A big problem I find is that if you are a family and have kids you basically have to keep up and that means turning on notifications for messages and emails and then of course that leads to opening the phone, reading email, checking HN (obviously) and then posting a comment on it! urghh
I was super-disappointed, attending my recent state townhall meeting, that the only way to participate was scanning a QR code to fill out a survey. After asking for a paper copy (which was never produced), I decided to participate in my own manner:
I stood up and heckled my clown state representatives, for almost an hour, providing audience-appreciated commentary to what I perceive as our failed political system (US bipartisan).
To their toothless grocery sales tax reduction legislation (which'll never pass), I suggested my fellow constituents just shop across the state line, in one of the many nearby grocery stores — just STOP giving our state this money, then maybe they'll consider legislative changes.
Perhaps this fell upon deaf ears, but I wasn't the only audience member frustrated with our legislators' back-patting/inaction. I will vote/shop with my money, elsewhere. I wrote my state officials a letter afterwards, offering common-sense suggestions — hoping this geriatric remembers my participation (he turns 80 soon... just retire already, Congressman!).
I think the most surprising thing about it, at least in the US - is that mobile bandwidth is THE most expensive. I imagine that's inverted or opposite elsewhere
> The first way is to not have recommendation media (think Instagram, TikTok, and all the rest). I'm pro deleting these accounts completely, because it's really easy to re-download the apps on a whim, or *visit them in-browser.*
Tiktok having a borderline unusable web app has done wonders for me. I'll end up on it because someone sent me a link, I can watch that ONE video, a single time, before normally I get a spot-the-boat style captcha or an "install the app" modal. Even trying to get past that point, it feels like the site is somehow falling apart at the seams as you navigate around. I know the concept is "well people will install the app then" but that's also annoyingly frictionful.
They unintentionally made the most literal social media experience: some one sends me media, I watch it once, I leave before the site crumbles to pieces like an ancient tomb that was only held together by a load-bearing dog video.
I'm really glad that for whatever reason my brain has completely rejected short-form content. It seems to be a serious problem for a lot of people. I don't understand it the same way I don't understand heroin addictions. My mind is just screaming "STOP DOING IT" and cannot get passed that concept very far.
What I have noticed is that when I read something I often deeply connected enough to the material that at some point I disengage and go DO SOMETHING with that information. If I'm reading something about a guy coding something and I get an idea I am going to play around.
Most of the YouTube and short-form content doesn't inspire anything like that. The "job" is to sit and watch the content for 30 seconds and repeat. Almost every form of "engagement" is to manipulate the audience into "doing the algorithm".
I think they have differences that are significant.
I find it incredibly more distracting when someone nearby or in the household is watching tiktok or similar within earshot than if they are watching a longer-form video or television program. Seemingly because I can "tune-out" the long form program but every time the video switches with tiktok, my brain "activates" and gets distracted to check if it needs to pay attention or not.
I find the shorts on youtube super addictive, but the algo is too repetitive. I once watched a drumming video to then end, not I get heaps of drumming. It's cool, but I'm just not that into drumming.
I've been trying to correct the algo but giving a down thumb to videos I don't want to watch but its not learning.
Very occidental perspective. There are places where you need your phone practically 24/7, no affordance of escape. I can give an example of my day, which is basically completely phone centered, the only words I utter in a day is some digits to the taxi driver to verify my identity (when i can afford a ride that is).
Edit: mute button is essential and don't allow any notifications outside important messages/apps
It's amazing how much a couple small changes can make on your browsing experience. The companies that own these products have a huge incentive to make every element purposefully addictive. I've also patched the iOS Instagram app to remove all Reels (using FLEXtool & Sideloadly), so I can keep up with my friends without falling into the traps. As developers, we have the ability to target these manipulative tactics and remove them, and I encourage you to do this as much as possible.
For YouTube addicts I recommend uninstalling the app, using the website, and installing the Unhook browser extension for Chrome/Firefox/Edge. It can remove recommendations, shorts and a bunch of other stuff.
Wonderful extension, but at times my dopamine-addicted brain keeps disabling it on an impulse instead of doing something creative or productive on my PC. I looked into making it impossible to disable this extension through registry editor, but so far none of the settings in Windows seem to stick.
I always felt that I'm spending too much time in front of a computer, but it was at least somewhat meaningful because I had opportunities to create: write code, blog, and so on.
