It's amazing how much things I get done... it literally feels like I have two days instead of one. If I put a item like "outdoor exercise for 30 mins" in my TODO list, then I actually do it! Close friends and family can still reach me by phone/text, but all the chat groups and other messaging app distractions are silent.
I can still end up zoning out watching a movie in the evening, but it's more intentional: I had to pick the movie in advance and download it so I can view it offline.
The contrast with Sunday when I turn the internet back on is very notable. Suddenly the next day is disorganized and end up wasting hours on youtube recommendations, and following rabit holes, and hacker news of course.
My conclusion is that it's not the apps or the internet, it's the feeds (when information is being pushed down to you) that are the problem. It's just too convenient and we end up staying in it.
Highly recommended.
I started doing it to cope with severe unmedicated ADHD. I found the only way I could get any work done was to turn off my phone and unplug the router.
(I downloaded offline docs, and if I got really stuck, made a note of what to Google later and just switched tasks.)
I then found that I enjoyed getting stuff done so much, that I'd usually keep it off until after lunch.
I was thinking of scaling this up by adding Sunday too, but offline mornings might be even better... I'll look into adding a schedule in the router. I think it might be helpful to program the rule to start in the desired bedtime in the evening to make the pixel devices unexciting and incentivize reading old school books (the most efficient technology for getting me to sleep).
I've heard the advice don't touch the phone/email first thing in the morning so many times, but I can never stick to it, but if my "habit" is enforced at the network layer, I think it is doable ;)
UPDATE: Apparently iOS has a built in automation tool Shortcuts app, which allowed me to schedule this, see https://imgur.com/a/TsQJak3 I added similar rulesets to the router. Watch out world, Ivan's productivity is going to skyrocket!
I try to be proactive if I know I'm meeting someone to remind them to call/text and not expect Signal/Telegram comms. The only thing that has been a problem are RCS text messages since my iPhone assumes if RCS was used once to communicate with someone, it should always be used. I can manually use "send as SMS" for outgoing, but I don't get the reply.
But streaming, games, and all the other distracting stuff is mostly UDP! /s
It's so difficult to imagine the mindset of a person who can approach TikTok from a healthy perspective and not need to rely on what used to be called "parental controls" in the past to artificially prevent them from doomscrolling all day. They would just never need to consume advice like this. Surely those people must exist? Who are they?
But when you're slapped with something like C-PTSD from an early age, you aren't afforded the ability to address anxiety effectively. You have to turn to something to soothe your anxiety all the time or it will drive you insane.
If you were to try to go the complete or semi-aesetic route, you have to consider what lies on the other side of doomscrolling when there's just too much anxiety to function correctly: endless hellfire.
I have a hard time believing doomscrolling or needing to restrict screentime at every corner are effective ways to address a completely unrelated inbuilt source of boundless anxiety.
I found that now that I can access blissful and peaceful states at will, and deal with difficult emotions without getting overwhelmed, my "need" for compulsive behaviors has dropped massively. There's no longer so much pain to medicate.
It's like you say, we use this stuff because we don't know a better way.
As for social media, there's also the systemic issue of atomization in modern society. People spend so much time alone now, so that's another great pain to cope with.
I wonder why that is. How did we get here?
I’m very social. I don’t think I miss much notification of “stuff to do”
( signal groups : large groups hitting the 1000 member limit. With drastic moderations. Example : only music flyer. Anything else is deleted under minutes )
When noprocrast is on, you may only view HN for maxvisit minutes at a time, and must stay away for minaway minutes before returning. (taken from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677504)
And I don't see the point of going past the frontpage unless you want to bicker with someone on yesterday's topics that nobody will ever see. So just get it out of the way early.
— Suddenly selfaware guy who realizes he writes 5 comments a day on HN, kinda like a fat guy giving you weightloss tips. You see, the trick is to not moderate your intake at all.
Here in GMT+2, there's the morning salvo - and then an afternoon salvo once the USA is properly caffeinated.
