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Comment by scep12 | Hacker News Reader

I recently wrote a chrome extension that helps me curb my "compulsion loop."

It's pretty simple; each time the browser loads a website that has potentially distracting content (think: twitter, FB, reddit, hacker news, rotoworld, etc) that I tend to over-visit in search of new tidbits, the extension keeps track of my visit and the text content of the page.

The next time I visit, I do a text comparison that checks how similar the content is to my last visit. If there's too much overlap, the browser redirects.

There's a profound difference in using this approach versus existing distraction-detractors. When I see the browser redirect away while trying to load reddit.com, my rational side takes over and reminds me that I should be done with tidbit-seeking.

I ought to clean it up and put it on github; I'm sure someone else might find it useful.

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I may be misunderstanding, but isn't this like a heavy drinker having the bartender put more water than beer in his glass when he heads to the local pub? This doesn't seem to be treating the actual issue at hand (lack of self control, lack of training of the mind, etc.) is what I'm getting at. Not meaning to crap on your build, as it certainly seems cool. Maybe this could be viewed as a training tool, but only if it's part of a larger strategy.

One could argue that the addicted drinker gets no real value from even small amounts of alcohol consumption,

whereas the desire to seek distraction is born from the brain's need of new stimuli, and information[1]. In which case a few minutes of browsing the fresh posts of the day could be a healthy stimulation. The diminishing returns set in when most posts are already seen.

at least, that's what I like to tell myself.

[1]: see 'why do we get bored' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwd25JV-jnU

It sounds like that but if the bartender notices he's serving a lot of water to you, he turns you around and gently pushes you out the door (redirect).

Exactly :)

I was thinking of making an alternative that just checks how long it's been since you visited that page. If you visited Facebook/Reddit/Etc. in the last 1-4 hours, you shouldn't be visiting it again, regardless of whether Facebook updated the content.

PS - Can you share your extension on the Chrome store, even before you clean up the code for Github?

You should. I've had the same problem - subconsciously re-loading a site I've recently visited, realizing there is little/no new content on the front page, getting frustrated, and diving deeper in the hope of finding new tidbits.

By the time the cycle is done I've found nothing of value and wasted 3x the time normally spent.

x = 1hr

I've been fighting this kind of thing for decades now (it started with Usenet), and when reading this and stuff like the Shallows...

This is going to be a huge health problem ten years from now (it must be already the largest productivity killer in the workplace), and great solutions for this will be profitable some day.

Yes, it is a huge problem. One funny way to look at the problem is that if you told someone twenty years ago that in the future there would be a TV set on every desk in every office, this person would not have believed you. Yet, the actual situation right now is much worse than that.

> When I see the browser redirect away while trying to load reddit.com, my rational side takes over and reminds me that I should be done with tidbit-seeking.

I've tried something similar, except when I see the browser redirect away while trying to load reddit.com, my hacker mindset kicks in and I try to find ways to bypass it. Finding ways to bypass the limitations is far more distracting (and interesting) to me than the site itself.

My motivation systems are screwy and hard to work around. I wish I could say I found a less radical solution than "disable wifi in the bios while I'm working", but I'd be lying.

Not a chrome extension, but in the same vein of limiting distractions: https://github.com/amoffat/focus

It's a proxy DNS server that runs locally, and based on user-defined rules (which can be anything that can be described with code), will limit your access to websites.

If critical mass is what you need to github it, please do. I am also interested.

Thanks!

That's such an awesome idea. I'd love to check it out.

Out of curiosity, what did you use to extract the text content of the page? Was it based around html, or did you actually compare the topical content?

Please do let me know too if you publish it. Also, please seriously consider publishing it even without/before cleaning up. TIA!

Yeah I'd like to check it out!

Is your extension available for download?

Please do post!

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