I cured my tech fatigue by ditching feeds | Hacker News Reader

I cured my tech fatigue by ditching feeds

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294 pointslxm228 comments

I check websites obsessively, over and over. Same sites.

I'm really wasting my life.

Toying with getting a dumbphone... I think I owe that to my kids.

You don’t need a dumbphone. You just need to make the phone you have dumb. I did this two weeks ago and it’s working for me:

1. Take Safari and the App Store off your phone. If you have an iPhone, you can do that with Restrictions.

2. Move everything off your home screen. Minimise the icons on your Dock. (Mine has Messages and OmniFocus.)

3. This sounds crazy, and probably isn’t necessary, but to make your phone boring - make it greyscale! Accessibility, Display Accommodations, Colour Filters.

I look at my phone waaaaay less than I used to because it simply doesn’t do anything. It should go without saying that Twitter isn’t on there. I don’t use Facebook.

My leisure time device - the one I’m on now - is my iPad. It’s a conscious choice to use this device; when I pick it up, I know I’m “just browsing crap”.

I use grayscale when I'm finding I'm too distracted by all the stuff on my phone or computer. It helps me focus on what I'm doing sometimes and is a visual reminder that, for whatever reason, I need to try harder than usual to avid distractions that day.

This has been a little trickier since I have started programming more. I really like syntax highlighting.

Another solution to this problem could be opening seperate users on the computer. One for serious work, one for leisure.

One could probably block facebook, hn, news sites, etc. on the work user, and only have files and programs related to work.

I really want switchable, individually suspendable workspaces as an OS feature. A workspace for each development project, one for each writing/research task, one for time-wasting browsing, one for gaming, and so on.

Actually KDE has had a similar feature for a while now. You can define "Activities" in KDE, when you switch between them all your settings and opened windows change.

For example you can define an Activity for each project, arrange your windows and settings (ie. desktop shortcuts, widgets, etc.), work on you project, then switch to a different activity. When you come back to your project, you'll continue from where you've left.

Not exactly what you're asking for... but Qubes domains achieve something like this: https://www.qubes-os.org/video-tours/

This is a fantastic idea. I'm going to try this tomorrow.

HN thread on an article that links to other articles about turning off syntax highlighting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11277183

Apt to push HN threads in an HN thread about ditching feeds

Wow, there is a lot of stuff there. About a year ago I looked for some contrast based syntax highlighting for Atom and didn't find anything usable, but maybe it's time to look again.

I've done something similar to this the past few weeks by basically turning my iPhone into a glorified iPod that has the added bonus of receiving phone calls. No Safari, no games, and the only custom app on there is my podcast player. There are less apps showing on the phone now than with a fresh install of iOS.

Moving most of the phone activities back to my computer or tablet makes it, like you said, a more conscious choice, and easier to not constantly check for updates.

Turning off all notifications has been nice. Instagram can't interrupt me anymore, only when I remember to check the app.

From this perspective the viral loop of social media appears greatly weakened once you turn off notifications, which is probably why instagram started sending me sms message on what I may have missed out in.

Yeah, the Facebook notifications situation is totally out of control - if they can't reach you by push notifications they'll send you ails and texts. I had to delete the app since there are some notifications it is actually impoaaible to turn off.

Discovering https://mbasic.facebook.com has restored my ability to use the little of Facebook on a mobile browser that I need without it entitling itself to further prominence on my attention span. Even keep it wrapped up in a separate web browser, that I go to only to check FB, works great for me.

I did this. I took all non iOS apps off of it, except my password manager. Even the useless iOS apps are gone, pages, and the like - I mean I would never use apps like that on a phone.

I use my iPhone to READ text messages and sometimes send them, to call people, and to take pictures.

That is it.

Unfortunately, I tried removing safari, but couldn't handle it because I needed to look up phone numbers or addresses when out.

I turned it gray scale (old school photographers captured images first and processed them a few days later)

I recommend doing all of the above!

Totally forgot about the greyscale trick, albeit for saving battery life.

The real world should be more engaging than my phone. Greyscale seems to kick my brain into kindle mode, a single use device.

I've been considering a leisure device after years of working to consolidate everything in my mbp. Leaning towards an iPad or a flip type Chromebook.

I second the "separate device for leisure" policy. It has worked wonders for me.

You just rocked my world with that grayscale recommendation.

> This sounds crazy, and probably isn’t necessary, but to make your phone boring - make it greyscale!

On Samsung at least there is an all-in-one option: maximum power save. Disables most apps and notifications and makes the screen boring.

You can still call, open the calendar etc so the phone is very useful, just dull.

(For email addicts there's also the option of removing links to apps and I think you can remove even the shortcuts to built in apps.)

Good tips, but then why pay for a modern phone?

GPS + Maps is the killer app for me. The only reason for not switching to a dumbphone.

For record, I haven't had a physical phone for almost a year now and I'm 90% happier for it. Its that 10% of having a phone that's going to get me back in the system eventually, tho. GPS + Maps + Text&Email + Decent Camera + WebBrowser for info look up when needed, on the go. And that fact that my work demands 2-factor authentication to log in to access online employee services.

I run a Mattermost server to chat with family; so no 3rd party owns that data.

Ironically enough this came about as a cost-saving measure. I was considering getting the LTE Watch so that I didn’t have to take my phone as many places. No phone in pocket = no temptation.

That felt ludicrous, because it is, so I went with this option instead. FWIW I’m a total tech nerd - I grey-imported the first iPhone to Australia before it was even jailbroken - yet I have the iPhone SE. The form factor is great for me.

So, yeah, not buying the phone in the first place is perhaps the most sensible option. But I already had one, and so does everyone else.

(Also not being able to use Maps, not being able to re-enable Safari in a pinch, etc. - turns out having a smartphone is really convenient sometimes.)

I had this problem. Solution was to install a Chrome extension called "StayFocusd" and really lock down what it allows me to look at. Only sites that are work related: mail, all the local web consoles (Jenkins) that I use, stackoverflow and friends, and websites containing "Cpp" or "python", and a few other keywords.

Wikipedia for entertainment. It's complex enough that it's like reading a school textbook: your mind gets tired from reading about the war of the Spanish succession, and decides to go back to work.

Everything else I give 3 minutes a day to, within the working day. So if I show up early or work late, I can browse a bit, but the 3 minutes can be used on random sites I need (say someone emails me some form I have to fill out).

I also use "TimeYourWeb" to show me what I looked at, and it's much better since I did this. Normally I didn't waste all day reading, but now and again I'd run into some interesting long-form article with associated links.

Now you might think 3 minutes is too little and I'd then cheat and go on Safari or my phone. Which I do, especially for Facebook. But I generally use FB to tell my friends I'm still alive by liking their articles. The articles linked from there are either things I've already read because they're all over the news that day, or not very interesting.

