YouTube addiction, one month sober (sophiajt.com)

The idea is just to defuse instant gratification. Works pretty well for me.

A lot of the gaming-related stuff is just pure garbage.

"Secret gaming room" channels are especially egregious. Saw one where a kid bought a used boat (the kind with a below-deck area with a bed, kitchen, etc.), the kind you can get for ~20k or less if it is ~30 years old. Made a "secret gaming den", and then intentionally sunk the boat just to add some drama with the "secret den" filling up with water.

There's so many of these idiots on YT, that I can't even find the video now among hundreds of pages of videos.

Yes, they need to stay off my lawn.

You’re right that there’s good content on there, but I’m not convinced someone would be missing out on 99.9% of it. Or more.

I’ve used it far too much in the past as well. Today I feel like it was purely a vice and a distraction. My impression of various things being “good” was based on its ability to keep me watching without feeling immediate shame or being made too aware of how I was distracting myself from more important things. Had I never seen most of it, not much would be different. Things would likely be better for me.

I struggle with this, but it's incredible what a difference it makes when I make it happen. I'm mostly content with watching a show before bed now (which is technically a screen), but this comes from having Netflix/YouTube up, my phone out, and my laptop sitting in front of me (yeah, it's crazy one can operate like that).

More importantly, I've been strict on "no screens in bed" which has also played a key role.

So I run an autodownloader that downloads a bunch of channels as well as my liked videos for posterity. I'd like to give nebula a try, but ultimately it's important to me that I'm able to save the content I consume and access it later

A patchlist is here: https://revanced.app/patches

I had a similar experience to yours. It's very hard to not get sucked into them. I would keep scrolling even when I am actively disliking the actual content being shoved into my face.

It was a very sober realization for me that our brains can hijacked like this using the TikTok formula.

It keeps that part of my brain occupied, but not focus, while I work on the task at hand.

I think it simply depends if you were growing up with TV in the background. I haven't, so it's not soothing, it's maddening to have noise, loud chatter and unwanted sounds going on when I'm trying to direct my uneven focus.

The only thing that do not detract from focus is droning, instrumental music: psytrance or techno. But only when the workload is low. Otherwise I need absolute silence.

Running long distances works really well for me.

There’s a neat thing about running. Humans are really good at it provided we can focus on what we’re doing and maintain a pace. Focus is hard in the modern world but when you lose that focus, your lungs will tell you right away.

Work is the same thing. We really don’t want to sprint through the tape and bonk when we’re 20% through. Instead, we want to find a pace, focus and hold it.

My ability to focus skyrocketed.

I set specific times of day when I will allow electronics and I have disabled notifications from work-necessary apps outside of work hours and silenced notifications from all apps except from those folks I’ve explicitly allowed (my elderly parents and kids). I have silenced notifications from everyone else, always.

You have to be diligent and find alternatives to fill your time. I recently started seeing someone new after a divorce. She is amazed at how “disconnected” and “relaxed” my lifestyle is compared to others. We don’t fill our days with ‘stuff’, outside the home or electronic in nature, opting for purposeful downtime that allows for quiet, creativity, and relaxation from the mandatory parts of our lives.

You can get there. Just think of the life you would prefer and make time and take meaningful and small, incremental steps toward it.

Good luck.

I've been told I might have undiagnosed ADHD tho, not sure if relevant. Anyway, YMMV, but it could be worth a shot!

Probably a good idea to combine with exercise and/or mindfulness exercises.

The little tricks to limit things and set timers can help, but the root problem is that you're describing yourself as being on autopilot: You get magnetically pulled to the next time waster.

Work on being more deliberate in your choices. Fill your time with things that provide a sense of accomplishment and remind yourself throughout the day what the goal is. If it helps, write the goal out on sticky notes and put it on your monitor, then review it throughout the day.

When you're tired and need a break, get away from the computer. Go for a walk or just stretch. Don't let your autopilot draw you back into the default easy time waster yet again. Create an array of positive activities to fill your time with so that you have more things to choose from, not just another round of scrolling something on a screen.

Becoming comfortable with discomfort was huge -- the thing that I'm avoiding is probably the thing I need to do and will feel great afterwards.

Sometimes the anxiety is high and I find working with another person helps, either sitting beside them or actively. In the WFH era I found FocusMate to be super helpful, you pair with another person and share what you plan to do to in that time block via video chat and then go on mute and check in after the session to see how much progress you've made.

I find this alleviates a lot of anxiety and having a block of time where you verbalize your goals makes it manageable.

You can try for free and do up to 3 sessions per week. I did it and found it helpful so I bought the year subscription.

