Most effective way to reduce excessive digital media consumption?

Question

I've been working on improving aspects of my life that I don't feel serve me super well. I've made really strong progress in physical areas, but digital has been much more challenging.I spend way too much time browsing Reddit, YouTube/Twitch, and Facebook. Thankfully, I never got into Insta or TikTok. I want to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend interacting with these sites, but they feel so deeply engrained into my psyche that it feels nearly impossible.I've tried some of the simpler suggestions like configuring a Tampermonkey extension to limit access, or installing Cold Turkey (https://getcoldturkey.com/). The problem is that I know how to work around these things (you can just edit your clock time to mitigate Cold Turkey ...) and so, eventually, the cravings become enough that I do so even though it's not in my best interest.Another issue is that sometimes sites have valuable information. For example, some subreddits have useful information related to programming, fitness, etc. and I'll encounter them through a Google search. If I'm prevented from accessing this information when doing legitimate research then I find that frustrating and wish there was an exception to the rule. I'm not sure how grounded that stance is, though.In the physical world, I've had great success defeating habits by limiting physical access. I don't keep snacks at home and, if I must, I'll put them in a timed, locking container (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9J3MLM) such that I'm unable to open it when having a craving. This helped me with things like delicious toppings for salads which I wanted to keep on-hand, but not be tempted by 24/7.The problem is more challenging when working with digital addictions. I'm wondering what my options are here? I assume something related to parental controls at/near the hardware level and a time-release password? Not sure if anything time-based is viable if I can just mess with my computer's clock time, but maybe if it dials out to a third-party server for timing info and I don't go so far as to MITM the response? I'd prefer solutions that I'm able to implement myself rather than relying on repeatedly handing passwords off to friends, but am understanding if that's a hard requirement.Anyone had any success here? Thanks!

andsoitis · Accepted Answer

Some ideas.Delete any accounts you have with these services.When you&rsquo;re home, put your phone away, don&rsquo;t carry it on you.Read the book &ldquo;How to break up with your phone&rdquo; by Catherine Anne Price.Have one or two books that every time you are tempted to go to one of those services you pick up and read that book instead.Meditate. Exercise. Do gardening.BUT ultimately&hellip; figure out the root cause of your addiction and work on that.

miravmehta · Answer

perseverance of mind-set. Period.

ekropotin · Answer

I bought a thing as a solution for exactly same problem. Don&rsquo;t want to tell a specific brand, because IDK if it&rsquo;s allowed here. Essentially they send you a physical device with NFC inside. You use their app to put a phone in distraction free mode and the only way to unblock it is to tap the object. It helped me a lot with my social media addiction. Probably, the best investment I ever made.

PauzzzeAI · Answer

I've found I just have to really try to keep myself busy and do things that will get me in a state of flow. I usually go on my phone because of boredom. I don't know if this would help you, but along with some friends we are creating an AI notification summarizing app. The whole point is to allow us to be off our phones and be fully present, without feeling like we might be missing important things. It's still in early stages, but it works! If you're interested, let me know! I can send the link and you can try it out. Hopefully it will help :)

fiftyacorn · Answer

The amount of AI bot drivel online is reducing my consumption tbh. What's the point in responding to some clickbait reddit post designed to polarise people, especially when you consider who owns the platforms

drakonka · Answer

What about approaching it from the other direction, where instead of trying to physically inhibit the thing you don't want to be doing you aggressively fill your schedule with things you _do_ want to be doing instead?
What do you want to do instead of digital media consumption? If you do more of those you'll naturally have less time for browsing.
For me, that's been taking up the following (the specific items change with time, but when I notice myself spending more time mindlessly scrolling it is a good reminder that I need something else to keep me busy):
* Running (with race goals) - doing this 4x a week sure takes up a lot of my time.
* Physical meetups (local philosophy groups, museum events, actively scheduling coffee with friends, etc)
* Crafts (cross stitch - started when I took on an ambitious Birthday gift project for my boyfriend and now it's kind of a meditative experience)
* Studying (part-time university course where I have to read a paper and complete a study guide once a week)
Those four things, along with full time work, don't leave much time for mindless scrolling unless I intentionally want to just chill and schedule a block of that in (and I don't feel guilty about doing that anymore because with all the other stuff enriching my life I feel there's nothing wrong with some occasional browsing).

haute_cuisine · Answer

The solution, for sure, is not asking how to do this online. What worked for me is resolution that cheap dopamine leads to degradation.

andyjohnson0 · Answer

1. Delete your accounts, if possible. Maybe not YouTube though if you rely on Google for Android or email [1].
2. Install the LeechBlock extension [2] in the browser on all your devices. Lock out the sites you want to lose from your life. You can add a time-limited override for some, if you want. Dont feel bad or weak about yourself for doing this: these sites are largely designed with psychological input to be addictive.
3. Find something else to do. If its reading, always have a book in progress and one that you'll read next. Or cooking, exercise, sex, study, whatever.
4. Exercise anyway. Hydrate, sleep well.
[1] Don't use google - theyre not on your side. Get a domain and use a grown-up email service like fastmail or protonmail. Sign up for kagi and dump google search.
[2] Available for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc. via the browser extension stores.