I'd heard about the black and white thing and it's true it makes Instagram and other visual platforms way less interesting. I even have a monochrome E-Ink phone that I have used exclusively at times, but guess what: my screen time is about the same on it as on a color phone.
My problem is that these are not the apps that keep me glued to my phone. It's the browser! I look things up, I read articles, I go down Wikipedia rabbit holes… I start reading and can't stop reading until I feel I've understood something to my satisfaction. That might be just a minute for a topic that ended up not holding my interest, but might be 15 hours for a more gripping one. 😅
The kind-of solution for now is an app called Freedom that let's me block the internet on a schedule across all my different devices, leaving only websites I need to do my work.
Interesting, in a way we are similar I also don't spend much time on these apps. But even though my time spent on social apps was not much, by switching to black and white/greyscale I reduced it further.
Re Freedom: I did try it long back. Don't you figure out a way around it (e.g. Wikipedia 😛) or did you set it so strict that you can't literally open anything else? (but I wonder how do you work if you need something outside the default resources?)
Well, yeah, it's easy to go around it. I don't even set it to strict mode. so I can cancel a “session” anytime I want. But this added friction is often enough to get my mind back on track because sometimes I open websites and apps almost out of reflex, without really having something to do there, just because I'm trying to avoid something…
Recently though, they added a stupid feature where there's now a button you can tap to start a five minute break. But there's no limit on how many breaks you can have! So if I'm reading something on my phone, I find myself just tapping the button every five minutes 😑😑😑
Fascinating how just little friction in the environment can help. For example I leave a book on the couch, this triggers me to read before heading to bed because I can't sit on the couch without moving the book 😂
All these features should be "configurable", I am sure they must have had enough people requiring that use case but now you have to pay the "price"
I'd heard about the black and white thing and it's true it makes Instagram and other visual platforms way less interesting. I even have a monochrome E-Ink phone that I have used exclusively at times, but guess what: my screen time is about the same on it as on a color phone.
My problem is that these are not the apps that keep me glued to my phone. It's the browser! I look things up, I read articles, I go down Wikipedia rabbit holes… I start reading and can't stop reading until I feel I've understood something to my satisfaction. That might be just a minute for a topic that ended up not holding my interest, but might be 15 hours for a more gripping one. 😅
The kind-of solution for now is an app called Freedom that let's me block the internet on a schedule across all my different devices, leaving only websites I need to do my work.
Interesting, in a way we are similar I also don't spend much time on these apps. But even though my time spent on social apps was not much, by switching to black and white/greyscale I reduced it further.
Re Freedom: I did try it long back. Don't you figure out a way around it (e.g. Wikipedia 😛) or did you set it so strict that you can't literally open anything else? (but I wonder how do you work if you need something outside the default resources?)
Well, yeah, it's easy to go around it. I don't even set it to strict mode. so I can cancel a “session” anytime I want. But this added friction is often enough to get my mind back on track because sometimes I open websites and apps almost out of reflex, without really having something to do there, just because I'm trying to avoid something…
Recently though, they added a stupid feature where there's now a button you can tap to start a five minute break. But there's no limit on how many breaks you can have! So if I'm reading something on my phone, I find myself just tapping the button every five minutes 😑😑😑
Fascinating how just little friction in the environment can help. For example I leave a book on the couch, this triggers me to read before heading to bed because I can't sit on the couch without moving the book 😂
All these features should be "configurable", I am sure they must have had enough people requiring that use case but now you have to pay the "price"