4 ms·

Making the Internet Boring

134 points by zdw 1mo ago

ViktorRay 1mo ago
Some more good advice: Turn off your YouTube watch history. This disables video suggestions when you open the website or the app.
- dylan604 1mo ago
  Or don't login. It will still learn about you so you don't always receive the blank main page. My browser is set to clear that data, yet with a single video being played the algo is already suggesting more content.
- MisterTea 1mo ago
  I did similar for my work PC but for the browser: turn off all the conveniences. No history in the bar so there's no way way to lazily navigate to a website, I have to manually type in the URL. Saved passwords and cookies? Nope! closing the browser wipes history.
- drivers99 1mo ago
  > Turn off your YouTube watch history Just to add to that, it's a two step process: disable saving new history, and then clear all history I estimate my watch time dropped by half per day the first time I did that. Then I started curating my subscriptions better, and watching from that.
- burningChrome 1mo ago
  On my smartphone I'm not using Google Play Services so when I open the app, all I get is the search box. I told a friend this and told him this flips the script on the Algo. Now instead of YT telling you what to watch, YOU are in control of what YOU want to watch. We have to start breaking this cycle somehow. This is a great way to do it.
  - ryandrake 1mo ago
    In general, we need to take back ownership of our computers and be the decision makers about what runs on them, and what we are doing with them. An OS vendor or app developer should not have a say in what gets run on your computer. An OS vendor or app developer should not even be "suggesting" or "notifying" you into their software. You should be the root process.
- zdw 1mo ago
  Or only use the subscriptions page, and never visit the home page. Getting only the stuff you've curated is way better than the algorithm.
  - input_sh 1mo ago
    I'm one of those that instinctively types the letter "y", presses the down arrow, then enter, and goes straight to the subscriptions page. Unfortunately, I now have to scroll through the "most relevant" section, then through shorts, and only then do I reach the videos in the chronological order. What I also hate is how when a channel I usually engage with uploads a video I have no interest in, then it's stuck on top of my subscription page in that "most relevant" section for like a week.
    - t_mahmood 1mo ago
      You can use Firefox plugin "Unhook remove youtube recommended and shorts" I think I also have some ublock filters that blocks those things. So, I only have videos.
    - Bang2Bay 1mo ago
      you can reduce shorts for a period of 3 weeks or so,
- ChickeNES 1mo ago
  This is so weird to me, I curate my watch history, and the vast majority of suggestions I get are relevant to me. Am I the only one who does this? (I especially make sure to open any unknown or political videos in a private browser as well). And if any garbage appears in my recs, I just tell it "don't recommend this" and it seems to work?
  - tonyedgecombe 1mo ago
    Some of us don't want suggestions that are relevant to us. Targeted suggestions are more likely to draw you into the machine.
- baron3dl 1mo ago
  its suggestions are the best way to get me to leave. not that i find myself there often, or stay long anyway. hn on the other hand...
- teddyh 1mo ago
  Useful: <https://lawrencehook.com/rys/ https://lawrencehook.com/rys/>
- account42 1mo ago
  I go even further and don't use the YouTube website much at all. When someone shares a YouTube link it goes straight to mpv which streams the video (and just the video) with the help of yt-dlp. No auto-playing the next video. No suggested videos. No comments. No dark patterns. No distractions.
reckoner99 1mo ago
[flagged]
colincowardly 1mo ago
The internet is a rich tapestry of human knowledge and experience. When I scroll Instagram, I often discover incredible new artists who present in human form. Once you start tapping like on things, the journey of discovery is almost biblical. The secret is learning to use your tools to bring joyful moments of surrender into your otherwise mundane existence.
- phainopepla2 1mo ago
  Satire? Edit: looking at your other comments, the answer is yes
  - colincowardly 1mo ago
    [dead]
rglover 1mo ago
Putting in blockers and the like helps, but what I've found worked best was to consider this quote by Anthony DeMello: "When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power." When I learned to stop feeling bad/guilty/thinking this was a problem to solve and just let my mind drift, I found that my mind naturally learned when it was disciplined work time vs. browse the internet time. Personally, I noticed that when I didn't have any artificial restriction, I was less inclined to waste time on those things. In practice: "oh, my mind doesn't want to do that other thing right now but it does want to go look at this thing; let it." The more I've loosened my grip, the less distractions have affected my productivity.
- fxd 1mo ago
  It’s like those diet commercials from the 90s: “I simply eat more and the weight just falls off!” Showing pictures of chocolate cake and burgers. You’re gonna eat more: Milkshakes, pasta, French fries! You’re gonna lose more weight. And you’re gonna feel great. After only 19 payments for $24.99! Call now
- NikxDa 1mo ago
  as fun as that sounds, my experience has been the polar opposite. if I let my mind drift, it's going to get cheap dopamine kicks from stupid YouTube videos all day. You have an army of behavioral psychologists at Alphabet and Meta working against you; it's only fair to fight back.
  - tyg13 1mo ago
