I spend way too much time browsing Reddit, YouTube/Twitch, and Facebook. Thankfully, I never got into Insta or TikTok. I want to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend interacting with these sites, but they feel so deeply engrained into my psyche that it feels nearly impossible.
I've tried some of the simpler suggestions like configuring a Tampermonkey extension to limit access, or installing Cold Turkey (https://getcoldturkey.com/). The problem is that I know how to work around these things (you can just edit your clock time to mitigate Cold Turkey ...) and so, eventually, the cravings become enough that I do so even though it's not in my best interest.
Another issue is that sometimes sites have valuable information. For example, some subreddits have useful information related to programming, fitness, etc. and I'll encounter them through a Google search. If I'm prevented from accessing this information when doing legitimate research then I find that frustrating and wish there was an exception to the rule. I'm not sure how grounded that stance is, though.
In the physical world, I've had great success defeating habits by limiting physical access. I don't keep snacks at home and, if I must, I'll put them in a timed, locking container (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9J3MLM) such that I'm unable to open it when having a craving. This helped me with things like delicious toppings for salads which I wanted to keep on-hand, but not be tempted by 24/7.
The problem is more challenging when working with digital addictions. I'm wondering what my options are here? I assume something related to parental controls at/near the hardware level and a time-release password? Not sure if anything time-based is viable if I can just mess with my computer's clock time, but maybe if it dials out to a third-party server for timing info and I don't go so far as to MITM the response? I'd prefer solutions that I'm able to implement myself rather than relying on repeatedly handing passwords off to friends, but am understanding if that's a hard requirement.
Anyone had any success here? Thanks!
What do you want to do instead of digital media consumption? If you do more of those you'll naturally have less time for browsing.
For me, that's been taking up the following (the specific items change with time, but when I notice myself spending more time mindlessly scrolling it is a good reminder that I need something else to keep me busy):
* Running (with race goals) - doing this 4x a week sure takes up a lot of my time.
* Physical meetups (local philosophy groups, museum events, actively scheduling coffee with friends, etc)
* Crafts (cross stitch - started when I took on an ambitious Birthday gift project for my boyfriend and now it's kind of a meditative experience)
* Studying (part-time university course where I have to read a paper and complete a study guide once a week)
Those four things, along with full time work, don't leave much time for mindless scrolling unless I intentionally want to just chill and schedule a block of that in (and I don't feel guilty about doing that anymore because with all the other stuff enriching my life I feel there's nothing wrong with some occasional browsing).
In fact, blocking tools can actually make this worse. Using a blocking tool is tacitly saying "I can't control myself. I need to hand control to something outside of myself" This basically reinforces the belief that you cannot control your problematic consumption.
You need strategies that reinforce the opposite belief: You are in control of your usage.
I recommend looking into books like Feeling Good and Feeling Great. Get a greater understanding of your emotional state and work out how that feeds into your social media usage.
There are some tools that are useful. The first is time tracking tools. They let you look back on your day and work out how you spent your time. What are the patterns of your usage. Do you always end up struggling after lunch? Or in the evening? What are your triggers?
While I wouldn't recommend blocking sites completely, blocking the most distracting parts of sites can be useful. If you're studying from youtube videos, using a plugin that blocks comments and suggested videos is extremely useful. This means you will no longer catch a glimpse of a thumbnail of something interesting and go off task.
Overall, you have to tackle your emotions and your beliefs about yourself.
Pick a hobby that is not connected to computers. For example I like to rebuild old bicycles.
Go for walks without a device. You don’t actually need a device with you for most of the days activities. Tell your gf you will be at the pub if she needs you. Walk to the park and sit on a bench and think your thoughts. Become comfortable with you.
Write your thoughts in a paper journal. Your thoughts don’t need to be broadcasted and they don’t need to be backed up to the cloud. But they likely need to be recorded as it helps to organise them.
Get a watch. You don’t need an 8 core 16 gb ram computer in your pocket to know the time.
Decide what you value and then make decisions based on those values.
1. I uninstalled the mobile apps and turned on 'desktop site' view on my phone browser. That way I never really "quit", but the experience of scrolling comes with so much friction that I don't feel like opening it unless absolutely necessary. The added battery life is a bonus.
2. I reduced my feed with extreme prejudice. My fomo wasn't letting me unfollow pages, so I moved them to alt account/custom feeds/bookmarks. Muted the remaining ones except the handful friends I wanted to see updates from.
Finally, don't be hard on yourself. You're going against meticulously engineered data streams that have been perfected over the years with the assistance of top behavioral scientists.
Seems counter intuitive, and a recipe for distraction. But it works. With autoplay off, you have to manually pick up your phone and select the next video.
Podcast apps are a great replacement for youtube to play in the background. I use Pocket Casts, but I am grandfathered in because I bought it before they went subscription. I can't speak for the free version. If you are Mac/iOS, Apple Podcasts is now very good. It is also available on the web for Windows/Linux. The default option on Android is Youtube Music, which is a disaster. I would recommend Pocket Casts there. The free version can't possibly be worse than this. Pocket Casts is also available on web/desktop so your listening can sync.
I understand that you think you will eventually bypass these barriers, but this belief leads to failure. And the only way to move forward is to believe you can follow through.
Well I'm sure you could come up with a few ways to work around your locking container but why isn't that also a problem? I think it comes down to the level of "activation energy" it requires, which may include breaking it open and also getting a new one.
In a similar way your digital block needs to have a high enough activation energy (both in getting around it and then turning it back on) that it effectively blocks you. It doesn't need to be impossible, it doesn't even really need to be that hard since we tend to be tempted with these things when feeling at a low energy (or we would be doing something else). As an example, I have the leechblock extension where turning it off would require uninstalling it or typing in something really long, I havent touched it in years.
Think of it as an aid to will power, you'll need higher obstacles the lower your wall of will power (a limited resource)
> Another issue is that sometimes sites have valuable information.
You should try blocking the feeds and recommendeds instead. Setup some regex rules, use ublock lists, get extensions which block the home page etc. But you shouldn't block them permanently, set just enough time to catch up / remind yourself that most of the content is useless then move on
- For Youtube, delete and disable watch history. This will make the "home" and "shorts" tabs blank, and make the below-video recommendations less effective. Your subscriptions and everything else will still work normally. Also uninstall the app from your phone, so you have to access it in a browser (even on Android you can "disable" it).
- For Reddit, block r/all (and maybe / (home)) in your adblocker on all your devices. (For ublock origin the rule is ||reddit.com/r/all^$document ) The block can easily be clicked through, but that means you'll leave it in place for next time. Non-r/all pages will still work. Again, uninstall any apps.
I don't have similar advice for Facebook and Twitch; maybe unfollow everyone on Twitch so you have to look up channels intentionally?
Now I only watch videos from my subscriptions as opposed to whatever the algorithm feed me.