I also find the leap of having to copy-paste a link to Safari is enough to stop me doing it for most things, when I would have just clicked through on my main browser.

> I had this problem. Solution was to install a Chrome extension called "StayFocusd" and really lock down what it allows me to look at.

Good idea. I just did a search and found something similar, but with a twist, for Firefox: Forest. Seems to be trading addiction for gamification / reward of growing a virtual tree. :P

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/forest-stay-f...

I have used the app variant. It's kind of fun to see progress by planting bigger and bigger trees in a forest.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cc.forestapp

I used to use StayFocusd too and wrote about it (along with other similar tools) at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati....

I stopped using it about 3 months ago because eventually you'll naturally want to avoid these problematic sites. I still check the usual sites but now it's much more controlled (a few minutes here and there per day with a 0% urge to go back to checking constantly).

Adding sites to your hosts files also works well when using multiple browsers. Over time the path of least resistance grows and you stop checking. A simpler solution would likely be a dedicated leisure device, though.

Does anyone know of good solutions for this on Android?

Use an RSS client and curate your own feed.

Most of the problem lies in when we let someone else curate our feeds for us. Invariably they turn us into pigs slopping at a trough in the name of "engagement."

I uninstalled Facebook and started following a small number of websites via RSS. I became somewhat addicted to following my own feed, but it's got a better signal to noise ratio and since I curate it tightly it's not an infinite time waste -- there are only a few new items every time I check.

It's like replacing the potato chips you keep in your pantry with some mixed nuts. Sure there's still some fat in there, but no one designed your snack to trick your brain into endless consumption, next thing you know you've actually lost a couple pounds.

Facebook still gets maybe 15min of my time per day when I consciously choose to surf to it. More if I decide I want to post something. But I probably spend 500% less time checking feeds overall.

I've been looking for scholarly RSS feeds for a service I'm building (https://www.crossref.org/services/event-data/). Most sites still seem to have them. But a few are going facebook-only or twitter-only for feed syndication. It's a worrying hint that content providers are starting to forget about the DIY approach to feed consumption toward homogenised, gate-kept ones.

Contact those sources directly and tell them this. Direct feedback matters.

I'd also strongly recommend a fair bit of (even-handed) public commentary.

I've had fairly good results with this. A CBC programme ("Ideas" with Paul Kennedy) had blocked "commercial" podcast apps from using it. I groused, got a few Canadian news outlets to pick this up, and the feeds were restored after a few months. I'm working with the creator of the Online Etymology Dictionary over some recent site redesign, and that looks like it may be positive.

Not all sites are similarly responsive, and I've also ... on occasion ... been somewhat less than gentle in my criticisms (most especially with Google).

But really, do make the mention.

I've been doing the same, and wrote a small app that combines the feeds into a small daily email newsletter for myself. I wish I'd thought of this years ago.

The worst part about these feeds is they're infinite. Converting much of the same content into a digest that you can read in 30 minutes and be done with makes a world of difference.

Only ever having had a dumbphone I can tell you it might not be the complete solution: checking websites obsessively works just as well, if not better, on a computer (or similar, assuming you have one). Which I unfortunately know from both first-hand and second-hand experience. I'm no stranger to this behaviour, and I know at least one guy wo ditched his smartphone only to find himself to transfer the behaviour to his other computing devices. So you might find that, unless you really deal with that obsessiveness itself, your mind will always find a way to submit to it no matter what the medium is. Though obviously the smarthpone is #1 when it comes to enabling such pretty erratic behaviour.

How did you stop?

The trick is to tackle the issue, not try and sidestep it. When you quit smoking, removing stuff like lighters from view and access is a good thing to do, but it's not the hiding that makes you stop craving. You have to be hellbent on cracking down on the behaviour, take some perspective and discover why you're indulging in this, without pretence. It's a fight, sure, but it's also a journey at knowing yourself better.

I quite smoking just before Obama was elected. It was hard. I put up gruesome images of smoking-related diseases as my desktop backgrounds and screen-savers. It probably contributed some small amount to successfully kicking the habit.

Guess you could post pictures of smart phone zombies

A extreme minority of people are brave enough to do introspection and gather some self-awareness.

But I do agree, this is a large part of the solution.

I didn't really stop, in the sense that almost everyday I'll still visit a bunch of websites, possibly more than once, but I got rid of the obsessiveness: I don't check the same sites again and again every 30 minutes (or worse). I also won't turn on my pc just for it. I don't really know how I did it. Combination of recognizing my own behaviour, seeing it is total waste of time (it literally doesn't have any benefit whatsoever for me), figuring out it is actually a relatively simple addiction to break (especially compared to other addictions) and last but not least a saner state of mind in general in comparision with e.g. a couple of years ago. So one day I just told myself 'ok enough with this, from now on I'll just stop hitting F5 repeatedly, I'll visit HN and the others only a couple of times a day and never to escape hard to fix problems at work'. Am I still addicted? Possibly. Yes here I am posting on HN. But it's not an obsession anymore. Also there are never any signs of withdrawal when I don't visit the sites for days. Actually what typically happens is after some days without checking everything I come back, check everything, and am left with a 'yup, didn't miss a thing, same shit as usual' feeling.

He's on HN. That's like asking your coke dealer how he got off drugs...

That's like telling someone that drinks once every month or two that they have a drinking problem - nevermind the fact that they used to drink daily. There is a difference between doing the behavior and obsessively doing it or doing it too often.

Me too. It's an instinctive response for the physical symptoms of depression. The moment my hands are idle the feeling starts creeping back in until I'm having intrusive thoughts of suicide.

I understand well the existential problems that exacerbate my depression, like the sense of disconnection from society or that of loneliness, both temporarily relieved by scrolling through feeds and forums for various reasons.

It's an interesting phenomenon to be sure. When I am in my manic phase, I may go for weeks without talking to anyone online or rabidly consuming news or keeping a close eye on politics, but while phasing back into depression I will feel the compulsive urge to read news and talk about stuff online grow stronger and stronger. Like some sort of tic.

I deleted Facebook at the beginning of the year and it's helped my mood tremendously. I still get frightful bouts of loneliness and almost painful urges to talk to people when I'm feeling especially down, but I'm no longer self-medicating with the opiate that is social media and thus these feelings are compact and brief. I don't feel strung out on self-administered dopamine all day.

tl;dr delete facebook

An increasing urge is building to ditch as much tech as possible out of the home. Possibly all except the dumbphone, including the TV.

I cannot say it's built to the point of action, but there's some compelling arguments for doing so.

It's interesting that you say this. I'm watching the first season of Stranger Things just now, and am finding myself longing for my home of the early 1980s, without computers, just a radio and TV, and my bike.