    Yeah, the problem with "not fighting it" is that you'll naturally do what feels the best in the moment, and having fun will always feel the best in the moment over doing something boring. The fall only comes later when all your having fun leads to a lot of not having fun (work piles up, relationships sever, projects fail etc.) I find living in a certain amount of fear of fun is healthy. If I feel like I've been having fun for too long, I've probably been neglecting something important that is going to really ruin my fun later. I say all this, as I scroll through HackerNews looking for hits of dopamine instead of continuing trying to fix the CI issues that have been paralyzing my work for almost a day now. That's not good to be a fun conversation in my 1-1 if I ignore it for much longer...
owisd 1mo ago
If you've got an iPhone/Mac I recommend Apple's free Apple Configurator tool to lock down your phone to only the set of apps you whitelist and/or route all traffic through a VPN/Proxy that whitelists only certain IPs. You can only change the whitelist when you're physically back at your Mac so prevents me impulsively relaxing the restrictions in any moments of boredom.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
Sha1rholder 1mo ago
I uninstalled some of my additive apps and enabled gray scale after reading this... Hope it helps - from a phone addict
- EvanAnderson 1mo ago
  I've been doing grayscale for about a year now. Sadly, I've discovered most of my wasted time is spent reading, which works fine in grayscale.
ikesau 1mo ago
Blocking recommendations is the one thing I'd add to this list. You can easily do so with uBlock Origin, and it's made the biggest difference for me. Water still finds cracks, but it's about reducing the likelihood and increasing the time between binges (so that they mentally register as necessarily intentional and abnormal)
- account42 1mo ago
  I wish the uBO element picker would make it easier to block elements by their content now that pretty much every websites uses optimized CSS with random class names that will change with each update.
Gecko4072 1mo ago
YouTube's only goal is to make more money. Most YouTubers' only goal is to get more views. Sure it can be useful but that's a perfect excuse to live on forever. People were fine before YouTube, and you can learn anything from words an images. I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.
- jasode 1mo ago
  >, and you can learn anything from words an images. A lot of info on Youtube is not available in alternative forms such as books or blogs with just words and images. E.g. A random person uploads a video on how he repaired my particular washing machine by isolating the relay that broke. It's not in blog form because the guy is not an HTML expert or WordPress user. Instead, he simply used his smartphone to record a 10 minute video of what he did and uploaded it to Youtube. Was I "fine" before Youtube?!? In the past with that type of situation, I would have spent $1000 on a new washing machine instead of spending $2 for a new relay part and soldering it myself. There was no equivalent resource available to show me how to DIY repair it. Trying to avoid $1000 by calling an appliance repairman wouldn't help because these days, they charge a $150 trip & diagnostic fee just to show up ... and then in the end, they say the electronics board that's fried is discontinued so they can't get the part which means the only the only remedy is to buy a new washing machine. So I would end up paying a guy $150 to tell me to pay another $1000 for a new washing machine... for a total of $1150. Youtube helps in avoiding all that. As a knowledge base for DIY learning how to repair random stuff around the house, there is no alternative to Youtube.
  - Gecko4072 1mo ago
    How did that person who uploaded the YouTube video figure it out? They didn't have a video to watch. So why couldn't you? I'd say it's more of specific hypothetical, and I don't understand how one couldn't read about a fuse on a forum or in a manual and diagnose with a DMM. Sure, YouTube is convenient because we are all out of time, all the time. It's also a further reflection of how helpless we have become with regards to so much of what we rely on.
MarkusQ 1mo ago
You might want to try coding in monochrome as well occasionally. Syntax highlighting can be useful, but it has hidden mental costs.
- ChickeNES 1mo ago
  Doing that would make it harder to use Claude and Codex
_ink_ 1mo ago
I also need a solution for my addiction. I was thinking of blocking all addictive apps in my main (phone) account and set up a kids account for myself where all the drugs are installed. Then I need to ask myself for screen time. I hope this is annoying enough to not switch accounts constantly. If that doesn't work, I need to give another person the control over the screen time.
- usern20260720 1mo ago
  ask a relative that you visit from time to time what's their favourite book on their shelf and why. This way, you at least make sure that they would not toss the book in a whim. ask them to write the parental control PIN on one or two pieces of paper and then type it on the phone screen to lock it. ask them to store the piece/s of paper in their favourite book/s. bow to never bother them about the piece/s of paper unlesls you are stranded in the middle of the ocean and need to use the phone. When you visit them, you might unlock the phone and repeat the process
- IanCal 1mo ago
  How many of those things do you really need? As in how bad would it be if you fully deleted those accounts completely?
- walt_grata 1mo ago
  I deleted almost every app on my phone. I use reddit a bit and hn, but that's all the social stuff i do. Hell i use a pixel and disabled YouTube. It's a bit of a challenge at fist, but much much better after you adjust
sheepcow 1mo ago
I configured uBlock to hide comments and suggested videos from YouTube. Couldn't recommend it enough. I don't miss either of them and now (usually) only go to YouTube to do something useful. Edit: Forgot to mention I also blocked Shorts. In fact, I forgot they even existed. I guess the medium is the message. Short and forgettable.