When smartphones came out, I made a decision early on that I'm just not going to use them in a way that makes my internet footprint follow me everywhere I go. I set them up using a throwaway email account, turned off almost all notifications, and added just family and real-world friends. I think this served me well for nearly two decades. I really only use my phone for maps, photos, and maybe 2-5 messages a day. I honestly never found myself in a situation where I thought to myself, "gosh, I wish I could read my e-mail right now".
But in the past five years, there's been this mounting pressure from app vendors to make sure I can no longer enjoy that. Every other time a friend sends me a web link, I get a popup that detects I'm on mobile and demands I install an app. And they increasingly can't be dismissed, so if I want to view that URL, I need to mail it to myself and open it on a desktop.
If you work for a place that does that, I just hope you stub your toe every morning.
> I always felt that I'm spending too much time in front of a computer, but it was at least somewhat meaningful because I had opportunities to create: write code, blog, and so on.
Yeah, we can waste a lot of time in front of the PC, but it at least can be used for creativity and productivity.
I have been trying to reduce my usage.
I still cannot find a way to resist pulling out the phone to:
- perform a quick search (browser or ai)
- listen to podcasts
- listen to audiobook
- check the data of the last running or gym session.
Are there alternatives that are as friendly? Or being friendly is the danger here?
I found the one thing that kept me off of my phone was using a degoogled pixel 4XL with Graphene OS on it. So much you can't do on the stock version using F-Droid app store. I really enjoyed until I needed to start downloading a few banking apps that didn't work on it.
So I'm back, but limit what I have on my phone now and its like you said, a constant struggle NOT to download and install something.
Tbh the link problem is common for everyone. I sent a tiktok link to a non tech friend and they couldn’t view it because they didn’t have an account. So I used a downloaded tool to send the video directly. All of the major social media sites are locking out users who aren’t signed in with the app. So you usually just screenshot or use an external tool to rip the content.
Most of those mobile application nags can be removed by enabling the corresponding filter list in uBlock Origin settings. If you're not using Firefox on the phone, both Vivaldi and Brave have this subscription in their settings (I think it might even be enabled out of the box).
Apps and phones are just so much better for surveillance which I know, duh. Most users simply don't give it any thought and install apps left and right permissions included. The smaller screen real estate is also better for surveillance - smaller number of things on screen equals more granular information on what you're doing precisely.
Extra toe-stubbing wishes for those that are pushing this paradigm into desktop - it's bewildering to me when I hear non-technical folks tell me that an app on desktop needs to come from an app store. Or when web design is being "simplified" and dumbed down really on desktop to facilitate surveillance.
Toe-stubbing-every-morning wishes to a lot of people for contributing to this reality.
You did everything right (set boundaries, kept things intentional) and still the internet crept in through the cracks like water under a poorly sealed door
I did all of this and it has served me well — as far as distractions and unwanted comms go. The problem is, now whenever I get that isolated spam (still happens daily or few times a week — just a little) it gets on my nerves, almost like a rage. Because it feels like a violation. For others I see, they don’t even register it.
Somewhat off-topic, but since it might be useful to you and others:
> if I want to view that URL, I need to mail it to myself and open it on a desktop.
I'm signed in to both my Firefox on Android and on desktop, and I can hit the share button while viewing a website and then tap my desktop Firefox under "Send to device". Saves a bunch of steps there.
Just a small data point/anecdote: I think the calls to install native apps are actually decreasing now. I don't get spammed for that nearly as much as 2014-2018 or so. Even banks seem to be getting comfortable with making mobile optimized websites now.
But like I said, just my perspective, I don't have any hard data points.
I will not install your app, but I will silently stop using your service. If I'm installing an app then it should presumably offer me some functionality offline, because if I'm online then I can go to your website.
You don't treat the symptoms; you treat the cause. dumbphones, minimalist phones, and crippled smartphones are as effective as a smoker throwing away a full pack, only to buy a new one when stressed or drunk. If you use doomscrolling as an escape, you will inevitably fall back to it when life hits. While a few may manage to change their habits with a restricted device if the stars align for long enough, it won't work for most. You need to first figure out why you do it.
