Notice under “Managing dependency”, the focus is exclusively on technological solutions.
There is no technological solution to this. We have the equivalent of unlimited crack in everyone’s pocket 24/7 with no possible oversight over its use and no way to reel it back in. The genie has been out of the bottle for a while now.
Just like gluttony, there is no solution, only management strategies and they’re all very human.
Sensible education about these things starting at K1. Social and outreach programs for addicts. Etc
We actually don't know that there isn't a solution to gluttony, addiction, and other self-destructive and compulsive behaviors.
The brain is somewhat stupid and can be tricked by very primitive things, like bright lights. We might also be able to un-trick it, maybe with medication. That's kind of what were seeing with GLP-1 agonists.
We know how to cure addiction though, and its really low tech. People (and rats) with adequate social lives and decent living conditions are able to consistently overcome addiction. In fact, addiction has come to be understood as a coping mechanism for living in an unpleasant environment. Imo the issue with phones is really a symptom of our lack of leisure time, pleasant outside settings, and affordable third places.
Of course there is, even if it's not for everyone. You can abandon the profit-seeking duopoly and embrace GNU/Linux on smartphones. No tracking, no invasive apps or notifications. Works for me (except HN).
It is not like 'unlimited crack' because that is a chemically addictive substance that bypasses any need for stimuli enjoyment and directly increases wanting. Multi-media screens do not and cannot do this. Can we agree on that? Science does. At the very least they have to initially be intrinsically rewarding. They are a very different kind of stimuli and pretending they are chemical drugs that immediately bypass perception and directly cause wanting is dangerous misinformation. I am not saying people don't have problems. But this is not at all an addiction like chemical addictions. Applying chemical addiction paradigms will lead to the same calls for use of government violence in regulation. An outcome far more damaging than the situation.
Ok, it's not crack. Not chemical, just social. It's like a hyper-optimized version of gambling. Slot machines in everyone's pockets. Or am I not allowed to make that comparison either, because the government regulates that too? Wouldn't want to accidentally call for government violence.
Let's be clear. It is not the actual smartphones that do this; machines are designed and programmed by humans. Companies can choose to use technology to manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes, and many do choose just that, often for financial gain.
I like this response to poke a hole in the parent comment, but it is worth noting that smartphones and guns are different in a pretty massive way:
Smartphones can be useful and valuable in many ways separate from the ways they can be used harmfully. Guns exist only for physical violence (or to threaten physical violence).
As someone who actively avoids political rage bait, was trained in rhetoric, was raised by public persuasion oriented public speakers.
The idea that the most resonant rage bait that exists at any given moment is instantly, algorithmically, propagated to our public officials and the politically engaged is insane.
All this while culture has now been trained to blindly celebrate bias, has been inculcated with a learned helplessness toward bias, have become poisoned against the idea that anyone has the goal of accuracy or objectivity and really does just wants accurate models of the world.
I've switched to a CAT S22 Android builder's flip phone, and my usage has dropped significantly. The screen is so small and fiddly that it makes me feel sick using it for extended periods - exactly what you want from an adictive substance like a smart phone. Having to physically open it to use it, and then waiting 5 seconds before it lights up, creates a psychic barrier to just 'quickly checking for updates'. The camera is like an early 2000s cheap digicam - just about good enough for documenting things but it hardly beckons you to want to photograph your life constantly for social media. It's a PITA to use and that's why it's perfect for everyday use.
But solutions?
Here's my take, will gladly take input (Android):
Two profiles: profile 1 has no notifications, reading apps (ebooks) and shouldn't have a browser (mine does and shouldn't); profile 2 has all apps, inclusively all of profile 1 apps. Idea: have an "offline" phone. Good for battery. Whenever I need IoT or something else, I shrug and change profile.
Use desktop apps/desktop browser: should work. Doesn't much. When I'm on laptop I tend to do terminal stuff, social apps feel like wasting time, do it fast and multitasking mode. Multitasking is not really what I want to train my attention span. Sometimes I turn on notifications but put system notifications in DnD so I can check what's notificated every half an hour or so.
Use Waydroid to have social apps: should work, never worked.
Special profiles on social apps: my current social apps have only institutional accounts being followed. Some decorum is kept, and with it, sanity. Exceptions: Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, Linkedin, where I follow regular people. But I really should implement something similar for my LinkedIn account.