hemmert 1mo ago
I made a browser for this: https://leash.ax/ https://leash.ax/ – it cut my own screentime to two hours per day. Boring, in a good way!
surya_waters 1mo ago
Internet is so much noisier these days. Even hackernews has become much noisier in the past year or so. These days i only visit hackernews every couple of days or so towards the end of the day, and use youtube occasionally after work and on weekends. I have shifted to more analogue media like paper books and vinyl. Self Plug : If someone is interested, I built a plugin for youtube called Flowtube - Distraction free youtube on chromestore http://tiny.cc/w4s9101 http://tiny.cc/w4s9101. It blocks all comments, recommendations, sidebar and homepage.
krupan 1mo ago
Using newpipe instead of YouTube helps a lot. It makes YouTube pretty boring. Plus you can just download the few useful videos that you use for reference over and over and only browse through those
hankbond 1mo ago
Related, I just did an experiment to see if I could do away with color for syntax highlighting and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not a total failure! For grayscale-on-the-computer this may help if you enable that for focused work sessions. https://hank.bond/posts/highlighting-my-code-based-on-how-much-i-care/ https://hank.bond/posts/highlighting-my-code-based-on-how-mu...
academic_84572 1mo ago
For me, adaptive friction has been very helpful - allow access to distracting apps/sites, but make them progressively harder to use. For phones, ScreenZen is great at this. Makes you pause before visiting an app or site, and you can configure the pause to grow each time you use it. You can also set a timeout on the app. Very flexible settings. For desktop, I recently built a free browser extension called MooBlock - it's similar to ScreenZen in that it adds a forced pause before you reach a distracting site. But once you reach the site, a herd of cows start walking all over your screen to make the website less appealing. It's available in both the Chrome and Firefox extension stores. Hoping to make an Android version later this year too. Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehdbjikaaoomkkmfikemcedmp https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehd... Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/?utm...
- airspresso 1mo ago
  Clicked the links just to see preview screenshots, that is hilarious with all the cows XD
CommenterPerson 1mo ago
Here are some things I try: Turn off Notifications. Turn off location services except when navigating or calling the taxi. Uninstall as many apps as possible, use browser. Use adblocking anti tracking browser (I use Duck, alt suggestions welcome). Report unknown / unwanted senders as spam. That said, I am a NEWS ADDICT. There are four world leaders whose downfall I eagerly await, and frequently check the news for this ;-) .. you might be able to guess three but not the fourth.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- getpokedagain 1mo ago
  Why are people not guessing Putin Trump Xi Modi
  - mndgs 1mo ago
    Putin Trump Fico Erdogan
  - tancop 1mo ago
    Replace Modi with Netanyahu and maybe Xi with Kim. These two are dictators but don't really care about things outside of their region (other than Chinese exploitation in Africa). They want to stay in power not take over the whole world. Israel is abusing Holocaust guilt in Europe to get away with genocide and massive cyber ops against their own allies and open bribery in US elections. And North Korea is so insane that the power transition will be fun to watch. All the generals and family members are waiting on him to die, and when he does there might be a military coup or even a civil war.
    - account42 1mo ago
      The impact (both potential and current) of Xi on the rest of the world is much bigger than that of Kim and I don't think its fair to say that the Chinese are content to stay inside their walls. Kim is more of a puppet dictator of the Chinese and Russians than anything.
specproc 1mo ago
None of this has ever worked for me. I still struggle. What does help is understanding that the problem is often me. Not that the internet isn't a hellscape of addicting design, or that I've not been flex to screens of some sort or another since childhood, but that my level of engagement with it scales with my general wellbeing. In the recovery world, they talk about HALT: hungry, angry, lonely, tired. I'm worst on my devices when I'm one of those. Oh, or hungover. Content blockers and greyscale and whatnot are all fine, but I've had most success looking away from technology to help. I still suck at this, I bet a lot of us do, but knowing myself has been most helpful. Being able to understand why I'm doing it helps me break the circuit and engage more with other things. It's an ongoing battle though, I hate it.
bix6 1mo ago
I use triple click accessibility on my phone to enable grayscale since I need colors sometime.
yangtzedong 1mo ago
[flagged]
Liftyee 1mo ago
I used to start the same place the author did with total blocks but kept overriding for real purposes then getting sidetracked. Identified the real problem as feeds which choose what to watch for me instead of me choosing. So I use custom apps and extensions to remove all the feeds but keep the search and messaging functionality (Feurstagram). Sometimes I catch myself opening the page out of habit but then realising I have literally nothing I actively want to watch/search for ...
- zlokki 1mo ago
