How I Kicked My Smartphone Addiction, and Never Looked Back

They described basically what you've said. We take the actions and get the tiny reward and our brain gets a little jolt of there you did it but when it comes right down to it we don't actually enjoy the activity. More importantly, we're no more satisfied when we finish the activity than we were when we started, we just do it because we've become conditioned to.

I suppose a more concrete source would be the Extra Credits video on Skinner Boxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

Now I'm one of those people that does spend too much time refreshing my smartphone. It's worse.

So maybe we were on to something back then.

Having a TV by itself can be good, so you can watch a movie at home with friends (preferably served by a mediaPC). It's cable/network TV, stuffed with ads and mostly worthless shows, that's the real time-waster. (And even if there's worthwhile shows in there somewhere, they're aired at inconvenient times, you actually have to watch them as they air (without spending extra money to rent a DVR), and you can't pause or rewind them (again without a DVR rental). The whole scheme is archaic and ridiculous and inefficient.

Finally, a big factor is cost (except with OTA). The TV itself is pretty cheap these days unless you get some big 60" quantum-dot display or something. A simple 32" TV can be had for just over $100 now, and a 40" for around $200. These are one-time costs. But cable TV can easily cost you over $100 every month, or over $1200/year. And for what? So you can watch ugly, over-compressed video, loaded with loud commercials, that you have no ability to control when you watch, or pause or rewind?

Just look at the other comments here, how does only using your kindle on flights and buying more hardbacks have anything to do with smartphone addiction? Unless we're talking about addiction to screens, or all things electronic, which seems a bit broad.

'If you must, carry a dumbphone' - Is ideal solution to addiction really to aim at not being contactable at all?

Feel so much better now I'm disconnected and back in the driving seat.

One of my hobbies is photography, and lately all I've wanted to do is shoot film. My big DSLRs can do some amazing things, but there's something about being limited to between 12 and 36 images, advancing the film by hand, controlling every aspect of the exposure, and standing at my kitchen sink for half an hour developing each roll that makes rattling off a thousand images in a blink then sitting in front of yet another screen a lot less appealing. I'm already sitting at a computer for 40 or more hours per week, why add another if I don't have to?

RMS, Cliff Stoll, Thompson's "Trusting Trust", Peter G. Neumann. Hyman G. Rickover, if you want to look at nuclear power.

If you can find a Bluetooth keyboard your Kobo will talk to, I'd strongly recommend it, and please tell me your experiences.

In theory, this is a very attractive system, and in terms of the hardware and physical aspects, it is. The vendor support, OS, applications, and durability, however, are not.

1. Samsung locks down the Tab A hard, and I've been unable to root or ROM it. I'd like to do both. Given other direct and indirect experiences with Samsung, my advice is to steer clear of the company and its products for the next decade or two. It simply cannot execute and doesn't care about customer experience.

2. The Logitech mouse/case is attractive, and the form factor is excellent. But the keyboard itself is shedding keys and Logitec claims it has no viable replacement (that is: the keyboard model is hard-paired with this specific device, and discontinued). That after about six weeks of absolutely failing to comprehend the problem at hand, and pretty much straight-up lying about the problem. I've an as-yet-untested promise for a refund should I find a viable replacement keyboard, but cannot find anything that is the same lap-stable folio-type case-keyboard combination.

There are some very bad key placements - the "app" key is between "fn" and "alt", so I hit that all the fucking time and dive fully out of my current state. The back-navigation key is combined with the <esc> key. Guess what happens when I am editing files under vim in an SSH session (the ConnectBot app fails to remap back-nav to escape, Termux, praise be the gods, does this).

With Termux, and more significantly, Termux-API installed, the system is finally only mostly annoying as opposed to being completely annoying. I've just posted an HN submission on the State of User State, which addresses numerous platforms, Android amongst them. The state is abysmal. See that for more info.

If this were:

1. A Linux device.

2. With a usable pointer (not a touchscreen).

3. And a full keyboard.

4. And Linux apps.

... I'd be somewhat happier. Though with the state of "all system resources and then some" minimum operating requirements for Any Browser Application these days, I suspect I'd find the system still unusable. I know that browsing on a 4 GB laptop (my previous daily driver) was generally also abysmal.

I'm feeling my years.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/IVSO-Lenovo-YOGA-10-1-Inch-Keyboard...

Over the last couple of years, if the batteries dead in my Sena, oh well. Getting lost is kind of the point :D

For Google Maps, you instead buy a paper map, and then navigate with that unfolded while you're driving. Easy.

/s

For example when taking the train, I got used to obsessively checking transit apps to see exactly how late I would be at the next stop, how much time I would have to transfer, what time I would be home, etc. If you think about it, this introduces stress (train is delayed, will I catch my bus?) that is almost never worth it. 9 out of 10 times half an hour delay is perfectly fine, and in the transfer time you can simply walk around a bit, contemplate, get a snack, etc.

With maps I have the same thing, sure it's nice to never take a wrong turn, but on the other hand it's usually not so bad and it can even bring you to interesting places. Asking instructions is usually not much of a problem either, and neither is reading a paper map, or simply jotting down some reference points for yourself before you leave. I used to do this all the time when taking the car back when Google Maps didn't even exist, and I usually managed just fine.

There's one exception though, which is driving in an unknown city. I absolutely hate that, and I would not want to miss GPS for that, the opportunities of getting lost are simply too high, and the stress of navigating a city by car having no idea where to go is just too much for me. That said, cars and big cities don't go together well anyway...

- Not delegating the responsibility of knowing your way externally (Maps) you get a better sense of location on your own city that builds up in time.

- You also improve your spatial memory and ability to solve location problems. As time goes by you need less information to figure out the path problem. E.g. instead of solving A -> B and knowing C -> B where C is near A you just ask A -> C.

- In unknown locations you actually talk to people and it's not very difficult to solve your problem using that

- You also can always use G Maps on your desktop and take notes or memorize the path, it surprisingly works well and has a great positive effect on your brain. I guess that's one thing we are optimized for.

http://store.randmcnally.com/thomas-brothers/thomas-guides.h...