I heavily use android's focus mode to keep myself from being too distracted. Originally I tried using app timers, but I found myself just constantly bumping them to the point where I wasn't getting a benefit. Whenever I notice an app being noisy with notifications (even if I appreciate them when I'm not busy), I add it into the list of distracting apps. I have a daily focus timer that enabled when I get to work and ends when I (generally) leave work. This keeps me focused during the day, but I also occasionally enable this when I want to focus on other things, or if I find myself spending too much time on random apps. Because of the way that the breaks work, I have to keep asking for 5/15/30min and I'm very aware of how much time I'm wasting. I also enable flip-to-shh mode, which disables all notifications when my phone is face down on a surface. I realize that focus mode and flip-to-shh can seem extreme, but I noticed this works well worked for me.
> While I still have the twitch to check my phone when I'm waiting for a coffee, or in-between activities—because my brain's reward system has been trained to do this—I'm now rewarded with nothing
For those looking to drop a(ny) habit: this seems to be the key
I have a similar great+simple system for curbing consumptive screen-time, i.e. I don't keep any of those apps on the phone, I block all of those websites on phone/laptop web-browser using an extension like Leech-Block and Un-Hook (YT). Some things that I allow are - YT long-form videos from subscriptions only, Hacker-News, and Linked-In.
THE biggest impediment for me has been stuff like getting sick. When I am sick, I just cannot lie there and do nothing. And it is TOO difficult to do stuff like read books or go out and talk to people or whatnot, it's too much effort. I HAVE to get back on consumptive screen-time. And then it devolves into something uglier - an ugly spiral, of gluttony & consumption, and I keep at it even beyond getting better.
Then it takes days or weeks of laziness and excuses to get back on track. And not just sickness but anything of that level. Anything that just kinda derails my life for a bit. I really need to find a middle-ground solution for the worst-case scenarios. I'm still working on it. I think I should be able to figure it out. It took me a while to figure out my best-case system as well.
For me reading books works well when I’m sick in bed.
You probably need to force yourself for a while but it’s worth it.
That being said i was a voracious reader in the past so it might not tickle your toes in the same way
Ditto! I try reading some silly things, play some old silly games (e.g. Warcraft, not arcades), or just watch some YouTube. But I don’t watch YouTube in my daily life, so I’m not addicted to it.
I just use an old phone. App developers are lazy and very quick to pull support for devices that are even a little old. A large number of apps won't even install or start, or complain to you to try to shame you into buying a new phone. Use developers' laziness to your advantage.
I believe that short form video coupled with infinite scroll mesmerizes humans. It keeps them in a trance by using suspense. The brain absolutely must know how the video plays out whether that be waiting for the punchline, a fight to break our or a fact to be delivered. Once the brain has locked eyes on the video the user must put significant energy into making a conscious decision to look away.
Even OpenAI's latest Sora app leans into this format and the videos there are literally the poorest quality on the Internet. 99.999% of them are eight seconds of unintelligent, unintelligible, low grade digitally created excrement.
There should be a law against it.
Big Tech knows this. They have teams of people with doctorates making apps engaging.
dopamine reward feedback loop. Video scrolling is an insidious form of it because the feedback time is so short that you end up hooked on it for hours, feeling bad afterwards; seriously potent stuff.
It's a slot machine. Everything social media and e-commerce is a slot machine. Each scroll is a pull of the arm, hoping that the algorithmic gods will smile kindly on you and give you some sweet content or deal.
Read "Supernormal Stimuli" by Barret [1] for an exploration of the psychology of this "mesmerizing" effect - at least in general, if not specifically in short-form video and infinite scroll.
Whether the artificial stimulus comes in the form of junk food, entertainment, social connection, sex, we've seen time and time again that trillion-dollar megacorps employing thousands of the greatest minds of our generation have been able to invent substitutes that are more compelling than evolution has prepared the human brain to be able to deal with.
It does seem like video shorts are especially easy to exploit.
I guess I'm fortunate enough to find shorts unbearable.
I occasionally watch some from creators I like, but tbh I find a great majority of them really annoying. The vertical frame, the silly endings after 30s of crap. God. It's so bad.
ooh deleting and pausing off youtube's watch history is nice, no more getting sucked into videos of someone beating dark souls by only pressing the Z button or whatever other bullshit Google has realized I will waste hours on.
The opposing viewpoint is that smartphones do fill a need of the modern world, and that is that most people have been separated from their families due to the logistics of finding paying work.
Some of my relatives in the 90s, things weren't much better without smartphones. You had long distance calling and TV, or otherwise you were alone. One of my relatives attempted suicide when she was very young, you can guess why.