I spend already ~5h staring at screens for work. At home my biggest screen time is watching videos on TV. I don't think I ever doom-scrolled on my phone. I do read lots of news articles on it though. Article seems to not be addressing people like me.
Maybe doomscrolling is reading too many news for you? Or do you think it's not too excessive?
During that time I could go to work, consume tasks, complete them without stress or distraction and feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. Same when I went home and did chores around the house. That is a feeling that has been elusive most of my life. The big thing that stood out to me those few days: little to no desire for screen time.
If you think you have anxiety then do yourself a favor and seek professional help. Otherwise these life hacks are useless as they are ignoring the root cause of your desire for screen time.
You can’t just go from screentime to no screentime if you have nothing to do off the screen, plan some activities.
It’s essentially like being a dry drunk. You need something else to replace the alcohol or you just trade alcoholism for something else.
I tried to do that in the past when I my depression was more severe. I thought that'd help me, but I replaced staring at my screen with staring at wall or just sleeping.
So you just tried to replace your compulsive use of your devices with nothing, like the poster you replied to advised against. Great.
Like SpeedBump, ScreenZen also has a "wait before using addictive apps" function (though, it doesn't have the "wait a bit longer to get 15mins vs. 2mins" - that would be really nice).
ScreenZen also keeps track of "streaks" of days not going over your overall limit in addictive apps. Unfortunately, that limit is counted by number of sessions, not the actual overall app screen time (by default, if you set your limit to 1 hour, it gives you 6 sessions of 10 minutes per app). It would be nice to combine this with SpeedBump's different-time-limit feature: if I want to quickly check a post or show a friend something on Instagram, I could use only 2mins out of my overall hour limit, instead of 10mins.
Not having a phone on me at all times to cope with boring or awkward moments has really been eye opening, and I believe very healthy for me. Especially as someone who has had a phone on me for my teenage years and throughout most of my adult life thus far.
I still check FB on desktop from time to time if somebody close doesn't have anything interesting, but that is 1-3 mins max. FB has a very hostile UI on desktop these days (Firefox and ublock origin) and a lot of bugs on their sites, so I quickly get disgusted and close it.
The best part is, it completely refreshes whole timeline with new stuff every few mins, so anything I was just reading just blips out of existence, never to be seen again. So even if I manage to stay 3 mins it literally kicks me out. Thanx FB.
Another issue with that social media (don't use any other, why ffs its all mind cancer) is being overflooded with fake AI generated bullshit posts full of half truths and outright lies. Normally via suggested groups, cesspool of scum. So I have no idea what friends actually do, and not missing it.
Did you also try out an e-paper phone at some point? And how are you doing in terms of connecting with friends and so on?
Ironically I actually feel like I experience far less FOMO than when I was hyper connected too :P
For my phone:
- Deleted all apps for social media, all browsing has to be via browser.
- Used SocialFocus (https://socialfocus.app/) to remove feeds and recommendations from all apps, any post access happens via shares or search
- Also turned on a timer for social media (45 minutes each for reddit/insta).
- Turned social media black/white instead of color.
- Used dumbify launcher (https://dumbifyapp.com/) to turn my menu bar into a text based one instead of icons.
For my computer:
- Used Cold Turkey (https://getcoldturkey.com/) to set up blocks for various websites, subreddits etc.
- Locked up my Cold Turkey block with a long random text string, which increases friction if I want to unlock and as a result reduces my inclination to do so.
- Use News Feed Eradicator (https://github.com/jordwest/news-feed-eradicator/) to remove feeds from websites which have some utility for me (e.g. LinkedIn) but can be a time sink.
Honestly, these steps have worked quite well for me thus far. I have managed to get back into reading (both fiction, non-fiction as well as academic textbooks), freed up time to spend with family and friends, and also gotten into watching TV shows - something I had not really done in the last 2-3 years due to being hooked on short form media
I also highly recommend turning off history in the YouTube app, if you all use it. It then surfaces...zero recommendations. It's blissfully quiet.
