[vedtopkar]

It’s honestly so bad. No matter how hard I try, I find myself re-downloading TikTok or Reddit (Apollo) every month and then wasting away all my free time for a week or two before re-deleting them out of disgust. I truly don’t know what the solution is. I would just get rid of my smartphone if life wasn’t quite inconvenient without it.

[eointierney]

Read books

I'm not joking, it's the best antidote to the thought-theft of "social media". Pick a subject in which you're interested, find a representively excellent text, and read. And then re-read, because unless you're a genius you won't absorb everything first time.

Also it's wonderful to just curl up with a book and a cup of tea and let time pass you by as you ... learn the considered thought of others! This is civilised!

Normally I'd recommend history but around these parts Category Theory in Context by Emily Riehl is probably acceptable :)

About re-reading, especially textbooks: it takes time and trouble to appreciate the difficult and often esoteric ideas represented in a text and understand the underlying deep thought. The author(s) wrote and re-wrote every damn phrase in terms of their imagined audience. The first pass yields a basic familiarity, but try every chapter again in light of the later insights.

I remember the first time I read Introduction to Metamathematics by Kleene, and I remember the fourth time so much better. I can feel the cloth binding, I can hear his voice clearly.

[sh4rks]

I would love to do this, but years of mindlessly browsing social media has seriously shortened my attention span. I used to read books all the time. I remember staying up late as a kid just to read the new Harry Potter book.

Nowadays I pick up a book, read a few pages, then immediately lose interest and go do something else. Anybody know how to get back into reading?

[magneticnorth]

I've had some luck by going back to "simpler" books for a while - page-turner scifi, bestsellers, YA literature. For a while I only read things that really grabbed my attention, and I think that is gradually re-training my brain.

I'm not back to being as avid of a reader yet, but I'm optimistic I'll get there. I'm reading more now than I have in a few years.

[gigaflop]

I've started working on this, too.

I first kicked myself into it by starting the Discworld series of books. Pratchett is a great author (imo), the text has a certain kind of easy charm, I don't need to go in sequential order, the books are cheap to buy, and none are terribly long or dense.

I've also added some longer, more serious stuff to my reading list and bookshelf, but those are things I'll get to in time. I try to make myself read 100 pages per week, and if I don't like doing that with a certain book, I'll pick up another one. I can manage that at a leisurely pace in 2 to 3 hours on a weekend, or grab 20 pages a few times per week.

[b112]

Read about the sentient beercan, it's an amusing page turner.

[magneticnorth]

This was a bit harder to google than I anticipated - lots of fan references on the internet, it looks like.

"Expeditionary Force" by Craig Alanson if anyone else is curious. I'll check it out, thanks!

[bcbrown]

Try reading the same sort of books you'd stay up late as a kid to read.

[vmurthy]

I can empathise with you. Warning : some armchair psychology ahead : I think it's the age old "less dopamine kick" syndrome. Your brain is used to getting a steady stream of dopamine when you watch/react/post on social media. A book simply doesn't give it (yet). From personal experience, I experience "Aha!" moments when I read once in about 15 days. What I'd recommend is to re-read some of your old favourites and pick up adjacent ones (example : re-read Harry Potter - Prisoner of Azkaban (my favorite ;) and pick up some Greek mythology . ) Finding unexpected connections is one source of joy I experience. Good luck!

[polio]

To me, nothing on the popular subreddits or in TikTok has satisfied my desire for depth and nuance. There are smaller subreddits that I like, but there's no way to specify what you want on TikTok, so I no longer use it. By shaping your philosophy of pleasure explicitly around stuff that only longform content can satisfy, I've been able to easily discard parts of social media that don't align with my personal actualization. I think it does take some deliberate and repeated introspection to harden this impulse.

[cookingrobot]

Try bringing a book or kindle somewhere inconveniently far from your phone. A park, or bathtub or something.

[stevage]

I found it helpful to put myself in situations where the book is the best alternative. Leave your phone, get the book, walk to a park, sit down with a beer. Every time you get bored and restless, you'll put the book down, remember you have no phone and pick it up again.

[andyzweb]

For me it was moving in with my fiance. I read out loud to her every night till she falls asleep.

[egypturnash]

Go somewhere with shitty reception. Or just leave your phone behind.

[woliveirajr]

Force of will. Really try, commit, get involved in this goal.

It won't be easy because you'll be changing some habit. But with time you'll learn how to appreciate books again.

[froh]

By practice. The attention span grows back. And pick a book that you really want to read.

