[JackFr]

I’m sympathetic to this argument to some extent…

And yet…

Just choose to read a book. Drop Facebook. Stop reading Twitter and scrolling through TikTok. I’ve come to believe it’s really that simple.

Or don’t. Totally up to you.

But the idea that something is being done to you is both seductive and lazy. Take responsibility, act intentionally and don’t worry about it.

[ux-app]

> I’ve come to believe it’s really that simple.

It's really not though. These apps are addictive! There's a real effort required to drop them and many(most?) people don't have what it takes to kick the habit.

I installed TikTok a few months ago to see what all the fuss was about. That shit is ADDICTIVE man. Even to me, a middle aged grump, who doesn't use any social media.

I had to uninstall the app a month later as I felt I was being dragged down into a endless scrolling coma.

[barrell]

While I understand your point, reading a good book can also be addictive. Far more than any technology I use. I have to enforce reading bans on myself when I have a big deadline because I will sacrifice work, sleep, and gym to get to the end of a good book.

To anyone reading this wanting to switch their habits, find some “booktubers” who have recommendations you like, follow them, and try to train your phones algorithms to show you that content. Try some of their recs. I can almost guarantee there are books out there that will grab your attention and be far more memorable than any TikTok videos

[eastbound]

I often blame the book author for withholding information. For the same reason, if a series finishes each episode with a cliffhanger which doesn’t get resolved in the first minutes of the next episode, I consider it bad writing. I’ve seen series with 20 unanswered cliffhangers after 20 episodes, and I never want to experience this again.

A book which withholds information for the purpose of suspense, without it being natural for the story, is just a bad book.

[Groxx]

It can be both. They can be intentionally and powerfully addictive... and finding a way to develop a resistance to it can still be the most practical/effective option.

Regardless, it's in your best interest to work towards a resistance. These kinds of businesses aren't going to change things until they're forced to, and no matter what that'll take time, and they'll probably just come back in new and exciting ways eventually.

[ux-app]

>Regardless, it's in your best interest to work towards a resistance.

Uninstalling the app was a 100% effective solution.

[maxbond]

ETA: I missed that you seem to be saying it was 100% effective _for you_, I misread you as saying it was 100% effective in general; my bad.

No it isn't. For instance I recently tried to uninstall YouTube and my Android phone wouldn't let me (I know that I could move to a different distribution, but this is not high on my priorities list or something I want to mess with when I'm trying to relax, and many people wouldn't know where to begin). I've had periods where I uninstall and reinstall Twitter several times in a day.

It's helpful but it is not a panacea

[__t__]

Well said. I'd add that aside from being hard to drop people are not generally aware in the first place of the problems that come with overusing these apps.

How can you fight a problem that you don't think of as a problem

[endorphine]

To be fair, they said "simple", not "easy".

[maxbond]

I have had times where I have decided to close YouTube Shorts and been unsuccessful for an hour and a half after I made the decision. I have not had a problem to nearly this extent with other applications, and I'm not even enjoying myself while I do it (my YouTube Shorts recommendation stream gets worse and worse the longer I scroll, and seems to get sucked into a really disturbing attractor of the most vile forms of misogyny and straight up rape advocacy I've ever seen, no matter what I do - thumbing things down, reporting them, not interacting with them at all, nothing seems to make a difference. Creating a new account gives me a fresh start but it gets sucked right back to that attractor. Presumably because of my demographics.). It reminds me of something someone once told me, that the scariest thing about cocaine for them was that they didn't like the way it made them feel, but that they would do it anyway when given the opportunity. (I'm not trying to say these things are equivalent, of course they aren't.)

We are not perfect rational agents. Our attention span is hackable. If you find yourself largely immune to this, you have my congratulations, but your experience is not the only one.

[pjc50]

> YouTube Shorts recommendation stream gets worse and worse the longer I scroll, and seems to get sucked into a really disturbing attractor of the most vile forms of misogyny and straight up rape advocacy I've ever seen

Automated recommendation algorithms really have a lot to answer for. The humans running the tool need to have the output shoved back in their faces - "you are suggesting that people should watch this?"

Twitter's "For You" tab shows me something I hate every time I forget and go to that tab, regardless of whether I've muted those words or not.

(Also, it's entertainingly stupid how many youtube shorts and instagram reels have the TikTok watermark on)

[crooked-v]

"People should just take more personal responsibility when facing this societal problem" is itself a lazy response. We already know from smoking, car crashes, use of asbestos, etc, that chiding people to personally take action does very little to move the needle on anything compared to collectively-instituted safety measures.

(And, yes, I'd count this kind of stuff at least partly as a safety issue, given how endlessly training people to constantly look at their phones has affected the rate of vehicle collisions over the past decade.)

[bszupnick]

I think I intuitively agree with you, but I don't think it's as simple as "just do X and don't do Y".

It's akin to saying "Just choose to read a book. Drop heroin".

We'd like to think we have such control, but the fact is that these things are addictive and one can't simply "just stop" without a process and a culture that promotes these processes.

[chrsig]

willpowering is a bad way to change any behavior. It's more or less a setup for failure.

There are definitely ways to prepare and change a behavior with intention

- limit time per day. if you find yourself going over, thats ok, note it, and put the phone down.

- try uninstalling the app entirely -- make it harder for yourself to get the fix

- schedule other activities that require you to be in the moment

- give yourself positive reinforcement when you succeed. don't beat yourself up if you don't.

- set very small goals, when you meet them, set some more very small goals

> It's akin to saying "Just choose to read a book. Drop heroin".

Sans the physical addition of heroin. You wont die from not getting to tweet at other twits. You wont die from binging after trying to stop tweeting, either.

[kaba0]

While repeated often, Atomic Habits is a really great book I can wholeheartedly recommend. People really are habitual creatures. Willpower is very fickle, yet you likely don’t have to find any motivation to brush your teeth before bed, it just comes automatically.

[PuppyTailWags]

I dunno, what hope do I have of resisting however many millions of dollars goes into hiring the best and the brightest to hijack my brain into endless consumption on a systemic level: all media I consume, even to consume important events in my area, and every way I connect with people when I'm not physically close to them, the hijacking has a hand in.

[NovaVeles]

Similar thinking to "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." - Marcus Aurelius

For anyone that has beaten addiction, it is this kind of thinking one eventually takes on. For all the help that you can make to make the leap easier - eventually you have to take that mental leap for change. At no point is it easy, especially with chemical addiction, but it is the step than needs to happen.

[ge96]

On weekends I make a point not to open any social media and immediately go heads down into my project. I only look at fun web stuff after I'm mentally spent.

[dragonsky67]

On weekends I kick back and do whatever I feel like. Time to recover, not to drain the bucket even more.

[ge96]

Yeah I suppose depends on your priorities. For me I'm trying to make another career change. Gotta learn more.