People are now terrified of putting down a screen and being left alone with their own thoughts for more than 30 seconds. It's horrifying what's bouncing around up in that dome, and having to process it.
But this is exactly what we did before. We got bored, we were wasting time, we were experimenting, and that's how great ideas came around.
Idk if it's just terrified, but I think we're addicted. This probably sounds ridiculous but I recently blocked some apps and sites on my phone and actually felt a little off for a day, like my sleep was weird. I think there was a slight withdrawal from the constant bombardment of stuff. It is helping kill my Facebook habit. I don't even really like the site, I just check it impulsively. It's weird.
Reddit is another one, the infinite scroll I think is addictive. Trying to kill that habit. But there is useful information on there so it's hard to disable it completely.
Yep. I deactivated Facebook and it took a week or so to get used to not having it. I feel a lot better without it that I will probably delete it. I do want to keep messenger so that’s one of the only reasons to keep it.
True, but AFAIK, you can't keep your contacts (friends?) list when you delete the account and create a new one just on Messenger. An alternative is to deactivate the account [1] – this effectively removes your account from Facebook, but allows you to keep Messenger with all the contacts. (It probably also keeps other associated accounts, such as Instagram.) Although, it means that the moment you log into Facebook, your account comes back up, with all the relationships that were left off, tags, photos, etc.
Looking at certain sites just becomes a muscle reflex. The second I'm bored, I feel the urge to look at my phone.
If you have a large enough rotation of websites, you never feel properly bored, so you can spend the entire day mindlessly browsing.
I think it's easy to tell whether you're browsing with intent or just killing time. It's just hard to close the lid and go do something else, especially if you've been doing it for so long that you forgot what "something else" is.
Delete the mobile apps. I scrolled reddit to infinity on my phone going through news that would make me depressed. I deleted the app and have been happy ever since. I come here twice a day for 10 minutes instead and my screen time reduced by 40minutes at least. I don’t feel gloomy all the time because of news too
FWIW I did something similar. Deleted my reddit account and now just occasionally visit specific subreddits that I used to subscribe to. I find that actually going to a subreddit to find specific content I want to look at helps break the loop of endless scrolling but I still get just as informed/entertained.
Yes, definitely. I feel this way as well. It's not ridiculous at all. Forced withdrawal is the only way to begin recovery and get back sensitivity.
People are extremely scared of the word "addiction" though. I feel the same way about sugar and basically all carbohydrates at all and it's very challenging to talk about.
Congratulations! I’ve been fruit free and almost vegetable free for 3 years and it’s been the best time of my life. I’ve lost over 200 pounds and kept it off for longer than I ever have in 3+ decades of weight loss attempts.
It feels like how I treat junk food and snacks: I’m welcome to have as much as I want, but I have to go out of my way to get it every time. Never stock up, which in this analogy would mean never install the native app or subscribe to newsletters or notifications.
For reddit et al, I only view it on the browser. Sure, I get bombarded by popovers and alerts telling me to install the app, but I have to work my way to get to the content if I really wanted to view it.
You can use extensions to either delete or remove the infinite scroll.
In my opinion, the infinite scroll is both addictive and fruitless. I rarely find something fun when it's buried deep in the feed. That's pretty obvious. If it was a fun post, it would've been at the top, right?
If you don't trust any extension with site-reading capability, here's a simple solution: scroll down as much as you are comfortable, and then work upwards!
Not sure about how different the effectiveness is, but I use the Freedom app to block sites at schedules times on my desktop. I also have it on my phone, but it’s not as reliable on iPhone as it sometimes randomly deactivates.
No need for infernal advocacy here. Reddit is to some extent the unfortunate heir of newsgroups, as well as many independent forums, so of course there is going to be a lot of interesting and useful information on it.
The thing I imagine that gives some people such a negative view is coming in contact through the brand "reddit" and being dumped into large controversial sub-reddits straight away.
A lot of people bump into a particular sub-reddit through a search result and have no idea of the dumpster fires elsewhere on the larger "reddit" site.
Its helpful to get kind of organic opinions on things. See what people are saying if your shopping for something new. Its comes up in google searches a lot. At least there's no seo gaming on a reddit link.
Ive had some ok experiences on reddit too, meet ups, bought stuff, got free concert tickets once too. its hard to write the whole thing off. That might be a different era of reddit though. Its been a few years since I had something like that happen now that i think about it
I have taken 3 photography related courses that all have private groups on FB. I don't use FB in any other capacity but the value of those groups is probably among the highest ROIs on the internet for me (hobby wise at least).
Yes-ish. Not that facebook is providing anything from their side but the adoption rate of the non-technical participants is sky-high. much higher than what i have seen with private forums.
I can only speculate but my guess is that all the participants are already actively using facebook and hence don't have any reasons not to join and use the private groups. Notifications are dealt with quickly because of the already implemented workflow from their side.
Pick a programming language or piece of popular tech, chances are good it has a subReddit of discussions and links to blog posts and announcements, sometimes with some of the creator/maintainer people posting.
I can't lay hands on a link, but there was an article about the psychological phenomenon of time passing too quickly. It was a measurable state you could detect a brain as either being in or not in.
One of the most reliable ways to reset internal time perception? Experiencing nature.
Yes. The gist was that your brain gets caught in a loop in which your perception of time was continuously skewed, leading to a constant feeling of hurrying / lacking enough time.
Spending time in nature essentially jumped your brain out of the loop, even after you returned from nature.
Think it might have been a summary of this: "Awe Expands People’s Perception of Time, Alters Decision Making, and Enhances Well-Being" (2012)
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal, 1654 AD.
This is not a new problem, we are just experiencing a hyper version of it. Social media, the world's knowledge at your finger tips, is distraction on steroids.
I’m afraid of boredom because I’m not loved. When we had no phone addiction, other people were talking more too. If I get my dose of speech/interaction during the day, I could quit twitter anytime. But since I regularly don’t get it, especially as a programmer where written chat is the norm as an ersatz of human interaction, then I compulsively need to read and write information and watch (*gobble) videos, and generally fall asleep to the sound of a video talking to me.
With enough human interaction and love, I come back to being an avid reader, consume little addictive networks, and don’t mind boredom.
This happened to me as I got older. Now I MUST have something like Seinfeld on to fall asleep. I cannot fall asleep in silence and darkness alone - the angst takes over. Also the accupressure mat is a life saver.
Generating endless ideas is how my brain fights off boredom. Bringing those ideas to life is a different story. The brain is too busy generating new ideas.
Once all of your friends are hooked on their phone, it becomes very lonely to be the only one that doesn't stare at a screen. But what people naturally yearn for is not to get bored alone, but to get bored as a group. So the "quality of bored-ness" goes down as screen usage expands.
> But this is exactly what we did before. We got bored, we were wasting time, we were experimenting, and that's how great ideas came around.
Yep! I firmly believe that boredom is not just healthy, but a necessary part of life. Your mind needs downtime and your creativity and imagination need mind-numbing boredom.
Meditation is also a great way to force yourself to be alone with your thoughts. However, speaking from experience, that can lead to some uncomfortable truths -- so it's good to be prepared.
But this is exactly what we did before. We got bored, we were wasting time, we were experimenting, and that's how great ideas came around.