I doubt it. Trying to not to use all of popular social for some time (for 30 days) was inspiring to me, so I don't have any idea why those apps so important.
I've been wanting to try Digital Wellbeing but it looks like it's still not available for non-Google devices. Or at least it's shown as "not compatible" when accessing the Play Store from GrapheneOS.
It doesn't limit apps, it just displays your screen time in a permanent notification and allows you to view and export past statistics.
I've found that to be very effective. From a systems perspective, it amounts to adding a new feedback loop, similar to this leverage point described by Donella Meadows[1]:
There was this subdivision of identical houses, the story goes, except that for some reason the electric meter in some of the houses was installed in the basement and in others it was installed in the front hall, where the residents could see it constantly, going round faster or slower as they used more or less electricity. With no other change, with identical prices, electricity consumption was 30 percent lower in the houses where the meter was in the front hall.
We systems-heads love that story because it’s an example of a high leverage point in the information structure of the system. It’s not a parameter adjustment, not a strengthening or weakening of an existing loop. It’s a NEW LOOP, delivering feedback to a place where it wasn’t going before.
[1] Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System - https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-t...
It's pretty manual (2-3 mins per week), but logging the new dates each week is a nice little "check-in" to stop me from drifting back towards more screen time.
I've never been a heavy user, but I noticed sometimes I drifted towards 1-2 hours per day and have since gotten down to an average of less than 15 minutes per day. I just use the phone for utility purpose now. I got scared straight seeing the UK average daily phone use statistics, including my own, and how much that adds up to over a year.
Digital Wellbeing was quite good but I noticed it counts things which aren't necessarily screen time. I kept having loads of time on the 'Clock' app for some reason, and spam calls I ignore seemed to also be counted even if I saw them on my watch.
As for the phone setup itself:
- no media apps (social, games, video, news)
- a web browser, but I try to just remember anything I'm interested in and look it up later on a PC
- absolute minimum notifications. phone, sms, email and messages (Signal/WhatsApp). I try to use only for emergencies or quick messages and meetups instead of having conversations over messages
- minimal launcher (Nova) with black and white icons
- no blocks, just screen time monitoring using StayFree. I don't want to use blocks as a crutch
> StayFree (Android)
Side note: Are you blocking StayFree from accessing the network? Their ToS make it rather clear that they will collect & share all possible data they can get their hands on.
Then I whitelist google maps, camera, and my messaging app. Everything else is inaccessible. I paid for it.
- iOS Focus Modes is underrated in this article. When I arrive at work all my apps except teams and outlook disappear, my phone turns into a work dashboard. After work my phone shows my journal and the clock app. I never get notifications at work, they queue up until I leave. My watch is synchronized and does similar, showing exactly what I need and nothing else for different stages of my day. Focus Modes has sadly not been copied by Android so I can’t consider stitching until there’s a good answer (a well supported HealthKit alternative being the other deal breaker).
- iOS screen time is busted af, it is known. Might as well be a random number generator. I recommend avoiding. Apple workers reading this: pls fix
The idea came from wanting to combine the best parts of all the focus apps I used: scheduled block sessions like Opal, mindful breathing interruptions like One Sec, and some light gamification to make it feel less like punishment.
EvoCat is a small animated character (a cat-phone hybrid) that evolves as you stay focused. The longer you avoid distractions, the stronger it becomes — and the harder it gets to cancel your focus sessions. It turns screen time control into something a bit more playful, but still effective.
I currently have a beta available on iOS and I’m happy to share a TestFlight link if anyone wants to try it out. You can also check it out here: https://evocat.app
Would love feedback from fellow builders and focus-app nerds :)
If I want access to a site, I have to plan it carefully to log in within that window. Then if I find I'm misusing it it's easy to kick myself off.