I'm also finding that I'm reloading HN a few times a day (honestly close to 30) in the hope of forgetting that I'm alive while I find something else interesting to read.

It's 2017, and in the current sociopolitical milieu, it may be regarded as "abuse" to unilaterally remove television from the home against the wishes of your spouse and/or kids.

I would love to do this as well, as I harbor an abiding hatred for the passive entertainment industry in general. But it's often not worth the relationship cost.

Ask.

Then promise a alternative reward for a short time.

I have information addiction myself. I’ve had websites I check compulsively ever since slashdot first became popular. When it becomes a real problem I take action. I’ve only found two things to work: complete cold turkey with a specific end date (personal challenge) or subsituting site checking with activities I enjoy more (reading books, playing games, ...). I’ve never been able to subsitute with something more productive that I enjoyed less, I just end up procrastinating in other ways.

The remarkable thing about going cold turkey: you don’t miss out on anything important. Everything truly important will reach you another way. For me, checking news sites is not about getting useful information, it’s about rewarding my brain by feeding it what it has been trained to want. In my experience it took weeks to deprogram myself.

At one point I started listening to several news podcasts simultaneously...

News addiction is sort of a problem, especially because we often don't really drill down into the content, but just scan the lead, get the gist, peek at the comments, move on. But most daily news is provisional, and not well developed. Weekly or even monthly publications like Newsweek and the Economist may not be a model suited to the internet age, yet it seems a model that consumers desperately need to increase the SNR.

Time is your most scarce resource, and everything is competing for it.

In that light, it makes sense to purposefully pare down your environment to better align what you want to spend your time on, and what the objects around you tempt you to actually spend your time on.

I replaced having a laptop on my desk at home with a typewriter. Now when I sit at my desk, instead of spending an hour mindlessly browsing reddit like I used to, I write. My friends make fun of me, but I have written 10x more in the past month than any of them have.

I have used this approach with great success for other things I wished to prioritize more. For instance, I am purposefully not replacing my broken-screened-taped-up iPhone because I want to constantly be reminded that I probably shouldn’t be looking at it.

Remove everything from your environment (TV, video games, social media feeds, junk food, etc), and only add things back in deliberately. In the attention economy, being deliberate with your attention is the best thing you can do for yourself.

I've been struggling a lot with this lately. The thing is, there are a lot of digital things I _do_ want to accomplish / master / etc, but the feeds are the easier reach, and I go with what's at hand when I am low on energy (or worse, when I'm unhappy with my life).

I have an idea that putting some effort into making the things I _want_ to accomplish (e.g. another MOOC course) more readily accessible might make it easier to form a habit around consuming what I _want_, rather than mental candy.

tips for doing so:

https://heyfocus.com/ <-- Focus, lets you block sites. Start out just blocking everything from 9AM to 9PM

stay logged out of websites. Every time you want to use a site you should have to log in

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/history-autod... <-- this website will let you block things from your history. This prevents the "type n -> press down -> press enter to get to hacker news".

I'm typing this here so it's not 100% effective but I've found that after going sessions cold turkey I start to stop caring about the churn of news (especially for twitter).

Prune people you follow on social media. Especially high volume posts/low effort stuff. Not worth it.

I've found that using RSS feeds help a bit because you can only look at something once. No "purple link syndrome".

Good luck, I'm still struggling but I feel much more in control of my life compared to even 3 months ago after getting burned out like we all are. Especially from political twitter (just read the news on a normal website, it's fine to be 6 hours behind).

"type n -> press down -> press enter to get to hacker news".

It's even shorter as you can skip the "press down" step. At least in Chrome and Firefox.

I bought a Nokia 216 and cut myself off completely. I revived a long dead habit of manually checking my email once a day (and only once), in addition to that I was no longer permanently online on my various Instant Messengers.

I was at my worst when I had a Smartwatch, the damn thing bleeting at me, along with my phone, laptop and computer in succession was beyond irritating.

For two years, I had a dumb phone for when I was on the go and an Ipad I left at home for apps when I had the time to indulge. It was a good experience, I recommend it and I intend to do it again soon.

I had this problem for a while. The good old social loop of death.

A non-smartphone won't fix it.

I think fixing this problem begins with you asking yourself why you're doing this. Are you procrastinating over doing something else? Are you passing time because you don't have anything else to do? Etc..

blocking the site in /etc/hosts helped me a lot. I 've given up medium, reddit, all news sites. I add a site to /etc/hosts as soon as I feel like i am spending too much time on it.

Interesting comment about 'owing it my kids' , I always felt like I am whiling my life away because I don't have kids and hence don't feel like taking like seriously.

If I don't have kids, what am I striving for ?

Good question. A sense of accomplishment is a small pleasure, but it scales better than activities that provide high highs but inevitable low lows. Most people have an emotional equilibrium state; stresses and rewards can temporarily move the needle, but it tends to return to center regardless of the circumstance. Given that a lifetime of low-effort activity tends to limit opportunities for broadening your horizons and doesn't have a lasting contribution to happiness, a simple cost-benefit analysis indicates that dedication to personal growth is the best value for time spent. Ultimately, life only has the meaning you assign to it, so if you're optimizing for pleasure, learning and creative pursuits hold the most potential.

I have a large set of sites blocked at the router via dnsmasq, which scales well.

(It also means my unrooted mobile device ... doesn't have such protections when it's outside the Mothership.)

Say, could you say more about the exact pattern of how you do this?

I've noticed that I have a few "distraction" sites that I'll visit. And then when I hit the end, I'll loop back in hopes of another hit of novelty. What strikes me is how ingrained it is; if I'm not careful I'll find myself on, e.g., Facebook, with no conscious intent. I've even caught myself having a feeling of boredom with what I'm looking at and typing "facebook.com" in the address bar while I'm on Facebook. Is this familiar?

I ask because I'm thinking of building a WebExtension to notice and interrupt this cycle, so that I have to consciously want to use a distraction site. But I'm not sure how big the audience is.

I use news feed eradicator with Facebook. It has solved it for me.

This, me, all the time.

I would use such an extension.

If you're thinking this now, do something about it now. I'm two years from empty nesting and can't fix the things I didn't do. All I can do is say that you won't be able to either if you wait until it's too late.

Give us a list of things that we should stop doing today. I have a one year old.

2 simple tricks work for me:

1. Only use HN to consume "tech news" - loads fast, has no ads, content averages @good+. Then turn on noproc.

2. Set time of day u close laptop+phone+(enter any other device, fridge is excluded). For me it's 18:00.

Rather than a dumbphone, which doesn't support actually-useful things like managing my calendar, notes, grocery lists, etc. I picked up a 2.4" android phone, on the theory that it will be annoying to browse, type, etc so I will only use it for useful things and not leisure.

