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Comment by corv | Hacker News Reader

I think going so far as to disable Safari outright and deleting email accounts is too extreme but I definitely agree that most Apps are counterproductive.

It's important to moderate use of addictive services that provide a stream of instant gratification like facebook, twitter, reddit, 9gag, pinterest, etc. The first step is being conscious of excessive use.

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Instead of disabling the browser completely it would probably be more prudent to use a white-list of websites which the iPhone allows as well:

Restriction -> Websites -> Specific Websites Only

That's useful, didn't know about that.

I would rather be able to change the hosts file tho and while I'm blacklisting sites I'd also get rid of ads.

or just exercise some self control! I don't have to hide the kitchen knives in case I stab guests... It's not that's hard to ignore an icon.

> It's not that's hard to ignore an icon.

That depends on the icon:

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131127043932/marvelmovi...

It doesn't work for me - I've tried. Self-control works really well for me when the task at hand is really interesting and I want to give my everything to it. I don't know about you but so far those tasks haven't come to me at a regular pace. And I tend to seek out these online distractions as a diversion tactic when the task I'm supposed to be working on is really boring or uninteresting. So it's all about one's personality.

It sounds like even if you removed these distractions, you'd simply seek out others. As in replace one addiction with another, a very common behavioural characteristic.

The only way to deal with this is to better understand your own personality and try to learn how to get self control. There are lots of cognitive therapy based behavioural modification techniques. Self control only when it's interesting isn't really self control.

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