academic_84572

For me, adaptive friction has been very helpful - allow access to distracting apps/sites, but make them progressively harder to use.

For phones, ScreenZen is great at this. Makes you pause before visiting an app or site, and you can configure the pause to grow each time you use it. You can also set a timeout on the app. Very flexible settings.

For desktop, I recently built a free browser extension called MooBlock - it's similar to ScreenZen in that it adds a forced pause before you reach a distracting site. But once you reach the site, a herd of cows start walking all over your screen to make the website less appealing.

It's available in both the Chrome and Firefox extension stores. Hoping to make an Android version later this year too.

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehd...

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/?utm...

Surely we know by now that this is not enough?

Kids find ways around everything. Even adults find the 'digital wellbeing' tools on Android and iOS useless. Just look at the multitude of apps available for digital self regulation these days (ScreenZen, Freedom, BlockSite, etc). No single solution works for everybody at the moment.

Regulation by itself is also insufficient. But maybe combining regulation with parental controls plus other measures will be effective. A 'defense in depth' or swiss cheese strategy, with multiple layers of protection.

I do hope we figure out what layers are needed soon, though. It feels like we're running out of time.

I made MooBlock - a browser extension for digital self-regulation. Basically, it adds a small timeout before you can access a distracting site. This timeout grows the more you visit these sites, and decays when you stay away.

And yes, there are lots of cows. The longer you stay on distracting sites, the more cows appear.

The idea is to make distracting sites less appealing, without using a black-and-white site blocker, which you can easily disable.

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehd...

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mooblock/

The idea is that the number of cows grows the longer you stay on the site, so it becomes progressively harder to use.

And yes it is based off my research on Internet and porn addiction (I am a psych researcher). So far I've received very positive feedback suggesting that it does work for people.

ScreenZen is great, my first choice for phones as well. Very flexible settings.

For desktop, I recently built a free browser extension called MooBlock - it's similar to ScreenZen in that it adds a forced pause before you reach a distracting site. Bu once you reach the site, a herd of cows start walking all over your screen to make the website less appealing.

It's available in both the Chrome and Firefox extension stores. Hoping to make an Android version later this year too.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mooblock/eanbagjehd...

Exactly. The problem is timescale - short-term calming effect -> long-term increase in baseline anxiety and craving. And thus the cycle repeats.

In the short term, you might see better outcomes with pure vibecoding...but in the long term, when you're mentally burnt out, cynical, and losing motivation, that's a bad outcome both in terms of productivity and your own mental health.

We need to find the Goldilocks optimal level of AI assistance that doesn't leave everyone hating their jobs, while still boosting productivity.

I created DecayBlock, mainly to help people stay focussed online but also to teach myself JavaScript.

I've been using it for the past few months and it's massively boosted my productivity.

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/decayblock/lpljcnal... Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/decayblock/

Slightly tangential, but we recently published an algorithm aimed at addressing the paperclip maximizer problem: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.07462

Curious what others think about this direction, particularly in terms of practicality

Yes, this is flawed legislation, and yes kids will find ways to bypass these protections.

But I think this is a step in the right direction. There is clear evidence of the harms caused by social media, especially for adolescents. We have to start trying things - albeit imperfectly - to get to a better place. We can learn a lot from the outcomes of this experiment.

This is a critical space for progressing AI in science right now. Once we have algorithms that can process charts and interpret data, our ability to integrate scientific information from multiple studies will increase exponentially. We may even find new interpretations from charted data that human eyes are unable to interpret. Until then, it's as if we're stuck with blind AI agents who have to take text for granted without validating it against graphical data.

We published a preprint last year with an algorithm for content restriction that YouTube might find useful: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3708350/v1

Essentially it's a dynamic regulator that restricts content based on one's recent viewing history. So the more somebody watches harmful content, the less it gets recommended to them. And it can be applied to any type of harmful content.

It's designed to oppose the positive feedback loops that lead to addiction.