by sjw987 | 2025-10-15 10:42:56+00:00
I feel like these articles come up all the time now. The advice is always the same (it's not rocket science), but people are either slowly defeated by their addiction, or they just don't really follow the advice in the first place.

Media (not phone or computer) addiction is the socially acceptable addiction of our time, just like alcohol formerly was. Most of this consumption is completely pointless, depressive and degrades your mental ability to stave off boredom and be creative. So many current problems in the world are caused (alongside inequality and many other causes) with our society-wide acceptance of this media addiction.

Right now, my colleague opposite me is using their phone to dick around on Facebook. They will spend 1 hour to 1.5 hours on it at work today (equivalent to 12% of their salary), with it sat there vibrating on the table every 3 minutes (you need 25 minutes of uninterrupted concentration to get into a flow state). You can see the Pavlov dog mechanism kick in every time it vibrates. This colleague makes tons of mistakes, distracts me and others, and this is deemed acceptable because everybody is in the same position.

It is wild to me that media technology companies achieve the valuations that they do, and only makes sense in a world where a huge portion of the population are hopelessly addicted.

Phones and computers are not the issue. You can have a smartphone, never install social media on it, untick all the notifications, put it in monochrome mode, and lock it down completely. That's how my phone is, and I spend on average less than 10 minutes per day using it.

People need to change their approach to boredom. If you're waiting in a queue, walking somewhere or on public transport, you need to find a way to fill that boredom without using the easy option. That easy option hooks you in, and before you know it you spend 4 hours a day on a phone. Just daydream, think about a project or an idea in your head. It's good for your brain.

If you want to try my phone setup:

- Android phone

- Permanently in monochrome mode, black wallpaper, white icons, minimalistic launcher (app drawer only)

- Zero social media, games, media apps. For hardcore dopamine resistance, uninstall music and podcasts as well. Boredom can be a good thing, and you don't need to fill your day with constant dopamine hits

- Disable built-in versions (like YouTube) in settings. Turn off Google discovery if you use that app

- All notifications disabled except communication (phone, email, message)

- For communication, unsubscribe from any non-urgent emails as soon as you receive them

- Bedtime mode, starting and ending at least 1 hour either side of sleep. Don't use your phone in the first or last hour of the day at all (you won't be using it at this point)

With this setup you get the benefit of a smartphone (useful utilities like maps, translation, web searches, digital tickets), without any further reason to check it. I don't really believe in the idea of going for a dumb (feature) phone because you lose useful utilities.

If you try and persist with this sort of setup for a month, even if you begin giving in after this point, you'll remember how much better things were and that will always provide an easy way back into it should the habit lapse.

Computers are tools for us to do things our brains aren't capable of. They are not things to hijack our lives, otherwise we may as well be simulations.

Not sure what the economic impact would be if everybody left social media, video games, and YouTube en masse tomorrow, considering how much growth the US (and therefore world) economy has seen from a handful of companies that provide the digital drugs.