[corporate_pie]

Here is how it would work in real life:

The laptop would come with a study mode button.

You would push it and turn off distractions.

Then 5 minutes later you would disable it just to send a chat.

Then since it was off, you'd just quickly check TikTok.

Then while you're at it, it just a quick break, you'd pop over to Twitch.

3 hours later...

If you can't teach yourself restraint, a button won't help.

[alexfoo]

That’s a very simplistic view.

Granted it won’t work for 100% of people but I’m sure it would work for lots of people.

Something as simple as a button you have to press to disable it is often enough of a barrier to prevent people from doing that as it makes the context switch from work to non-work more obvious than simply alt-tabbing to a different browser window.

[kibwen]

Slowing down the dopamine feedback loop works. Many impulses that lead to distraction are automatic, not conscious. Ever closed a Hacker News tab just for your fingers to immediately re-type the URL into the bar and hit enter? There are browser extensions that delay loading pages on a given site for a number of seconds, to cut off that sort of automatic behavior, and they work as long as the delay to load the site is less than the time and effort it takes to open up your addons manager and disable the addon.

[corporate_pie]

>> just for your fingers to immediately re-type the URL into the bar and hit enter?

No. That sounds pretty effed up.

[kibwen]

Yes, it's extremely effed up, and it's a common condition among people who compulsively use websites to distract themselves.