Here's my referral link: www.focusmate.com/?fmreferral=Tj3Vcqqaei

Or if you don't want to use that just www.focusmate.com

I’m a fan of BJ Fogg’s “Tiny Habits” as the book includes memorable summary diagrams, and the author is credible as an active researcher (his work was cited in the lectures of a university course I later took, after reading his book on my own). Alternative books are James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” (which cites BJ Fogg’s work) and Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit.” There is a lot of overlap between the ideas of each book, so you can’t go wrong, though I found that BJ Fogg’s book was the most concise.

The most relevant idea from Fogg’s book is that behaviour is a function of motivation, ability to do a behaviour, and exposure to prompts for the behaviour. From a summary of his book [1]: “B=MAP considers that there are 3 key factors that need to be present for any behaviour (B) to occur: motivation (M), ability (A), and prompts (P). The model proposes that when these three elements are present at any given time, the person is pushed above the ‘threshold’ for action to do the behaviour.”

It sounds like you’ve already thoroughly attempted to change the habit by reducing your ability to engage in the behaviour (via blocking social media). Fogg, in his chapter on changing a habit, strongly recommends addressing the motivational aspect behind the behaviour. You can consider the question: what is it that motivates you to check for emoji reactions? For example, Fogg discusses how a person fixed a sugar consumption habit once she identified that it was a response to grief from losing a loved one, and addressed her grief in a healthier way—this may or may not be relevant to you.

Prompts are also important (via asking yourself: “what prompts the behaviour to check social media?”), as Fogg also recommends using them as a starting point to change your response to a healthier alternative. But he emphasizes the importance of focusing on the motivational aspect, as he wrote that it would not have been enough for the person with the sugar consumption habit to simply replace sugar with a healthier alternative like celery—the motivational aspect was the most important for her case.

[1] https://www.habitweekly.com/models-frameworks/the-fogg-model

So goal is not to eliminate social media, but to recognize why I'm doing it, and look for real-world social (or other constructive) ways of pushing it out.

Seeking validation from others is very human, and many people do that in real life as well. The difference with the digital realm is that the response is represented as emojis on your screen, so it gives you something direct to focus on. In real life the response requires interpretation, social cues, etc., and is not as immediate.

If you work remotely then don't feel so stressed about this behavior. Tools like Slack can be a huge distraction, so you can try disabling notifications when you want to focus on work. Just like you blocked social media, you can reserve specific timeslots to check Slack. I'm sure your coworkers would understand, as they likely also feel the same way.

At the end of the day, like any harmful habit, you have to break it with willpower and sometimes force, but this is manageable with digital tools. You're not _physically_ addicted to this.

I walk, read books, exercise, cook, and spend social time with others. If I'm not exhausted I'll also practice my instrument and write. Eventually you won't have to think about it too much just by avoiding excess screen-time, but until such a point, owing to habit and conditioning, one feels very lost going without.

    Does anyone else feel conflicted about the internet 
    as both a means to a comfortable/lucretive career but 
    also the ultimate drug?

i mean obviously i mitigate it as much as possible (blocking sites, etc) but daaaaaaaamn. what a fundamentally tricky tension.

Install "LeechBlock" in Firefox and "AppBlock" for apps. Block Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, CNN or whatever bad habit feedscrolling sites you use.

Limit it to like 2200-2300 in the beginning and then just set a total ban after one or two weeks.

It helped me alot. It was ridiculous how I had like muscle memory to open these things for no reason at all, all the time. I noticed first after I got the block message I set myself.

After a month or two the bad habit was gone.

Reddit got some third party mirrors for specific threads I want to read in search results (with a clunky high bar to reach) and there are plenty of alternatives to CNN. Etc.

I always find a bit of humor in discussions such as these on social media.

Glad you acknowledge it.

Or you can write a userscript / custom CSS to hide thumbnails altogether.

Or you can browse YouTube through RSS feeds (which afaik still work).

Very glad you found something that helped, but this is a good place to warn people that everyone is different. In some people, stimulant treatment can actually kindle problematic behaviors like the one you escaped. For some, they enhance focus but that results in more focusing on the hobbies, distractions, and side projects.

I bring this up because while ADHD medication is great for some, there's a growing problem of people reading positive anecdotes and assuming it's quick fix for all things lifestyle related. In clinic practice there's a growing number of people showing up with everything from stimulant-exacerbated Dermatillomania (skin picking disorders) to problematic behaviors with porn consumption after seeking out stimulant treatment based on internet advice. Stimulants are powerful drugs, and there's an entire other conversation to be had about the excessive prescribing practices of some of the providers out there (my pharmacist friends are in disbelief at the size of some of the doses they're handing out to people these days).

