Hacker News Reader

Comment by rkomorn | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. As someone who spends way too much time on their phone... I'm pretty sure that I have access to all kinds of alternatives, and that I have the agency necessary to getting off my phone.

I'm pretty sure there's an awful lot more to it.

View on HN

For sure, and you at least acknowledge it. As do I, I'm ashamed of my screen time reports. I feel weak.

At some point I started spending more time on my computer to reduce my phone screen time.

And the worst part is that that made sense to me for a few days.

Big screen = professional tech person. Small screen = phone addicted loser.

HN tabs open on both.

The addictive substance is the network,not the phone. Nobody gets addicted to any phone disconnected from the internet. OTOH, as you experienced it's easy to spend just as much time on the laptop or desktop when that has a persistent internet connection.

First thing I did to beat my addiction was keep my phone in airplane mode at all times, and just rely on wifi. After porting my number to a voip provider, i just canceled my cell phone subscription and then the device was no longer a phone, but a wifi tablet. a boring tool i could easily leave at home most of the time until I never took it with me again.

I often leave my phone in a different room, and that's pretty effective, too.

I've started leaving my phone at home when my wife and I go places together.

It's not a problem without solutions, of course. It just takes an amount of discipline that feels unreasonably burdensome to me (as in "ugh why is this so hard?!").

> Nobody gets addicted to any phone disconnected from the internet.

I'm not certain about that. I remember spending enough breakout time on my iPod that I had to replace the battery.

I think it is the same as with food, we just have to not get tempted. It probably would take something as radical as getting a dumbphone, DNS blocking additive sites, ditching the toilet-scroller. I'm on a website before I realize it.

Computers still have a lot of pre-24/7-internet applications and patterns compared to phones. You can get all the brain-killing stuff on them, but you also have more options for doing interesting stuff.

(Most HN use arguing with strangers is not that. Clearly I'm guilty too.)

Ironically for the "you'll rot your brain" panic of the eighties and nineties, a lot of video games are similarly better. Invest 60 hours into a complicated game and you've worked your brain out MASSIVELY more than 60 hours scrolling or watching tiktok.

Hell, at this point making it through a pre-2000s TV show or movie can be an attention-span challenge. Where's the constant payoff every 30 seconds like with memes??

May I introduce you to Factorio or Satisfactory, for example? :D

But yes, I agree. A regular computer offers more "productive" options than a phone. It's just that in my case, I'm an alt-tab away from going back to brain rot, and I am very good at hitting alt-tab.

> As do I, I'm ashamed of my screen time reports. I feel weak.

While not everyone agrees with all the precepts/concepts, may be worth noting the first step:

> 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program

One of the reasons 'God' ("as we understood Him") is invoked because you are admitting that you do not have it with-in you to control things (anymore) and that you need 'something' external to help you clamp down on your behaviour.

Literally lock it in a safe for a month and see if after you recalibrate, if you are happier. Not carried a phone in 5 years and one of the best choices I ever made. Nothing you want to do in life requires you owning a phone if you are resourceful.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com