Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

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It's interesting to me, though not surprising, the the author is so surprised that a software/UI feature could be successful in reducing usage. As if being addicted to phone/software were an inextricable psychological/physiological characteristic/flaw.

I used to use Reddit and Facebook a lot more regularly -- more than daily. But ever since I changed my password to something that I can't recall without a password manager, and added 2-factor auth, I rarely get on just because the lack of ease of use is enough deterrence. Ever since I did a system wipe a few weeks ago, I haven't checked facebook at all because I can't be bothered to get into my password manager.

Though if I were being honest, I now have the meta problem of forcing myself to throw away the keys. I did the same thing with Twitter, even removing it from my phone. Then I reinstalled and logged in because I wanted to stay up to date on a current event one day. Now for a week I've been putting logging out and deleting my cookies.

I did something similar. I simply deleted my Facebook, Messenger and Instragram apps from my phone. Never went back.

Deleting from the phone is the real engagement killer. I can usually get focused on work when I'm on my laptop. And unlike with a phone, I can't reflexively and compulsively use my laptop when waiting in line, walking around, or getting up/going to bed.

I removed the Twitch App and a bunch of CCGs (collectible card games) from my phone. I'm still surprised to have a lot more time to myself again on a per day basis as well as the reduced burden of having to login to get bonuses or finish off a bunch of accrued daily quests so that I could have room for new ones.

I personally think on some level that one of the things (if not the only thing) that will make or break my generation is whether or not enough people reach the milestone of recognizing attention as finite resource (both attention in general and individual's own attention).

1) You can't do something about it if you don't know.

2) You can't know if you have no way of becoming aware.

3) You can't become aware if you're always distracted such that you don't receive sufficiently effective exposure.

The real world is very boring so people escape into virtual worlds.

I think a good solution for this is to make the real world a fun, good place but that requires real friends, a great job, lots of interests and energy after work etc. Everything most people don't have due to the need to get a job for money and go there every day.

If human leaders would be 100 points smarter on the emotional scale, we would put efforts into building great societies where people can enjoy their lives. Put tons of money into using tech to automate really boring jobs at a scale never seen before, and letting people study for free etc.

I have a similar problem, I have a hard time getting focused on a laptop. There are too many distractions, the inputs are too convenient, and it's only getting worse as more things move to the browser. I get so distracted on my laptop that I can completely forget I was working on something and now it's lost, sitting there waiting for me to return to something I don't remember working on.

For example, I never worry about rebooting my iPad for updates. Never. Any time it asks, as long as I'm not actively doing something, I let it. It's 10 minutes, I'll get up and get a cup of coffee no problem. But rebooting my laptop for updates? I have no idea what all is running in the background. I've got five Excel documents, a Powerpoint, and two Word docs I'm working on. Plus a probably an SSH connection to somewhere, plus who knows if Slack is going to come back properly or if it will make me log in again, plus I'll lose my browser sessions and have to log in again to all my work stuff, I need to manually re-establish my VPN connection, and as it all comes back from the reboot, now I have startup crap popping up on boot that I forgot about from last time. Ah shit, and now I find out this update broke some of my software so now I have to find new versions manually for that. And now I've again forgotten what I was supposed to be working on.

I have the same problem you have on a phone, it's too easy to switch between apps and be unproductive. But I've found that (for me) working on an iPad is perfect. I don't have multiple windows open, most apps are expecting to be shut down in the background so they save their state really well, minor OS updates never break app functionality and if something changes, the apps update themselves. And even switching browser tabs is just a tiny bit of a minor inconvenience that I'd rather finish what I'm working on and then get distracted.

Right now on my laptop I have five windows visible, and each one can draw my attention at any moment. That's just not possible on a mobile device, and unlike a phone, an iPad is not designed to fit neatly in your hand with your fingers on the app switcher at all times. For me, it's perfect. If only I could run XCode on it...

In my opinion, deleting them from the phone isn't very helpful when the web browser can be used to access them. Can't delete that from the phone (at least, I don't think you can).

Same here, but I kept Instagram (it really isn't much of a time waster in my case), but nuked Twitter. Twitter, more than any other of the apps, did not only waste my time but made me actively unhappy while doing so.

I find that when I have reinstalled something I would generally not have with me 24-7 like Twitter, writing about how I haven't gotten around to removing it yet is generally the final push to finally pick up the phone and nuke the app.

It may be that they’re surprised the system isn’t easy to bypass and this is actually useful instead of pointless.

I think also it's that the average user doesn't know how to "hack" things. This includes "hacks" like editing etc/hosts to send domains to 0.0.0.0, but also extends to the general mentality and ambition to even think about altering software to their own personal needs.

On top of deleting all my social media, I gave my wife my Ipad, which had a great impact on my media usage in general, as there are now less places in the house/life where I can engage with really intense media.

You only really need twitter if you want to stay up to date with the events of the day by the minute. Unless your profession dictates it why not stick to reading the news or hn in your own time?

Maybe the discourse that Twitter can offer is valuable to him?

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