Alternate sites/apps/mode of usage: use WhatsApp/Telegram to interact, say hi to some people online on Facebook Messenger, install Discourse; on group chats avoid links or include a short summary written by an human of why people should open your link and a quick "what's on the link" description.
These are my takes to extract some humanness from my machine mobile phone.
If this works for you, then great, do it as long as it works. But for me this will never work. What actually has worked though, is being in an enjoyable environment (surrounded by friends and family, lab / hobby equipment, quality books and poetry, or just spending a couple of hours outside) that can grab my attention better than those social media apps. Also, I regularly delete and recreate my social media accounts.
Additionally, a very effective way of becoming less attached to the phone is to occasionally "forget" to bring it out with you, but that only works if you for example don't need maps or aren't expected to take a phone call. The key-point here is the irregularity, because then over time you will get used to replacing smartphone usage with some other joyful (or idle) activities instead of just moving the dopamine rush hour around. Furthermore I believe that embracing boredom is a must, and I just accept that sometimes I will be bored with nothing to do for a couple of hours and that's when I get most creative.
Have you explored Focus modes on iPhone? You could place a button for a Shortcut on the lock screen to toggle Focus modes that change which apps show on the Home screen, and which notifications to show (while the others go to Notification center). Could use the Action button or Back Tap to change Focus mode before even seeing the lock screen.
Fairphone (with Fairphone Moments) has a focus mode [1]. I should write a bit about it here instead of merely linking to it, but I do not have the Fairphone 6 with this mode so I feel like I cannot comment on it the way I'd like to (I've owned Fairphone 2, 3, 4, 5). They're not the first though, see e.g. Lightphone [2].
What I want (and I suppose this is kind of possible with Island or equivalent application) is a guest mode for my kids. So I can give them my smartphone without my notifications popping up between a game or movie.
FairPhone Moments looks like a good idea. But why does it require a mechanical switch? I am not going to upgrade my FP4 just for that, but might be willing to install an app that does the same kind of thing
Bo Burnham put it succinctly, although he was talking about children on apps: "When they go to sleep at night, they have to choose between all of the information ever published in the history of the world, or the back of their eyelids."
The smartphone is a perverted implementation of the goal that people use to fantasize about back in the early days of the computer revolution: a personal terminal to the world of audio, text, and video information stored in databases across all of humanity. It's of course worth talking about how they compel us to certain behaviors via push notifications, dark patterns, nasty design, etc. but also--obviously we'd be addicted to personal terminals that let us access all the publicly available digitized information in the history of the world.
It isn't even a perverted implementation, we just overestimated ourselves.
All our sci-fi futurism of the 70s/80s showed enlightened humans elevating themselves with technology. In real Star Trek the holo deck would be used for porn, the computer would be used to play shitty podcasts while they procrastinated work and the replicator would be churning out donuts and fried foods.
It's philosophically a weird time, because we are more socially progressive than ever before, but we have a nonstop flow of evidence that people cannot self-govern. It feels paradoxical to demand freedom and protection from your own impulses at the same time.
I don't know that anyone's really asking for protection from their own impulses. Freedom requires protection from other people's impulses. That's where this is all going. A few truly free people, everyone else in a cage.
> It isn't even a perverted implementation, we just overestimated ourselves.
I agree. The Internet implementers were too wide-eyed thinking the Internet would "save us" instead of realizing that it would "slave us". The human brain is highly unintelligent emotionally. Look at a toddler's emotional capacity. That all lives inside us just behing a thin facade. The Internet both taps into that and exposes us to untold amounts of emotional taps. Humans evolved to be in relatively small social groups. It's obvious why we are completely overwhelmed by literally everything these days, because everything pushes outside of those small social groups.
>Bo Burnham put it succinctly, although he was talking about children on apps: "When they go to sleep at night, they have to choose between all of the information ever published in the history of the world, or the back of their eyelids."
Ok but is the issue the information, or is the issue the presentation?
I am an outlier, but I used to cure insomnia with excessive reading. I reckon if I had no other outlet, I would probably choose information over sleep.
But we know that the 5 websites put a lot of energy into making them extremely desirable to cruise for hours, regardless of content. It feels like everyone has my unique problem, but its not really "information" they are after, its this one giant never ending pit of despair and bullying.
I think the access to so much information itself isnt bad. Cuz access to all of wikipedia wouldnt do this. People would get bored because its still work to digest that information
I think this access gave opportunities to bad actors whose incentives are misalligned with society's. Social media companies. They use this opportunity to serve us easily digestible garbage thats going to get us hooked.
