YouTube Addiction
jntrnr.com
jntrnr.com
The amount of time I spend on the Internet is insane and no matter how hard I try to will power through it and cut down my usage I always fail. If I ever figure out how to overcome it I'll have to write a book or something, because I've wasted years of my life and missed out on too many oppertunities.
People will call me weak, or pathetic, or say I haven't tried hard enough, but as someone who did use tabacco I have found Internet 'addiction' a much tougher beast to deal with.
I've thought this a lot and honestly? I retreat back into the internet so I can forget about it/put it out of mind for a bit longer.
I have wanted to try medicine to see if it helps me at all, but I've never been able to do so. My GP was willing to perscribe me something, but decided my BP was too high and that was that.
There are definitely anxiety issues at play as well, but I don't know to what degree.
There's no possibility of a second opinion either because I'm really damn lucky to even have access to a GP, the waiting list for one is ~3-4 years long right now if you don't already have one.
Could you possibly do something similar?
There are no private doctors and private psychiatrists are not legally allowed to perscribe. ADHD medication is controlled so only NPs, GPs, and (I think) psychologists are permitted to write a script for it.
Basically there are no options for me except the ones I have already taken, short of moving to a different province thousands of kilometers away.
My previous psychiatrist said he's had some luck with patients on stimulants lowering their stimulant doses and adding a non-stimulant treatment like Strattera, but his patients rarely had success stopping all stimulants and taking only Strattera. That's just one docs opinion, but having been treated for adhd for 15 years, it doesn't surprise me.
So, consider yourself lucky you don't already need stimulants to get by. Some of the newer non-stimulant options may be effective for you, and you won't have to deal with the "druggy" aspect of being on stimulants for work. Stimulants can seriously affect your life, both positively and negatively. You might be able to get things done that you never would have done before - I felt like I was finally able to compete at a normal level when I started - but you might retreat from society at the same time, be less interested in spending time with loved ones or building relationships, and then there's all the short-term side-effects like trouble sleeping or losing interest in eating.
Basically my experience has been a double-edged sword and it's bittersweet. For every way that it's benefited me, ADHD meds negatively affect me in some other way and it's hard to quantify the net balance.
I wish that were the case, I've been heavily "abusing" Redbull and Claritan-D (non-drowsey with sudafed, I found this helped purely by accident a few years ago) for years just so I can barely function enough to hold down a job. It's probably part of why my blood pressure is so bad in the first place.
I have to put literally all the energy I have into work, by the time 1700 rolls around I have no energy left to give for anything, I just crash. Most nights even getting supper is a huge ordeal, much less anything else.
Non-stimulant drugs might be an viable option, I haven't inquired about that yet, but I intend too.
I apreciate you giving a small window into what the medication has been like for you. How it would affect me and how I'd change on it has been one of my main concerns should I somehow actually get perscribed anything. At this point I'd try anything because the older I get the less sustainable this all becomes.
You’d never be able to get a foreign prescription filled in Canada, federal and provincial regulations forbid that. Brining medicine back would be fine, but then you can’t get more without an expensive flight again.
If I lived near the US border I’d just get an American doctor and get prescriptions filled in America, but I’m nowhere even remotely close to the border.
My assessment took several days, totalling around 8 hours of time in the clinic. A lot of interviewing and cognitive assessments. I'm not sure if that's standard, but maybe that gives you something to contrast it with. I left the experience with a fairly hefty document describing my abilities/disabilities along with various recommendations moving forward.
I also received an IQ test result which was strange to see, and I actually would have preferred not to see it.
I had to get that all together and done before I went, because the clinic is a 2.5 hour drive meaning it wasn't practical to spend a ton of time there.
The actual clinic time consisted of an interview that took ~2 hours and seveal tests. The only test I remember clearly was something called the CPT test, because I thought what they were asking me to do was actually impossible (don't press the X when it's shown).
After that I had a follow up virtual call a few weeks later to discuss the results and they provided me with a document about all the testing, results, and steps going forward. In their own words I have "severe inattentive ADHD".
My main issue is if you know exactly what to tell them of course you'll be diagnosed, it's not like a physical issue that you can't fake. Someone seeking a diagnoses just for drugs could easily have gotten it. Additionally it was a private clinic and I worry there was some incentive for them to provide the result they thought the client wanted.
Why is that?
I had aspirations I didn’t pursue because I thought I wasn’t capable, for example. Lacked confidence because I believed I wasn’t competent. Suddenly I was faced with the notion that I wasn’t failed by genetics or something I couldn’t control, but rather, I’d simply lived for decades apparently completely unaware of myself and wasting my potential. What a strange thought.
My score wasn’t exceptional. I expected it to be much lower, though.
I’m still not sure how I feel. I wonder if I should do more with myself or not, if any of it even matters, that sort of thing. I suspect never knowing actually could have been better; it’s unlikely at this point that I could ever realize potential that I was previously unaware of. I don’t think it serves me at all. In a strange way I guess I liked assuming I wasn’t intelligent. I genuinely don’t feel intelligent.
For what it's worth, I don't actually think IQ is a canonical measure of intelligence, and the narrative people have of "being stupid" is often driven by society valuing certain kinds of intelligence more than others. But the kind of intelligence it takes to do software dev is more widely considered the "legitimate" kind of intelligence (by people who tend to view intelligence in more reductive, "black-and-white" terms).
Not only IQ is correlated with every positive prosocial behavior we, in general, value but every seemingly disparate form of intelligence is correlated to the others so we can, in fact, talk about a single form of intelligence that manifest in different form (generally named "g factor"). This is just the inherent unfairness of life. I wish it wasn't true and only your hard-work would matter, but it doesn't.
After some consideration I was left with the sense that I’d squandered something because I was too busy mired in egoism, navel gazing, insecurity, and helplessness driven by the sense that I’m less fortunate. And yet I’ve had a lot of good fortune which clearly stemmed from mental characteristics I believed I didn’t have.
I suppose I always felt like such an imposter. As though I was only ever hours or days away from being found out, then being relegated to a life more suited to someone as incompetent as I was.
Now I try to be less self absorbed and think more about what I can do for other people — people who can’t thrive in a technology-driven world due to innate disabilities, for example. Statistically it’s known that this is a staggering portion of our population, and these people deserve to get as much out of life as anyone. Living in poverty because you can’t understand how to apply for a job online, perform many basic jobs, navigate state or provincial websites to obtain disability assistance, or manage personal finances and so on is such an egregious offence to humanity in my mind.
In summary, I should have spent less time feeling sorry for myself and more time helping people with real problems.
I suspect I will never manage to meaningfully help people more than I would have when I thought I was stupid. I believed in pro social behaviour before the test. For that reason I’m not sure it helped me to see the IQ score.
I got into software because it was the single thing I cared about that could earn me money. I really had no idea what I was doing and constantly went from frying pans into fires, learning what I needed in a frantic race to avoid being “found out”, so to speak. The last 7 or 8 years has been a lot better now that my foundations are better and I have a bit more confidence. My career would definitely benefit from more confidence.
> the kind of intelligence it takes to do software dev
This is true, but I suppose at the time I didn’t believe I was actually doing it. I’d endlessly compare myself to genius-level developers, or simply others with skills I didn’t have. If someone at work could do something better than I could, well, it was obviously because I’m incompetent. How could I be 10 years in and this person who’s 5 years in understands debugging and testing so comprehensively? Man, everyone’s going to realize I’m a fraud soon. I better cram in testing and debugging research this week.
The IQ definitely did come as a surprise in spite of that. I can mechanically shovel software knowledge into my brain, but I don’t do anything novel or interesting with it. I write okay software, but it’s largely just a feat of mimicking the work of intelligent people. I can make the thing that makes the company money, but I can’t make a thing that others would mimic as I do.
As I mentioned in another comment though, a lot of this was me being insecure, indulging that to excess, and being quite neurotic about it to the point that I was clearly overlooking significant advantages I had over others who truly did and still do experience disadvantages due to lower intelligence. That was a well deserved blow to my ego, to realize I was so self absorbed as to ignore values I believed were important to me. I didn’t think I was like that, but in fact I was — extremely so — for decades.
If I can live comfortably with a job in software, why am I spending time feeling sorry for myself while other people, some I know personally, live with less because society values their minds less?
I suppose though that the reason I didn’t want to see the IQ score is because I suspect it was too late in life for me to respond in a meaningful way that would be aligned with my values. I have the sense that I squandered something. Rather than feel sorry for myself about it, I’ll do my best to turn things around.
The only thing that has ever provided me mild success was locking my devices in my gun cabinet after a certian time of day. It was easy to get them out, but it took long enough that I could at least reconsider.
I was only able to matinain that a week or two before falling into old habbits. Inevitabily I'll have a particularly bad day at work and any progress will go out the window as I look for comfort/a distraction.
Look at how folks who successfully quit porn do it.
> a week or two before falling into old habits
You need to replace old habits with new habits.
Also, as a random aside, get your hormones checked. An imbalance of sex hormones can make things like concentration exceedingly difficult.
> any progress
You've fallen victim of the "fuck it"s. You assume if you fail you might as well not try. A habit is that behavior we return to, and this goes for things we don't habitually do, too. Just because you fuck up doesn't mean you should quit. That nagging voice in your head, the one that says "why even bother, you'll just screw up again" is a liar.
You must get up. You must try again. If you listen to that voice you won't even try. Don't believe the inner labeling of "I'm just a failure", if you believe that you'll be right.
> comfort / a distraction
And there it is. You are dependant on the internet for a dopamine dump.
When I was playing World of Warcraft too much, I decided that each time I saw a loading screen, I would do a small amount of pushups or sit ups. Nothing crazy. 5 or 10 or whatever. Less if I was tired, more if I was bored. It was a tiny physical barrier that made me think more cautiously about what it was that I was doing, and kind of "broke the loop" of the mindless activity I was doing.
Perhaps you could institute something similar. Each time you open a new tab, you do some sort of physical distraction that gets you out of your chair. If pushups and sit ups aren't your thing, it could be something as simple as "Get up from the computer and walk around the room for 20 seconds". If there are stairs in your house, you could walk up and down them once. If you don't have stairs, maybe you could put some resistance bands by a door in your house. You walk to that door, grab the bands, and do some resistance training for 5 to 10 seconds.