But yes, it obviously makes sense to use smartphones intelligently. Meta products and Tik Tok are poison for the mind. And unless you're at home it's a good idea to just shut the smartphone off.
The most addicted family-as-a-whole to the screens I know of live literally 100m from each other (3 generations). Suffice to say this is far from their only addiction. What you describe is certainly true for some people, but I am having hard time believing this is majority. I live long term far away from family and an occasional whatsapp video call is covering our digital meeting needs.
Most people are simply too weak mentally to resist various self-forming addictions and don't care about these topics at all.
Why disabling youtube recommendation? It is literally the only recommendation engine that works, just don't watch shite (at least from your account) and you will never be recommended of that. Other smartphone services are irrepairely wrong, but youtube is a search engine for what you dream. Everything you are searching in google or mentioning somewhere on youtube forum will be added to your "interests". Regular search is broken but the recommendation "search" is the best service I ever had, it is like an oldschool librarian who knows what book will interest you.
The advice about deleting youtube history and setting and auto-delete cadence (though every 3 months looked like the most frequent possibility for me) is good and I wasn't aware of it. I don't have social media, but I do have a personal gmail email address, which links to youtube making it hard to avoid spending time on my phone watching youtube videos.
I've been running dumbified version of iOS for a few months now, and I'm very happy with it.
I removed every 'fun' app except for a few exceptions:
- ChatGPT, but mostly in voice mode, and with other people - as a party trick.
- Whisper Memos (https://whispermemos.com/), I record voice memos and they end up in my email, so I can continue with that idea when I'm on a computer (whether that is a prompt for AI, or a todo.)
- Basics like Banking, EV charging, Maps, Parking, Messages, Weather, Authenticator, Reminders, etc.
I removed App Store as well as Safari, so these apps is all I can do on my iPhone.
In the beginning, I set up a Screen Time code so I wouldn't be able to cheat. But in a few weeks I got used to it. So App Store and Safari are enabled again, but I never use them. (Maybe Safari is disabled. I have no idea to be honest.)
The biggest downside is I never know where my phone is. However, I'll gladly accept this downside.
> If we assume people sleep roughly 8 hours per day
I'd strongly question that assumption. Based on what I've heard from friends (and also personal experience), I think there is quite a large number if people who spend too much time on the phone, but also still want to do activities/work on projects, etc - all in addition to work, family life and chores.
The result is that the time is taken from the activity that appears most "compressible" at first glance, which is sleep.
When I got in the habit of putting my phone in a KitchenSafe at 9:30PM every night my sleep (according to my watch sleep tracker) increased by a full hour. From 10:30 I'd get into bed and peruse Reddit or Twitter on my phone, often past midnight. Now I just read a book for 30 minutes until I'm too tired and doze off.
Great article, I'm a cofounder of Clearspace and think about this a lot.
> I'm an adult, I know how to circumvent these limits, and I will if motivation is low.
It's impossible to build systems that perfectly prevent you from doing this, but it is possible to build systems that can perfectly deter you from doing it. You could set up one - for example - that texts your spouse if you delete it. Or charges your bank account. Or whatever other doomsday device you want to rig up.
> Time limits don't affect the underlying addiction. You don't quit smoking by only smoking certain hours of the day.
Yeah but if you could encode cigarettes to ween you off of them by force, that'd be a big help. Also cigarettes don't have any real utility, so cold turkey is a reasonable strategy. Unfortunately the social media platforms have real utility, so a guardrail strategy makes more sense.
> The companies that build these apps have tens of thousands of really smart people (and billions of dollars) trying to get me hooked and keep me engaged. The only way to win this game isn't by trying to beat them (I certainly can't), but by not playing.
When it's all said and done, someone is going to build the right set of digital environment modification tooling that does beat them. It has to be possible, the internet is intrinsically customizable
the cable company asked me to accept their generous 50pct monthly discount provided I would not cancel the subscription service but I said I am trying to watch less tv, and that was that
Another tip for getting more out of youtube, is if your topic of interest is potentially not dependent on current events, you get higher signal to noise ratio searching for videos from 10+ years ago exclusively. Earlier the better.
Youtube was so much better when you didn't see the uploaders face and there wasn't incentive to pad video duration.
93 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 96.5 ms ] threadI stood up and heckled my clown state representatives, for almost an hour, providing audience-appreciated commentary to what I perceive as our failed political system (US bipartisan).
