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Comment by wincy | Hacker News Reader

Well, my wife and I just ordered dumb phones and an AWS 2FA key fob (remember those?) which will be here this weekend, we're selling all our screens except one family PC. I sold off my Oculus Rift and gaming PC a month ago. We're going to have to buy a flashlight, GPS or maybe just a map book, calculator, a CD player, a Blu-Ray burner, a day planner, a wristwatch, a kitchen timer, get a library card, a shared calendar on the wall, and we'll go from there. I'm excited but also nervous about it. A few months ago I spent 90% of my free time staring at a screen. I yelled at my wife if god forbid she wanted to spend time with me and not just shut up and watch whatever video game I was playing.

I figure it's a start.

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I recently did this same thing as an experiment for a full year. No mobile phone actually, no music, no movies, no games, so a little more extreme.

The strangest feeling will come after you “reset” but everything and everyone else around you is still connected. That’s when you notice how different things have become.

Good luck. It’s a nice feeling actually, nothing to be nervous about. It gave me perspective and changed how I respect time and other people. I also appreciate technology a lot more, but it’s now in balance.

Just curious - why so extreme? There's never been a time in my life where there was "no music" and "no movies." Back in the 1970s we had record players and 8-track tapes and the radio. We had movie theaters and they even showed movies on TV from time to time.

As a musician, the "no music" part is really disturbing to me. It sounds like a strict religious cult at that point. I mean, even before I could walk or talk my parents would sing to me sometimes (I'm told).

I'm not the person you replied to but I've considered allowing nothing but live music. Maybe buying and learning to play an instrument. My very distant family (only met them once at a reunion) are farmers and they entertain themselves by playing their own music and have a band. It'd encourage me to actually go to concerts rather than have the instant gratification of electronic media. For me, at least, its about forming habits against that instant gratification digital media provides. We've decided on an middle ground, we're going to start buying CDs (which are really cheap these days!). I don't remember the last time I listened to an album all the way through instead of flipping from song to song. Even with movies, we were watching "Meet Me in St Louis" and it was interesting to learn that before TV people would put on skits for their family rather than passively being presented with a movie. We'll still be watching movies (in theaters) but only sometimes.

Not everyone is into music. Months go by sometimes when I have my head down working on a project that I realize I haven't listened to music the entire time.

Then there are times I can't go an hour without playing something. Losing music for a year though wouldn't be a noticeable change in my life.

I should clarify, no recorded media in the home or with a mobile device. It wasn’t a protest of strictly modern technology, as some of these things have been around for ages in other forms.

If I wanted to listen to music, I went to local shows. That was the mentality.

I'm okay with the fact that I spend more than half of my waking hours staring at screens.

It's the web I worry about.

(And maybe smartphones, but I've yet to own a smartphone. And, speaking of screens, I don't particularly like LED back lights: I use only fluorescent back lights with my computer.)

Some things I do to reign in my use of the web:

I wrote a command that disables my browser (by compressing /applications/firefox.app/contents/macos/firefox).

I wrote another command that uncomments any commented-out lines in the last paragraph of my /etc/hosts file (then restarts the browser to flush certain caches). Both of these "minor roadblocks" or "speed bumps" are easier to deploy than they are to undeploy.

I admire your dedication and would be interested in hearing more about your experiment in the future. Maybe some kind of update in the future here on HN?

Sounds like they're trying to save their marriage after "screen addiction" became a problem. I had the same problem with video games. I ended up swearing off video games that didn't have an ending and have been all the better for it.

My marriage isn't in shambles or anything like that. Just not great. We just feel like we've been on autopilot for years. It never really "became a problem", it was just always a problem. We were both glued to our screens. We never did anything. My daughter is 18 months old and will sign and say "birds birds" because she loves birds and wants to watch videos on Youtube. If we turn it off she starts screaming she's so upset. Even that small amount of screen time causes behavior changes that we've found to be harmful.

I started with games that don't have an ending but realized I didn't personally have the self control to stick to it. Especially with a small child every minute is precious and I'm not going to get to have all these "firsts" again. This was really, really tough though. Maybe when I'm older with more free time I'll jump back into video games, I bet they'll be super cool and even more addictive by then.

I have similiar issues with games. I dread open ended ones - Witcher, Skyrim - because of the prospect of them never ending. But it's worse than that because the least resistance in gameplay and I will abandon the game. For instance, I've haven't been able to play more than 10 minutes of Cities: Skylines because it gets overwhelming.

At least now I accept that I don't have to finish games. That it's ok to even uninstall one after a couple of hours of play if they don't bring me any more joy.

Also, there needs to be a category of game guides for those of us who prefer small quality gaming experiences over fillers.

Maybe take a look at Gamebooks? Inkle's remake of the Sorcery! gamebooks [0] were something I was playing and enjoying quite a lot. I'm giving that up too for now, maybe I'll reintroduce it later. I was amazed to find out that physical gamebooks are still a thing and being published. If you encounter "resistance" in the game just turn to the next page.

I'd suggest if you're really dreading games so much, try giving them up for 3 weeks. That's about how long it took me to stop freaking out that I wasn't spending every waking moment playing Diablo 3 or literally ANY game. I felt really awful. It really surprised me how negative my initial reaction was, but lately I've been finding myself reading books for pleasure again, and I'm going out with my family more often. I realized I was implicitly choosing video games over spending time in the real world with actual people.