The thing that really helped it sink in for me was that it was something that was physically removing me from the computer. Moving away from the computer and then coming back helped to me see just how much time I was spending there. The soreness in my arms and core also helped reinforce how much energy was being devoted to the activity, too. It became a reminder that, "Yes, I have loaded into a lot of different zones today. What have I accomplished? In the game, I suppose I made a few gold or whatever, but for me the person outside of the game, what am I actually accomplishing? The point of the game is to have fun - am I still having fun? I started doing this workout stuff because I felt guilty about what I'm doing. Is that sense of guilt fun?"
I also think it's important to remember some of these sites have been designed with the explicit intention of being addictive. Didn't some of the biggest sites hire behavioral psychologists to help design products that get people hooked?[1] I'm not surprised to hear that folks are feeling this way and I think it's an entirely valid and legitimate feeling to be addicted to Youtube and the Internet.
The internet has been life changing for me and I can easily say I have been addicted to it before. As an autistic person who has a lot of sensory issues, the computer has provided a super safe and easy way to explore the world. But it's been easy to get too attached and not want to do anything that I need to IRL.
In early December I disabled all notifications on my phone and set a schedule to check my phone twice a day. I've found that I've been way happier as a result and not getting stuck in internet holes. I see push notifications as a net negative on my mental health and I think I'll keep them off long term.
May we all find a healthy balance that works for us.
This looks like a really powerful mantra. And it's just a bit short of a witty Oscar Wilde quote.
When I read it, I knew exactly how you meant it, even though we don't really know each other. It feels so light, wise and powerful.
Adam Smith wrote of it hundreds of years ago; extreme division of labor will make humans as dumb as the lowest creature.
To reduce screen time during covid I ditched my TV, bought a guitar. Not saying everyone should pick up music; I already knew how to play saxophone and piano; it was evolving my current state. The point is I cut passive consumption to infrequent mentorship via YT tutorials, rather than endless staring, to focus on mechanical skill building.
Our society needs to let go of career memes, which IMO are coupled to historical memes like “A man named Farmer is a farmer for life” which forces us to relinquish our dynamism in deference to memes of greater good. But I should qualify; I grew up in farm land, building barns, fixing big machines (programming machines all night), cutting wood in January, managing livestock, was routine in my teens. Diverse hands on experience was baked in early (only in my 40s now). Someone without that will have a harder time.
The only evidence human agency must serve aristocratic vision is being told as much from birth.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Hell, they can burn it to an audio CD if they want.
One trouble with his writing and speaking on the subject isn't that I think he's wrong or does a bad job at all, but like anything in psychology, you aren't going to read it and "get there", so to speak. What Gabor describes is often years of critical reflection away from fully making sense. I guess from my perspective I don't get the sense that he's aware of that; he speaks with ease, confidence, and a tone that suggests this can all be so easy.
Take for example the simple notion that your anxieties are a feedback loop, deeply entrenched through decades after being initiated in your childhood. This isn't far fetched, but for many of us, the idea we had hard times in childhood that could cause real trauma is far fetched. It doesn't seem to make sense, and you might almost feel silly or guilty for entertaining the thought. Your parents loved you, right? You had food and clothes, a cool bed shaped like a fire truck, etc.
It takes a long time to navigate those things and uncover what might have gone wrong (if in fact something ever did), and to assess that with family in a way that's constructive and as factual as possible (if that's even an options). The very nature of these things causes us to pretend it never happened, and for adults, the reason it was never addressed could be because they didn't notice it or recognize its significance. This gives everyone the sense that everything was "fine".
Of course there are more acutely traumatic experiences in childhood, and that's easy to point out yet still can be so difficult to recognize as a harmful, frightening, overwhelming thing. You build up these defences, excuses, explanations, etc. Nah, there's no way you had childhood trauma.
Maybe this is incredibly obvious to most people. It wasn't for me, and I found myself putting down his books and thinking... Well shit, if it's that simple, what's wrong with me? Why can't I get past X or Y if I'm endowed with this knowledge? I don't expect miracles, and I didn't, but I suppose his writing brought me very close to the problem yet left me feeling so far from the solution. It's almost like you're looking at the peak of a mountain straight ahead of you, yet the only way to the top is to back track an enormous distance, navigate around the base from far away, doubt yourself the entire way, and climb the mountain from an approach on the opposite side you're currently on.
To his credit, he acknowledges his own lack of progress and deficiencies, and how it's always an ongoing project. Of course it is. I suppose I have the sense that he underestimate how hard it is to get the the point where you can leverage the paradigm he's offering, even though it seems a stone's throw from solutions.
Regardless, I highly recommend his books. I'd just add the caveat that if it resonates with you, don't expect to make meaningful progress on any new ideas for a while. And that's okay. These things always take time – especially if you've been living with it for decades.
I read Hold On to Your Kids and enjoyed it, but I prefer many others in the category quite a bit more. I agree with what he says and I think it’s worthwhile information. Perhaps I just prefer another format in the context of childhood psychology. If you have young kids you might find that you enjoy it, though — it’s certainly worth taking a look.
I find it more interesting to focus on developing modes of thinking and making our immediate environment more conducive to leading a good life, by recognizing bad thought process patterns and actions or people that lead us to do those bad things. Explaining the reason or understanding it always felt completely useless to me and it's why I can't really give the time of day to most of these theories of the mind or however you'd call them.
You’re not wrong, this kind of thinking can actually be a diversion from solving problems. I mean, if you can blame things you don’t necessarily remember and perhaps even your parents, there might be some sense that you can pass the buck and therefor responsibility for getting better or doing better.
At the same time, I think the idea isn’t necessarily that some huge traumatic thing had to occur. In fact it could have been fairly innocuous or mild. What people do though, sometimes, is reiterate certain events to such a degree that their psychological response and the neurological pathways it follows become excessively worn in. Those pathways become easier to follow and more likely to be followed. Getting anxious about this, feeling stupid about that, feeling shame about that. The more it happens, the easier it is to feel it.
It isn’t so much that we blame a single event and move on, but that we try to understand the source of various developments. Try to understand what experiences informed certain behaviours.
At the end of the day, whether you were 6, 16, or 26, any event which shaped you is still your responsibility to address in this current moment. There’s no blame to pass or responsibility to offload. We can’t blame the universe for our nature because if we’re unhappy with the way we are, we’re still the only ones who can do something about it. Whether it was caused by childhood trauma or aliens. The end result is your personal accountability in every moment.
There does seem to be credibility to the idea of minor traumas being very influential during formative years. It doesn’t have to have happened to all of us of course, but as children we do internalize things like crazy. One major theme I see is when caregivers are present but emotionally unavailable. When kids are isolated in this way, it seems very benign on the outside yet also seems to be able to cause major issues in kids early on and late into their lives. It becomes much less common to be influenced by experiences in the same way by the time we hit puberty, for example. We internalize much less and confront things we’re uncomfortable with, if not with peers or family then with ourselves. In our formative years we simply lack that ability.
Many of the things I started going through with these books and later on a therapist are probably something I could have dealt with, without first identifying the trauma. But it would be the kind of "could have done it", like I also could have done learning advanced math by just reading some books instead of going to university. In theory it works, for some people it works, but for most of us, taking some classes and having homework and exams is what makes it actually possible.
Permit me an example: Imagine this - you placed an empty bottle somewhere in a corner on the ground. You were busy with chores, it was in the way, you'll deal with it later. Your partner walks in and accidentally knocks it over. You forget about your chore. Your entire mind is filled with the need to apologize, hide, try to make up for putting that bottle there. You watch your partner sigh, pick it up, put it away and proceed with whatever he was doing, but you still can't focus on anything over the intense feeling of guilt and fear. It will take a few minutes to let you get back to work and probably at least an hour for the feeling to entirely go away. What do you do with this shit? I didn't know. I just knew situations like this far too well and they happened a lot.
Reading a book on trauma gave me several clues that had gone right past me for at this point about 13-15 years of my adult life. First off, I didn't understand this was a limbic response. In hindsight, if you need a textbook example for freeze responses, I'm right here. Then I had to understand what I was afraid of. That was tough, because up until reading anything on this, I did not understand "someone shouting at me and calling me stupid for several minutes" to be something that would cause panic. For a little kid, it definitely does. And in this moment, mentally I reverted to little kid mode. I needed to handle whatever the almighty parent throws at me. In my case, handling it was suffering through it and either crying in my room when it was over or later dissociating to escape the pain.
So basically, I had a flashback. Plain and simple. While I consciously knew that would never happen, something inside of me expected my partner to go nuclear on me for being so inconsiderate and lazy and I would not be able to do anything. I would just stand there and take it until he's finished shouting and I'm allowed to go to my room and cry.
My partner doesn't shout at me. Never has. This made it so hard for me to understand, what was going on. Telling me that I was overreacting and just consciously understanding I was safe was helping a little, but it was painfully slow. Also, was I overreacting? Wasn't this how people feel when they have done something wrong? Understanding, what I was actually afraid of (my dad) and that this situation was not normal (it was emotional abuse), jump-started recovery. I suddenly knew what I had to compare reality to. I knew better what to tell myself to soothe and ease out of panic. I could start doing some of those cliche exercises to low-key trigger that fear, walk through it and come out the other end to actively understand I'm still okay. I could also imagine rescuing myself or reliving the situation today and react as the self-reliant adult I am. All the (not) fun stuff.
Going from there, I gradually discovered more and more flashbacks that kept eating up my mental capacity, so I could isolate the triggers and deal with the emotional mess they caused, one at a time. And lo and behold - if you are not busy dissociating on a daily basis, you can actually have real emotions. It's great!
At this point, the amount of blame involved is very little. Sometimes I use a little blame to get out of the shame-cycle. It usually starts with feeling guilty for not replying to some shaming message my parents sent me, starts spiraling into feeling like I'm the worst child ever and then ends with "Screw you dad, I've handled your emotions long enough. We're not doing that again." That is part blame and I hope that I will eventually be able to do without it. It's a work in progress.