  The feeds and recommendation algorithms are the real time-eaters for me. The things I tried: - chrome extensions: unhook, stayfocusd, news feed eradicator - deleted youtube watch history and forbid to collect data for recommendations, which effectively disabled yt shorts - grayscale display for my phone - switching from news aggregators and social apps with recommendations to basic RSS feeds But even I consume information now only from my carefully curated subscriptions I realized I still need to filter out most of the articles. E.g https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best has ~20 articles per day and this is only one RSS source. So, I just LLM-filter them.
anna_1101 1mo ago
This is absolutely what I need. I was so shocked when I checked my screen time and saw how many hours I've wasted on those "stupid" apps. But I am also hesitated to try that because of FOMO. What if my friends talk about some trendy/funny on the Internet but I can't catch up/follow?
- bratbag 1mo ago
  Do things away from your screen in the real world and form friendships around that. An addict with addict friends needs to find non addicted friends to escape the addiction.
  - anna_1101 1mo ago
    lol good point!
aj_g 1mo ago
On Android I use the web browser "Tiny Browser". Chrome is disabled. The app is so comically basic, doesn't support tabs, so it works for the common task of needing to google something, but it makes it painful to do much more.
chrismorgan 1mo ago
> /* UNCOMMENT BELOW to force a boring system font (might break some web icons) * Firefox already includes a better version of this: Settings → Fonts → Advanced settings → untick Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above. It makes the web much better. Firefox even includes a list of icon font names that will be permitted (pref browser.display.use_document_fonts.icon_font_allowlist) to minimise icon font breakage, though I chose to block font loading altogether and there’s not often much trouble from it (and most of it is Google’s, and Material Icons’ ligation technique is in practice so dumb, achieving results quite the opposite of the original reason for the technique in an entirely predictable way). > I need colors for code Quite honestly, try doing without it for a while and see how it goes. Make a new theme that’s limited to just black on white, with regular/bold/italic font styles (me, I did keywords bold and comments and macro stuff italic and that was all), and use it for a week. Then consider if you want colours, and how to add them. Me, I went to strings red and comments green and numbers blue and not much else, though it’s grown a little over time. Others add greys, and perhaps background shading.
mattcasmith 1mo ago
I’ve taken a lot of these same steps with mixed success, but nice to see somebody else’s thoughts and results. For the iPhone users, I got similar results to Olauncher using the iOS Shortcuts app, and then linked it to the action button for easy access. I have a blog post in the works with the detail.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
danc2050 1mo ago
"I accepted that doomscrolling is an addiction, not a lack of discipline; the goal isn't willpower, it's friction." - the most important insight in here.
yauneyz 1mo ago
I had the exact same problem with LeechBlock override, so I built talysman.app, which is basically Brick (the phone app) but for desktop. If your problem is solely on your phone, just use Brick, same principle but on the phone. The key point is that you can only unblock when a physical usb drive (paired with the app) is inserted. I've found this is the "just right" amount of friction. Too much friction (like impossible to override) and you have to be careful about when you turn it on, in case you genuinely need Reddit or YouTube or something. Too little friction and you just always override. But having to walk over to the next room to override is perfect.
-0_0- 1mo ago
The trick I started using for those infinite scroll apps (that are basically digital crack) is that I made a pact that I had to close the app the moment something appeared that was obviously trying to make me angry, upset or indignant. It was initially an attempt to train the algorithms away from emotionally exploitation, but for the most part that was never fixed while my screen time dropped to almost zero. As an upside I'm now also much more aware when a post is trying to manipulate my emotions, and I've come to realise how a majority of reddit posts are designed to undermine basic faith in society and your fellow humans. Horrifying to think about the implications, but glad I at least have a personal handle on it now.
shant_extry 1mo ago
Man...reading that post gave me a similar feeling to when I hear someone playing meditation bowls. I tell you, I've taken almost the entirely same approach over the last couple of years, slowly adding (i.e. removing) more and more things in the same way you did. It started with blocking sites at the Terminal level and uninstalling distracting apps (or using time limiters). The one thing I hadn't done, which I just did thanks to your recommendation, is the grayscale. Aside from the realization that I was giving up so much time and energy, I needed to steal more of my time/energy back because of a personal project I started last year. Though it definitely gets easier and easier over time I've had to remain vigilant because I quickly realized that it wasn't a certain site or app that was necessarily drawing me in. Often it was just "doing something" on the phone or computer. Even if I blocked something I'd just aim the browser for something else. That was when I added a lot of little psychological tactics to reduce the feelings that led to the behavior. Another thing, the thing that really stuck out to me was this approach aimed at "boredom." I'd recently seen that video you mentioned with Arthur Brooks. In fact, last year he had another called "You Need to Be Bored. Here's Why." posted on Harvard Business Review's YouTube channel. So getting comfortable with "boring" really can be a viable approach.