It seems to accomplish those goals, and as a kicker it has great battery life only when the screen is off... Just have to commit and port my number now. Sadly none of the tiny Android phones support Verizon.

Can you get away with carrying no phone? If you can, it is a weight lifted off my shoulders and might be the same for you. My time belongs to me. I'll see the missed call message and call you back when I have time.

It's hard to describe the feeling. It feels a bit like that time when I was finally caught and punished for doing something wrong, just a huge sense of relief.

I agree. Obviously in today's world it seems difficult to not carry a phone. But I used to do this in college and it was marvelously liberating. I'd recommend two stages:

1. Remove your phone from your person, but still keep it with you. I.e. if you carry a backpack/purse/whatever, put your phone in there rather than in one of your pant pockets.

2. For small tasks, leave your phone in your room. Obviously more difficult than the first item. In college when my friends and I would go to the servery to get dinner, I would leave my phone in my dorm room. This is truly immersive because it gives you no possibility of even wanting to use it when you are enjoying the time you are spending with the people physically present with you. (Again... clearly more difficult in our world today, but look for small opportunities; going to a coffee shop with a friend? Leave the phone in your car's glove compartment for that 20min coffee break.)

Delete your accounts. It's worth it.

Which sites lure you in?

Totally agree with this.

Good thing I compulsively refresh HN 100x/day, otherwise I might have missed this article.

This reminds me a bit of self-help culture. Some people are addicted to it, and never actually apply what they learn, instead just reading more and self-criticizing, when most of it is about breaking those precise patterns of thought.

Wanting to do something and doing it are just totally different. Ask any alcoholic.

HN is really just another feed, that while more interesting comes with the same gamified posting system. Hell it'll even make you feel inadequate, not for social reasons like Facebook, but because you haven't picked up X tech yet.

That's very true. Especially the karma system makes you want to check HN obsessively. However, HN could very well be one of the best feeds available. The Information/Junk ratio is very good. The comments are insightful.

HN also helps meto forget about my surroundings and make the time fly away. For example I usually don't recall anything about my commute, when I'm on HN. I can shut everything off if I want to.

All the crowds make me extremely stressed to the point where my hands shake. HN really helps me to get through the day. Without distractions I don't think I would be able to stay somewhat functioning.

True. After reading—and identifying with—the article, I had an irresistible urge to go post it on Twitter. Thirty seconds later I realized I was scrolling through my feed and hadn't even done what I had gone there to do! sigh

Not sure if it will help, but I've heard from a lot of folks that my Hacker Newsletter (http://hackernewsletter.com) has helped. If you end of subscribing, would love to hear what you think!

:-) was about to respond in a similar way, and I probably won't be telling anyone something they don't know by reiterating the cliche of "it's a matter of balance". There is nothing wrong with feeds, just as there is nothing wrong with ice cream. Addiction is the problem to address...

Moderation is hard. It's personal, vague, variable and difficult to grasp without experience.

Extremes are easy. Easy to define, visualize, and apply. As such, they feel more rewarding and beneficial.

While taking extreme measures over superficial things might help, I think it's more important to recognize and address the underlying issues.

If you're addicted to ice cream you should first stay away from the ice cream store and remove ice cream from your house.

I use hckrnews.com and have it set to Top 10. Then I run out of content quickly.

Why not just RSS?

Overfeeding is only good for who is feeding and for who eat the overfed.

Advertisers get the fois gras, social networks get the money for selling it. We are the goose

April of last year, I logged out of Facebook. I didn't log back in until the birth of my son.. and only to announce it, share some pics, and get back off. As a result, I missed Facebook's entire reaction to the 2016 US Election.

Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to block them. A few I check in on once a week or so.

More focus, less noise.

Overall, I think my life (and those immediately around me) are better for it.

> Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to block them

And yet here you are :-)

The worse thing about being technically literate is knowing how to get around all the blocks you put in place to stop wasting time.

My guess would be that he/she has a device that is used only at certain down times that does not have a blocked hosts file.

Non techie here. Mind sharing what the hosts file is and how you use it? I've been hesitant to use 3rd party extensions/tools that block websites. I just assume if they are free they must sell my data. Also, controlling something on local machine could be cool. I'd experiment with adding/removing sites on random timeframes, to see if that could help me (one weird trick to help you overcome your social media addiction!)

- on linux/osx its /etc/hosts

- on windows its c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts

If you add a line in it like

     0.0.0.0 reddit.com www.reddit.com

You tell the computer to use 0.0.0.0 (your own address) for those domains, and they subsequently won't load.

0.0.0.0 is the "any" address. Binding to it means you want to receive connections from all interfaces, sending datagrams to it means you want to broadcast to all hosts, and so on.

Note for Windows users: hosts file requires admin privileges to edit. So launch e.g. notepad as admin (launching as admin should be available if you right-click on the notepad icon), and go find the file. Also remember that you need to switch the dropdown to "All files (.)" in the Open File dialog.

Thank you very much for your reply. I magic barred it on my mac and couldn't find it. A little more help? Know the direct path? Is it global or per browser? Thanks again.

Those are the direct paths and it's system global.

BTW. 0.0.0.0 is not "your own IP", that would be 127.0.0.1. 0.0.0.0 is non-routable, so always resulting in error.

Strange. Neither sportlight or alfred can find it. (and alfred does search though system files)

The file name is just “hosts” and it’s located in a folder called “etc” - maybe that helps? I think there is also a macOS setting that hides certain system files. You may have to unhide it first.

Open terminal, type:

  cat /etc/hosts

if it outputs something that has to do with network, you know the file is there :). It might be that default user-facing tools on Mac don't look for system files?

A hosts file is like a phone directory stored on your computer that is accessed prior to going to DNS on the internet to search for the ip address for a website.

The experiment you speak of is something I've now run for the better part of a decade. Adding sites to the host files does make you forget, eventually.

If you add the following to the end of your hosts file,

127.0.0.1 Facebook.com

The above will redirect all requests to faceboom.com back to your own computer (the 127.0.0.1 part), instead of trying to search for Facebook's ip address and sending you there.

The hosts file is stored in different places on Mac vs windows, a quick search will get you going.

Customized `hosts` file is the sanest approach to avoid extra tools for both blocking Ads and social media (incl those you don't have an account with but that still track you because they have their button/icon on nearly every random homepage). A great selection is at https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

I deleted the Facebook app somewhere last year. I still have the option to go check Facebook when I want, but without the push notifications I find myself checking it less and less. It's still very useful as an events aggregator.

I don't really use Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter anymore and I didn't really miss them when deleting them off my phone. The only things I have to work on next are HackerNews and Reddit.