[0]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...
Go travel, visit some friends overnight, go camping, anything to get out of the house and create new (or at least different) experiences and a bunch of simple-but-different problems you need to solve. When you're done and get back home, you can reintegrate to the Internet, catch up, and hopefully not feel too guilty about it. Spend your willpower making sure you get back out there, rather than trying to police your default behavior.
If that's not possible to due a lack of money, friends, physical ability, etc, then I'd say you are dealing with serious depression and professional help is not unwarranted.
I feel compelled to also add that while it seems well-meant, I think the tone of your last paragraph is a bit unproductive. A lot (most? all?) of us, at some point, fall out of the habit of exercising our senses of curiosity and wonder and trying new things. This can be caused by many combinations of family, economic, and social conditions, or for some, because of chemistry (ie “serious depression”). Therapy is indeed a good way to develop the skills to work against this and identify whether it’s actually a chemical problem in need of a chemical solution. But it doesn’t help to go straight to calling this “serious depression” needing “professional help.” Literally all of us can benefit from therapy, and making it out to be a big deal and putting labels on people makes many less likely to pursue it.
Internal and external factors tend to pile up and reinforce one another, and if someone is at a point where those external factors are contributing to not being able to try changing patterns of behavior, that would be seem to be indicative of a problem that should be acknowledged.
It feels like I'm coming from a place that is the dual of your comment - even though everyone could theoretically benefit from therapy, people are not going to seek it out and add even more complexity to their lives unless they feel they need to - especially with the care-denying medical bureaucracy that permeates the US and apparently Canada. Acknowledging a problem is a first step to addressing it with an appropriate tool rather than normalization and coping band aids.
If you went to a doctor for type 2 diabetes, they would tell you to eat healthier and exercise as well as to take medications when needed. Your eating and activity habits are not themselves diabetes, even though they contribute directly to your diabetes. Another person could act exactly the same but not trigger diabetes because of lower genetic predisposition. And another person could have a healthier lifestyle than you and have diabetes despite that (e.g. Type 1). Lifestyle is a contributor while diabetes is the pathology.
Life circumstances can be a contributor, but depression is a pathology. An effective healthcare team will treat both.
'Addiction' depends on circumstances. If you're lucky enough to be able to spend copious amounts of time online, good for you. I know for me, I don't have that opportunity. There's too much other stuff hampering my ability to get online like kids, marriage, chores, other hobbies, work, etc
I am not the lucky one, you are. My life is a sick joke, meanwhile you by all traditional measures have it made if you have all that.
If I didn't have my job I'd have literally nothing going for me. When I say this has cost me oppertunites I don't mean small ones, I mean even things like potential relationships. Everything has always come second to this issue.
Is there a reason to assume the traditional measures are, in fact, the correct ones to be using?
Ahh, so a bias for values that were evolutionarily successful? I can kind of see the utility there.
Would this hypothetical system take into account the dominance of the societies in question, or is it just specifically how long they've survived/been stable?
Like a recovering alcoholic, you need to just stop going into bars - the temptation is too strong.
1. Don't have a phone with data. It's just too convenient to scroll for 3 hours lying in bed.
2. Don't have wifi at home, at all.
Less internet in your life means you'll spend less time on the internet.
but for me I chalk it up to lack of other things to do. I don't have a lot of friends, it's hard to make new ones, covid doesn't help, at the moment I've got no personal projects except maybe trying new recipes now and then.
that said, if I do find other activities I have no trouble doing them. I'm taking a class for example, meet the friends I do have when they are available, etc
so I doesn't feel like an addiction in my case even though I fully feel I spent way too much time on the internet
In my case, I don't have other things to do because I'm on the internet. When I manage to turn off the internet (HN, Youtube, podcasts, Twitter, LinkedIn, reading up on random, pretty useless stuff), suddenly I get pretty good ideas on what to do.
Oh, I wanted to learn finally that language. I wanted to clean up in the kitchen cabinet. I wanted to meet up with a friend. I wanted to sign up for swimming class. I wanted to go to a restaurant with my wife. I wanted to call my brother and sister. I wanted to code up an open source package...
The list of fun things to do is endless, but somehow consuming content on the internet trumps everything if you are not careful (ymmw).
I'm sure if you tried to make doing other things a habit, it would come easier to you over time. Then there's less reliance on willpower required.
If you put a block in the calendar at the same time each week, you will feel more obligated to do it.
I've done this with all kinds of things like socialising, couch25k, flossing. It really helped me when covid restrictions first hit and it was too easy to just lay about all day.
Wanting and expecting to use electricity and being reliant on having it available to me doesn't make me pathetic (although arguably it does make me weak).
What people need is to make sure they’re not being overly productive at one thing while letting other things drift away.
The heat death of the universe will destroy anything you do with your life and will erase any possibility of it being recorded or remembered.
So… enjoy life. All you have is the current moment. Productivity - especially to enrich someone else - is a fool’s game.
Be as productive as you need to to enjoy life.
If you enjoy your work (I do) then do it because you enjoy it, not because it’s productive.
yes
>and we’re here only to be productive
how did you make this jump? the universe doesn't care in the slightest how you spend your time or what you do. we're not here to anything. we're utterly insignificant and our life is devoid of meaning. you can choose to fill it with fulfillment by some definition of producing something. I really don't care. I just think it's sad to define your life in relation to some arbitrary definition of your externally bounded output. but by all means, if that's what you want...
just don't say it's The Way of The Universe. That's just wrong.
It's about going back to it even if you don't really want to and have better (potentially not productive fun) things to do.
It's when you sleep time gets (regular) reduced noticable because you couldn't stop.
It's when you make excuses to yourself why it's fine to watch more all the time.
It's when you end up spending hours consuming media even through it overall doesn't make you feel better or good at all and you know that.
*It's when it reduces you quality of live and you still do it without being forced to.*
You can't make it impossible to access the internet, but you can make it super inconvenient.
For instance, one thing that worked for me was blocking HN and Reddit on my router. Obviously I can get around it but the inconvenience to circumvent makes the habit feel like it's not worth the payoff. Or, it at least makes you more aware of your reflex, and the fact that you don't get the immediate reward makes it easier to break the habit loop.
The only method that really works for me is to have other constructive things I genuinely want to do. It's easier to avoid picking up the phone or getting on the computer (breaking the habit) if I'm thinking about X instead. That can be a hobby, a project, or even better a friend, relative, child. I don't want to sound like I'm saying, "just do this one trick." I know it's not easy and everyone is different.
The children's book Frog and Toad Together has a story about willpower called "Cookies". It sums up my experience pretty well. If you do write a book about what works for you, consider making it a children's book: I've gotten more comfort and understanding from those than anything else.
Which makes it even harder to set boundaries.
It's similar to how eating a piece of cake can make you feel guilty so instead you switch to a bag of M&Ms or other such small sweets thinking it's better for you as "I'll only have a few", and before you know it, you've eaten the whole bag in one go which is worse than the single piece of cake would have been.
I've found watching long content is better to keep such addictions in check. When I've finished watching a 2h long movie, I feel also "done" and ready for bed vs the endless stream of streaming shows, youtube videos and other social media shorts can keep you hooked for days on end.
Interestingly it still can have physical effects. I have seen a case of an person who got addicted to web novels (like every day another short chapter; hit their quirky humor; not porn; clinically depressed). And that person showed effects of withdrawal in their interaction with that media in certain situations. Sure the effects where comparable harmless but still there anyway.
People (probably not you) are often prone to think that addictions to non-classical "drugs" which don't crate a physical/body dependence is mostly harmless not taking it serious at all, but it is not. In case of the person above there where cases where they where unable to function like a normal human sometimes for one or two days because their addiction had fully consumed them. (Through last time I have seen them they where doing better wrt. to this aspect.) Ironically that person had been aware that they where prone to addiction due to there mental health state and staid far away drugs, including smoking, porn and a strict ban on alcohol outside of social gatherings and even there close to never. And then the internet screwed them over.
It's a peaceful ocean, an escape. It's enjoyable, it's numbing. It's starting to affect my work.
There may be internet detox camps you can go to as well.
Also try therapy it can help, you are not alone in your struggles ..
The best way to not do X is to do Y instead. Find another activity that you enjoy and spend your time there instead.
Unfortunately many apps aren’t that good and just resort to trying to be the most important app in your device.
Too much ux practice has been perverted to have the user work for their app instead of working for the user.
The really nice thing is we are not alone and rarely the first. The goal is to create and not consume. Write lots like this comment and revisit and review it. Add to it mindfully.
You might like this books called Stolen Focus: https://www.amazon.ca/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/dp...
To help break the distraction cycles to finish a book, there are more and more resources out there for disrupting the novelty seeking attention dopamine loops.
Some things that help:
- make your phone screen black and white
- turn off all notifications of all apps. This means alerts, notifications , counters and dots.
- the notification thet is on is your calendar. Setup notifications to remind you to check your device or messages at a set time. Your brain the knows you can enjoy it with full focus.
- a tablet is handy for moving your consumption to. When you put it down it’s put down.
- The mode of iOS is really decent.
- Use airplane mode liberally
- social media and digital detoxes help
- On your laptop manually edit your hosts files. Put all the sites you refresh many times a day. Make it a bit hard to edit and you’ll discover you won’t do it much.
- block Hn too on main decides. Dedicate a device to read and consume it and leave it there. Nothing you’ll miss out on.
- turn on all digital health tracking so you see your daily app and website usage. Rescuetime is a great little app.
There is a link that I’m trying to remember which explains this and more very well.
Locking the phone and laptop in the car for the weekend used to work quite well for me, but my living situation is different now.
The last time I lost internet for an extended time (my cable got dug up) made me an anxious mess for weeks.
I did take a break. A long break. I joined the Army in 2021, after being laid off during the pandemic, thinking I wanted to leave technology for good. Then after I graduated from basic, I realized I was probably going to be a shitty, unfit soldier and that I missed all of the interesting technical and engineering challenges we solve as software engineers.