Its a not some grand and malicious conspiracy or anything. Greed is just a part of capitalism. Before, people loved getting others hooked on drugs because it made them so much money.
People who like capitalism know this is a bug in the system that needs to be patched with regulations. We stopped putting cocaine in coca cola. We just need to stop putting brainrot garbage in our kids information feeds. We need to penalize companies for these greed driven addiction algorithms. Itll be hard, but its what needs to be done and we can do it if we have enough societal willpower
Idk I've gotten high and just wasted whole nights going down Wikipedia rabbit holes. I think eventually turned to stronger time wasters though. The Wikipedia thing is real though.
Some people wouldn’t, we call it falling into the wiki hole for a reason.
I’ve spent more hours than a sane person should just hopping from one topic to another and often end up reading about something I had no idea was a thing an hour earlier.
But I also use YouTube only for documentaries and read a lot generally, my only social media is HN and Reddit (though not a lot).
I’m just not wired for engagement the way most the people in my life seem to be.
Other than Bank App, Kindle and Firefox I have nothing installed on my phone it didn’t come with, iOS is basically same on my iPad.
I don’t find the modern web very engaging and use unhook/ublock origin to keep YT what I want it to be which is a no distraction source of documentaries.
I agree but it's too entwined with "freedom of speech" and section 230. Many here make too much money addicting children and don't want to turn off the fire hose of money.
>"When they go to sleep at night, they have to choose between all of the information ever published in the history of the world, or the back of their eyelids."
But when they power the device on, instead of reading all the information ever published in the history of the world, they watch vacuous tiktok videos where losers talk in the most annoying voices possible TAP LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE.
This should be obvious, I suppose. Gluttons aren't eating pounds of filet mignon and bags of truffles, they're chowing down on pseudo-manufactured crunchythings that are only distantly related to food.
> When they go to sleep at night, they have to choose between all of the information ever published in the history of the world, or the back of their eyelids
They are not tired enough if they choose to use their smartphone, that's an education issue.
Children are taught the value of a good night of sleep, they are taught by having fulfilling daily lives and exhausting. If you let them be like a plant, yeah they will be just as dumb as a plant.
It's not even just children in safe situations like bedtime. I regularly see adults crossing the street typing on their phones while having headphones on.
To me, smartphones are a godsent. I use mine to communicate, get public transport information, have text read to me, describe pictures, get a GPS fix and help me navigate the city as a pedestrian, use devices where I wouldn't be able to read the displays, and so many other things I can't even list right now. I even met my partner of 14 years via Messenger. I occasionally scroll through facebook to find events I might go to, and amuse myself over comments on various divisive and not so diviseve posts. I am blind. My life would be clearly less fun without them. Tools are just that, tools. What you make of them is your call.
I don't understand how having faceid, a touchscreen, vibration, gps would manipulate my emotions.
Makes no sense.
Developers using these features to build app that makes you addicted ? Yes. But these features in itself are not manipulatives or triggering reflexes.
I just don't understand the author reasoning...
I don't use addictive social media on my phone and when I receive notification, my phone makes a sound, it vibrates and yet I don't feel urged to look at it.
I actively dislike my phone. It's an entirely to expensive platform that I "need" to own, to interact with certain parts of society. The screen is to small to be useful for media consumption, without making me sick. It's also to small to be useful as a web browser, except in an emergency.
It is great to have GPS and mobile payments, and Uber if you're in the US as it's pretty much impossible to locate a regular taxi. Other than that it's ... for making phone calls, texting is done better view a desktop app, though I need the smartphone to activate the account (Signal).
Claiming that the phone is manipulating is a bit of a stretch. One roundabout why I can see the phone manufacturers being complicit is in pushing what a phone can and should do. If you remove the manipulating apps, then you end up with people replacing their phone way less frequently. E.g. the iPhone 7 is still a good phone, it has texting (and iMessage or Signal), calling, security updates, notes and updated maps. It probably sucks at running Instagram and TikTok (though I'd assume it plays videos just fine). Apple just isn't really going to make a ton of that original sale anymore.
> I don't use addictive social media on my phone and when I receive notification, my phone makes a sound, it vibrates and yet I don't feel urged to look at it.
the hysterical mob has decided it is literal crack rocks and EVERYONE ELSE cannot be trusted to not get hopelessly addicted to it, however they can use social media to of course decry its evils
Readit News
There is no technological solution to this. We have the equivalent of unlimited crack in everyone’s pocket 24/7 with no possible oversight over its use and no way to reel it back in. The genie has been out of the bottle for a while now.
