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by Taek 23 days ago
Wow, that is a fantastic idea. Basically interrupting the instant gratification loop by just enough to let the more rational mind get a word in.

Another tool that I've found to be incredibly helpful for breaking app-addition is the colorblind accessibility tool. You can use it to make the entire phone greyscale, which entirely defeats a huge range of techniques that apps and feeds use to draw your attention. Tiktok in greyscale I would estimate is 1/10th as likely to pull me into a 5+ minute video binge vs the full color version. And 1/100th as likely to pull me into a 90+ minute video binge (which unfortunately does happen to me in full color).

3 comments

> You can use it to make the entire phone greyscale, which entirely defeats a huge range of techniques that apps and feeds use to draw your attention

As a counter-anecdata: I've had my phone in greyscale for a few years now. At first it worked amazingly, made me hate my phone and pickups dropped significantly. But over time I realized "Oh wait, 90% of my phone use is text and this is actually super nice for reading".

Now I use my phone just as much as before, except in greyscale.

Do you still have problems with doomscrolling addiction?
> Do you still have problems with doomscrolling addiction?

The new twitter algorithm fixed that for me. They made the feed so fundamentally uninteresting and full of slop* that the issue resolved itself.

I now doomscroll slack and discord

* by slop I mean content written for the sake of being content.

I only doomscroll HN to 90 n times/day
Is it doomscrolling though?
There are several different definitions of that word, some of which would reasonably apply to hn. I am glad it doesn't have infinite scroll but it also (front page) changes fairly slowly so I do not develop an urge to check it every few minutes.
It is for me. I come here to read how fucked we are in the age of AI. It's compulsive.
This is something I use on Android that has similiar functionality. It's helped me a lot and, along with a monochrome screen, is quite effective in reducing doomscrolling. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dino.simpl...
The greyscale trick is underrated