Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bedon292 | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately my phone is literally the first thing I do when I wake up, and last thing at night. Is sometimes an hour on the phone before actually getting out of bed. I had to quit Reddit years ago because of the addiction. Don't really use Facebook. But Twitter currently has its hooks in me. It is a news source to me, about the pandemic, election, protests. But it manages to suck me in to reading extra comments and stuffs. I have been realizing it more lately, and don't want to give it up because I do think it helps me stay informed, but I need to find a way to change my usage habits because its not good.

View on HN

> Unfortunately my phone is literally the first thing I do when I wake up

If this is true, like if you use your phone as an alarm clock, you’re screwing yourself.

BJ Fogg’s book Tiny Habits walks through this exact example, and spoiler: it’s hopeless unless you physically separate from your phone. The only levers you have to manipulate your behavior are prompt, ability, and motivation.

Your phone prompts you reliably, it’s easy to stay in bed and easy to look at social because your notifications are right there, just move one finger, and you’re motivated at a visceral level to look at social because of that dopamine hit.

The only solution he provides is removing the prompt. Get an old style alarm clock and put your phone in the other room at night.

I do, but with the whole current WFH thing it doesn't do a whole lot, since I am awake before it anyways. Its actually nice to naturally wake up without an alarm most days.

I also don't have any notifications on from social media. Texts, important email, and important slack. Almost nothing else, mostly stuff that I need to go clean up and turn off the notification permissions anyways.

But I totally get your point. Its right there and accessible. I woke up early today, rather than going back to sleep for another hour spent it on the phone for some reason. Definitely have some work tonight to try and figure out some better habits.

I'm with you wrt Twitter.

It is an amazing source of information, but much of it is daily drama that is a form of entertainment -- a modern Jerry Springer.

These tweets and videos serve as a conversational currency of sorts. Not sure it's worth it.

I feel this way too. I think you can still get access to a lot of the "conversational currency" by just checking it less frequently. Making highly curated lists helps a lot too, since you can isolate a lot of the more drama/entertainment-focused users to particular feeds.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com