[thisisthenewme]

I guess it's pretty much impossible to stop these companies from gathering data, there's too much money in it, it's too easy to implement, and there's no cohesive force to stop them. I'm wondering whether a crowdfunded effort to feed fake data into these systems would work so we overwhelm them and make their plans a bit more difficult.

[mc3301]

"The only winning move is not to play."

If you look at these systems that same way some people look at casinos - places specifically designed to take your money - you realize there isn't a way to change them nor improve your overall experience with them. You just don't go inside. I'm kinda hoping that it becomes the trend in the next few decades to completely abandon these algorithm-driven data-hoarding attention-stealing apps. I've been calling it "digital hygiene", personally.

[banana_sandwich]

I used to be highly addicted to scrolling. Tiktok, reddit, instagram, everything. It nearly cost me my relationship and I swore it off ever since. I’ve been offline those apps for a few months now, and have never felt better. Cant believe what i was allowing to happen to my attention!

[mc3301]

Youtube: There are a few long-form creators I watch, maybe 4 hours a month of content. Besides that, viewing history is off, no apps, browser extensions block mostly everything (comments, suggestions, etc.)

Instagram: I have a 15 minute daily timer, because I sometimes post, and I sometimes receive DMs.

Reddit: Fully blocked, I think I ublocked everything.

Tiktok: I won't even download it ever again. It has an algorithm like no other for sucking me in. Dangerously addictive.

Facebook? Deleted it completely around 2013, so no idea what's going on there.

[johnofthesea]

For those that are subscribed to Youtube channels: no need to have account. Youtube has RSS.

[KellyCriterion]

IMHO, the account is esp. useful for one thing: selecting explicitly which channels you want to block - if you do this over some time, then you see that YouTube content is by far not unlimited, acutally rather limited if you select only really interesting things for you :-))

[fragmede]

How's the dating scene where you are? Whatever bubble I'm in, in the US, while I could not be on Instagram, that would be making things harder on myself.

[safety1st]

I totally get this sentiment and I think it applies equally to the actual dating apps, these apps are all garbage fires that you don't really want in your life, but they do have utility if you want to date.

So an idea I've been thinking about lately, is that evolution didn't produce humans that were wired to date forever. These app publishers undoubtedly would prefer that you keep using their apps until you die, so they're happy to see you also keep dating until you die. But that shouldn't really be how things go and it's not how most of us are wired. Most humans throughout history went through a brief courtship period and then they settled down with someone, even if that person wasn't perfect.

The app has utility in that courtship period, but the activity itself is meant to be temporary, possibly even brief, and ultimately give way to something else. The app publisher has an incentive to make you forget that.

[Aurornis]

I’m curious what you mean by this. Most of the guys I know treat their Instagram accounts like their LinkedIn accounts: It has enough information and occasional updates with major life changes, but they don’t actively engage with it all the time. Just let it exist and respond to any messages if they come in. Would that work, or are you saying the dating scene in your area requires some type of active constant engagement with Instagram?

[fragmede]

Some level of engagement with it, anyway. Only having one post from 7 years isn't going to do you want favors, but I'm not saying you need to be on it 97 hours a day either. But the younger crowd seems to favor that app as a first level of contact, and you can escalate (as welcome) from there.

If you steadfastly refuse to have one, it seems like it'd be the same as trying with job seeking without a LinkedIn. Which you can do, but it seems like making things harder than they need to be when things are already difficult.

[mc3301]

No idea about the dating scene in central Japan; I'm not in it.

[octoberfranklin]

No, that really wouldn't.

Instagram is a tool to help women manage their fan club of orbiters and get validation from them on demand (which is what makes so addictive for women). It might look like "hey there's all these hot women here if i hang out here i will get dates with them" but that's the mirage.

[wkat4242]

Hmm in our community it's also a way to connect when you meet someone at parties, that doesn't expose too many details like your real name or phone number.

[gverrilla]

Yes men don't do none of that at all!

[cons0le]

Its the endless shortform videos. The brain was not meant to switch contexts every 20 seconds for 3 hours straight. I replaced most of my screens with e ink, and only allow myself to scroll through text based sites and rss feeds

[flirtyqwerty]

Interesting concept. I'd like to hear more about your process. What e-ink screen(s?) are you using? Any good text based websites to recommend?