134 points by zdw 1mo ago

Some more good advice: Turn off your YouTube watch history. This disables video suggestions when you open the website or the app.

dylan604 1mo ago
Or don't login. It will still learn about you so you don't always receive the blank main page. My browser is set to clear that data, yet with a single video being played the algo is already suggesting more content.
MisterTea 1mo ago
I did similar for my work PC but for the browser: turn off all the conveniences. No history in the bar so there's no way way to lazily navigate to a website, I have to manually type in the URL. Saved passwords and cookies? Nope! closing the browser wipes history.
drivers99 1mo ago
> Turn off your YouTube watch history Just to add to that, it's a two step process: disable saving new history, and then clear all history I estimate my watch time dropped by half per day the first time I did that. Then I started curating my subscriptions better, and watching from that.
burningChrome 1mo ago
On my smartphone I'm not using Google Play Services so when I open the app, all I get is the search box. I told a friend this and told him this flips the script on the Algo. Now instead of YT telling you what to watch, YOU are in control of what YOU want to watch. We have to start breaking this cycle somehow. This is a great way to do it.
- ryandrake 1mo ago
  In general, we need to take back ownership of our computers and be the decision makers about what runs on them, and what we are doing with them. An OS vendor or app developer should not have a say in what gets run on your computer. An OS vendor or app developer should not even be "suggesting" or "notifying" you into their software. You should be the root process.
zdw 1mo ago
Or only use the subscriptions page, and never visit the home page. Getting only the stuff you've curated is way better than the algorithm.
- input_sh 1mo ago
  I'm one of those that instinctively types the letter "y", presses the down arrow, then enter, and goes straight to the subscriptions page. Unfortunately, I now have to scroll through the "most relevant" section, then through shorts, and only then do I reach the videos in the chronological order. What I also hate is how when a channel I usually engage with uploads a video I have no interest in, then it's stuck on top of my subscription page in that "most relevant" section for like a week.
  - t_mahmood 1mo ago
    You can use Firefox plugin "Unhook remove youtube recommended and shorts" I think I also have some ublock filters that blocks those things. So, I only have videos.
  - Bang2Bay 1mo ago
    you can reduce shorts for a period of 3 weeks or so,
ChickeNES 1mo ago
This is so weird to me, I curate my watch history, and the vast majority of suggestions I get are relevant to me. Am I the only one who does this? (I especially make sure to open any unknown or political videos in a private browser as well). And if any garbage appears in my recs, I just tell it "don't recommend this" and it seems to work?
- tonyedgecombe 1mo ago
  Some of us don't want suggestions that are relevant to us. Targeted suggestions are more likely to draw you into the machine.
baron3dl 1mo ago
its suggestions are the best way to get me to leave. not that i find myself there often, or stay long anyway. hn on the other hand...
teddyh 1mo ago
Useful: <https://lawrencehook.com/rys/ https://lawrencehook.com/rys/>
account42 1mo ago
I go even further and don't use the YouTube website much at all. When someone shares a YouTube link it goes straight to mpv which streams the video (and just the video) with the help of yt-dlp. No auto-playing the next video. No suggested videos. No comments. No dark patterns. No distractions.

reckoner99 1mo ago

[flagged]

colincowardly 1mo ago

The internet is a rich tapestry of human knowledge and experience. When I scroll Instagram, I often discover incredible new artists who present in human form. Once you start tapping like on things, the journey of discovery is almost biblical. The secret is learning to use your tools to bring joyful moments of surrender into your otherwise mundane existence.

phainopepla2 1mo ago
Satire? Edit: looking at your other comments, the answer is yes
- colincowardly 1mo ago
  [dead]

rglover 1mo ago

Putting in blockers and the like helps, but what I've found worked best was to consider this quote by Anthony DeMello: "When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power." When I learned to stop feeling bad/guilty/thinking this was a problem to solve and just let my mind drift, I found that my mind naturally learned when it was disciplined work time vs. browse the internet time. Personally, I noticed that when I didn't have any artificial restriction, I was less inclined to waste time on those things. In practice: "oh, my mind doesn't want to do that other thing right now but it does want to go look at this thing; let it." The more I've loosened my grip, the less distractions have affected my productivity.