I'm still working on getting back into the profession (pretty much due to my own laziness the past year... I guess needed time to recalibrate after everything). But, I have spent countless hours the past year setting up homelab equipment, various servers, writing scripts and small programs to organize stuff.
Youtube isn't something I really could get addicted to, because I don't like learning from videos or watching stuff I could read in a quarter of the time. But I guess I do have a pretty bad TV addiction. I wasted tons of hours when I was depressed binge-watching shows online. It's to the point I don't even watch movies often because I prefer the intimacy I feel when I know the characters well and am deeply immersed in a series, especially something running multiple seasons. I binged all 5 seasons of the Handmaid's Tale a few weeks ago in less than a week, for example, and considered immediately rewatching them all.
As another has stated below, I guess this is to fill the void that occurs in life when we are single and childless, unemployed, or both.
I still don't think if I would call my internet usage or passion for technology "addiction". The TV/Netflix/etc. ... sure. That's fair. But I think it's fine to be obsessed with something like programming, especially if it's your profession. People who get paid to do something they love are lucky.
Blocking distracting page elements like I block ads (uBlock Origin), and occasionally blocking websites altogether (SelfControl.app) when needed makes a big difference.
Leaving the cellphone out of the bedroom was another important improvement.
I also added rules to remove pagination buttons from reddit and HN.
At some point you hit diminishing returns because you still seek out these websites. The hard part is closing the computer when you are done computing, and tackling boredom with other means. I have no solution for this, except working in one hour increments with timers.
TL, DR; You are addicted to other people, without lasting connections. Shame on you for being a social animal
I'd recommend Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, I've found it personally really helpful.
This to me matches up most with gambling addiction. There is a great book on the subject that I recommend to the Author called "Addiction by Design" by Natasha Schull. The main thrust of her argument is that machine gambling addicts don't care about winning at all but have found gambling machines (slots, video poker mostly) as a reliable way to activate that "flow" state where the rest of the world falls away. It's mostly a study of the problem, very sobering, and there are some good resources at the end for getting help.
I think we're all addicted to this "flow" state. When it happens during programming it's the best feeling ever. Hours go by, no technical hurdle is too big, I can make more progress in 4 hours than 4 days of regular work, and everything just makes sense. I come out of it always wishing I could activate that feeling on command, but it never works reliably for productive things. Only vices, unfortunately.
Maybe to escape anxiety?
I got into a great flow state earlier this week the day after seeing my relative in hospice care. I didn’t have to think about the pain of that for a day and it was pretty great.
The casino knows this too. It was not a pushy place to make sales. It was also a very safe and cool place to hang in.
There's probably some merit to this statement, but I sorta laugh at the difference in harm between 'watching' and 'playing'. Maybe the most candid thing for us to do is acknowledge that the "harm" we're talking about is a lack of gratification.
(At least, this is how it is for me, can’t speak for the GP.)
The PS5 is really nice at this because you don't even have to exit the game. Just send it into rest mode and when you come back your game is still running ready to pick up where you left off.
For me it's a lot more satisfying than watching a YouTube video, but YMMV.
Actually a really big harm is the opportunity cost and substitution for real life.
Video games feel like achievement but they're not --> so they don't get the rewards in life that come with real achievement --> so when they engage with real life it kinda sucks (from neglected chores, to neglected career and relationships) --> So they go to video games for that gratification feeling of status/achievement.
People putting in those 80 hours to get that one bonus and the guy trying to get all the Steam achievements are spiritually the same person, whether the source of the dopamine rushes is virtual or analog doesn't make much of a difference, including in terms of resulting misery.
Games as a form of creativity, play and connection are fantastic precisely because they're simply leisure activities, something increasingly lost on most people.
I don't quite see your logic here. How is it "harm-reduced"? Playing a game can be quite enriching and stimulating, whereas watching a video you're just sitting completely idle. To me, it sounds like you're just irrationally worried about playing a game for some reason.
I think this suggestion does the opposite of help.
However... I have a little cousin in my family, and all she does it watch twitch. I've asked before "Don't want to play the games you're watching?" and she looks at me like I asked to solve fusion.
So, there is a hand shake meme of people who play because of twitch and people who just want to watch twitch... Good for twitch. Bad for humans.
But of course Google won't let it on the Play Store. Here it is:
An addict in denial. Sad.
/embed links are meant to be embedded in other pages and do not show any UI clutter. As it happens, they also work perfectly well if (re-)directly opened!
Comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23148026
Extension here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-embed...
Not sure if thats the one you use, but it sounds like it. I need to port it to the Edge store, as I now use Edge instead of Chrome.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-yout...
! youtube suggested videos sidebar www.youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope
! youtube shorts on homepage www.youtube.com##.ytd-rich-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-rich-shelf-renderer.style-scope
I go through phases of deleting the app, which works really well, but then I’m not able to chromecast for the odd time I want to watch the occasional video with my partner.
I’d also still like to be aware of when videos from certain creators come out, so deleting the app just cuts that off entirely.
I would absolutely love to have an option for a YouTube app that only has a sub box and no recommendations.
Then when I have some time to kill, I go through the "Watch later" list and use "SendToKodi" to share the video to Kodi and watch it on my OLED TV comfortably on my couch. It also skips ads, sponsors, "HiT LikE ANd SUBsCRiBE" begging, etc.
I solved this problem on mobile with two approaches: 1. Use a content blocker (e.g. 1Blocker on iOS) to block CSS elements 2. Use an Invidious instance which has disabled the recommendations
It's fast, and when I need to use youtube I just uncomment out the line in vim.
Seen your comment here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28218076
Feel free to DM/PM me :)
I think that's a great way of describing it. Watching "educational" content feels better or more productive than watching a Let's Play, but it's all basically empty entertainment -- the medium and the algorithm sort've necessitate it. Which is definitely not to say there's not awesome resources on youtube for actually learning things, but, for the most part, I'm not watching things that actually take mental effort. I'm more often just letting trash wash over me while also convincing myself that it's OK because "I'm learning" (even though whatever trivial factoid being discussed is immediately ejected from my brain when the next video starts)
I've realized that the internet has a numbing effect on me. It all washes over me until I feel absolutely nothing and I'm just mindlessly consuming. My ISP was recently down for a day, and it actually made life (at least temporarily) more interesting. Rather than just sitting in front of a screen and having content pumped into my veins, my SO and I had to leave the house to seek out things to do.
Then the internet came back and now we're both back on the drip.
You can get highly informative, mind-changing videos with 10k-30k views. And on the other end, hot-take, "debate me bro!" Twitch personalities with 1M-3M views.
That's the nature of it, don't see this on any other category really.
> I've been struggling with my mental health during the summertime, a time I traditionally have fewer problems. I wasn't recharging like I should. I was waking up tired, napping during the day, and generally not feeling at all prepared when the day started.
Yet, some people do activities excessively, even compulsively, but they're not addicted because it's not causing them any harm. My elderly parents have the TV on 16 hours a day, basically from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. It's CNN and cooking shows and blah blah blah just to have a head on a screen talking in the background. It irritates me, but they're not addicts. Same with my daughter and YouTube. Streamers talking about nothing for hours, but her grades are great, her social life is fine, she's healthy and growing properly, so I can't really object. Some people just like to have blah blah blah as background noise all day, and I've come to just accept that it's not for me.
Language evolves and the word addiction has evolved. It's used casually all the time like this blog post although there's no formal diagnosis.
Your examples bring up a good point. Many parents have the TV on all day in the background because they were raised with it. Many kids today will likely have streamers on all day as they grow up because they were raised with it.
It doesn't matter if they are good citizens or doing well in life, you can argue the perspective that it could be "harmful" if using the most common definition that many common mediums (radio, TV, internet, live streaming, etc) removes the sense of reality from people and promotes them to engage in consumerism/capitalism. That can be pretty harmful over the course of one's life although it's non-obvious.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
Addiction is when something purports to solve the very problems it creates.
Certainly not a standard definition, and might not be true in every case, but an interesting way to think about it. In the case of Youtube, watching videos might seem to solve the problem of loneliness and disconnect with the world, while actually exacerbating those problems.
Meriam Webster's second definition doesn't mention causing harm:
> a strong inclination to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly
So, according to the way people typically use the word "addiction" and the literal dictionary definition of the word, it doesn't need to cause harm to be considered an addiction. I can readily admit that I'm addicted to coding. I feel a compulsion to code for ridiculous amounts of time, and that has caused a lot of good in my life. But, like with everything in life, there needs to be balance.
Fundamentally it prepetuates the older generation mentality that screen use is the causes depression, dismissing the underlying struggle people face. If someone comes out and says they are depressed, someone will respond, "oh, you're watching too much youtube, you'll stop being depressed once you stop." It happens with every shift in the most popular mainstream technology.
The colloquial definitions get silly. The second definition for "literally" is "not literally".
Ads have been getting a LOT worse very quickly. Almost every ad I saw in a day when my UBlock wasn’t working was advertising an actual fraud. Whether crypto or recession get rich quick or “aluminum is giving you cancer.”
Advertising frequency is cranked way up. On mobile 5 second unskippables are 6-7 now. I’ll do a search and my ENTIRE screen is advertising until I scroll down and find results.
People say it’s based on your history, but I don’t buy that as none of what it shows me is even slightly relevant. It just seems like they don’t have enough relevant ads to show, so they throw shit at the wall.
I’ve wondered if it’s because I’m into 3d printing and many other people who are into are interested in action figures/minis/what have you. Possible connection?
In any case ads do seem to be getting less relevant and skeezy themes are developing.
The worst one I’ve been seeing a lot of is “single Ukrainian women”. One went as far as showing a quick and easy process of selection and “purchase”. I have no idea how that would be targeted at me, but it see a lot of them.
Jokes aside, if you do your data request from FB you should see your advertising selectors come back. Before I deleted my account, FB thought I was a 17 year old girl interested in boy bands and makeup.
There might be more involved solutions that work better but I’m not interested in accumulating stuff I have to maintain.
I've always exclusively interacted with Youtube from my PC, with uBlock enabled. I don't see ads and because I haven't for such a long time, I've normalized that state.