I've been trying to replace my break times with book reading instead of Redditing/HNing. It's still tough because my breaks are relatively short and I don't feel like I get to fully immerse into the book before I have to set it back down and get back to coding.

I did the same thing. Now am more and more enjoying going to real events nearby meeting real people.

HN right?

"Feed" in that article really means "timeline" or "news feed" -- not RSS/Atom feed.

Feeds are great, but they should be ones that you can curate yourself (RSS/Atom). Otherwise you get sucked into a void of others' intentional manipulation of your attention.

Does RSS have any good readers anymore? What is the preferred one?

Newsblur is my preferred one. They even let me pay them actual money instead of financing the service by selling my data! (Though they do have a free option if that's important to you)

RSS is very much not dead, although it's probably gotten less popular since the death of Google Reader.

Another satisfied NewsBlur subscriber here. I’d add that the iOS app is excellent and I regularly switch between web and mobile without any synchronization issues. Highly recommended!

I love Newsify on iOS. With a yearly subscription, it pulls full text articles (stripping adverts) of all RSS subscriptions for offline reading, and displays them (graphic+snippet) somewhat like a newspaper on screen. It has settings to allow you to mark everything as read as you scroll past it, or save articles forever.

It even has a web version with the same features for desktop use. It's a small enough service that it hasn't attracted the negative attention of publishers.

Inoreader, hands down. The best for Google Reader refugees.

Me too. I find others like Feedly completely unsuitable. Yet, some Google Reader refugees are absolutely happy there.

So the first lesson is that there are very different usage styles in consuming RSS feeds. Some focus on text, others on images, others on podcasts, and still others on video. Some like to get hundreds of items every day and manage them in folders, while others prefer only few items but look at all of them. Some consume stuff right away, others use "read later" functionality.

The second lesson is that apparently Google Reader supported all those styles reasonably well. It was good enough that no serious competition emerged. I would assume that this would be different today. Due to the flourishing wealth of feed readers, every style has probably found one that works even better than Google Reader did.

It took a while (one or two years?) but now Google shutting down Reader has turned out to be positive. Some considered it the death of RSS, but it works just as well as back then.

Feedly is fantastic. I switched to it from GReader and have never had any complaints.

BazQux is the best Google Reader clone, with great support. Really terrific.

Thunderbird works for me. I don't need to read things on my phone every minute of the day, and am hoping to get rid of my smartphone as soon as possible. (I don't think that smartphones are good for people.) Read a book instead of a phone.

after trying a bunch, i’ve settled on digg reader. it’s totally separate from the normal digg site, and can handle a bunch of feeds w/o choking or getting slow.

Unread on iOS, Readkit on macOS, synced with FeedWrangler.

I selfhost tinytiny-rss. I like it well enough.

Real men writer their own RSS readers

feedly

Just move to China then! If you really wanted to cut the cord and get that project done then you could rent a room in some Chinese town and stay there for however long is needed. I imagine rent would be cheap and you could AirBnB out your home to get all the bills paid. For the duration you will have the Great Firewall of China stopping that casual browsing of Western social media sites. Would reading Facebook be worth going to prison for? Nope. Problem solved. But I am not seeing these people that want to break free from social media doing the obvious thing of moving to a country where the populace are spared such things. Clearly North Korea is a bit 'far', but China is fine to live and work in as a Westerner and you could just go there if social media was 'ruining your life' and you were addicted to it. But nobody is cutting the cord that extreme, are they?

Perhaps a bit extreme.

I just use a carefully curated hosts file, and hang onto my old Blackberry, and continue to live in the city that provides my livelihood.

... what? Was this written by a Markov Chain bot?

Perhaps just not an American...

That does help, since Instagram and Facebook can get pretty slow over VPN.

Though I was still trying to consume it while there..

Next year I am going to ditch my phone and just have a watch instead. One of the things I want to explore is how many things I can do with voice commands and hopefully some ideas pop up.

Another rule I have is only to check mail in the morning and in the evning.

Solving our addiction to infomration is all about perspective. Some people will be lucky to think about it the right way others will never be able to escape it.

I even got rid of RSS several months ago. Couple of news sites, several tech news feeds (did I really need 9to5mac, macrumors AND Cult of Mac??) and few job related feeds.

Didn't really need ANY of them as it turns out.

I don't know the way to filter RSS in any meaningful way so that had to go too.

(Never was on facebook or twitter so my main nemesis is/was web browser and RSS feeds).

Filtering RSS depends on your RSS client.

On the desktop, QuiteRSS [1] is really good at it.

On Android, SpaRSS [2] isn't entirely terrible at it, though there might be better ones out there (I've essentially only looked on F-Droid).

[1] http://quiterss.org/

[2] https://github.com/Etuldan/spaRSS/blob/HEAD/README.md

I was mainly using https://newsbeuter.org/ and it has great filters. Just that action to reward (circumventing filters) does not require enough effort to prevent me from not looking outside of them.

The only thing I still look at is HN and, as we can see, that goes almost with success.

Same here. Never used Facebook/Twitter preferring RSS instead, recently decided to replace it with subscriptions to few weekly newsletters, so far so good.

RSS for news sites has never worked for me (well, apart from planet.mozilla). Where it’s worth is for me is aggragating the hundred or so blogs I follow that post interesting things once every 3-12 months.

I'm subscribed to lots of RSS feeds, but an import rule is: only feeds which publish at most one article per day. That excludes all news. Mostly it is personal blogs which publish weekly or monthly.

This is the killer feature of RSS feeds. It checks rarely updated websites for updates.

I would love to dump feeds, get off Twitter and nuke my Facebook, but the sad thing is I can't. They are legitimately tools (moreso Twitter in my case) for networking and connecting with people. Twitter is used daily for talking to friends and reaching out to people, and Facebook is pretty much required so I can talk to colleagues because apparently texting is antequated. I'd like to move everything off social networks and rely on Telegram or SMS, but it's not possible. If anyone has suggestions how to get around this I'm more than willing to try something else out.

I built an extension [1] that might be helpful to you. It blocks only the Facebook news feed but still allows you to use Facebook normally otherwise. I found the news feed was always the thing that drew me in mindlessly - I'd go on there to send someone a message and end up just scrolling for hours.

I don't believe Facebook is on a path that will end well for itself. Anecdotally it seems there's an increasing number of people like yourself who are fed up with Facebook and looking to dump it.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

Came here to post this. It has drastically reduced the time I spend on Facebook but still lets me access the parts of Facebok I "need". Thanks so much for making it!

Nice! Have you seen https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/convert-facebook-n... ? I use it every day.

Love this extension. Would love to see support for other feeds added as well (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

I've been using this for quite some time with great success.

Thank you.