fxd 1mo ago
It’s like those diet commercials from the 90s: “I simply eat more and the weight just falls off!” Showing pictures of chocolate cake and burgers. You’re gonna eat more: Milkshakes, pasta, French fries! You’re gonna lose more weight. And you’re gonna feel great. After only 19 payments for $24.99! Call now
NikxDa 1mo ago
as fun as that sounds, my experience has been the polar opposite. if I let my mind drift, it's going to get cheap dopamine kicks from stupid YouTube videos all day. You have an army of behavioral psychologists at Alphabet and Meta working against you; it's only fair to fight back.
- tyg13 1mo ago
  Yeah, the problem with "not fighting it" is that you'll naturally do what feels the best in the moment, and having fun will always feel the best in the moment over doing something boring. The fall only comes later when all your having fun leads to a lot of not having fun (work piles up, relationships sever, projects fail etc.) I find living in a certain amount of fear of fun is healthy. If I feel like I've been having fun for too long, I've probably been neglecting something important that is going to really ruin my fun later. I say all this, as I scroll through HackerNews looking for hits of dopamine instead of continuing trying to fix the CI issues that have been paralyzing my work for almost a day now. That's not good to be a fun conversation in my 1-1 if I ignore it for much longer...

owisd 1mo ago

If you've got an iPhone/Mac I recommend Apple's free Apple Configurator tool to lock down your phone to only the set of apps you whitelist and/or route all traffic through a VPN/Proxy that whitelists only certain IPs. You can only change the whitelist when you're physically back at your Mac so prevents me impulsively relaxing the restrictions in any moments of boredom.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

Sha1rholder 1mo ago

I uninstalled some of my additive apps and enabled gray scale after reading this... Hope it helps - from a phone addict

EvanAnderson 1mo ago
I've been doing grayscale for about a year now. Sadly, I've discovered most of my wasted time is spent reading, which works fine in grayscale.

ikesau 1mo ago

Blocking recommendations is the one thing I'd add to this list. You can easily do so with uBlock Origin, and it's made the biggest difference for me. Water still finds cracks, but it's about reducing the likelihood and increasing the time between binges (so that they mentally register as necessarily intentional and abnormal)

account42 1mo ago
I wish the uBO element picker would make it easier to block elements by their content now that pretty much every websites uses optimized CSS with random class names that will change with each update.

Gecko4072 1mo ago

YouTube's only goal is to make more money. Most YouTubers' only goal is to get more views. Sure it can be useful but that's a perfect excuse to live on forever. People were fine before YouTube, and you can learn anything from words an images. I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.

jasode 1mo ago
>, and you can learn anything from words an images. A lot of info on Youtube is not available in alternative forms such as books or blogs with just words and images. E.g. A random person uploads a video on how he repaired my particular washing machine by isolating the relay that broke. It's not in blog form because the guy is not an HTML expert or WordPress user. Instead, he simply used his smartphone to record a 10 minute video of what he did and uploaded it to Youtube. Was I "fine" before Youtube?!? In the past with that type of situation, I would have spent $1000 on a new washing machine instead of spending $2 for a new relay part and soldering it myself. There was no equivalent resource available to show me how to DIY repair it. Trying to avoid $1000 by calling an appliance repairman wouldn't help because these days, they charge a $150 trip & diagnostic fee just to show up ... and then in the end, they say the electronics board that's fried is discontinued so they can't get the part which means the only the only remedy is to buy a new washing machine. So I would end up paying a guy $150 to tell me to pay another $1000 for a new washing machine... for a total of $1150. Youtube helps in avoiding all that. As a knowledge base for DIY learning how to repair random stuff around the house, there is no alternative to Youtube.
- Gecko4072 1mo ago
  How did that person who uploaded the YouTube video figure it out? They didn't have a video to watch. So why couldn't you? I'd say it's more of specific hypothetical, and I don't understand how one couldn't read about a fuse on a forum or in a manual and diagnose with a DMM. Sure, YouTube is convenient because we are all out of time, all the time. It's also a further reflection of how helpless we have become with regards to so much of what we rely on.

MarkusQ 1mo ago

You might want to try coding in monochrome as well occasionally. Syntax highlighting can be useful, but it has hidden mental costs.

ChickeNES 1mo ago
Doing that would make it harder to use Claude and Codex

_ink_ 1mo ago

I also need a solution for my addiction. I was thinking of blocking all addictive apps in my main (phone) account and set up a kids account for myself where all the drugs are installed. Then I need to ask myself for screen time. I hope this is annoying enough to not switch accounts constantly. If that doesn't work, I need to give another person the control over the screen time.

usern20260720 1mo ago
ask a relative that you visit from time to time what's their favourite book on their shelf and why. This way, you at least make sure that they would not toss the book in a whim. ask them to write the parental control PIN on one or two pieces of paper and then type it on the phone screen to lock it. ask them to store the piece/s of paper in their favourite book/s. bow to never bother them about the piece/s of paper unlesls you are stranded in the middle of the ocean and need to use the phone. When you visit them, you might unlock the phone and repeat the process
IanCal 1mo ago
How many of those things do you really need? As in how bad would it be if you fully deleted those accounts completely?
walt_grata 1mo ago
I deleted almost every app on my phone. I use reddit a bit and hn, but that's all the social stuff i do. Hell i use a pixel and disabled YouTube. It's a bit of a challenge at fist, but much much better after you adjust

sheepcow 1mo ago

I configured uBlock to hide comments and suggested videos from YouTube. Couldn't recommend it enough. I don't miss either of them and now (usually) only go to YouTube to do something useful. Edit: Forgot to mention I also blocked Shorts. In fact, I forgot they even existed. I guess the medium is the message. Short and forgettable.