[eointierney]

Just f*cking read :)

[wizzwizz4]

As much as I want to say this advice is terrible and useless… yeah. Move the things that aren't books far away, and read a book. When it's boring, put it down, but don't let go of it. Wait a few minutes, then move it back in front of your face and keep reading.

It's possible you picked a bad book, but it's more likely that it isn't engaging enough. It normally takes me a few days (after half a year book-free) to get back into reading, but it's worth it.

[sixstringtheory]

I also like to have a book going in each of several genres, so I can usually find something to match my mood.

Right now I’ve got one going in science fiction, autobiography, technical and… oh, another autobiography (I’ve been really into those lately).

[executesorder66]

I'm sorry but I have to ask this every time I see it. I have yet to receive an answer.

What is the point of censoring 1 letter in an otherwise extremely obvious word?

You are not redacting the word. People reading the word don't bleep it out in their head. You know you are saying 'fucking', we know you are saying 'fucking'. HN doesn't block posts with "naughty" words in them.

So what are you trying to achieve? Please tell me.

[eointierney]

I suppose it's a nod of the head in the direction of "civilised discourse" without actually being so. It's lighthearted, not to be taken seriously, my apologies if it irritates you.

[nonrandomstring]

If you're looking for a book I wrote one specifically about this problem. Some of you may like it. It's short and has short chapters you can read in one "boredom chunk" of about 10 mins.

It's https://digitalvegan.net

One reason for making it an old fashioned paper book is that some of the ideas it presents would simply be censored on what the internet is becoming.

It's not really written as "self-help", more as philosophical musings for intellectual self-defence. Many people who have read it tell me they successfully quit their smartphone.

As ongoing research in modern critical technology studies I'm trying to keep a list of ones I read and at least found interesting (below). Good luck finding the courage to take back control of your technology.

Jenny Oddell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine

Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe

Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us

Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality

Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged

Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design

Thomas Kersting Disconnected: Protect Your Kids Against Device Dependency

Nicholas Kardaras Glow Kids

Jaron Lanier Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media

Douglas Rushkoff Team Human

Carissa Véliz Privacy is Power: Why You Should Take Back Control

David Shenk Data Smog

Paulina Borsook Cyberselfish

[sixstringtheory]

Also, write. I find it easier to remember things if I’ve written them down, so when I mix writing in with reading, I feel like I better retain the things I read.

Start with a quote you liked when you were reading and just let your thoughts flow into the paper, you might go for many pages and an hour or more before coming up for air.

I like to call the activity of reading and writing “conversing with the universe.”

Conversely, I find that I can dump hours into social media and not remember anything when I finally snap out of it. It’s junk food for the mind.

[ZYinMD]

I'm a huge book reader and I usually read very gripping novels. For me, TikTok is much healthier, because 1. it's easy to put down when I need to do other things 2. it's easy to refrain from opening it. Books however are very hard to put down, and very hard to refrain from picking up again. For me, starting a book = no life for a week.

[MandieD]

Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" is easier going than I thought it would be, and I'm doing even better than a chapter at a sitting, and sometimes have to make myself put it down. I think he wrote it for people with diminished attention spans - and that's a compliment.

[quinnjh]

Ooh yes anecdotally im with both of u on this. Found it very hard to quit but category theory by emily riehl was a great offramp to begin "thinking more seriously"

[lonely_wanderer]

I think the first step is admitting that, even with any incidental value you get out of these services, it is an addiction and you are addicted. I don’t say this with negative connotation to your character. Digital media has made me realize how powerless addiction makes one feel, even if one is well adjusted otherwise. The reality is you binge, much like a binge drinker, and wake up a week later with the app hangover.

The same thing happens to me and I think the OP provides one good solution: stick to mobile UI in a browser. Generally, increase friction wherever you can. This only really works if you can stick to the worsened experience and not crack/redownload the app. One way to tackle that is to perhaps set a daily or weekly reminder to purge the apps you have a problem with (or all apps you don’t need) from your phone. Maybe you will redownload them again, but giving yourself that extra moment where you can go to the App Store will surely make you quit halfway once or twice, then consistently, before you fall for the trap.

I have an inadvertent example. I frequented a website on my phone for a while that relied heavily on a certain file format for videos. I switched phones and (by accident) got a new phone that doesn’t support the format and would require me to download external apps to watch it. That friction of needing a third party app, paired with a decision to only use mobile websites when possible, meant by browsing time on that site dropped precipitously and I’ve now almost entirely cut the bad habit.

Another habit is screen time. It is easy to go overboard and delete limits but you’re setting friction points where you need to think about what you’re doing.

[Terry_Roll]

> it is an addiction and you are addicted

This is legal dopamine, and cocaine although a Selective Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor (SDRI) is illegal. You choose.