To their toothless grocery sales tax reduction legislation (which'll never pass), I suggested my fellow constituents just shop across the state line, in one of the many nearby grocery stores — just STOP giving our state this money, then maybe they'll consider legislative changes.
Perhaps this fell upon deaf ears, but I wasn't the only audience member frustrated with our legislators' back-patting/inaction. I will vote/shop with my money, elsewhere. I wrote my state officials a letter afterwards, offering common-sense suggestions — hoping this geriatric remembers my participation (he turns 80 soon... just retire already, Congressman!).
Tiktok having a borderline unusable web app has done wonders for me. I'll end up on it because someone sent me a link, I can watch that ONE video, a single time, before normally I get a spot-the-boat style captcha or an "install the app" modal. Even trying to get past that point, it feels like the site is somehow falling apart at the seams as you navigate around. I know the concept is "well people will install the app then" but that's also annoyingly frictionful.
They unintentionally made the most literal social media experience: some one sends me media, I watch it once, I leave before the site crumbles to pieces like an ancient tomb that was only held together by a load-bearing dog video.
It's not perfect, as I still spend a lot of time on Reddit and HN on the tiny screen while commuting, but it's moved the needle for me.
Most of the YouTube and short-form content doesn't inspire anything like that. The "job" is to sit and watch the content for 30 seconds and repeat. Almost every form of "engagement" is to manipulate the audience into "doing the algorithm".
I think they have differences that are significant.
I've been trying to correct the algo but giving a down thumb to videos I don't want to watch but its not learning.
Edit: mute button is essential and don't allow any notifications outside important messages/apps
- Completely hide the recommended tab
- Make every thumbnail grayscale (to mitigate eye-catching thumbnails)
- Make every video title lowercase (to mitigate eye-catching titles)
Here's my code, although I have to update it every once and a while when YouTube changes:
It's amazing how much a couple small changes can make on your browsing experience. The companies that own these products have a huge incentive to make every element purposefully addictive. I've also patched the iOS Instagram app to remove all Reels (using FLEXtool & Sideloadly), so I can keep up with my friends without falling into the traps. As developers, we have the ability to target these manipulative tactics and remove them, and I encourage you to do this as much as possible.https://unhook.app/
When smartphones came out, I made a decision early on that I'm just not going to use them in a way that makes my internet footprint follow me everywhere I go. I set them up using a throwaway email account, turned off almost all notifications, and added just family and real-world friends. I think this served me well for nearly two decades. I really only use my phone for maps, photos, and maybe 2-5 messages a day. I honestly never found myself in a situation where I thought to myself, "gosh, I wish I could read my e-mail right now".
But in the past five years, there's been this mounting pressure from app vendors to make sure I can no longer enjoy that. Every other time a friend sends me a web link, I get a popup that detects I'm on mobile and demands I install an app. And they increasingly can't be dismissed, so if I want to view that URL, I need to mail it to myself and open it on a desktop.
If you work for a place that does that, I just hope you stub your toe every morning.
Yeah, we can waste a lot of time in front of the PC, but it at least can be used for creativity and productivity.
[Smart]phones are almost pure consumption.
Are there alternatives that are as friendly? Or being friendly is the danger here?
So I'm back, but limit what I have on my phone now and its like you said, a constant struggle NOT to download and install something.
Extra toe-stubbing wishes for those that are pushing this paradigm into desktop - it's bewildering to me when I hear non-technical folks tell me that an app on desktop needs to come from an app store. Or when web design is being "simplified" and dumbed down really on desktop to facilitate surveillance.
Toe-stubbing-every-morning wishes to a lot of people for contributing to this reality.
> if I want to view that URL, I need to mail it to myself and open it on a desktop.
I'm signed in to both my Firefox on Android and on desktop, and I can hit the share button while viewing a website and then tap my desktop Firefox under "Send to device". Saves a bunch of steps there.
I'm assuming other browsers can do the same.
But like I said, just my perspective, I don't have any hard data points.
You're too kind. These kinds of nagging parasites should be force fed excrement until they choke on it.
The only other response is to fill your phone with 128 GB of every different social media app that exists.