hemmert 1mo ago

I made a browser for this: https://leash.ax/ https://leash.ax/ – it cut my own screentime to two hours per day. Boring, in a good way!

surya_waters 1mo ago

Internet is so much noisier these days. Even hackernews has become much noisier in the past year or so. These days i only visit hackernews every couple of days or so towards the end of the day, and use youtube occasionally after work and on weekends. I have shifted to more analogue media like paper books and vinyl. Self Plug : If someone is interested, I built a plugin for youtube called Flowtube - Distraction free youtube on chromestore http://tiny.cc/w4s9101 http://tiny.cc/w4s9101. It blocks all comments, recommendations, sidebar and homepage.

krupan 1mo ago

Using newpipe instead of YouTube helps a lot. It makes YouTube pretty boring. Plus you can just download the few useful videos that you use for reference over and over and only browse through those

hankbond 1mo ago

Related, I just did an experiment to see if I could do away with color for syntax highlighting and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not a total failure! For grayscale-on-the-computer this may help if you enable that for focused work sessions. https://hank.bond/posts/highlighting-my-code-based-on-how-much-i-care/ https://hank.bond/posts/highlighting-my-code-based-on-how-mu...

academic_84572 1mo ago

For me, adaptive friction has been very helpful - allow access to distracting apps/sites, but make them progressively harder to use. For phones, ScreenZen is great at this. Makes you pause before visiting an app or site, and you can configure the pause to grow each time you use it. You can also set a timeout on the app. Very flexible settings. For desktop, I recently built a free browser extension called MooBlock - it's similar to ScreenZen in that it adds a forced pause before you reach a distracting site. But once you reach the site, a herd of cows start walking all over your screen to make the website less appealing. It's available in both the Chrome and Firefox extension stores. Hoping to make an Android version later this year too. Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehdbjikaaoomkkmfikemcedmp https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehd... Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/?utm...

airspresso 1mo ago
Clicked the links just to see preview screenshots, that is hilarious with all the cows XD

CommenterPerson 1mo ago

Here are some things I try: Turn off Notifications. Turn off location services except when navigating or calling the taxi. Uninstall as many apps as possible, use browser. Use adblocking anti tracking browser (I use Duck, alt suggestions welcome). Report unknown / unwanted senders as spam. That said, I am a NEWS ADDICT. There are four world leaders whose downfall I eagerly await, and frequently check the news for this ;-) .. you might be able to guess three but not the fourth.

deleted 1mo ago
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getpokedagain 1mo ago
Why are people not guessing Putin Trump Xi Modi
- mndgs 1mo ago
  Putin Trump Fico Erdogan
- tancop 1mo ago
  Replace Modi with Netanyahu and maybe Xi with Kim. These two are dictators but don't really care about things outside of their region (other than Chinese exploitation in Africa). They want to stay in power not take over the whole world. Israel is abusing Holocaust guilt in Europe to get away with genocide and massive cyber ops against their own allies and open bribery in US elections. And North Korea is so insane that the power transition will be fun to watch. All the generals and family members are waiting on him to die, and when he does there might be a military coup or even a civil war.
  - account42 1mo ago
    The impact (both potential and current) of Xi on the rest of the world is much bigger than that of Kim and I don't think its fair to say that the Chinese are content to stay inside their walls. Kim is more of a puppet dictator of the Chinese and Russians than anything.

specproc 1mo ago

None of this has ever worked for me. I still struggle. What does help is understanding that the problem is often me. Not that the internet isn't a hellscape of addicting design, or that I've not been flex to screens of some sort or another since childhood, but that my level of engagement with it scales with my general wellbeing. In the recovery world, they talk about HALT: hungry, angry, lonely, tired. I'm worst on my devices when I'm one of those. Oh, or hungover. Content blockers and greyscale and whatnot are all fine, but I've had most success looking away from technology to help. I still suck at this, I bet a lot of us do, but knowing myself has been most helpful. Being able to understand why I'm doing it helps me break the circuit and engage more with other things. It's an ongoing battle though, I hate it.

bix6 1mo ago

I use triple click accessibility on my phone to enable grayscale since I need colors sometime.

yangtzedong 1mo ago

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Liftyee 1mo ago

I used to start the same place the author did with total blocks but kept overriding for real purposes then getting sidetracked. Identified the real problem as feeds which choose what to watch for me instead of me choosing. So I use custom apps and extensions to remove all the feeds but keep the search and messaging functionality (Feurstagram). Sometimes I catch myself opening the page out of habit but then realising I have literally nothing I actively want to watch/search for ...