[0] http://www.inklestudios.com/sorcery/

Thanks for that link. That looks pretty interesting. Is that the same Steve Jackson that does the Munchkin / Illuminati card games?

Yep! If you check "Gamebooks" on Amazon you'll find all sorts of physical games. I think they popped up in the 70s and 80s and you use dice, sort of like a single player D&D game.

I used to play non-ending games throughout most of my teen years. I think that taught me a lesson, because I started to get very depressed. I don't play that much games anymore, and when I do, I try to stick to something relatively short and with clear endings. First person shooters that I can finish in a weekend are good.

Addictive open ended games, sandboxes and competitive online games quickly lead to severe existential depression so I just don't play them. Sometimes people ask me to join them on MMOs. I have to refuse.

Please consider Board Games as an alternative to Computer Games. There has never been a better time to get into the hobby - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKgz-UBEhss :)

Figured it'd be this video or the Shut Up and Sit Down New to Board Games video before I even clicked on it. Nice :)

But yeah. Board games are the best way to free yourself from screen addiction, in my opinion. And there's tons of interesting board games out there nowadays.

Seconding this. There are boardgames that are simple enough for small children, but are still interesting enough for adults. You can find casual games that you can play in five minutes while waiting for the bus, or you can find a game that'll occupy your family for an entire extended weekend.

And if we're including things like D&D and Pathfinder, that's easily months of entertainment.

What about a camera or camcorder to capture memories with your daughter? That seems to be missing in your original list. Would it be digital or film?

Right that's also on the list! Might buy a DSLR or something. Also going to probably end up buying a cheap atom-based server to set up nextcloud or owncloud for storing and serving those images online to family. Part of this is also to get out of the endless subscriptions to cloud services and host all our own stuff.

Thanks for the kind words. I was with a group of developers in person last night and mentioned this plan casually and was amazed by how many questions everyone had. I'm start to feel like this disconnect is, paradoxically, going to result in me spending more time on social media talking about and setting up meetup groups with like minded people. I don't want to bury my head in the sand, and I'm not a Luddite – I just want to be more intentional about how I'm spending my time and go to sleep happy with how I've spent my day.

HN was a big part of the inspiration [0] and the few articles I've read about Tristan Harris have filled me with a desire to reclaim my life. We're in sort of a planning stage right now and are realizing there's quite a few things we're going to have to buy, which seems intimidating, but it'll be nice that my egg timer or flashlight won't become out of date in a few years. I was looking at a wristwatch [1] I feel embodies how I'm feeling I should live life lately. It seems a little silly at first but it really struck me as a timepiece that makes a particular statement.

We don't form memories of what life was like at 12:07 PM or 12:09 PM, at most we need to know the general time of day. I feel like even the exact time of day might be too much information. I've started checking email at work once a day and disabled the always visible clock in OSX and have yet to have any issues with this. If someone really needs me real time they'll come talk to me or send me a message on Slack.

I'm thinking about blogging about my experience, but it feels like that might be against the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish. Then again blogging is a different sort of communication than writing 144 character responses, and may be appropriate to get the word out.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12678325 [1] https://www.slow-watches.com/

Sharing your experience is a great idea. But I can see your concern with blogging it. Maybe just write in a physical notebook instead?

Yep there's something to be said about being addicted to screens and how it changes our attention span and focus.

I've been trying to use my long commute to work to increase focus and be less agitated by distractions.

I'm just trying to grasp that second sentence.

They may be commuting by bike or foot.

missed a comma there!

Please write this up in a few months to share your experiences.

That's my plan. I'm hoping to find other people in my city (Kansas City) that want to start down a similar path. I want to write more but I'm at work and really need to get a few hours of productivity in today. I'll make sure to keep track of my experiences though!

I can't tell if you are being facetious or not but I applaud your efforts if you are being serious but your detailed post made me laugh, so true about the kitchen timer and a calendar on the wall. Back to basics. At least you don't need to charge them.

I've looked into going back to a dumb phone in the past. If you don't mind, what phones did you order?

Sure! We ordered these phones. If they're really awful I might buy some Nokia phones, but they're more expensive. We wanted talk, text, and MMS (just in case), but that's it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O5EU7TQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_HHLc...

Thought this was satire, but then I saw your other comment. Good on you two.

I'll be honest, I wrote all this out and read it to my wife before posting, and we both laughed at how crazy it sounds. It's the aggregate of lots of little decisions in the past year and we're not solid on any of it yet. We'll be using tech for a lot of things still, we'll have a server with our personal images, and I'm looking at some Arduino stuff for home automation things. I don't think tech is bad, just a lot of it is designed as a feedback loop of addiction.

I just read about noprocrast mode on HN, I might turn this on too. I guess it lets you spend 20 minutes on HN every 3 hours.

Until you open up incognito windows to get around the noprocrast. ;) It's still a good hurdle and a tiny reminder even when I bypass it, though.

> I don't think tech is bad, just a lot of it is designed as a feedback loop of addiction.

Totally agree with this. I turn off all most notifications on my phone and tell people that if they really want to reach me, a phone call or SMS is still the best. I've also been calling people more because generally we can arrive at solutions in a minute of talking instead of 10 minutes of half-minded replies.

Sometimes I feel like the best balance of technology/attention was around the early 2000s when things weren't totally vying for our attention. When there was a clear distinction being being online and offline. When you would type "afk", then go do other stuff uninterrupted.

Of course it's easy to romanticize as that's also the era when I personally started surfing the information superhighway.

Best of luck!

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