As someone who’s been building LookAway[0] (a mindful break reminder app for Mac), I’ve seen firsthand how easy it is to slip into hours of continuous screen time at a desk resulting in things like eye strain, posture issues, and even productivity dips.
Would love to see more awareness and tools around managing desktop screen habits!
[0]: https://lookaway.app
Computers have become an unprecedented scourge and curse to our attention, our moods and our very souls, but radio, telephone, and TV led up to this.
It is time that the architects of consumer communications technology took responsibility for the utter grind and drain they’re causing us in every waking hour--literally--because these days, my smartphone knows exactly when I begin to stir in the morning and dumps a fresh deluge of pings before I can make it to the bathroom...
Nowadays, you can, you know, just download narrated podcasts, ebooks from Gutenberg, free PD audiobooks...
Listen to some stories in silence, on your bed, at night. Let your brain imagine the story. You don't even need an internet connection at all. Download them at your library, listen them at home.
On news, RSS feeds. Feeder on Android (and any good client under Linux too) has access to full content, you don't need to be online to read the news.
The Conversation and Science Alert have the whole news in their feed. Use Feeder, and while you add a feed, don't forget to check the 'get the whole content' option or similar.
Now you will be able to read news offline. No alerts, no dopamine, no useless bullshit, no bait 'news', no nothing.
The Conversation has curated articles from major sections (Science, Health, Culture, Environment, Economy, Politics). Everything else it's just boring propaganda -from all sides- to polarize and scare you like hell so you are rendered a zombie customer.
Science Alert it's that, Scientific News, popular science. If The Conversation Science feed feels bland to you, here your have.
But, does anyone know of any alternatives for degoogled phones? E.g. from F-Droid?
* I removed all apps that aren't tools/utilities to help me get things done. No entertainment (including RSS!). For example, I have Busycal, Things, and Bear installed along with a few other utilities. I also removed non-essential utilities. There is no need to pay my credit card from my phone. This also has the benefit of reducing tracking.
* Disabled JS for Safari. I would find myself surfing the web and wasting time. Even if I initially started with good intentions. Turns out, a lot of my web usage was "I wonder about this, let's search it". "That was a cool movie, let's see what other people think online". It is an absolute pain to dig 37 menus deep to enable JS again, which forces me to live without it.
* Time limits never worked for me. I'd always ask for five more minutes. Just one more hit Tim Apple, I promise. Last time. They may work for you though.
* Either disabled notifications or set them to appear in daily reviews. Now I get those daily reviews and realize it's filled with stuff that doesn't matter. Every time I pick up my phone I risk falling into a black hole. The less I'm notified to pick up it, the less time I lose. Only alerts from my partner and similar get through immediately.
* Get an alarm clock or use a smartwatch. Seriously. You know those people who wake up and reach over for cigs before they're even out of bed? Don't do that with your phone.
* I lean heavily into my smart watch. For me, trying to create friction on my phone was only mildly successful. A smart watch has a ton of organic friction that feels natural. Instead of giving your Ferarri a flat tire to slow it down, just ride a bicycle. Synthetic friction vs organic friction. I'm bad with analogies. Leaving my phone behind is something I do sometimes but not as much as I should.
* These days the only social media account I have is HN. It's not ideal but everything is a WIP.
There really should be some concerted effort by the government to study these behaviors and what can be done. We dramatically dropped cigarette use with a lot of work and I believe we can do the same with phones.
I still waste time on my laptop but it's not a quick dopamine hit. I spend more time on side-projects though now that I'm forcing myself to be in front of a real machine. Reducing all screen-time is something I still need to work on.
1. Delete any app with any kind of algorithmic feed (YouTube, TikTok, etc)
2. Uninstall Safari
That's right, I've been rocking a browserless phone for about a year now, and I'm never going back. AMA
The problem that I found is that sometimes it's not just a place of procrastination but the place you want to search for a useful answer to your question.
this is a tool I use for Chrome. works for me