[cons0le]

On my desk I have 2 monitors, one normal 24" and one dasung paperlike. If I need to watch a video or do work that needs high refresh, I just switch to the other monitor. One side benefit of this is you can't use your computers in the dark anymore, you have to turn on the lights like you're reading a book. This does wonders for your eyes.

The e ink screen I use the most is a boox 10.3 tablet. It does have internet and can run android apps. So I can read rss feeds, hacker news, manga, ect. I don't do any "serious" work on it and don't sign in with my main google/apple accounts. The build quality for the price is superb, and its the first eink device I've had that feels premium like an ipad. Its also super thin and the battery lasts me ~2 months on a charge.

As far as fun text based websites, you're already on the best one :) But I also have a million RSS feeds that I read to get the news.

[sofixa]

Not who you asked, but personally I'm using an Onyx Boox Palma, which is a phone-sized Android device with an e-ink screen. I have Readwise's Reader on it, which doubles as "read later" and RSS feed reader, and works offline. Pretty happy with the workflow overall - I use it extensively when travelling and having time to waste (e.g. waiting at an airport or while on the plane/train).

Note about Onyx, they're kind of violating GPL by refusing to publish source code. Also, their Android devices are a bit special and you have to jump through a couple of small hoops at set up to be able to use Google Play (nothing special or complicated).

[teroshan]

It's important to highlight that while it's phone-sized, it's not a phone and doesn't have a modem

[johnisgood]

Why were you scrolling, what were you scrolling for? Were you trying to fill some void? :D

I do scroll on Instagram, but it was mainly to share some reels with my girlfriend, no other purpose. It was not addiction. I tend to forget to check hers (which she does not like so I try not to), and when I check hers, I look at some reels to send back, then I close the app.

I did scroll on Facebook when I started using it recently, and it might be leaning towards the addiction side, but I stopped myself from doing it because it is a waste of time and I realized everyone is arguing there, and their arguments are horrendous. I feel like were I to read it all day it would dumb me down.

But yeah, I think the best move is to not play at all. Use Facebook only when you absolutely must. Same with anything else. If you have Discord, you may use it for discussions, whether technical or not, but it can be just as addictive as the other website.

[safety1st]

This is so true. I can't signal boost it enough.

I'm also a recovering social media addict, it was a slow and painstaking transition but the benefits in terms of attention, concentration and attitude have been profound. The main metric for me was going from almost 5 hours a day of phone time 2-3 years ago, to about 1 hour today. Of course the socials still snuck in on other devices but that was the main thing which killed the poison at its root and then eventually all the offshoots withered.

The apps condition you to come back through a feedback loop. Once I broke the feedback loop enough times the whole idea of going into one of these apps or sites and watching my life disappear into it started to feel revolting, like I just knew it was going to make my day worse not better, then the hold was gone.

The next battle I see on my horizon is that I sometimes watch 20-30 minutes of YouTube subscriptions in the morning with my coffee. There's some good content, but sooner or later Google's going to try and kill my ad blocker and probably look for new ways to creep that time up into hours instead of minutes. I know it's coming and I'm ready to die on this hill rather than lose my morning. I will do absolutely anything to continue blocking ads, up to and including saying goodbye to YouTube, to Google, to a web browser, putting only TUI interfaces on my TV, anything.

My favorite small act of defiance this year was purchasing a $120 deluxe hardcover edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - that's a great work I enjoy enough that I'm happy to read it many times over the course of my life, it improves my attention span instead of worsening it, and it won't show me a single ad ever. So I figured in terms of recreation, it's one of the best investments I could make. Perhaps several of such omnibuses on a shelf next to a comfortable armchair is the best defense against Big Tech.

[mc3301]

"Would you like to watch a 30 second add to skip to the next chapter?"

[bdangubic]

6 years and counting for me

[fragmede]

How'd you do it?

[kibwen]

> I've been calling it "digital hygiene", personally.

Don't forget mental hygiene. Letting these apps have access to your brain causes legitimate brain damage in the same way smoking causes lung damage.

[__MatrixMan__]

They're not identical concepts, but I've been bringing up "dopamine hygiene" a lot lately and it seems to resonate with people.

Given that these companies tend to converge on addiction as their business model, I think there's a lot of overlap.