Until I got a new TV, with a fancy TV OS. My mother-in-law was visiting and I was trying to play some clips of her favorite music via the TV app. I was absolutely shocked. Every 2 minutes or so, 2 brief ads in succession.
It makes viewing anything with joy impossible. You can't get into the moment as its constantly stopped in its tracks. Absolute hellish ad regime.
And while we’re on this topic: Google’s rockstar elite engineers and designers removed the ability to force a resolution for YouTube + Chromecast. But it also wrongly auto detects my gigabit internet as being too weak so it’s literally impossible to get anything above 480p on my basement TV. (Twitch and others stream in HD without issue)
Twitch on the other hand? If I'm watching on mobile I'll regularly get 90 seconds or more of unskipable ads every 10 minutes. Most of the time this makes me close the app and overall has torpedoed my watch time.
Now I’m on the road and I have a laptop and an ipad. I’ve got no extra screen and the extra tab will be expensive on my battery. I tried the iPad YouTube app but I’d get an ad for every 4-5 minutes.
After a couple weeks i stopped watching YouTube altogether. I was considering getting a premium subscription but found out later that I don’t miss it that much.
I think the $5/month will be used to stream bitcoin to podcasts over lightening.
I have a premium account so there are no ads.
Still managed to learn a bit though.
If people want to base their main income on making free online videos than that's their problem. Some will then try to disingenuously guilt trip people on patreon and similar, and there are those who go get themselves some sponsors like a proper advertising business does. Do these creators classify themselves as a non-profit org? Because that's who runs on donations.
There is this on iOS haven't tried it though
On the topic of Youtube addiction specifically, "letsblock.it" has some Youtube-specific filters which can be placed in uBlock Origin and help cut down on Youtube's addictiveness:
Hide Youtube shorts: https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts
Hide Youtube recommendations: https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-recommendations
Hide Youtube videos you've already watched: https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-watched
Or we can regulate it.
Even something as simple as the regulation requiring the site to make it EASY to turn those things off (But give the choice to consumers via big, easy to see toggles in the right places). Rather than having them put in browser extensions.
Even before YouTube, people could have spent 9 hours a day watching rented VHS and DVDs. It just took too much effort to form a habit based on instant gratification with that. So not many people did. And people were much more selective of what they consumed, too, which is an added benefit for mental health.
I spent the last year writing a book about technology addiction. Through that process, it has helped me find better ways to fill my days and moderate how much time I spend on devices. There's also a good book called "Stolen Focus" that outlines a number of these challenges of quitting.
The main way I found to combat addiction was to change the consumer mindset to one of creation. Create something everyday no matter how shitty it is. Share it with the world when you're ready. While in that process of creating, find ways to block the outside world from invading your creativity so you can stay focused.
(This obviously changed with streaming sites - but that's tv turning into YT rather than traditional broadcasting)
I noticed this one night when I spent something like 2 hrs scrolling youtube on my TV adding "gotta watch" stuff to watch later list. My eye lids were heavy. I wasn't even watching the videos, just adding them to later.
I was addicted to the find of a video that promised to make my life better. Though the obvious fact that 1) probably not and 2) even if so I'd have to watch it, not just queue it for later. It really hit me i had a problem when youtube failed to add to watch later. apparently 5k videos is the limit for that list. (And they dont give you any rapid way to clean it up either, lol).
Books is my answer. Yes we can waste time with books, but the stimulation package is just so below the threshold that I'm not worried about. It's like yes you can get fat eating just fresh/roasted vegetables. But I dare ya to try.
It's a Skinner box. If the reward comes every time, or never, the subject loses interest. It's when the reward only comes sometimes that the pigeon keeps hammering the button.
"Oh you watched one video about [x] by creator [y]. Here are 100 more videos by creatory [y]. Here are 100 more videos about [x]"
...uh I watched a recipe for cheesecake. I don't need 100 more cheesecake videos, or even 100 more recipes by that youtuber.
They will also blindly recommend popular things, which is irritating. Steam is an exception here - it has a slider bar that allows exclusion of popular content in favor of niche / indie stuff.
When I first studied recommendation algorithms I remember the classic "people who buy hamburgers and hamburger buns also buy ketchup and mustard" sort of things. On youtube its more like people who watch a video about anything are doomed to be recommended further videos about that thing forever, and adjacent 'also watched' related topics aren't really a thing.
Disclosure - I'm full time working on software that arms people with better tools for fighting compulsive digital habits (https://getclearspace.com/) We have a chrome extension and an iPhone app and they're powerful for retraining compulsive habits - but can't honestly recommend them for full blow addiction (yet).
Interestingly, in watching my own behavior, the most effective force for keeping me from wasting my life is knowing that people can see my screen (at the office for example). I'm starting to think that replicating this remotely might be a way to keep my phone usage in check. If I could opt-in to sharing my phone screentime with a pre-set list of friends that might change how I behave - particularly if they were notified if I ever deleted the app that was doing that sharing. I'll be all-in building some version of that for the next few months if you want to be on the beta list for some accountability experiments. https://screentimeaccountability.com/
Do what you want with the information that a perfect stranger saw what you did here and was irked.
Just like non-alcoholic beverages are useful for people that have a drinking problem, I think it's likely anti-addiction technology will be useful for people that have a technology problem.
I have similar problems, and used to use selfcontrol when I was primarily a mac user. (I haven't found anything like it for windows, which I now must use for work)
Your app seems to be about phones....? My issue is more with distractions on computers, since I work on a computer with multiple big monitors and I'm far more likely to waste time with things there rather than on a phone.
Anyway, we're on a web site right now. Isn't any comment on this thread similarly "misguided" (including your own), since that is one more bit of content for the addicted person to consume?
Adding friction will not solve the problem for people with addiction. Telling me to not take part in the conversation if I dare to call out bad advice (or worse, saying calling out bad advice is just as bad as giving it) is quite disrespectful.
I see absolutely no problem with that. The app is not showing videos nor is otherwise addictive in any sense, so what exactly is the problem? Is it simply because it falls under the label "app"? Therefore it must be just as problematic as apps that show videos or otherwise try to keep users engaged for as long as possible?
Your complaint is as absurd as saying "oh you think you are risking a head injury by riding a skateboard? Here's a helmet for that!" I mean, both skateboards and helmets are sports equipment, so it must be misguided to recommend addressing a safety issue with sports equipment with another piece of sports equipment. That's the logic you are using here.
Usually when I am drawn to an addictive web site or app (YouTube and Quora being the big ones for me), it is pulling me away from some other app I should be using instead, such as VC Code, which I am supposed to be using for my job. Again, not all apps are equally problematic.
I've used the selfcontrol app and similar apps for my own issues, and they work. That is not bad advice at all.
Also, addiction lies on a spectrum. I don't know if my issues count as true addiction or not, but they are problems for me. And I have good results with things like the selfcontrol app (which I miss now that I work on windows), and I have used other various mechanisms to help with behavioral tendencies I have that could benefit from external control. As a non-app example.... am I addicted to cannabis? I don't know. I do know I do better when I use a timer lock so I can reduce my temptation to use it at inappropriate times (i.e. hours I want to be getting work done), without eliminating it entirely (since I enjoy it and truly believe I get benefits from it). I suppose if I was a true addict, I'd just walk ten minutes to the pot store every time I got a craving. But I don't, because addictive tendencies lie on a spectrum. Same concept.
OP has a problem with junk food. The person above mentioned fruits.
The first thing I did to try to curb my...addiction to YouTube was to consume the videos instead through RSS feeds. I wrote a script omnavi (https://sr.ht/~smlavine/omnavi) to help out with that. I would never watch videos on YouTube itself; I would click links that I got through RSS to channels I was subscribed to, and view the videos locally with mpv + youtube-dl.
Honestly it's sad to look back at how many hours of my day I wasted watching YouTube videos. They're the sort of sort-of educational videos that make me feel like I'm spending my time valuably, but at the end of an all-night session, I really wouldn't have been able to tell you any of what I had watched for the past six hours.
I'm interested in psychology and philosophy, so I'll watch videos on those subjects every so often. Naturally, the Algorithm™ becomes obsessed with recommending me Peterson videos soon after. I'm 98% sure the "Do not recommend" and "Not interested" buttons are just there for show, because I keep seeing those suggestions whenever I wander off into psychology and philosophy videos.
I would like to be able to watch more YouTube videos, but their recommendations are so bad at this point that I have to find other things to do.
It's more like a media addiction.
YouTube is one offender here.
But "short" media is way more addictive(1) weather it's TickTock or YouTube shorts. (1: Easier flow to the next video, shorter attention loops, more randomness between hit and disappointment, etc.)
I don't know how scientific funded the "way more" part is, but from speaking with people and personal experience I would _guess_ the potential for addictive behaviour for short form video is not just slightly (a few %) but hugely larger (like 200%-1000%). Through the long-term binding potential might also be shorter, but then that doesn't mean it's not a problem as you likely would just bounce between short form video and other media in your addictive behaviour (e.g. longer form video).
Recently, Youtube is pushing it's "Shorts"(Short-form video) in it's own section that you cannot remove, which is as addicting as you think it is, aside from that, the signal-to-noise is really favorable for me.
Compared to Twitter, Instagram, I find a lot more value on Youtube. The others I already used blocking extensions to stop me from visiting it. As sad and extreme as that is, it's worked out rather nicely for me. I occasionally need to check something, and circumvent it by going incognito, but mostly the blocking is helping me to redirect myself, and build better restraints, and habits.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/
Unfortunately I have some confounding factors rn that make it all the wise.
Unfortunately “interesting” stuff tends to be really inaccessible and COVID did a great job of killing off “fun” stuff, at least around me.
At the same time I get really complacent really fast if I’m in the same place for more than a few years and I think it’s about time for a “soft” reset again.
To the OP or anyone experiencing similar issues, one strategy that has some evidence behind it is pre-commitment: make a conscious decision to limit or stop your use of whatever is causing you troubles, and take concrete steps to lock yourself into that commitment. In the case of websites, that could mean using browser extensions that block access to a certain site or block them after a specified use time (if the latter exists, not sure). For smartphone apps, I think modern OS include some tools with similar intentions, but you could also just uninstall them. Of course, you could circumnavigate the block, but often that one extra step can be enough to remind you of why you made the commitment and help you stick to it.
