[TeMPOraL]

I wholeheartedly agree. I wish it would work for me, though.

In fact, I dislike browsing Reddit and HN on my mobile, as even though Reddit Is Fun (for Reddit) and Firefox (for HN) are excellent for consuming, I'm in it for participation, so I'm limited by touch keyboards, which universally suck.

At this point I've pretty much given up. During my HN-satiated moments, I can't devise a plan that my HN-deprived self won't overcome. Case in point: the last thing I ever posted on my blog, three years and five days ago, was about setting up a HN block at a router level. I was so happy with my trick that I had to share it with the world. Guess how long that trick worked? Less than a week after publishing the blog post.

[dmbche]

Just a quick tip - but I understand it's possibly not ideal.

You have a lot of karma, and I've noticed that the karma counter going up feels somewhat addictive. The existence of a "persona" (it's possible you think of your identity here as slightly different from your daily identity) that is only supported by your commenting also might encourage commenting.

I'd propose to nuke your account by changing the password to gibberish (or asking a significant other to put a weird password and keep it written somewhere if you reaaaally want to keep access to your account) and to use HN anonymously. Just give it a try - if it's really an issue for you this has helped me with other things.

[alwaysbeconsing]

Excellent tip. A lighter form, that I use personally for Reddit, is to not sign in persistently. I always use a "private" browser window when I log in, so the cookie isn't saved, and the next time I want to log in I have to go dig the (unmemorizable) password out of my password manager again and go through the whole flow. For me it creates just enough friction.

[yadingus]

Can you imagine a form of online social interaction that would lead to more fruitful results?

I recently replaced my reddit/hackernews morning habit with reading poetry and a website I really like.

I identified the driving emotion, novelty-seeking. It drives almost all of my social media use. So I thought of visiting websites where content is posted daily (and pretty much only daily) but highly curated. To my surprise it worked instantly with no friction. So much so that it took me days to realize I hadn't checked hn in a while.

Like you, responding and engaging with comments was what engaged me most with reddit, and at the same time it caused the most negative and wasteful emotions. But it wasn't really about the social aspect, it was all about that orange envelope. In that case, simply logging out helped a ton.

I think plans of rigorous prohibition don't work because they're one single point of failure. Instead, addiction like behaviors are best tackled on multiple fronts: some introspection, some amount of self control/will power, some blocks/hurdles, a more positive replacement. And overseeing all those, a mindfulness practice where you can identify when your emotions arise, both that pull you to your habit (nip those in the bud) and those that drive you away from it ("I should get up", do it right away).