[Mathnerd314]

It seems an absurd amount of people misuse the term dopamine, I found this video https://youtu.be/x6_Ukic1tRM?t=1297 (in Polish, but there are subtitles and dubs). If you want to continue to spread "manipulative disinformation", by all means, some people have to be evil, but just be clear that it is pseudoscience up front.

[__MatrixMan__]

Just like practicing "oral hygiene" doesn't mean treating your mouth like an enemy, nor does "dopamine hygiene" mean treating dopamine like an enemy.

It just means keeping track of the difference between empty dopamine, which rewards behaviors that don't benefit you, from dopamine which is working in its normal evolutionary context--to encourage behaviors that do, and being intentional about how often you engage in the former.

"Digital hygiene" sounds like the start of a mental framework with good intentions, and which might help somebody with their World of Warcraft problem. But that problem isn't really unique to digital things, they're just a commonly found example of it. If you have a habit of seeking out empty/fast dopamine loops, where the rewards come frequently and are otherwise useless except as a reason to continue the useless behavior, then you're likely to come off your World of Warcraft addiction and immediately find a (potentially non-digital) addiction to put in its place.

My point is that yes we need a new kind of hygiene to deal with modern kinds of manipulation, but no we shouldn't restrict its scope to computers. I watched the video, but it's pushing back against something altogether weirder than my point here. I don't see how this counts as "manipulative disinformation," or is in contradiction with established science about the function of dopamine.

[Tade0]

It's a pet peeve of mine as well and I'm happy to see there being a pushback against it.

[dkga]

If I could double upvote for the content and the reference, I would

[mc3301]

I said, "next few decades," but I meant to say "next few years."

[shepherdjerred]

https://adnauseam.io/

[bdangubic]

it is possible through legislation. slap them with the fine equal to their two previous years ebita combined and all this stops within an hour. of course not like people that need to pass a legislation aren’t bought for a fraction of that.

these things are why frequent comments on HN that go “this company is not using our data for training, it is in ToS etc…” makes me literally LOL.

[monster_truck]

Please spend 5 seconds thinking about this. It isn't impossible, it isn't earnestly valuable now that gambling has taken ad fraud's throne (guess what the throne is for), and fake data doesn't work.

[jonway]

Faking data is a good method, but has issues it seems.

Moxie tried that with GoogleSharing system back in the day.

Not really sure what the biggest downsides were, but it was discontinued.

[izacus]

American legal system will curb stomp any tiny company on the other side of the world if they dare to draw an outline of Mickey Mouse, and you're saying that this same nation can't stop big abusive companies?

[thecopy]

The big companies simply gives the predisent of the USA a made-up peace prize or a gold Rolex and get exempted.

[amanaplanacanal]

I didn't realize how big a loophole existed in the American legal system until this current president. It's basically entirely up to the president which federal laws get enforced, and against whom. Congress is entirely powerless, unless they can get 67 senators to convict during impeachment. It's the only lever they have.

[renegade-otter]

Participating in the extraction economy is certainly a choice.

Young people complain about being worse off than their parents. Sure, the income gap has exploded, and there are many factors that are making things worse, but what exacerbates this is our complacency.

First, people are just more miserable in general because everyone on social media seems to be living the "Miata life", to quote "Workaholics".

Do you see any starter homes being built? I don't. All I see is starter mansions. Everyone thinks they are entitled to one at 26, while THEIR parents lived in a starter home until they could afford something bigger, at 45.

Secondly, and it's more to the point - spending money has never been easier. Want. Click. Get. Within hours. All this tech revenue is coming from somewhere.

What was the last time you audited your subscriptions? How much do you spend per year? If you watch two shows and a couple of movies on a streaming service, is it really worth the $240 per year? Do you listen to 12 books per year to justify the $180 Audible subscription just to break with the a la carte price? And so on. This stuff adds up. But, sure, it's CONVENIENT. These companies are counting on your laziness.

Become a responsible consumer, refuse to participate in being a product. Yes, I know, it takes effort and focus, but it's not like we do no have the power to walk away.

[noman-land]

In the attention economy you have to vote with your attention.

Block, ignore, disengage from, and scorn any software or service that behaves this way.

Make fun of your friends when they use these apps and use peer pressure to dissuade them from using them. These services need to be uncool.

Be the change you want to see. Research alternatives. Provide alternatives. Make alternatives easier, better, and cooler.

Choose principles over convenience and encourage your peers to do the same.