What I disagree with overall is that notion that doing something a lot & compulsively is an addiction. If you're doing something that knowingly causes you or other around you harm and then doing it anyways because you can't help yourself, only then is it really an addiction.
I can think of tons of other harmless interests/hobbies that people spend hours of their day on, in lieu of doing other activities, but no one considers those addictions.
In general, yes, keeping doing something despite it having negative consequences is generally required in most definitions of addiction.
Now the algorithm isn't targeting me enough to serve attention-grabbing content. And the time it takes to get gratification with pre-video ads has broken up my habit of clicking through videos.
It's interesting to note that YouTube is still surprisingly good at suggesting relevant content to me, even on the home page. But much, much worse now than how it used to be.
If there was some way to slow down the internet speed back to around 1mbps, I think that it would cure a lot of internet addiction without much effort from the addicted. The habit-forming craving -> action -> random reward/outcome loop has to happen quickly for the habit to be formed. If it becomes craving -> action ->1 0-20 second delay -> random outcome, I think the brain soon decides it's going to take too much effort and time (maybe hours) to get the favorable outcome, and other things are better for a dopamine boost - like exercise (10 minutes of work and then the dopamine rush is guaranteed).
The same thing worked for me with food - I ended my snacking habit by not keeping unhealthy food in the house. It is just too much effort to go to a convenience store (10 minutes) for a little 10-second dopamine boost.
The brain is good at this algebra. An outcome's correctly or incorrectly estimated value needs to be higher than the effort to get that outcome. Otherwise, the effort becomes unappealing.
This is probably enough. I've never subscribed to anything except for a friend who doesn't post anything, some random dude who hacked an old LG TV (he doesn't post anything either) and a couple of channels. I've just checked and all the recommendations I see are completely useless; I'm indifferent at best or sometimes even repulsed. Even though I can see how they were picked (Google search history).
> It's interesting to note that YouTube is still surprisingly good at suggesting relevant content to me
This is what really baffles me. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I don't remember ever seeing a relevant and useful recommendation from a machine (except when the search domain was already constrained to something very niche).
Here's what I see if I open YouTube's home page:
- "Razer Blade 16 and Razer Blade 18 - they finally did it". Yes, I bought a Razer laptop. Of course I've searched for a bunch of things related to their hardware, so Google must've caught it. I don't intend to buy a new one anytime soon. It's a prime example of a "meatbag bought a sofa, must love sofas, show them all the sofas"-style recommendation.
- "The most mysterious band in the world. Enigma." (title translated into English by me). So, long story short, based on my wife's recommendation I watched a channel with two radio DJs telling some interesting trivia about music. Like about how some popular songs are actually a covers of some obscure ones, or how The Prodigy songs were made (where are all the samples are from), etc. Fun stuff, but I don't watch every single video from them. Enigma is a miss for me, sorry. Good try, recommender system - given that this channel is one of a few I've actually cared to subscribe to, hah.
- Some podcast with a name and face that doesn't ring any bells to me.
- "Things I Wish I Knew Earlier In Horizon Forbidden West". Played, finished and uninstalled long time ago, doubt the replay value. And I've already checked the wikis when I was done playing. So, nope, not watching this.
- "Unusual Feature in UltraLoq Smart Lock" by LockPickingLawyer. I think I've watched a couple of LPL's videos when I was randomly wondering about some lock mechanism - so I wanted some quick visual explanation how it works. I sure don't need to see any videos to learn how some IoT is a mess.
- "1 Min Synth Review // TB-303 #shorts". Must be because I've watched that channel about music I've mentioned, since they sometime invite various music experts. I can't carry a tune in a bucket, so this is meaningless for me.
- "Lord of the Rings from Sauron's perspective". So, some time ago me and my wife decided to re-watch Peter Jackson's trilogy. And I've searched for The Battle of Helm's Deep because it felt weird and I wanted some expert opinion from Reddit's renown medievalists (lol). I don't think I'd care to watch a fanfic.
- "UE5 - How to create a Radial Weapon Menu - Tutorial Part 6". Never in my life I've ever coded for Unreal Engine. And last time I've did something with 3D game engines was two decades ago, when I was a school kid and played with a DIY Quake 1 map renderer, learning BSP (as well as other space partitioning algorithms) and some OpenGL.
- "10X Your Excel Skills with ChatGPT". So 3 months ago this meatbag needed to figure out how to make a certain one-off chart to visualize some data (and Excel is as good as anything). And this meatbag was not impervious to recent ChatGPT hype. Automated recommendation engines work in a mysterious ways! Obviously, I'd pass.
And so on and so on. I know I'm sometimes a pretty grumpy person, I've had some assholes for role models during my student years, and while I'm not that angsty kid anymore, sometimes something still gets through. And I went to YouTube with an expectation that I won't likely see anything interesting, so there's a bias. But then I've also honestly tried to find something worth watching. It's a good afternoon, I'm done with my dose of HN and I was certainly open to watching something entertaining.
It's not just YouTube for me. Spotify, Kindle, various streaming platforms, Amazon product recommendations and so on - all bad, to the extend I really believe that either I'm a weird outlier or all this "big data" that's supposed to predict my every sneeze is just one big lie from the naked kings of the industry. The thing that prevents me from thinking I'm just a negative person is that I've got a plenty of human-curated recommendations (even non-personal, but just some online posts) that I've genuinely enjoyed.
And I think I know how to waste my time responsibly (aka not screwing up other obligations too much), so I'd even pay for a good recommendation system that'd bring me something I'd be always interested in, on demand, to fill an hour or two when I want it.
So I wonder - how YouTube looks to someone who says the recommendations are good?
The algorithm becomes much better at giving you content you would watch as it has more data to work with. But surprisingly, even when it is SUPPOSED TO have no data, it still has enough to recommend some content in my general area of interest.
About 1/3rd of my YouTube home page seems weakly targeted to me. But the weakness of this targeting is enough to disinterest me. For example, even if YouTube understands gaming is important to me, it doesn't understand that it is important to me as a games industry professional. So it recommends Mario mods in GTA:IV rather than documentaries, analysis videos, and videos about industry trends.
I would still consider these "good recommendations" (or perhaps "informed recommendations" is more appropriate). Just not good enough for me to be engaged with the platform.
1. I use iPhone focuses to set times during the workday where time wasting apps are hidden
2. I have blocked YouTube.com so I can't see recommended videos and instead get redirected to https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions. That way if I do watch YouTube it's only who I'm subscribed to and feels more intentional.
3. I use the momentum extension so that new tabs don't show me my most frequently accessed websites (usually time wasters)
4. I use leech block for Firefox (stayfocusd for chrome) which limits the time I can spend on sites in my addiction category (where YouTube resides)
5. I generally try to be more conscious when I'm on YouTube. I stop and ask myself questions like "can I be working on something else?" "Is this actually helping me right now?", "is there something more important I can be working on?"
Lastly as with any reduction you need to fill that time with other things. If you cut out 3 hours of YouTube a day then don't expect to spend those 3 hours doing something more productive. You'd be better off if you took those three hours and did 1 hour of reading (nothing super productive, non fiction, thrillers, drama, etc), one hour with going for a walk or chores or something easy, and one hour of actually working on a project or goal. The break down can change, but the most important thing is not expecting to be hyper productive during all the extra time you have. You still have to balance it out if you want it to be sustainable.
That is exactly my experience. I've also rather recently came to the revelation that this behavior and dependence on "zoning out" is addiction. It doesn't matter that the object of addiction is a website with silly popular videos. The pattern of behavior _is_ addiction.
They seem like different things to me. Coping strategies are normal and can be healthy. Harmful strategies we depend on without much agency are more so what I’d classify as addiction within this lens.
For me, one of the unexpected hard things was that zoning out to watch youtube or a movie was no longer entertaining! I could do it for an hour or so and that was it.
Now I read, work on projects or otherwise am more "engaged". I still enjoy youtube but my ability to be entertained by it has dwindled dramatically.
I don't think it even matters that most of the stuff I watch is educational, fascinating, and helping me learn new things. It affects my sleep and is still a bit of a passive time suck (like I could just be experimenting with wok cooking in the hours spent watching dozens of videos of others learning how to cook with a wok). So will check out these various extensions that remove recommendations, etc.
Also making a mental note of how long you spend helps, even if you don't have the willpower to stop then and there. Over time You keep making that same note and eventually build up the fortitude to modify your behaviour / fight your addiction. Good luck to you all.
I have my phone on Dutch so I loosely translated those. Hope it is helpful.
Or do you find that even temporary abstinence is worthwhile, even if the bad behavior comes back after some time?
However I imagine that I'll have to find a way to temporarily disable Grayscale for taking pictures and some other tasks.
Regarding the shorts, I really wish there were a setting to disable them altogether. They are pure evil.
If you own an Android phone there is a "Digital well being" settings which allows you to block applications after a certain amount of time spent every day, it also work for time spent on certain website on chrome, and it contains other features (focus mode, black and white mode) which I've found really useful. There are equivalent browser extension for desktop
Though blocking websites/apps is not a magical solution, in the past I've found myself just disabling the blockers when I really wanted to watch something, I think it only works combined with discipline
Yes, it takes discipline to stop, but it's still a good thing that the OS notifies "You've spent a hour on social media already".
"There's no addiction because nobody is forcing you so it's your fault". Something like that.
step 1) install libredirect (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/?...)
step 2) on invidious go to settings and uncheck show related videos, set default homepage and feed menu to "search"
on your phone you can install newpipe (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/) and do the same.
I watch it more than Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime combined. I just like documentaries.
Also I get quite good benefits from it, I love watching conference talks, woodworking etc, on it. And in general it has helped with my overall understanding of the world, which is why I haven't removed it yet.
That said, I have seen this cycle both spiral (as in this case) and be broken before. I've also helped a cousin who had this issue.