zlokki 1mo ago
The feeds and recommendation algorithms are the real time-eaters for me. The things I tried: - chrome extensions: unhook, stayfocusd, news feed eradicator - deleted youtube watch history and forbid to collect data for recommendations, which effectively disabled yt shorts - grayscale display for my phone - switching from news aggregators and social apps with recommendations to basic RSS feeds But even I consume information now only from my carefully curated subscriptions I realized I still need to filter out most of the articles. E.g https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best has ~20 articles per day and this is only one RSS source. So, I just LLM-filter them.

anna_1101 1mo ago

This is absolutely what I need. I was so shocked when I checked my screen time and saw how many hours I've wasted on those "stupid" apps. But I am also hesitated to try that because of FOMO. What if my friends talk about some trendy/funny on the Internet but I can't catch up/follow?

bratbag 1mo ago
Do things away from your screen in the real world and form friendships around that. An addict with addict friends needs to find non addicted friends to escape the addiction.
- anna_1101 1mo ago
  lol good point!

aj_g 1mo ago

On Android I use the web browser "Tiny Browser". Chrome is disabled. The app is so comically basic, doesn't support tabs, so it works for the common task of needing to google something, but it makes it painful to do much more.

chrismorgan 1mo ago

> /* UNCOMMENT BELOW to force a boring system font (might break some web icons) * Firefox already includes a better version of this: Settings → Fonts → Advanced settings → untick Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above. It makes the web much better. Firefox even includes a list of icon font names that will be permitted (pref browser.display.use_document_fonts.icon_font_allowlist) to minimise icon font breakage, though I chose to block font loading altogether and there’s not often much trouble from it (and most of it is Google’s, and Material Icons’ ligation technique is in practice so dumb, achieving results quite the opposite of the original reason for the technique in an entirely predictable way). > I need colors for code Quite honestly, try doing without it for a while and see how it goes. Make a new theme that’s limited to just black on white, with regular/bold/italic font styles (me, I did keywords bold and comments and macro stuff italic and that was all), and use it for a week. Then consider if you want colours, and how to add them. Me, I went to strings red and comments green and numbers blue and not much else, though it’s grown a little over time. Others add greys, and perhaps background shading.

mattcasmith 1mo ago

I’ve taken a lot of these same steps with mixed success, but nice to see somebody else’s thoughts and results. For the iPhone users, I got similar results to Olauncher using the iOS Shortcuts app, and then linked it to the action button for easy access. I have a blog post in the works with the detail.

deleted 1mo ago

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danc2050 1mo ago

"I accepted that doomscrolling is an addiction, not a lack of discipline; the goal isn't willpower, it's friction." - the most important insight in here.

yauneyz 1mo ago

I had the exact same problem with LeechBlock override, so I built talysman.app, which is basically Brick (the phone app) but for desktop. If your problem is solely on your phone, just use Brick, same principle but on the phone. The key point is that you can only unblock when a physical usb drive (paired with the app) is inserted. I've found this is the "just right" amount of friction. Too much friction (like impossible to override) and you have to be careful about when you turn it on, in case you genuinely need Reddit or YouTube or something. Too little friction and you just always override. But having to walk over to the next room to override is perfect.

-0_0- 1mo ago

The trick I started using for those infinite scroll apps (that are basically digital crack) is that I made a pact that I had to close the app the moment something appeared that was obviously trying to make me angry, upset or indignant. It was initially an attempt to train the algorithms away from emotionally exploitation, but for the most part that was never fixed while my screen time dropped to almost zero. As an upside I'm now also much more aware when a post is trying to manipulate my emotions, and I've come to realise how a majority of reddit posts are designed to undermine basic faith in society and your fellow humans. Horrifying to think about the implications, but glad I at least have a personal handle on it now.

shant_extry 1mo ago

Man...reading that post gave me a similar feeling to when I hear someone playing meditation bowls. I tell you, I've taken almost the entirely same approach over the last couple of years, slowly adding (i.e. removing) more and more things in the same way you did. It started with blocking sites at the Terminal level and uninstalling distracting apps (or using time limiters). The one thing I hadn't done, which I just did thanks to your recommendation, is the grayscale. Aside from the realization that I was giving up so much time and energy, I needed to steal more of my time/energy back because of a personal project I started last year. Though it definitely gets easier and easier over time I've had to remain vigilant because I quickly realized that it wasn't a certain site or app that was necessarily drawing me in. Often it was just "doing something" on the phone or computer. Even if I blocked something I'd just aim the browser for something else. That was when I added a lot of little psychological tactics to reduce the feelings that led to the behavior. Another thing, the thing that really stuck out to me was this approach aimed at "boredom." I'd recently seen that video you mentioned with Arthur Brooks. In fact, last year he had another called "You Need to Be Bored. Here's Why." posted on Harvard Business Review's YouTube channel. So getting comfortable with "boring" really can be a viable approach.