[jkaplowitz]

> cocaine although a Selective Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor (SDRI) is illegal

I know you were discussing recreational cocaine, but fun fact: cocaine can be prescribed legally in most countries including the US. For relatively obvious reasons it's an uncommon prescriber choice, and it's generally applied topically (including to the nose) rather than snorted.

Legal methamphetamine pills are also available by prescription, and of course also an uncommon prescriber choice when alternatives work well, although its chemical relatives in the amphetamine family are very much among the commonly prescribed ADHD drugs.

[Terry_Roll]

Nothing would surprise me, but clues are given out like the cocaine & morphine mix given to one the British Royals on the throne at the time.

This is where education, schools are used to monitor behaviours because if someone later expresses an interest to become a GP or Dentist, their behaviour will be used as part of an evaluation to see if they can be trusted. The educational system is just part of the state's intelligence estate.

[heavyset_go]

If you must use Reddit, set up an account that's unsubscribed from all subreddits. Then only add small, niche subreddits and never any of the default or popular subreddits. At worst, you'll get a homepage that updates with new content maybe once or twice a day, drastically reducing the chance of scrolling your free time away. It's preferable to just not use it at all if you can, though.

[runnerup]

Yeah this method really turns it into a slot machine for me. Reload 120 times, get a “jackpot” (new post) 1 time.

[obligate_self]

Another good technique is to use an RSS reader. Every subreddit has a corresponding feed (simply append .rss to the url).

[45ure]

I initially started using the multireddit feature, to section off specific but related interests. It can also be used to build a focused feed.

[heavyset_go]

Are you able to set a multireddit as the homepage, or do you have to visit specific URLs to see the mutlireddits?

[45ure]

You can do that in Apollo (iOS) paid version, the client I use the most. Although, I will have to check again, but I am sure you can set the same on Sync and/or Boost (Android) on the free version, as I have a multireddit set as default on launch. On the browser, you can use RES + old reddit and change default behaviour. I find it easier to keep a very small number of frequently used subs for the home feed, and stick the rest in multi, as it helps to make them portable and easily shared. You can also find lists in r/multihub -- compiled and shared by others e.g. cars.

[underwater]

I use the Reddit website. It's slow and horrible enough that even though I visit every day, but don't get sucked into spending hours on it.

I also watch YouTube instead of TikTok. YouTube is slower paced and hasn't (yet) fallen into the trap of continual submersion in content without a break. You have to consciously choose to watch another video. I can also tell myself that I'm watching content that is pseudo-educational in nature (like Jay Foreman, Stuff Built Here, Jazza or Mark Rober).

I've started using TikTok a couple of times and it just seems like the perfect engagement machine. It's like a machine that drip-feeds dopamine. Pure evil, in my opinion.

[swalsh]

My ability to read a long article notably dropped after Tik Tok. That app in particular is one of the worst.

[pojzon]

Replace tiktok with “X game” and have exactly the same issue. We are just addicted and need professional help.

Im just happy its not smoking or drinking. Would make life a lot harder.

[stank345]

I had the same issue with the Reddit app so now I just use the neutered web app and consider the frustration stemming from its brokenness to be feature that keeps me from spending too much time on it.

[hesdeadjim]

This worked wonderfully for me too.

[iapsngh]

Thought I'm not much on social media but I figured out that if I can restrict myself to browse between 11am and 4pm, work will certainly automatically force me off the 'scroll treadmill'. I wrote about that in this post[1] recently.

[1] https://qwertyloop.com/posts/doomscrolling

[throwawayboise]

Life isn't that inconvenient without a smartphone, it's only been something people have had for a couple of generations at the most.

You just have to plan things in advance a bit more. It's liberating in a way. You plan dinner with someone on Thursday at 6:00 and it's set. You don't have to think about it, tweet about it, post it on Facebook, or anything else. Just show up.

[k8sToGo]

Whenever I am addicted to a service, I just block it on DNS level. This is enough for me to stop opening a website in the browser automatically.

Whenever I am thinking of redownloading it, I think about why I deleted it in the first place.

[hi41]

I too do the same. I have deleted Reddit app about 5 times over the last year and deleted it 5 times.

[adhesive_wombat]

It doesn't help that they now won't even let you read many subreddits without the app on mobile.

Once you're logged in, just to read that one thing, it can't hurt to engage on that one issue, can it?

Before you know it, you're 23 increasingly angry comments into a thread about sand, people are still wrong on the internet, it's 3am and you hate everyone, everything and yourself.

[benhurmarcel]

> Reddit (Apollo)

Apollo for Reddit has a feature to disable infinite scroll.