IMO and this is going to sound harsh, but bare with me -- the problem isn't YouTube, TikTok, etc the issue is you. If you have this "addiction" it's because you're enabled. For instance, I cannot just decide to watch 8 hrs of youtube videos a day, I have to wake up & let the dog out, feed the family, go to work, take the kids to sports classes, spend time with my wife, etc. At the end of the day, I have maybe an hour I could listen to something as I'm doing some maintenance on the house before bed. I'm happy, busy and have purpose. If you have responsibilities you'll be happier -- period. Yes, sometimes it'll suck, it is work after all (I had to clean up my dogs diarrhea the other day -- blah); but the process is rewarding. You can see what you've accomplished, people will care about you and you'll be happier.
Few thoughts on how this can be broken (and how I've seen it done)
1. Uninstall all your social media apps
2. Get an extension on your browser to block social media
3. In an extreme case, change your password to non-sense you don't know and to an email you create on the fly and don't know.
4. Get a pet
5. Make a list of objectives (small to large); make a plan to execute. You can fail, over and over again, but if you work towards them you'll eventually get there.
6. Go outside for a 30-60 min walk every day and force yourself to leave your phone. Cold or hot, doesn't matter. Remember, your ancestors lived outside 24/7, even 100 years ago, there was no AC.
7. Join communities -- could just be people at the gym, a church / w.e., archery club, it doesn't matter, just get social connections
8. Clean your house and room at least once a week and make your bed every day. Discipline is key and once you have a clean house for a while, you'll want to keep it clean.
9. Go to the gym every day if you can. Pick the closest one and just go every day for an hour. Use the machines as they're less likely to hurt you and you don't need any training. Build up to free weights (or if you know how to use them, go for it).
10. Eat healthy -- meat, veg, fruit.
My pet Pip! https://imgur.com/a/vAFOZHd
Also, HN is just as much social media as any other. How often do you glance at your karma the moment the site loads?
(Didn’t downvote though.)
I’m also not saying this stuff is explicitly bad. I’m simply pointing out I know multiple people with this issue described (hrs and hrs on social media), and provided a path how I’ve seen people successfully overcome it.
Regarding Tiktok, it definitely is interesting in a few ways, but it’s not an overly difficult algorithm. It’s data collection and format. I think it’s mostly the UX/UI focus that makes it different from any of the other apps. Imo it’s less information dense to end users and more addiction focused. My favorite tid-bit is that they know when you’re about to drop off usage so they’ll send you highly ranked content in a notification. Basically, this results in doom scrolling right before sleep.
There are followers. They’re just not a number.
Powerful users moderate the comments.
All of this is mostly invisible, but it’s there.
You're right about "powerful users", but notice that my point was in the context of individual sub-forums
(in the context of a downvote, this is a classic strawman)
I am subscribed to over 900 channels, and as I scroll through them I can remember fondly watching each one of them. Some of them haven’t produced content for many years.
According to the watch statistics in the YouTube app, in the last 7 days I have watched for over 43 hours. I would say this is a typical weekly watch time for me, with some weeks going up to 70 hours, if there is time off of work.
I have a full time software engineering job (at a fairly high level), and I don’t think that many of my coworkers would guess that I have this problem.
Most of these hours are spent actively watching the content, although I do cook, clean, and work out while watching YouTube as well.
I really want to reduce or elimiate the time I spend on YouTube. I have tried most of the tricks mentioned here: changing my phone to black-and-white mode, using alternative apps with no recommendations, deleting the apps, setting the time limit setting on my devices. Somehow, I always find myself in a habit of “getting around my own system”, to the point that it’s almost laughable how I’ve built up muscle memory for it.
I seriously feel as though I have a problem. Spending 40-70 hours a week on something that you don’t want to be doing is pretty severe. It is certainly affecting my health and other aspects of my life.
A true local, in person, twelve step program for this type of thing is something that I have been seeking for years.
I'm also a Youtube addict whose only active social medias are Youtube and HN. I do use Discord and Twitter but quite lightly.
I can't imagine the amount of time I have spent on Youtube. On my screen time tracking app, I have already spent 20+ hours on Youtube only. That's almost one goddamn day! Now imagine that plus my two years since I bought this phone.
On Youtube, I get pulled in for things I don't really cared or have never heard about. Last week it was Bluey (which seems pretty good), now it was about Nardwuar. Last time it was Radiohead, now it is CS:GO histories.
Youtube is so good at pulling me in and find the things I could be interested that sometimes I just wish Youtube's surveilliance tool will automagically knows exactly what I wanted and just served it up to my Recommendation, since for whatever reasion I refused to use the search bar.
In my journey of beating my social media addiction, Youtube is the true final boss (HN is also a big boss but not on the same level). I have been aggressively and gradually reduced my Youtube time. Refused to use it until it's 10 AM. Only used it as a break between my pomodoro sessions. I have not fully remove Youtube addiction in my life yet, but I'm on the way.
- Disable the YouTube app on my Android.
- Use Newpipe from F-Droid instead when I really need to watch a tutorial or something (very rare). I find it a little less addictive.
- Leechblocker extension (available on Firefox on desktops & Android).
- Use uBlock Origin filters to hide the YouTube feed and recommendations on my laptop.
- Using a feed reader with selected feeds instead of binging HN/reddit/blogs.
- Not using YouTube for music or background noise. Instead, use mynoise.net and download music from Amazon/Bandcamp/etc and build a music library.
- Find alternative stuff to do. In my case, anything from hobby projects to trying to walk 10K steps per day to meeting up with friends to trying a new journal/knowledge base app (Logseq) to organizing/rearranging my apartment and shopping for furniture.
- On a related note, take care of your health so you have energy to do the right things. Get an exercise routine, eat better, sleep at the right time, get enough time outdoors and with other people.
I don't feel like I've really kicked my bad habits yet. But maybe the vulnerability never goes away entirely, and the important thing is to always keep trying.
I watch mostly art, history, and tech videos (i.e., perspective & timeline channels). IMO, Youtube is king of diverse content when compared to streaming services.
Regardless of content, I don't view it any different from spending the time listening to music or podcasts.
For context, my time watched via YouTube mobile app:
Today: 17 hr 6 min
Last 7 days: 117 hr 35 min
Daily average: 16 hr 48 min (19% down from last week)I have higher weekly hours, in the Youtube app on your phone, you can see weekly view stats. On wednesday my stats say 15 hours. I have ADHD and I leave YouTube running in the background while I work and when I sleep. I know for a fact that 5+ hour on wednesday was "10 Hours of Hotel AC White Noise (High power setting)". 80% of the time it's on in the background, either figuratively or literally white noise.
Taking a break is always beneficial, but I think this might be a situation where an escape becomes unhealthy and makes the situation worse but isn't the underlying cause. I strongly dislike the trend of using the word addiction to describe a bad or unhealthy habit. Unless watching YouTube held you back from performing other life function or you feel physical or mental withdrawal symptoms, I'd hestitate from using that word. Not just a craving, but also some sort of anxiety from being away or cancelling plans with friends or being late to work. People are fulltime Youtubers, being a creator can be everything from a hobby to a profession.
Mine is Star Trek.
It’s not so much an escape as a habit, for me. I started young. When I was 13 or so, I was watching voyager while hacking on game engines. Then I never really stopped.
Nowadays it’s a mix of anime (hello berserk https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD85eRe7NELF7EFIl4YMQOxFw...) and trek. Also gothamchess.
Like you, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Wish I was addicted to books instead, but as far as addictions go, I’d rather it be this than smoking.
Here's my in flux playlist of what I call AmbianceLONG, 1hr+ videos that I shuffle through. I didn't know NasaTV is live on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvszIS0bSTf5hfuCNd3cG...
I am not sure if you grasp the difference in active and passive watching. I would suggest you do more research into how neurotransmitters function, that is not how dopamine works. Additionally I mentioned I have ADHD, "People with ADHD have at least one defective gene, the DRD2 gene that makes it difficult for neurons to respond to dopamine" [2] If anything dopamine is not doing what it needs to in my brain. I appreciate your concern, but it's misplaced. In my previous post I linked to a 10 hour video of the noise of an AC running in a motel room.
For students with ADHD in school, as part of a 504 plan they have the option to listen to music in class because it has been shown effective in improving focus.
1. https://www.amazon.com/MUSICOZY-Headphones-Bluetooth-Headban...
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626918/#:~:tex....
I appreciate that it lets me live my life with less struggles. I am far from an outlier in any way. I would recommend looking up average watch time statistic across various social media platforms as well as Netflix, Amazon, etc. As well as viwer stats of seasons sports like College Football, Formula 1, FIFA.
"According to Insider Intelligence projections, while overall time spent with media per day will decline slightly from 13 hours, 13 minutes in 2021 to 13 hours, 7 minutes in 2022, time spent with digital media—video, smartphones, CTV, subscription OTT, and digital audio—will maintain steady gains and continue claiming even more time going forward."
https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/us-time-spent-w...
Radio is a great analogy for this. Compared to entire families coming come and sitting down in front of the national TV, I’d take social media any day.
There are other examples of this. Is too much video watching another instance? That’s for you to decide. At least consider it a possibility and then move on.
People these days love talking about nonsense like "dopamine hits", it's textbook pseudoscience.
My wife and I both do this.
> Will you be wearing headphones with constant babbling going on, disturbing your sleep patterns?
No more than the babbling in my mind disturbs it already. If anything, a coherent message is easier to fall asleep to.
That's how radio was used for generations.
If I want a little emo-boost for ADHD I'll just watch a few clips on Jessica's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HowtoADHD
Otherwise (for me) YT is a resource for guides on taking apart old laptops and other how-tos, along with the occasional movie on the kitchen tablet, while prepping a meal or washing up.
An alternative to this that I've found more effective is to prescribe which modes of interaction are allowed.
For example, in this case, the author JT has a YouTube channel, so he could say that he's allowed to post to the channel, interact with the comments, etc. But then also say that he's not allowed to go to the frontpage and browse recommended videos (or whatever habit it is that he finds leads to problematic overuse).