This is a huge factor. I find myself slipping into a pattern of non-stop YouTube or social media scrolling when I haven't been taking my meds. I've had several friends who also have ADHD tell me similar stories.

I wish ADHD was more well understood by the public. I blame two decades of jokes about the disability just being hyper kids through the '90s and '00s. Many people don't even realize that ADHD often persists into adulthood, where it is arguably more disruptive to the patient's lifestyle.

Sometimes it's hard to find what to do and you still need some "filler" activities.

At least with HN there is the possibility of something interesting and not just mindless bullshit.

Everything is relative too. I think of my World War 2 vet grandfather. He worked a mindless job, then came home and drank beer until he went to bed while watching TV.

We seem to pretend before the internet that the average person would clock out from their amazing, uplifting job and then head off to some Vienna Circle level discussion about the nature of reality.

While often falling way short, my reality is much closer to that than any of my ancestors could have ever dreamed of.

I tried to do something similar with twitter (now known as X), but it doesn't seem to work.

The same thing has happened in the past (an old Wodehouse school-story has a kid being yelled at for reading "trash" (David Copperfield) during class instead of the Latin he was supposed to be working on.

Strange, I had the opposite experience: COVID brought screen time discussions front and center as everyone was getting desperate for things to do away from their screen or becoming cognizant of how much screen time was at the center of their lives now.

I've always done a lot of outdoor activities. There was huge upward trend in the number of people I saw on hikes, out walking, or biking during COVID. It felt like everyone was getting outside again.

But obviously there was another world where people retreated to their homes, got comfortable with screens, and never unplugged.

The thing we all have a finite amount of is time, and we’re increasingly distracted to where we waste more and more of it on unimportant, artificial digital worlds/life while the real world passes by. As I’m getting older, I’m seeing how precious youth, energy, and health are, but those who have the most of that (younger people) seem to be sucked in even more. We’re racing towards the dystopia shown in the movie Ready Player One.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p9-Fbl2QVJc

It will only accelerate from here.

Hell, as much as it may be a bad thing compared to a healthy information ecosystem and better balance of physical activity with passive video consumption, I'm not even sure an addiction to an algorithmic content feed is all that bad compared to many other alternatives. Consider many countries are still in the midst of epidemics of opioid addiction. I think my wife might be "addicted" to YouTube. She seems more interested in watching endless Bob Ross episodes than anything else in life right now, but ultimately it has her painting and that isn't terrible. She's also an alcoholic and that's an addiction that put her in the ICU for 5 days twice in the decade we've been married. My best friend from high school tried to quit cold turkey in 2016 and died at the age of 36 from physiological withdrawal symptoms because she detoxed at home and not in an ICU. I'd much rather have my wife sucked into algorithmic rabbit holes than finding those duffle bags of empty bottles this author talks about.

While I'm sure there are more productive ways to use your time, YouTube is at least not directly killing anyone, and if you're getting some useful information or entertainment value or both from it, that's a heck of a lot better than other things you could get addicted to.

We have. Sadly people aren't allowed to be bored long enough to decide that they should see what other people are up to.

It used to be common to call or even drop by unannounced to check on people. Doing these things is now seen as some great sin.

It's like we are all eating plain ramen every day, and aren't getting our vitamins. Sure we are full but we have deeper needs.

The best content on YouTube is berried behind a wall of Mr Beast and Pewdie Pie style fluffery that I can't find any real value in most of the time. They dictate what is favorable, and that ruins the entire experience for me. The search has been flooded with SEO title spam, which makes finding specific content damn near impossible and/or very tedious.

I don't think you can be addicted to a hammer if it's a highly functional tool in getting work done. I don't think you can get addicted to a television if it's a tool used for relaxation or entertainment. I think we need to stop considering that apps become addictive, and really speak on if they manage to deliver on their promises and functional purposes.... Just my opinion.

Most apps become extremely annoying after years of being highly functional, and that represents corporate corruption more so than having an addictive product. It's not addicting if it does not fulfill a valid purpose when it begins to charge money for ad laced content or repeatedly waste people's time, apps cease to be useful after that point.

I say self-serving because my average daily phone use is <30 minutes, I'm not present on any social networks besides a reluctant LinkedIn account, but I do watch more Youtube than I should. I'd like to think it's unrelated to those things, because I only watch channels I'm already subscribed to, and am uninterested in being steered by recommendations.

I'd much rather actually do something that just veg out watching TV.

Everyone has things they feel like they should be or need to be doing every day.

We are allowed to do things that give us joy that take us out of the day to day, it's just whether or not these things start to consume so much of your time that you negate other important areas.

But I'm not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I've forced myself to go laptop/desktop-only with most services and have found that I can keep my phone away from my person for most of the day, save for moments where a service requires 2FA.