPhone, I call and (briefly) text with people, triage some e-mail, have a look at calendars, take some in-situ photo/video, refer to a few notes, and so on. I don't have the screen time feature turned on but I guess I'm also below 30 minutes on that phone on most days. The exception being traditional voice calls which occasionally can go on for (much) longer than those 30 minutes, depending on what's happening. However, most of my more regular, scheduled conversations happen in real-life or in Zoom, Webex or other such platforms and not on a mobile phone. The only work-related thing that I can think of OTOH which really required me to use a mobile device is hardware that requires an app to work (which is fortunately still rare).
    • sgt 1y ago
      Basically anything work related (mostly checking email, calendar, Slack, JIRA, etc) that happens when I am not near my computer. Like a lot of people in IT, we're always "at work".
• Perenti 1y ago
  I use my phone on average 5m per week. This week is bigger, due to lots of medical things. I've spent 3m on it today as of 6pm. No social media. No videos. No Music. I don't click on links in texts except the one that will show me where my taxi is. At restaurants people around me sit together with food going cold on plates whilst staring at their phones. People walk around and into me whilst staring at their phones. I saw someone nearly step on a nesting Bush Stone Curlew, despite the protests from the bird's mate, because they were staring at their phone. I do not believe we are cognitively capable of dealing with interruptions that demand our attention every 30 seconds. I know that despite a long list of life threatening illnesses I am the least anxious person I know, and I think that everyone else is stressing because they are staring at their phone. * Anecdote, one person's experience. YMMV
• ErigmolCt 1y ago
  That algorithm is like a friend who never shuts up but somehow always knows your guilty pleasures
• karel-3d 1y ago
  I spend two hours per day commuting in a subway. If I am "being present" I will just stare at a ground. (Or read a book, but how is that more present?) I'm good.
  • nunodonato 1y ago
    at least when you are reading a book, you are getting far more interesting uses of your brain (if it's a good book), compared to mindless scrolling
• UnreachableCode 1y ago
  https://untrap.app/ https://untrap.app/ for YouTube customisation has been a lifesaver for me. It can even be added to Safari as an extension, for £2.99. Also UBlock Origin for blocking specific elements on the screen is a lifesaver for reading articles or tutorials.
• maelito 1y ago
  I want a small Android phone. I know this won't solve my addiction, but it will reduce it.
  • 1stub 1y ago
    You might be interested in looking into an android phone with an eink screen - I find it to be a good deal less stimulating. I think a lot of people use the boox palma.
    • maelito 1y ago
      Yes but AFAIK all are Chinese, from Hibreak... a surveillance state.
  • famahar 1y ago
    I have an Xperia X Compact phone that I bought in a used shop in Japan for $50. I think you can buy it online too. It's pretty small, runs kinda slow so I don't use any demanding apps. Mostly just use it for directions, studying flashcards, and messaging people. It's sad they don't make phones this small anymore.
• zevon 1y ago
  Interesting blog post. A few thoughts on smartphones, presence and whatnot: - I've lusted over the fantasy of having a pocket knowledge machine / tricorder-like thing since long before PDAs and later smartphones. Okay, still no full tricorder, but boy, are smartphones ever useful. I really like having a pocket GPS, music/audiobook player, translation device, library, basic sensor package, gaming machine, backup for my most important data, password/document manager and general purpose computing device in my pocket. - I was a child before the web was a thing but I very much grew up on computers and the web and I have seen and/or experienced all sorts of addictive, gamified and otherwise nasty things those technologies brought with it (or enabled). I'm rather happy to have a bit of context from a time before those technologies and I'm also happy about having grown out of most of my computer-related bad habits and behaviours before the web and those technologies were what they are today. - I made a decision to get off most social media with the exception of a few forum-like things at the point where I felt that it was no longer mostly about expanding real-world connections. Must have been around 10-12 years ago, I think. - In my personal definition of "social media", I've included most messengers and certainly the way many people seem to use them. This abstinence can cause quite a bit of social friction and peer-pressure and I'm not entirely sure if I could (or would want to) "resist" had I not first grown up without any messenger and later with (occasionally excessive use of) IRC, ICQ and many that came after. - If I feel the need to publish something, I'll do it via some long-term channel (blog, newspaper, journal, conference, ...). - Even without being on social media, it's still relatively easy to keep up with current (app-/web-)culture enough to not get laughed out the room or viewed as a hopeless old fart by younger people (which is important to me because I work with them pretty much daily). - Even without being on social media, it's still quite easy to keep up with the news and important developments in whatever field might interest you. - Often, I read "my government / bank / other organization made me have an app / a smartphone". In those cases, I often ask myself it it's a matter of convenience or if those voices come from some context that really does not have any other options. Because I really hope there are no countries where you can't get/use any bank account without an app and I even more sincerely hope that most countries make it illegal to require mobile apps (or even internet access) for any important government service as the only option.