Just like gluttony, there is no solution, only management strategies and they’re all very human.
Sensible education about these things starting at K1. Social and outreach programs for addicts. Etc
The brain is somewhat stupid and can be tricked by very primitive things, like bright lights. We might also be able to un-trick it, maybe with medication. That's kind of what were seeing with GLP-1 agonists.
Of course there is, even if it's not for everyone. You can abandon the profit-seeking duopoly and embrace GNU/Linux on smartphones. No tracking, no invasive apps or notifications. Works for me (except HN).
i think you might be slightly overreacting there bud. and smartphones dont connect to a different internet, youre on social media right now.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
That said, denying people access to guns does result in fewer gun related fatalities.
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Dead Comment
Smartphones can be useful and valuable in many ways separate from the ways they can be used harmfully. Guns exist only for physical violence (or to threaten physical violence).
The idea that the most resonant rage bait that exists at any given moment is instantly, algorithmically, propagated to our public officials and the politically engaged is insane.
All this while culture has now been trained to blindly celebrate bias, has been inculcated with a learned helplessness toward bias, have become poisoned against the idea that anyone has the goal of accuracy or objectivity and really does just wants accurate models of the world.
We are lighting ourselves on fire.
And the majority celebrate because they feel warm.
Two profiles: profile 1 has no notifications, reading apps (ebooks) and shouldn't have a browser (mine does and shouldn't); profile 2 has all apps, inclusively all of profile 1 apps. Idea: have an "offline" phone. Good for battery. Whenever I need IoT or something else, I shrug and change profile.
Use desktop apps/desktop browser: should work. Doesn't much. When I'm on laptop I tend to do terminal stuff, social apps feel like wasting time, do it fast and multitasking mode. Multitasking is not really what I want to train my attention span. Sometimes I turn on notifications but put system notifications in DnD so I can check what's notificated every half an hour or so.
Use Waydroid to have social apps: should work, never worked.
Special profiles on social apps: my current social apps have only institutional accounts being followed. Some decorum is kept, and with it, sanity. Exceptions: Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, Linkedin, where I follow regular people. But I really should implement something similar for my LinkedIn account.
Alternate sites/apps/mode of usage: use WhatsApp/Telegram to interact, say hi to some people online on Facebook Messenger, install Discourse; on group chats avoid links or include a short summary written by an human of why people should open your link and a quick "what's on the link" description.
These are my takes to extract some humanness from my machine mobile phone.
Additionally, a very effective way of becoming less attached to the phone is to occasionally "forget" to bring it out with you, but that only works if you for example don't need maps or aren't expected to take a phone call. The key-point here is the irregularity, because then over time you will get used to replacing smartphone usage with some other joyful (or idle) activities instead of just moving the dopamine rush hour around. Furthermore I believe that embracing boredom is a must, and I just accept that sometimes I will be bored with nothing to do for a couple of hours and that's when I get most creative.
Mode 1: I'm bored, show me something interesting, all notifications are available
Mode 2: I want to do something specific, don't show me anything but a tool for selecting an app / task (list of apps, search box, whatever).
What I want (and I suppose this is kind of possible with Island or equivalent application) is a guest mode for my kids. So I can give them my smartphone without my notifications popping up between a game or movie.
[1] https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/268869393266...
[2] https://www.thelightphone.com
The smartphone is a perverted implementation of the goal that people use to fantasize about back in the early days of the computer revolution: a personal terminal to the world of audio, text, and video information stored in databases across all of humanity. It's of course worth talking about how they compel us to certain behaviors via push notifications, dark patterns, nasty design, etc. but also--obviously we'd be addicted to personal terminals that let us access all the publicly available digitized information in the history of the world.
All our sci-fi futurism of the 70s/80s showed enlightened humans elevating themselves with technology. In real Star Trek the holo deck would be used for porn, the computer would be used to play shitty podcasts while they procrastinated work and the replicator would be churning out donuts and fried foods.
It's philosophically a weird time, because we are more socially progressive than ever before, but we have a nonstop flow of evidence that people cannot self-govern. It feels paradoxical to demand freedom and protection from your own impulses at the same time.