Do you see these people in real life? Tell them you are reachable on your cell phone, messenger app xy, and quit that digital junk!

Talking to friends face to face is actually more rewarding and creates a closer bond than texting or other communications where you are physically apart. With many of my real life friends I’m not friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and no one cares. We actually have something to talk about when we see each other because we don’t constantly check each other’s feeds. We have each other’s phone numbers and use a common messenger app to organize and meet, or if we haven’t seen each other in a while to see how the other is doing.

If you need Twitter or whatever medium for networking, set time limits. If you need Facebook to talk to colleagues … and talking to them in the office is not an option for whatever reason … set time limits. You don’t have to be available 24/7 for them and you don’t have to check 24/7 on their lives.

I used to feel similarly and used these networks daily, but I stopped logging in after graduating college in 2010 and deleted the accounts a short while after. As a result I started my professional life without these networks.

It is possible to survive without them, and maintain a social life.

>Twitter is used daily for talking to friends

Have you ever considered that this might be a symptom of a problem, not a benefit?

I just finished a month long overseas trip without tweeting or posting about it daily. This gave me the opportunity to catch up with various friends in person to share stories. It also helped me stay present with my overseas friends during the time I was away.

Daily contact is convenient but, barring a subset of lifestyles, not essential.

As someone having gone through that exact transition:

It is possible, you just have to do it. The “I can’t” is all in your mind, unless your job is directly dependent on it (ie recruiter).

Tell your messenger friends that you are closing your account and now reachable by phone call/email/sms/paper mail only, close your twitter, Facebook, etc, just do it.

Does it come at the cost of losing “networking” and similar intangibles, and having fewer people asking you to hang out (because let’s be real, there will be parties that people organize solely via Facebook that you might not hear about)? Yes it does. You will miss on opportunities, and you might lose friends.

Is what you get in return worth it? Many people do feel that it is, but that’s really for you to decide.

But if you believe it’s worth it for you, you just gotta rip off the bandaid.

> and Facebook is pretty much required so I can talk to colleagues because apparently texting is antequated.

Then only check it during work hours?

I got rid of facebook in 2010. I never looked back, but I needed a little social fix now and again, so I started using instagram. We all know what happened there. It was so perfect. Now it's ad, line of stories, boomerang, boomerang, ad, boomerang, boomerang, ad, line of stories.

I really do like seeing my friends pictures on occasion and I think the multi-picture feature they released was awesome. Stories really made me hate instagram, though. People I follow story the same thing over and over again. It's really frustrating. But I keep looking. Oh god... I keep looking.

I might just get rid of them all.

I deleted instagram on the phone, and use it exclusively (1 or 2 times per day) on the computer through a browser. With uBlock origins, there's no ads, no boomerangs, no "live" part. Now, since Instagram doesn't seem to get a good signal on what I find interesting, I quickly get bored within 5-10 posts, and shut it. That helped me kick the "check every 10 minutes" habit.

I made up a “digital diet” where for the first week I completely gave up news and feeds. Then in week 2 I reintroduced news but strictly scheduled for few mins in the morning and evening. In third and the last week of the program feed time was added. It worked wonders. Huge noticeable difference in quality of life.

But like with any other diet I’m back to my old ways, being a slave to news and feeds.

My girlfriend once got up in the morning and kissed my computer and said "That's how much you love your computer."

That was your opportunity to impulsively destroy the computer in a fit of madness and make a proclamation of love to her on the spot... then quietly recover the hard drive before putting it on the bin :D

I am now curious as to what your response was?

It's kind of ironic that a reporter whose livelihood involves adding content to tech feeds is telling us his life is better when he ignores tech feeds... by writing something that will end up in our tech feed.

and if the advice is followed, will reduce the amount of readers alltogether.

The Google App feed used to be good like 6 months ago. It often showed me stuff I was interested in from interesting websites. Now they changed it and now it is really bad. It feels more like a Facebook feed with a bunch of crap and clickbait. I eventually disabled it on my Pixel.

How do you disable the feed in pixel? I hate seeing stories pop up whenever I want to do a search. It's horrible. Moreover the stories often anger me and I would have been better off not knowing

Here's what I want to disable https://ibb.co/hGVc1R notice the clickbait that showed up as you try to search

Is that clickbait? Yes, the headline does have a question, but it also answers it. So for me, I’d say no.

Just use the Google button in the top left corner on the Home screen to search.

What I disabled is the Google page when swiping left.

Tap and hold on a free space on the launcher. Tap settings and toggle "Display Google app"

This era is going to show that we need locality and sophisticated person to person interaction.

I loved the freeing of remote chat, you get to talk about subject freely without the burden of group or geography. But it's only good up to a point.

Having a nice chat with someone in a space digs deeper into you than anything internet can.

“””Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you.”””

I think with the rise of looking at smartphones, it’s become the norm to zone out into it. If I randomly start talking to other people in the line I feel they’ll be like , “what the heck! What does this person want? He’s probably crazy/unstable or trying to scam me.”

Maybe the icebreaker now adays is “hey what’s up, I cant believe we’re not distracted into our phones , longer line than usual blah blah” to specifically trigger in their mind — “oh right strangers used to talk to one another before these devices entered our society”

I randomly talk to people in lines commonly,and nobody has yet acted strange about it.

What are your icebreakers ?

Normally it's just about stuff that's going on. I've complimented a person's t-shirt, discussed the weather or a parade, talked about something interesting the person was buying, react to their comment about my son or talk to them about their kids, etc. I don't force it or talk in every line. Just when it's natural.

As a non-smartphone user, or as I call them zombies, I have some bad news for life on the other side...

When you are not one of them, dealing with them in public can be extremely frustrating, simply walking along the street at a normal non-zombie pace takes considerably more effort than it did 10 years ago because it's one way navigation problem... it's like that film "Surrogates" where Bruce Willis breaks the mould and goes out into the real world to walk among the surrogate robots, it's basically the same problem (insensitivity to their surroundings), that film was spot on, the only difference is that it's little glass rectangles and mind manipulation instead of robot surrogates.

That's the most obvious example, but it extends to everything that people do in public, simple things like waiting for someone to get on a bus, trying to cross the road, trying to go through a door, and even driving... it's gotten to the point where rather than simply an annoying distraction, smartphones are now the main focus for many of these people and the real world is a distraction. The other day I got a scornful look from a woman in her car as I was forced to beep my horn multiple times to prevent her from rolling into me as she was staring down intensely at her phone at a traffic light, as if the urgency of crashing came second to her fucking facegram feed, it makes me want to slap people around the face to wake them up. I hate hating people but it's impossible to avoid this now.

Then again, I've never been a smart phone user, so perhaps this difference is more noticeable to me than those coming back to the real world.