I've used an approach like this when I find internet overuse detracting from the things I want to do. For example, I'll say I'm not allowed to just aimlessly browse my reddit homepage, but I am allowed to read a reddit thread if I came from Google search looking for specific information. That way I can still get the benefits without losing too much time.
I also spend a few minutes every once in a while going through my previously liked videos and unliking unhelpful/meme videos.
I don't know if search history contributes to the recommendation algorithm, but I have it paused as well.
There are downsides to this though. If there's something I've previously watched that I want to find, it's a lot harder. On a PC I have the browser search history, but there's nothing I can do for the mobile app.
I know it can be expensive but consider a real live therapist alongside self help resources. Talking out your problems to an actual human, who is trained to listen, can provide the quantum leap needed for resolving a whole host of personal problems.
Personally, Apples screen time limits and Downtime features have been a god send for my overwatch issues on Instagram. I have most non-work apps blocked from 7:00AM to 6:00PM and a 15 minute per day limit on Instagram. Since doing that, I feel much more engaged and efficient at work and have also managed to knock out some technical reading on the Kindle app (one of the few apps that I allow myself to use at any time).
To find a therapist, Psychology Today worked well enough. To me, having one is better than having none.
Now most content is repetitive, streamlined for ads and with sensationalist ugly thumbnails. Basically like the Internet at large, which has turned into a gigantic tabloid.
The internet is addictive by design and like other addictive substances (with which I have experience) it changes the brain. So I am quite serious about tackling this, one way or another.
Good luck everyone!
A Study in Scarlet
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Sign of Four
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
The Valley of Fear
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
His Last Bow
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Every year during lent my friend and I do a media fast, where we abstain from YouTube, Reddit, HN, and other escape sites. It is a supremely rewarding experience, but I always go back.
The algorithm is certainly the cause of the addiction, and minimizing it certainly will help.
I personally use Libretube, which just fetches a list of your subscriptions stored locally or on the piped instance you use, and it will save you time by blocking ads and sponsorship segments(it auto skips, the extension is called sponsor block on the desktop)
Libretube and newpipe are android only, if you're on iOS you may use this https://github.com/yattee/yattee
Or a PWA of piped/invidious
Then you will get significantly less addictive content suggestions.
I have such a problem with this and the internet in general, I spend hours refreshing, trying to find something that might be useful in my life. I guess some of it comes out of a desire for self improvement, I watch videos, read articles etc, hoping to find an interesting idea, product, service, book, app etc that will improve my life, but in general there is just so much filler, however it's not like I haven't found semi cool/intreasting things, so there is enough there that really makes me feel like I will miss out if I cut too much of it off.
That way I don’t habit jump into a YouTube marathon but still search for specific topics when I need to.
I do that with hacker news too.
If the internet has you so addicted that it’s wrecking your life, it’s time to see an addictions specialist. I don’t think there’s any easy trick, just as there is no easy way to quit smoking or drinking. The causes of addiction are various and it doesn’t make sense to try to figure this out yourself, just as much as you wouldn’t be well advised to fix your own cancer.
Tech execs who raise their kids tech-free or limit their screen time (2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186349
Including a recommendation of "Indistractable" by Nir Eyal. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PG2W6DC
This worked where “screen time” did not, since it lets you type a pin to bypass.
Combined with night/red shift I sleep well again. P.s. read books and you’ll want to read more often.
It's kind of listening to music I guess. I dont retain a lot of the content. No clue if it's harmful or not, but I wouldn't call it an addiction because I dont miss it.
Ok... maybe I do have an addiction ;-) ;-(
1. Cleaned Home Screen on YouTube with adblocker with only search bar.
2. Somehow YouTube still has RSS feeds for channels. So for channels like oversimplified have RSS feeds like other feed. 3. Also no youtube app just using it in mobile browser.
I think I’m most distracted one, but using this all is resolved for me.
Oh my god I need to watch this. Any recommendations?
In that order.
Yes, these are all channel names.
I know a lot of things are prohibited/banned/regulated, just wondering if addiction is the fundamental (or perhaps the sole) argument for the rule/law?
I'm announcing it a bit too early (I just started it a few weeks ago) but the method works.
On both, I disable autoplay, suggestions, trends, any kind of recommendations... Now I watch YT only fof few subscribtions that I have. And thats it. Approximately 15-20 min. per day.
People will find ways to fill their time, the internet is just the best place for just about everything right now. As long as one mixes in some variety, education, and productiveness I don't really see the problem.
I really doubt.
I thing the key is to consume in moderation. Just like we take care of our body by exercising and limiting junk food, we need to meditate and be aware of our digital media consumption. Someone people don't have this problem but like you and me there are people who are struggling with this problem.
Video addiction is not a thing. See how stupid it sounds when you say it like it is?
Outside of lampooning how absurd your comment sounds, I don't think it's your place to call if something is a valid addiction or not, and addictions don't have to be strictly medically defined to be considered as such. Just because there isn't some ICD-10 definition for "YouTube addiction" doesn't mean it can't exist, because addiction fundamentally just means a dependence or habitual occupation with something.
And so, is Youtube addiction as debilitating as something like alcoholism? I think most people would say absolutely not, but presumably it's distressing enough to the writer of the post that they have formed a habit around watching (a lot of) it, perceive it as a negative, and want to change it. I would colloquially consider this an addiction.
There's a reason the DSM5 and ICD-10 don't have any of the "internet addiction" "video game addiction" "porn addiction" or other cult concepts that scammers use to defraud people of their money. They aren't actually addiction.
There's not even a thing called "Gambling Addiction". Only, "Gambling disorder" and it's the only behavioral "addiction" recognized by the DSM-5.
You're playing with semantics in a context where
1) everyone understands what the author is saying when talking about addiction, making it appropriate to convey what they mean
2) the word pre-dates DSM, the fact that DSM defines that in a medical sense doesn't change the definition from the dictionary, which fits very much with what the author is describing (1). That's very much you getting angry at sound engineers because they are not engineers per the sense of professional colleges, whereas that's how their profession is called.
3) Give time to all the troubles created by digital products to be studied, understood, and make their way into that guide. Psychology and mental afflictions are still a very evolving field of medicine. DSM is changing to reflect that, a notable change between IV and V was regrouping AS into ADS because the symptoms and the underlying cause are similar. The is the case for what everyone calls digital addiction. I suspect there will be some forms of that formally coming up.
4) the dependency mechanisms work in the same way, people suffering from it have the same withdrawal symptoms. There's some valid criticism for the DSM not to categorize it as addiction (2)(3).
> Video addiction is not a thing. See how stupid it sounds when you say it like it is?
5) the author's struggle to disconnect is real, the impact on their life is real, their pain is real. I am not sure what authorizes you to discard their pain, and to qualify this as stupid. Show a little empathy.
1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction 2: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-society... 3: https://unitedbrainassociation.org/brain-resources/digital-a...
2: This is a legit argument. In the past people may have used the word addiction to cover many things. But it is no longer the year 1900.
3: I guess we better wait till your prediction additions to the DSM6 happen then. I think it more likely that gambling disorder will be removed than additional behavioral "addiction" disorders put in. I'm not sure what the folding of aspergers into autism spectrum disorders has to do with this?
4: Claiming that there are psysiological withdrawl symptoms from watching youtube is absurd. There are not. Show me the journal article supporting such an outlandish claim. Dependency also has a meaning in this context and merely missing something psychologically isn't it. Psychological dependence is not physiological dependence and neither are addiction. Just like how no one is addicted to benzodiazapines: they become physiologically dependent and experience widthdrawl but addiction requires more.
5: Personal anecdotes and emotional appeals are not valid arguments. I'm sorry the person is having psych troubles but "youtube" is not the cause.
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35682491/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28542470/
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352799801_Social_me...
Note that the DIS also categorizes gaming disorders under addictive behaviors, I encourage you to read the definition for "other disorders resulting from addictive behaviours", that the author's description matches.
https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http%3a%2f%2fid.who.int...
re #1: The WHO adding internet addiction reflects the amount of sway China's political processes have over WHO declarations more than anything else. Their internal political narrative is that this is a problem and the WHO is being used to support that. The repetition of the falsified blue light hypothesis re: sleep is also informative re: the quality of citation #1. As for "changes in glutamatergic and gabaergic" signalling... if that doesn't happen when it means you're brain dead. Glutamate or GABA expressing neurons literally make up ~3/4 of the neuronal cells in the brain. And both are regulated extraceullary by glial cells too. You cannot do anything without changing this. If they'd done fMRI or PET or something and could shown long term abberant changes in the glutamergic signalling in the shell of the nucelus accumbens then maybe it'd be saying something. But they don't and I'm getting ahead of myself.
Citation #2 shows that when people are doing something relaxing and then they stop doing it they aren't as relaxed. That's hardly surprising. The arguments seem to be pop-sci level characterizations of the brain where any change is seen as significant or having a valance, good or bad.
And then they go and cite obviously false out-dated concepts like the idea of dopaminergic cells being neccessary or sufficient for expressions of pleasure/reward,
> Dopamine plays a critical role in this circuitry, for the subjective pleasure associated with positive rewards, and the motivation or drive-related reinforcements associated with eating, drinking, or drugs [73,74]
>The initially pleasant, so-called rewarding effects of the drug are relayed by the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (NA) by the synaptic endings from the neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the mesocorticolimbic circuitry [79,80].
It's actually glutamergic cells in the shell of the nucleus accumbens that are necessary and sufficient (but not all encompassing) for pleasure expression in mammals. Dopaminergic neurons can be blocked off with antagonists and the expression is still complete. The modern understanding is that mesolimbic dopaminergic populations encode for wanting and reward prediction. Glutamergic cells encode for reward/pleasure. I'd hope that someone writing a policy paper like this would cite up to date knowledge but it is excusable and a side point.
The real problem with #2 is that it doesn't actually talk about withdrawl symptoms in "digital addicts". It talks about widthdrawl symptoms and neurochemistry known in actual drug addicts and then just implicitly applies that all these statements must apply to the behavior "digital addiction" too. They don't show data about "digital addiction" withdrawl.
The third article is behind a cloudflare wall and I cannot access it.