I agree. The Internet implementers were too wide-eyed thinking the Internet would "save us" instead of realizing that it would "slave us". The human brain is highly unintelligent emotionally. Look at a toddler's emotional capacity. That all lives inside us just behing a thin facade. The Internet both taps into that and exposes us to untold amounts of emotional taps. Humans evolved to be in relatively small social groups. It's obvious why we are completely overwhelmed by literally everything these days, because everything pushes outside of those small social groups.
This is lampshaded in Lower Decks
Surprise, it's harder for people to self-govern when they are surrounded by mechanisms designed deliberately to subvert their capacity to self-govern.
Dead Comment
Ok but is the issue the information, or is the issue the presentation?
I am an outlier, but I used to cure insomnia with excessive reading. I reckon if I had no other outlet, I would probably choose information over sleep.
But we know that the 5 websites put a lot of energy into making them extremely desirable to cruise for hours, regardless of content. It feels like everyone has my unique problem, but its not really "information" they are after, its this one giant never ending pit of despair and bullying.
I think this access gave opportunities to bad actors whose incentives are misalligned with society's. Social media companies. They use this opportunity to serve us easily digestible garbage thats going to get us hooked.
Its a not some grand and malicious conspiracy or anything. Greed is just a part of capitalism. Before, people loved getting others hooked on drugs because it made them so much money.
People who like capitalism know this is a bug in the system that needs to be patched with regulations. We stopped putting cocaine in coca cola. We just need to stop putting brainrot garbage in our kids information feeds. We need to penalize companies for these greed driven addiction algorithms. Itll be hard, but its what needs to be done and we can do it if we have enough societal willpower
I’ve spent more hours than a sane person should just hopping from one topic to another and often end up reading about something I had no idea was a thing an hour earlier.
But I also use YouTube only for documentaries and read a lot generally, my only social media is HN and Reddit (though not a lot).
I’m just not wired for engagement the way most the people in my life seem to be.
Other than Bank App, Kindle and Firefox I have nothing installed on my phone it didn’t come with, iOS is basically same on my iPad.
I don’t find the modern web very engaging and use unhook/ublock origin to keep YT what I want it to be which is a no distraction source of documentaries.
It's hard to think of a society where this is the right measure. A better measure would be the user's best interest.
Arguably social media is significantly worse when it's aligned with the society's incentives AND those incentives are bad.
For example, consider hypothetical always-on addictive social media in the following societies:
- Ancient Egypt
- Any fundamentalist religious community
- The Congo Free State
- Antebellum South in the United States
- East Germany
- Sparta
- The Assyrian Empire
Alignment with society isn’t a virtue when society is sick. And a society is almost always sick, or at least there's noticeable room for improvement.
But when they power the device on, instead of reading all the information ever published in the history of the world, they watch vacuous tiktok videos where losers talk in the most annoying voices possible TAP LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE.
This should be obvious, I suppose. Gluttons aren't eating pounds of filet mignon and bags of truffles, they're chowing down on pseudo-manufactured crunchythings that are only distantly related to food.
They are not tired enough if they choose to use their smartphone, that's an education issue.
Children are taught the value of a good night of sleep, they are taught by having fulfilling daily lives and exhausting. If you let them be like a plant, yeah they will be just as dumb as a plant.
Why read that when you could watch 10 solid hours of clickbait?
Makes no sense.
Developers using these features to build app that makes you addicted ? Yes. But these features in itself are not manipulatives or triggering reflexes.
I just don't understand the author reasoning...
I don't use addictive social media on my phone and when I receive notification, my phone makes a sound, it vibrates and yet I don't feel urged to look at it.
It is great to have GPS and mobile payments, and Uber if you're in the US as it's pretty much impossible to locate a regular taxi. Other than that it's ... for making phone calls, texting is done better view a desktop app, though I need the smartphone to activate the account (Signal).
Claiming that the phone is manipulating is a bit of a stretch. One roundabout why I can see the phone manufacturers being complicit is in pushing what a phone can and should do. If you remove the manipulating apps, then you end up with people replacing their phone way less frequently. E.g. the iPhone 7 is still a good phone, it has texting (and iMessage or Signal), calling, security updates, notes and updated maps. It probably sucks at running Instagram and TikTok (though I'd assume it plays videos just fine). Apple just isn't really going to make a ton of that original sale anymore.
the hysterical mob has decided it is literal crack rocks and EVERYONE ELSE cannot be trusted to not get hopelessly addicted to it, however they can use social media to of course decry its evils