Ask HN: Tech behavioural changes that changed your life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Tech behavioural changes that changed your life?

14 pointsp0d15 comments

There is so much criticism of tech and the web by it's users. Has anyone made changes to their tech behaviours that have improved their life?

I am curious to see what a better tech world may look like.

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For me a better tech world is one without social media. I quitted them 2 years ago and i feel happier than ever. Whenever i have to go through opening a link to someone’s tweet and read the toxicity in the comments, or a random tiktok video with people doing nonsense, or a fake instagram post with a random quote, i feel more happy for my decision. But it’s my personal anecdote and i am member of the typical hn social media hater crowd (:-)) so feel free to ignore.

Not using or deleting social media was a big one. I’m a little out of the loop since I’m not on Facebook but I hear about everything important via word-of-mouth now, which feels more intimate.

Not using my phone at night. I try not to use it when we’re watching something at night and never in bed.

Only checking email and Slack every hour or two when in work mode. The less the better. More responses to messages from me means more messages to me.

I have also adopted keeping the phone out of the bedroom. I'm not much of a social media person but I have removed all my banking apps from my mobile's homescreen. I'm surprised how much of an impact this has made to how often I visit my banking apps.

Not sure if this is exactly what your looking for.

Not too long ago I ran across this term "skewmorphism". It was a word Jobs used to talk about making computer programs resemble the real world.

When I heard the term though, it wasn't from Jobs. It was from a guy named Chris Dixon talking about how with new tech there is a tendency to think about how it can apply to the real world, the physical world.

His point was that sort of thinking is also a kind of skewmorphism and that really with new technology you should think internet first.

This really did change my perspective. I used to be kind of half in half out. Looking for a way to leverage technology back into the real world. But I always found that process rather slowed by buerocracy and so on.

I find that if you use the latest tech in tandem and focus your efforts purely on the domain of the internet you can go quite a bit faster than if you were trying to backport your progress into meatspace.

Make no mistake too, there are exclusively internet companies now. The most profitable ones still bridge the physical world though (Apple).

I was thinking more about examples of how people have changed their tech life. I appreciate your comment as I realised when thinking about the question I realised you can not separate tech and the internet in this modern world. So I get where you are coming from.

skeuomorphism, for anyone searching for more on it.

Blocking websites that are addictive time sinks. Removing recommended videos on YouTube (so it is just a search bar).

I bought myself an Apple Watch for Christmas and the gamification of fitness is real. Yes, you can track the same stuff on the Watch, as on the iPhone, but having it easily accessible (and top of mind) on your wrist goes a long way in tracking all of the activity I do. When I think about whether to skip the gym on any given day, previously I would do it based on how I feel that day, but now I use the Health app to view my activity over the prior weeks and use the activity level data to decide if I go, or skip. I skip a lot less than I did.

I've averaged 89 minutes of activity per day since January.

What apps did you use in Apple Watch ?

Using an app to block reddit on my phone from 6am to 6pm which are my peak productivity hours.

Realizing that audiobooks are superior to YouTube if I'm trying to sleep.

Apart from the obvious reasons, in the former case you typically make 1 decision in a finite set (pick 1 audiobook among your collection).

In the latter case you're typically making multiple decisions in an infinite set (Video will probably end before you fall asleep and there are practically infinite videos).

Echoing others here, quitting Twitter has given me a lot of time back that I now try to redirect to writing. Relatedly, downloading Obsidian on the phone means I now journal quite a bit, which is therapeutic in its own way. Each time I pick the phone up, something ends up in Obsidian.

Using a device facebook portal has helped me to be in touch with my family (good part), while not using phone.

Delete social media from your phone. That’s been the biggest thing for me by a long margin.

I refuse to maintain abusive relationships, and I hold technology to similar standards as humans.

So, if I hear that you rummage through people's address books and personal things, I don't deal with you anymore. If I come to you looking for an article, but you present me with ads or cookie banners or newsletter modals or paywalls, I just leave. Whatever you have is not worth it. If you do things without my consent, I avoid dealing with you anymore. If you think my browser or equipment is not good enough for your site, I turn around and leave.

It's been remarkably fruitful for me, as I noticed that those types of sites or properties also typically have low-quality content.

Interesting perspective. The personification of tech. I went to a Show HN, someone's new website, and a third of the screen was ads. I left.

At the same time I watched imdbtv last night with ads i e. this content is free with ads. I can live with this upfront approach.

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