• ge96 1y ago
  I think best thing I did with my phone is turning sound off, it doesn't make sound except my alarm, it doesn't vibrate either. Granted I don't have kids/don't work in a place that has on-call. For computer I'm almost 100% on there all the time whether at work or at home, I can't handle silence. The present thing is funny, when the internet goes out I'm in the present like oh man what do I do. I think going out and being in nature is good for being present. Watching the ocean/large body of water, huge field, being in a forest, etc... It is funny how your mind operates where you're always in some state, it's 9 AM I gotta be at work, it's this time I have to do this next... that's what I aim for is not huge wealth (although that'd be nice stealth anyway) but freedom with my own time. Right now from dumb choices I'm burdened with debt so my main reason to continue living is just working to pay bills. Not saying that in a bad way I just realized that, trying to get passion back in something. And my cat gotta care for him.
• 1stub 1y ago
  I have found vast improvements on my mood and focus by not bringing my phone with me to classes and work. Not checking it in the mornings (analog alarm clock!) or during the day has significantly improved my focus and how deep I go while working. And I just feel better. Not being bogged down by whatever is going on in the digital world while I am trying to churn as many good thoughts out of my brain is really quite freeing.
• samcat116 1y ago
  Related but if you want a less algorithmic YouTube experience, I'd recommend the Play app on Apple platforms. It uses each channels RSS feed to rebuild YouTube in a much nicer and less distracting native app. Unlike a lot of people on this site I really enjoy the YouTube algorithm to discovery new topics/videos, but it can definitely become a rabbit hole.
• nicbou 1y ago
  A few things that made a noticeable difference for me: - A do not disturb mode that is noticeable: no wallpaper, no clock (black on black), no notifications, battery saving mode. If I'm around others, my phone is in that mode. - No social media apps, and stay logged out of the mobile website. Don't remember the password. - No email app. I thought it would be a problem, but I've been logged out of Gmail for over a month. I forget to check email. It's great! - A wrist watch. Get the time, not the notifications. - Something to keep busy, but only for medium periods. I like reading articles queued in Instapaper. - Ad block rules and other delays for the things you really struggle to stop doing. - Ad block rules to remove the distracting elements of websites you must use. Remove the feeds wherever you can, or redirect the feed page to the notifications page. - Turn off ad blocking. I never use the internet on my iPad because the unfiltered internet is unbearable. I see a cookie banner I can't skip and it takes me right out of it. - Keep your phone in your backpack or in a separate room. - Paper books
• pr3dr49 1y ago
  I am still trying to turn the clock and read books (on paper), at least before bed. Decrement the screen. I must be lazy. Going back to the screen to do nothing is so much easier.
• codyb 1y ago
  I keep my phones in the other room on silent all day, don't use anything with an algorithmic infinite feed, don't use social media, and blocked all the news websites I could. It's amazing to me how many people can't seem to walk down the street these days without staring at their phones the entire time. I think they're addictive, bad for your mental health and acuity, and bad for society. And it's amazing how much time I'll spend even just checking the two small hobby discords I'm in just cause I've been so tuned towards picking up the phone when bored. Leaving it in the other room on a speaker is nice cause it at least forces me to get up, and since I keep it on the speaker I don't often sit with it anymore. Which means I do other stuff like read, and clean, and work on things, or just sit and stare at the wall and let my brain breathe. I still use maps (without location though), check out which helicopters and ships I'm looking at, weather, email, search, and Spanish flashcards through Anki. Which I think are nice activities.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • doctorpangloss 1y ago
    Ha ha, what is Hacker News?
    • codyb 1y ago
      Yea, I check Hacker News most days once or twice. On my work computer only. There's a fair amount of professional relevance. I don't think I've clicked the "next page" button in a decade though. So that sits firmly in the "healthy" category for me.
  • turrican 1y ago
    What deck are you using? I’ve been wanting to supplement my Spanish learning with an Anki deck for a while now.
    • codyb 1y ago
      I've been using two decks, adding 20 new cards a day. https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1631165043 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1631165043 - This is 5000 common Spanish words. Be warned, the pictures appear to have been pulled by some sort of automated process and some are risque. That being said, I learn words and then see or hear them fairly quickly while watching baseball en español, o leyendo las noticias o los librose. https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/638411848 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/638411848 - Spanish conjugation. Super hard at first, especially since it starts with the most unique verbs. But patterns emerge, and incredibly useful. Those two are the only... "formal" work if you can call it that that I'm doing. The rest is writing to friends and notes at work, watching baseball and tv (and with subtitles and audio where possible), reading the news sometimes (still difficult, but has added benefit that I read less news), setting interfaces to Spanish. My Spanish is really coming along at this point, and it's very cool. Wishing you good luck in your endeavor!! The most important thing is to just stick with it.
• tom89999 1y ago
  Switch the fucking thing off. You are not that important. Things can wait. The world turned many revolutions without such a thing. You dont profit, your boss and companies do, you pay with your health, money and more. Your kids dont get smarter, you spawn even dumber kids in the future.