On the other hand, smartphones in cars are very useful for navigation, with real-time feeds of traffic congestion, voice control, and so on. I know you can do this with a dedicated navigation system, but I've never used one as good as what's built into every modern Android device. You just have to be disciplined enough to use it only for that purpose while driving.

I know what you mean though. Yesterday I was stuck behind a car doing 50 on a 70 road, and as I overtook I saw the driver was busy fiddling with their phone while they should have been paying attention to the road. Especially dangerous at that speed of traffic! Thankfully, I've found this sort of behaviour to be a rare occurrence.

Yes, normally they're speeding and in-between lanes.

I've started acting like it's their fault, because it is. Not going to look up when walking down the street to move out of the way? Alright I'll walk right into you then.

Ahh, I see I've offended some zombies already.

Maybe you are frustrated because you keep insulting others and they don't respond well to it?

Sure, whatever helps you sleep with your phone at night.

This thread has inspired me to un-clutter my mind. The first step I took was to stop taking the phone with me to the bathroom. It may sound preposterous, but I genuinely had a feeling of fright over missing something.

Next step is separating my incoming channels from my outgoing by replacing my iPhone with a dumb-phone + iPad. That way, I can always be available if kindergarten calls, but still retain the ability to use useful digital services (e-signing, maps).

Feed fasting helps me too; I log into FB every 60-61 days or so. I'm thinking about limiting Twitter to days that start with a 'T' just make it fun. And hacker news is okay on days that end in a 'y' :-)

Given that these attention grabbers are now weaponized, it's good to fight back; I think we benefit from periods of boredom and deep thought.

I deleted my Facebook account and can literally feel the extra time I have in my day. I've unfortunately filed some of that void with Twitter and Reddit, but I still net extra free time, and Twitter is on the chopping block next. Unfortunately(?), I'm more tied to that service as I made a small living off their coattails for awhile.

First it was facebook, then it was reddit, now it's the price of a few cryptocurrencies. I delete the apps due to time wastage, and a week later I have something else to check.

I miss none of the things I used to refresh tirelessly and gave up on, seems to suggest that none of those things made my life any better.

Apparently "feed" describes the class of apps like Facebook and Twitter, but not RSS feeds? RSS feeds give me much more control. With Facebook the choice is pretty much use as is or not at all. Well, browser extensions can help a little but for the smartphone app, this is the choice.

I want a dumbphone with a great camera.

How about just buying a good camera?

A point-and-shoot with better specs than an iPhone X can be had for $90.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&D...

Maybe delete Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Twitter from your phone.

That's the idea I've had that I haven't actioned because that would mean actually solving the information tech addiction problem that I think I've had since I first saw a computer about 40 years ago.

See:

https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or... and

https://medium.com/time-dorks/my-year-with-a-distraction-fre...

Disable wifi, don't get a data plan.

That's a dullphone! Maybe something like the new Nokia 3310 with a better camera would be great.

A lot of the camera features on smartphones are software and hardware enhanced. I don't think you would be able to pull the iphone and samsung camera features into a 3310.

My sentiment exactly.

The only way to do this is to turn a smartphone into a dumbphone.

Turning on the noprocrast feature on HN has helped me immensely. I usually end up only checking once a day now.

a) I wish that setting would have 3 or 4 words explanation on the settings page so I wouldn’t have to go hunting to find out what it does b) would be nice if there was an option to exclude weekends

It's time for people to 'Look up':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

Initially I thought that it's about RSS - I rejected it as too extreme. But then it turned out it's about social media - so, obvious and understandable :)

I've been thinking about this for a while. There really needs to be a tech etiquette guide especially with phones in pockets keeping us connected 24x7.

Technology is wonderful. When it isn't in the way.

I cured my facebook fatigue by unfollowing everybody.

It's a big problem that every website converges to a timeline sientifically engineered to be addictive.

Wasn't there a study that just came out that time spent on a feed was correlated with depression?

Forget extensions and add-ons and apps to keep you focused. What really boils down is WILL POWER, something that we as a whole have forgot to use in a daily basis. Will will retain your focus; will will help you achieve your goals; will will make you dump your not-so-smart-phone. Why do we need something to make our focus come back?

Thats like saying to someone who keeps forgetting things that they just need to remember.

Will power is not forgotten at all its just something thats really hard once you get some sort of addiction. Especially something as complex as information consumption.

I disagree, people do forget about will power, otherwise they would know that something is bad for them and choose something else to do. People are not that dumb, they know it is taking a toll but they choose to entertain that addiction by looking at a feed (any feed) and have momentously happiness lasting microseconds.

This is just a continuation of the same flawed parent argument you did. People know very well they should be eating cake or drinking too much or spend their time on facebook. Remembering they have willpower isnt going to change that. Its such a gross simplification of reality. Will power is a postrational concept not som tangible thing.

You're saying that it is enough just to have will power. I am saying that you must use your will power, and that is two different things. You are just relying on it to make some magic, whereas I am pointing out that you should understand that something is making you do harmful things and then act on it. I guess your concept of will power is severely flawed.

Will power is not a thing, its a concept and have to do with much more subtle nuances of the human mind. This is where you are going wrong. You cant just will yourself to do something if other urges are sronger. What you can do is remove the things that obstructs you from doing the "right" things. You are simplifying something much more complex.

I guess you have to use will power to make those decisions.

Relying on will power should always be last resort.

If you have trouble with losing weight because you drink too much soda then you should never have any soda at home.

If you are a drug user that wants to quit you should avoid being in situations where drugs are present.

Well for me Twitter is a distraction. When I want to keep up with news etc, I use RSs.

I think we will suffer from a bit of reverse survivor-ship bias here. Those who have gotten unhooked will not respond!

We need some Sidartha who is willing to give up nirvana to travel back to the internet and tell us all how to escape.

I'm sure the "unhooked" will go on at length about it at cocktail parties, just like the hipsters who don't have TVs or gave up gluten.

I live in a somewhat rural area and attended a Halloween party in town last night.

I had an interesting conversation with a few people that live in an area where no connectivity is available (land-line phone is only option).

They use VHS tapes they buy at thrift stores in town (stuff Netflix cannot stream) for less than a dollar each, and LP records (a bit more trendy). Also, books.

After staring at screens for over 10 hours a day, I do enjoy reading printed material (books, newspaper, magazines, etc).

How is not having a TV a hipster thing?

It's been a thing since about 2009 - https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, by Jerry Mander (an ad executive, FYI), 1978.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimi...

Though you can find the first criticisms of TV culture and "the Great Wasteland" by 1961:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_and_the_Public_In...

Applications of Gresham's Law to television and media were fairly common in the 1950s:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/618198?jour...

Or of "mass culture" (1953)

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0392192153001003...

