I'm not joking, it's the best antidote to the thought-theft of "social media". Pick a subject in which you're interested, find a representively excellent text, and read. And then re-read, because unless you're a genius you won't absorb everything first time.
Also it's wonderful to just curl up with a book and a cup of tea and let time pass you by as you ... learn the considered thought of others! This is civilised!
Normally I'd recommend history but around these parts Category Theory in Context by Emily Riehl is probably acceptable :)
About re-reading, especially textbooks: it takes time and trouble to appreciate the difficult and often esoteric ideas represented in a text and understand the underlying deep thought. The author(s) wrote and re-wrote every damn phrase in terms of their imagined audience. The first pass yields a basic familiarity, but try every chapter again in light of the later insights.
I remember the first time I read Introduction to Metamathematics by Kleene, and I remember the fourth time so much better. I can feel the cloth binding, I can hear his voice clearly.
Nowadays I pick up a book, read a few pages, then immediately lose interest and go do something else. Anybody know how to get back into reading?
It's possible you picked a bad book, but it's more likely that it isn't engaging enough. It normally takes me a few days (after half a year book-free) to get back into reading, but it's worth it.
Right now I’ve got one going in science fiction, autobiography, technical and… oh, another autobiography (I’ve been really into those lately).
What is the point of censoring 1 letter in an otherwise extremely obvious word?
You are not redacting the word. People reading the word don't bleep it out in their head. You know you are saying 'fucking', we know you are saying 'fucking'. HN doesn't block posts with "naughty" words in them.
So what are you trying to achieve? Please tell me.
I'm not back to being as avid of a reader yet, but I'm optimistic I'll get there. I'm reading more now than I have in a few years.
"Expeditionary Force" by Craig Alanson if anyone else is curious. I'll check it out, thanks!
I first kicked myself into it by starting the Discworld series of books. Pratchett is a great author (imo), the text has a certain kind of easy charm, I don't need to go in sequential order, the books are cheap to buy, and none are terribly long or dense.
I've also added some longer, more serious stuff to my reading list and bookshelf, but those are things I'll get to in time. I try to make myself read 100 pages per week, and if I don't like doing that with a certain book, I'll pick up another one. I can manage that at a leisurely pace in 2 to 3 hours on a weekend, or grab 20 pages a few times per week.
It won't be easy because you'll be changing some habit. But with time you'll learn how to appreciate books again.
Start with a quote you liked when you were reading and just let your thoughts flow into the paper, you might go for many pages and an hour or more before coming up for air.
I like to call the activity of reading and writing “conversing with the universe.”
Conversely, I find that I can dump hours into social media and not remember anything when I finally snap out of it. It’s junk food for the mind.
One reason for making it an old fashioned paper book is that some of the ideas it presents would simply be censored on what the internet is becoming.
It's not really written as "self-help", more as philosophical musings for intellectual self-defence. Many people who have read it tell me they successfully quit their smartphone.
As ongoing research in modern critical technology studies I'm trying to keep a list of ones I read and at least found interesting (below). Good luck finding the courage to take back control of your technology.
Jenny Oddell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine
Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us
Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality
Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged
Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design
Thomas Kersting Disconnected: Protect Your Kids Against Device Dependency
Nicholas Kardaras Glow Kids
Jaron Lanier Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media
Douglas Rushkoff Team Human
Carissa Véliz Privacy is Power: Why You Should Take Back Control
David Shenk Data Smog
Paulina Borsook Cyberselfish
The same thing happens to me and I think the OP provides one good solution: stick to mobile UI in a browser. Generally, increase friction wherever you can. This only really works if you can stick to the worsened experience and not crack/redownload the app. One way to tackle that is to perhaps set a daily or weekly reminder to purge the apps you have a problem with (or all apps you don’t need) from your phone. Maybe you will redownload them again, but giving yourself that extra moment where you can go to the App Store will surely make you quit halfway once or twice, then consistently, before you fall for the trap.
I have an inadvertent example. I frequented a website on my phone for a while that relied heavily on a certain file format for videos. I switched phones and (by accident) got a new phone that doesn’t support the format and would require me to download external apps to watch it. That friction of needing a third party app, paired with a decision to only use mobile websites when possible, meant by browsing time on that site dropped precipitously and I’ve now almost entirely cut the bad habit.
Another habit is screen time. It is easy to go overboard and delete limits but you’re setting friction points where you need to think about what you’re doing.
This is legal dopamine, and cocaine although a Selective Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor (SDRI) is illegal. You choose.
I know you were discussing recreational cocaine, but fun fact: cocaine can be prescribed legally in most countries including the US. For relatively obvious reasons it's an uncommon prescriber choice, and it's generally applied topically (including to the nose) rather than snorted.
Legal methamphetamine pills are also available by prescription, and of course also an uncommon prescriber choice when alternatives work well, although its chemical relatives in the amphetamine family are very much among the commonly prescribed ADHD drugs.
This is where education, schools are used to monitor behaviours because if someone later expresses an interest to become a GP or Dentist, their behaviour will be used as part of an evaluation to see if they can be trusted. The educational system is just part of the state's intelligence estate.
I also watch YouTube instead of TikTok. YouTube is slower paced and hasn't (yet) fallen into the trap of continual submersion in content without a break. You have to consciously choose to watch another video. I can also tell myself that I'm watching content that is pseudo-educational in nature (like Jay Foreman, Stuff Built Here, Jazza or Mark Rober).
I've started using TikTok a couple of times and it just seems like the perfect engagement machine. It's like a machine that drip-feeds dopamine. Pure evil, in my opinion.
Im just happy its not smoking or drinking. Would make life a lot harder.
You just have to plan things in advance a bit more. It's liberating in a way. You plan dinner with someone on Thursday at 6:00 and it's set. You don't have to think about it, tweet about it, post it on Facebook, or anything else. Just show up.
Whenever I am thinking of redownloading it, I think about why I deleted it in the first place.
Once you're logged in, just to read that one thing, it can't hurt to engage on that one issue, can it?
Before you know it, you're 23 increasingly angry comments into a thread about sand, people are still wrong on the internet, it's 3am and you hate everyone, everything and yourself.
Apollo for Reddit has a feature to disable infinite scroll.