• FigurativeVoid 1y ago
  I have a distinct moment in my memory of when I stopped being a voracious reader, and started spending more time online: when I got an iPod touch. To reverse the trend, I’m trying to read physical books or ebooks on a dedicated ereader as much as possible. No one seems to care, they are on their phones. When I do use social media, I try to use a computer where I have much more control over what’s happening. So far I’ve read a ton more books this year.
• Aerbil313 1y ago
  I agree with the author, but can’t agree with his stance that self-restricting is not effective. I use tools like Screen Time heavily with a setup that is not bypassable on a weak moment (I don’t know the PIN). Nowadays when waiting for something I might take my iPhone 15 Pro out of my pocket and unlock its boring-ass greyscale screen. There are no new notifications from any apps whatsoever, because I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb all the time. I’ll first peek over the Mail app: no red notification badge. Still, I’ll sometimes compulsively open it and check my inbox. There is no new mail, there is almost never any new mail aside from Google sign-in notifications. (I unsubscribed from all marketing emails). Then I might check WhatsApp. Nobody important texted me. If they did I’d receive a notification. I didn’t receive a notification in the past few hours. There are no infinite content feeds on my phone. Even my web browser only allows a specified set of websites. Sometimes when waiting for something, and if I ran out of books I pre-downloaded for free from Internet Archive, I’ll open the Maps app and go all around Antarctica trying to find scientific bases. It can be kinda fun. Especially when you don’t have any social media or unrestricted internet on your phone. I have ADHD. Before implementing Screen Time restrictions on my phone, I was glued to the screen all day and night long. These restrictions were the difference between functioning and not.
• andrewrn 1y ago
  I find that I don’t mindlessly scroll on my desktop, so it’s not a panacea, but the newsfeed eradicator is useful for removing recommendation feeds from a desktop browser: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/news-feed-eradicator https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/news-feed-eradicato.... Also, here’s a (mostly just for fun) project I did related to this: https://github.com/andrew-noble/doomscroll-detector https://github.com/andrew-noble/doomscroll-detector
• sjw987 1y ago
  I feel like these articles come up all the time now. The advice is always the same (it's not rocket science), but people are either slowly defeated by their addiction, or they just don't really follow the advice in the first place. Media (not phone or computer) addiction is the socially acceptable addiction of our time, just like alcohol formerly was. Most of this consumption is completely pointless, depressive and degrades your mental ability to stave off boredom and be creative. So many current problems in the world are caused (alongside inequality and many other causes) with our society-wide acceptance of this media addiction. Right now, my colleague opposite me is using their phone to dick around on Facebook. They will spend 1 hour to 1.5 hours on it at work today (equivalent to 12% of their salary), with it sat there vibrating on the table every 3 minutes (you need 25 minutes of uninterrupted concentration to get into a flow state). You can see the Pavlov dog mechanism kick in every time it vibrates. This colleague makes tons of mistakes, distracts me and others, and this is deemed acceptable because everybody is in the same position. It is wild to me that media technology companies achieve the valuations that they do, and only makes sense in a world where a huge portion of the population are hopelessly addicted. Phones and computers are not the issue. You can have a smartphone, never install social media on it, untick all the notifications, put it in monochrome mode, and lock it down completely. That's how my phone is, and I spend on average less than 10 minutes per day using it. People need to change their approach to boredom. If you're waiting in a queue, walking somewhere or on public transport, you need to find a way to fill that boredom without using the easy option. That easy option hooks you in, and before you know it you spend 4 hours a day on a phone. Just daydream, think about a project or an idea in your head. It's good for your brain. If you want to try my phone setup: - Android phone - Permanently in monochrome mode, black wallpaper, white icons, minimalistic launcher (app drawer only) - Zero social media, games, media apps. For hardcore dopamine resistance, uninstall music and podcasts as well. Boredom can be a good thing, and you don't need to fill your day with constant dopamine hits - Disable built-in versions (like YouTube) in settings. Turn off Google discovery if you use that app - All notifications disabled except communication (phone, email, message) - For communication, unsubscribe from any non-urgent emails as soon as you receive them - Bedtime mode, starting and ending at least 1 hour either side of sleep. Don't use your phone in the first or last hour of the day at all (you won't be using it at this point) With this setup you get the benefit of a smartphone (useful utilities like maps, translation, web searches, digital tickets), without any further reason to check it. I don't really believe in the idea of going for a dumb (feature) phone because you lose useful utilities. If you try and persist with this sort of setup for a month, even if you begin giving in after this point, you'll remember how much better things were and that will always provide an easy way back into it should the habit lapse. Computers are tools for us to do things our brains aren't capable of. They are not things to hijack our lives, otherwise we may as well be simulations. Not sure what the economic impact would be if everybody left social media, video games, and YouTube en masse tomorrow, considering how much growth the US (and therefore world) economy has seen from a handful of companies that provide the digital drugs.