"Kill your TV" was already on bumper stickers in the 1970s, so I don't think it's a new phenomenon.

And vinyl records have been around since the 19050s. Both are associated with hipsters. Doesn't need to be new to be associated with hipsters.

Fyi... that Onion article is actually 17+ years old, not 8 years old. The date is February 9, 2000.

And yet it already references the simpsons.

Which dates from 1987 (as part of the Tracey Ullman Show), or 1989 (freestanding).

The Onion are hardly being prescient.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons

The Simpsons were practically old by then.

Truly confused here.

Can downvoters[1] explain why clarifying odiroot's question about humanrebar's[2] sentence "will go on at length about it [...] who don't have TVs" is not helpful to the discussion?

The "will go on at length about it" is about the _communication_, not the _non-ownership_ -- isn't that correct? Did I parse humanrebar incorrectly?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15579134

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15578959

It isn't the "not owning" a tv that's hipster.

It's the _humblebragging_ about not watching TV. (Also known as "virtue signaling": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling)

It's healthy for people to discuss this and similar topics such as unplugging. People should be able to do so without fear of being ridiculed and accused of "Virtue Signalling.

While going around accusing people who advertise a lack of Televesion ownership as virtue signalling I think you're missing other reasons they might be doing it, for example:

- Openly seeking some validation from their peers about their lifestyle change

- Find people who feel similar about owning a Television and share ideas.

- Yeah, some people might brag, so what?

Why be so quick to judge?

>It's healthy for people to discuss this and similar topics such as unplugging.

I agree that people should discuss it as long as it's genuine conversation. The negatives of tv have been discussed for a long time. Neil Postman's 1985 "Amusing Ourselfs to Death" talks about unplugging from tv. The 1953 Ray Bradbury book "Fahrenheit 451" has been often analyzed for its themes of censorship and burning books but the author has stated the larger theme was television and its effect on dumbing down society. Yes, it's healthy to have an ongoing dialogue about this subject.

>People should be able to do so without fear of being ridiculed and accused of "Virtue Signalling.

The "Virtual Signaling" is a good label because it helps separate the meaningful from the superficial. Many people who don't watch tv (or have other strong beliefs such as "not eating meat", etc) lack self-awareness as to how it's perceived by others when it comes to advertising their positions. They think it enhances their appeal when in fact, the opposite happens: the people roll their eyes at the smugness. If "virtue signaling" as a meme helps people become more self-aware, that's a good thing.

>Openly seeking some validation

This is reasonable and possible, but in my observations, I've never seen it.

>Why be so quick to judge?

I'm not judging. I was clarifying to the poster (odiroot) that it's not about the "owning" -- it's the "signaling".

Perfectly healthy to discuss. But it's not a discussion when the conversation starts with a condescending 'I don't watch TV'. I've mostly given up on the discussion, because after a few questions it often turns out they watch plenty of YouTube or Netflix on their computer.

I keep on reading these complaints about virtue signalling, yet I rarely come across it myself, at least on the internet. Perhaps things are different in America, where people are much more talkative. In Prague people don't talk about themselves to nearly the degree that people do in America. However, you're speaking in an international environment, and you're really "throwing the dirt around" (to use a Czech phrase) at those who try to be ethical.

I know, you're probably jumping at the edge of your seat wanting to protest that there is nothing unethical about watching TV. But those who don't own a TV often have ethical reasons, such as not wanting to be entrenched in consumerism promoting advertisements and product placement, or not wanting to have their political views overly influenced by sensationalist mainstream-ism.

>, and you're really "throwing the dirt around" (to use a Czech phrase) at those who try to be ethical.

I have no idea how you extracted that from my comment.

>I know, you're probably jumping at the edge of your seat wanting to protest that there is nothing unethical about watching TV.

I don't own or watch any tv so you're preaching to the choir. My point is that I understand exactly _why_ The Onion wrote the sarcastic article and _why_ they're called "hipsters". Many people who "don't watch tv" are ignorant of how their pronouncements are perceived.

I guess you mean sort of like Vegans at parties telling everyone about their dietary choices?

It annoys me to no end when I ask someone if they've seen $tv_show and they respond "I don't watch TV." A simple "no" will suffice. It's extra annoying because I don't habitually watch TV either, but that doesn't mean I've never seen a TV show. The smug superiority is maddening.

You try to start a conversation, they know they cannot participate but give you a hand by opening up and give you another interesting thing to discuss.

And instead of asking why or what/if they miss something and having an interesting conversation you get annoyed?

Have I understood you correctly?

You might ask about $tv_show2 next, and then $tv_show3, which makes for boring conversation.

There's not as much need for traditional TVs these days, given that you can watch almost anything via a computer and internet connection.

Interesting article from a Buddhist on why he does not have a cell phone: http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=620

The part about scrolling through your feed for 30 seconds, realising it's all crap and exiting is true. I unhooked simply because the content isn't interesting.

Really? My problem is that most of it is uninteresting, but there's just barely enough that is interesting that it keeps me from shutting it all off.

Suggestion: start very consciously removing the least-interesting / least-productive feeds, and seeking out higher-quality ones.

Also contrast with searches for articles / books (there area a great many of these online, if not always legally: The Internet Archive, Sci-Hub, Google Scholar, Google Books, and more). Wikipedia is often a good _start_ for exploration -- head to the references and start going through those.

I've found that online commentary is often quite thin on substance, even at better sites (e.g., HN and this thread). There are exceptions, but you've got to aggressively filter for it.

News feed eradicator for FB.

Ironically Hacker News is blocked (thru the host file) on my pc for this reason. I still browse it one my phone, but it is a more conscious action and it is less confortable, so I waste less time on it.

I wonder what it would be like to use time tracking software like arbtt, which instead of simply measuring how much time you spent on the computer, notified a therapist when you opened up Facebook or reddit or HN. The therapist would then call you up and ask you what you were doing. What type of feed you were looking at. Why you were looking at it. How you were feeling. It wouldn't stop you from looking at the sites. You could look all you want, but in 10-20 seconds after opening up the website, you'd get that call... Would any of you pay for such a "service"?

The call wouldn't be cruel. I imagine the therapists voice being similar to that of that one PTA mom who actually cared about me. Concerned and warm...

Is there a service that compiles cool stuff into a daily or weekly newsletter?

There are a few manually curated ones if that is what you are looking for.

Example: http://www.hackernewsletter.com

I loathe notifications and turn them off as much as I can.

"Battery charged"

"App updated"

"Your device was scanned and no threats were found"

I'm busy. When I'm not busy, I'm busy thinking. All of these needless distractions interrupt that. Unless it's a legitimate emergency, I'll ask for the information. I don't want it pushed to me, which is why I've never used feeds.

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