I quit YouTube a few years ago and it was probably the single best decision I’ve ever made.
However I also found that I naturally substitute it with something else. For example, I subsequently became addictived to Reddit. I quit Reddit and substituted for Hackernews and LessWrong. When I quit those I substituted for checking Slack, Email and Discord.
Thankfully being addicted to Slack does seem to be substantially less harmful than YouTube.
I’ve found the app OneSec very useful for reducing addictions. It’s an app blocker that doesn’t actually block, it just delays you opening the page, so you’re much less likely to delete it in a moment of weakness.
To make an analogy to diet, you essentially replaced a sugar fix from eating Snickers bars with eating strawberries. Gradation matters!
I had a similar slide with my technologies, as I explained in the post. I eventually landed on reading books. But even that became a form of intellectual procrastination as I wrote in my latest LW post.
I quit YouTube a few years ago and it was probably the single best decision I’ve ever made.
However I also found that I naturally substitute it with something else. For example, I subsequently became addictived to Reddit. I quit Reddit and substituted for Hackernews and LessWrong. When I quit those I substituted for checking Slack, Email and Discord.
Thankfully being addicted to Slack does seem to be substantially less harmful than YouTube.
I’ve found the app OneSec very useful for reducing addictions. It’s an app blocker that doesn’t actually block, it just delays you opening the page, so you’re much less likely to delete it in a moment of weakness.
To make an analogy to diet, you essentially replaced a sugar fix from eating Snickers bars with eating strawberries. Gradation matters!
I had a similar slide with my technologies, as I explained in the post. I eventually landed on reading books. But even that became a form of intellectual procrastination as I wrote in my latest LW post.