[supersrdjan]

Do you ever get periods of time where you're just not interested in your phone? Periods of time when you don't even feel the compulsion to unlock your phone and scroll, so there's no real willpower required to abstain from it?

That's the state of mind I want to be at. I don't want to have to lock away the phone from myself or unplug my router.

I do get those streaks of no doom scrolling from time to time, perhaps for a few weeks at a time, but, for now, I keep reverting back to my old compulsions. But I will keep working on it :)

[doble-io]

I really hope you get what you want the way you describe, but for everyone else reading this: don't dismiss hacks like unplugging your router.

Everyone should use external control (aka stimulus control [1]) more shamelessly. Stimulus control is a well-known technique that gets the job done for day-to-day problems like "phone compulsion."

When you ask what willpower is, people think of "magical mental points." Common knowledge suggests that needing external control (like putting away your phone) means you lack willpower, spirit, maturity, or you're-not-going-to-make-it™. Like there are two opposite camps: willpower/rational decision making/system II [2] vs external control. This is unwise and is not supported scientifically.

Let me explain in CS-like terms: If life is a search problem, the action space is insanely enormous. Sitting in my office, I could jump, eat a candy bar, look at my phone, throw my computer, play the cello, sing, or work. The first "pruning" is simply availability - I won't play the cello since I don't have one here.

The same applies to distractions. We live in a digital environment where accessing distractions costs nearly zero. So maintaining cognitive hygiene through stimulus control (switching off your router, putting away your phone) is good.

Sadly, willpower is what common knowledge sets as the good/moral/mature behavior: if you need to put away your phone, you are less valid or whatever culture-specific narrative you're into. Ignore those ideas and keep your mind clean: put your router on fire if that's what you need at first. You will get better.

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/stimulus-con... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow#Two_sy...

[supersrdjan]

Nono, I specifically mentioned no willpower required. Like in your example of available actions, I also have zero desire to jump out of the window, so don’t have to expend any willpower to resist it. Similarly, on my good days, I don’t feel attracted to my phone. What do you say about that?

[doble-io]

Sounds great! :) I am working on the same thing, trying to go back to my good days haha. Maybe zero desire is not achievable with highly-designed UIs crafted for attention hooks. But yeah, everyone is fighting a similar fight! I was not claiming you said any specifics. Sorry, I could have been clearer in my answer. My goal was to try to explain a little more to other readers because this sentence:

> I don't want to have to lock away the phone from myself or unplug my router.

could lead people into thinking that a state of no distractions could be achieved with no external control. In my opinion, that is unrealistic and probably extremely rare. You will probably need to lock away or add some friction to accessing your phone.

As long as we have smartphones with zero-cost distractions, our reptile brain will need some external control and we can carefully design it.

So my general advice for anyone trying to reduce their doomscrolling time is: keep your environment clean and designed for it - move your phone away and activate do not disturb mode, use extensions to block websites, etc.

[k8sToGo]

I have those periods when I'm busy with other things. If not busy, then the phone is a way to stay busy.

Don't think we can truly idle and sit there and do nothing.

If you do not want to unlock and scroll, find something that keeps you busy and is more entertaining than whatever you have on the phone.

[Tade0]

> Don't think we can truly idle and sit there and do nothing.

Of course we can. It's quite enjoyable in the right circumstances.

[ANewFormation]

It's also the mother of creativity. Endless relatively high quality entertainment is one of those things that sounds amazing at a distance but has probably just been an overall significant negative on society.

[zuppy]

I was in the same place and I found a solution that works for me and it almost made me totally quit Instagram (the thing that was taking my time). Set the notifications to be shown on lock screen only for critical apps (phone, sms, etc) and configure the others to just show badge counters. Now, at this point you have red bubbles everywhere, for this issue (on iOS, but I'm sure it's a solution for Android too) you apply a shade for all the app icons. It's a feature that came with iOS 18. Even if this seems small, the fact that you don't see them all in red, makes a huge difference. Now, I only look when I want to look.

[Nasrudith]

It is the default for me. A smartphone is a versatile but inferior device in terms of UX.

[throwaway6734]

try out a cat s22