- having a "phone box", the small uncomfortable shoe bench now has a shelf above it for phones, phones shall only be used on that bench
- only my partner knows the "screen time" password on iOS
- putting away my laptop and using a desktop computer instead
My current problem is listening to podcasts, I don't have a convenient way to listen to them without my phone.
https://blog.google/products/android/android-focus-mode/
For those looking to drop a(ny) habit: this seems to be the key
THE biggest impediment for me has been stuff like getting sick. When I am sick, I just cannot lie there and do nothing. And it is TOO difficult to do stuff like read books or go out and talk to people or whatnot, it's too much effort. I HAVE to get back on consumptive screen-time. And then it devolves into something uglier - an ugly spiral, of gluttony & consumption, and I keep at it even beyond getting better.
Then it takes days or weeks of laziness and excuses to get back on track. And not just sickness but anything of that level. Anything that just kinda derails my life for a bit. I really need to find a middle-ground solution for the worst-case scenarios. I'm still working on it. I think I should be able to figure it out. It took me a while to figure out my best-case system as well.
Even OpenAI's latest Sora app leans into this format and the videos there are literally the poorest quality on the Internet. 99.999% of them are eight seconds of unintelligent, unintelligible, low grade digitally created excrement.
There should be a law against it.
Big Tech knows this. They have teams of people with doctorates making apps engaging.
Whether the artificial stimulus comes in the form of junk food, entertainment, social connection, sex, we've seen time and time again that trillion-dollar megacorps employing thousands of the greatest minds of our generation have been able to invent substitutes that are more compelling than evolution has prepared the human brain to be able to deal with.
It does seem like video shorts are especially easy to exploit.
[1]: https://www.harvard.com/book/9780393068481
These.. are all possible with a smartphone?
Some of my relatives in the 90s, things weren't much better without smartphones. You had long distance calling and TV, or otherwise you were alone. One of my relatives attempted suicide when she was very young, you can guess why.
But yes, it obviously makes sense to use smartphones intelligently. Meta products and Tik Tok are poison for the mind. And unless you're at home it's a good idea to just shut the smartphone off.
Most people are simply too weak mentally to resist various self-forming addictions and don't care about these topics at all.
I removed every 'fun' app except for a few exceptions:
- ChatGPT, but mostly in voice mode, and with other people - as a party trick.
- Whisper Memos (https://whispermemos.com/), I record voice memos and they end up in my email, so I can continue with that idea when I'm on a computer (whether that is a prompt for AI, or a todo.)
- Bevel (https://www.bevel.health/), to track sleep factors, such as whether I wore a nasal strip
- Overcast (https://overcast.fm/), for playing podcasts.
- Liftosaur (http://liftosaur.com/), for tracking gym
- Basics like Banking, EV charging, Maps, Parking, Messages, Weather, Authenticator, Reminders, etc.
I removed App Store as well as Safari, so these apps is all I can do on my iPhone.
In the beginning, I set up a Screen Time code so I wouldn't be able to cheat. But in a few weeks I got used to it. So App Store and Safari are enabled again, but I never use them. (Maybe Safari is disabled. I have no idea to be honest.)
The biggest downside is I never know where my phone is. However, I'll gladly accept this downside.
I'd strongly question that assumption. Based on what I've heard from friends (and also personal experience), I think there is quite a large number if people who spend too much time on the phone, but also still want to do activities/work on projects, etc - all in addition to work, family life and chores.
The result is that the time is taken from the activity that appears most "compressible" at first glance, which is sleep.
> I'm an adult, I know how to circumvent these limits, and I will if motivation is low.
It's impossible to build systems that perfectly prevent you from doing this, but it is possible to build systems that can perfectly deter you from doing it. You could set up one - for example - that texts your spouse if you delete it. Or charges your bank account. Or whatever other doomsday device you want to rig up.
> Time limits don't affect the underlying addiction. You don't quit smoking by only smoking certain hours of the day.
Yeah but if you could encode cigarettes to ween you off of them by force, that'd be a big help. Also cigarettes don't have any real utility, so cold turkey is a reasonable strategy. Unfortunately the social media platforms have real utility, so a guardrail strategy makes more sense.
> The companies that build these apps have tens of thousands of really smart people (and billions of dollars) trying to get me hooked and keep me engaged. The only way to win this game isn't by trying to beat them (I certainly can't), but by not playing.
When it's all said and done, someone is going to build the right set of digital environment modification tooling that does beat them. It has to be possible, the internet is intrinsically customizable
Youtube was so much better when you didn't see the uploaders face and there wasn't incentive to pad video duration.