Hacker News Reader

Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

A year or so ago I noticed I would wake up and the first thing I did was load up Facebook in my phone. I deleted the app, and what do I do? i still open it on my phone's browser. So I changed my password to 32 characters generated by Keepass, and make sure I logged out of it on my phone. I'm still logged in on the desktop, but nowadays it's pretty quiet anyway. Thr last few days I've been using a Chrome extension (1) to delete stuff from my wall, reasoning that just like real life interactions, it's okay to forget things (well I did download my archive/went through my activity logs and saved them as HTML files).

There's only 1 person I wish to stay in touch that I talk to exclusively on Messenger. I think I will have to persuade them to install another app. Admittedly it will be WhatsApp, which is also Zuckerberg's tool for "dumb fucks".

(1) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-book-post-m...

View on HN

Similar story here: a while back I installed a browser extension to delay the loading of unproductive sites that I was habitually visiting just to distract myself from tasks, imposing a 30 second wait barrier. What it's revealed is that there are some sites that I'm very willing to wait 30 seconds to visit (e.g. if there's a certain song on YouTube that I want to play in the background), but not once have I ever bothered to wait 30 seconds for Facebook to load. My fingers instinctively type the domain, the delay page appears, and then I close the tab. Makes it easy to realize how little value Facebook was providing me.

Similarly, I moved all my reddit subs to multis, so my homepage there is empty. In the last months the time I spent there has dropped to less than single-digit percentages of how much I spent in the past.

Do you mind sharing what browser extension this is?

Comcast

Touché! BWAHAHAB

Delayed Gratification does this - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/delayed-gratificat...

I had a similar behaviour years ago. I deleted the app from my phone, but then after a short while logged in via my phone's browser. A short while after that I chose to 'delete' my account (after backing up the archive of course). Since it gives you 30 days to reconsider your decision, I thought if I really missed facebook that much I'd log in within the 30 days. It's been years since and I haven't had the slightest desire to be apart of facebook.

In recent times my attention has been drawn to the amount of time wasted on random Youtube videos. Youtube is more difficult since the service actually has value to me. Somehow restricting my access to only videos from my subscriptions could be a possible solution.

you probably need to down regulate your dopamine response in general for all aspects of your life. try reading a book, concentrating for periods of time, not concentrating for periods of time, a long walk, or meditation. over time you can overcome automatic behavior, its probably healthier for you anyway

For me it had entered muscle memory, whenever I was slightly bored and craving that dopamine hit my fingers would do “splat-t fa return” without even really thinking about it. Took a few weeks to fully unlearn that!

And that has now happened to me with HN... On the plus side; the content (not least the comments) is much more valuable

if you have to convince. Try signal. As good as whatsapp, in most ways, better in others. Signal did whatsapp's encryption.

I use both - if a contact is on both signal and whatsapp I use signal.

I think signal is the best of these with whatsapp second. Everything else is equal last. This ranking will no doubt change in the coming years with upstart competition doing communication with proper encryption. I look forward to it.

Have you tried Wire? (Similar protocol as Signal, more polished apps)

which chrome extension are you using, plz?

This one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-book-post-m...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com