The hard problem is, how do you differentially get the screen time you want?
With grave difficulty. :-(
My partner has tried to break her phone addiction more than once, and always runs into the same issue: necessary inputs arrive through the same channel as the dopamine drip. It’s hard to define notification filters that only pass items that matter. It’s hard to find a device that can be efficiently used for travel directions, job coordination, emergency phone calls, and e-books, but not for Instagram, Youtube, et al.
I’m grateful to be mostly immune to that particular siren (on account of finding the screen-poking modality of phones utterly intolerable), but an open web browser hits me in a similar way. Tools exist to block timewasting sites, but my problem isn’t specific timewasting sites, it’s tabsplosions that might go anywhere. Blacklisting is useless; whitelisting makes it impossible to use the browser in ways that I actually need (e.g. troubleshooting searches).
I find phones distracting when doing non-internet activities even when there are zero notifications. Merely having the option to look is a tax on my attention.
People in the room are like this for me. Or pets. Distracting even if they aren’t trying to get my attention, because they might do so at any moment. Also, chores. Undone chores are a pebble in the shoe of my mind.
There are maps now that can completely lock up the use of some specific applications or websites. Digital Detox for example has all the basic functionalities you expect and is free.
With grave difficulty. :-(
My partner has tried to break her phone addiction more than once, and always runs into the same issue: necessary inputs arrive through the same channel as the dopamine drip. It’s hard to define notification filters that only pass items that matter. It’s hard to find a device that can be efficiently used for travel directions, job coordination, emergency phone calls, and e-books, but not for Instagram, Youtube, et al.
I’m grateful to be mostly immune to that particular siren (on account of finding the screen-poking modality of phones utterly intolerable), but an open web browser hits me in a similar way. Tools exist to block timewasting sites, but my problem isn’t specific timewasting sites, it’s tabsplosions that might go anywhere. Blacklisting is useless; whitelisting makes it impossible to use the browser in ways that I actually need (e.g. troubleshooting searches).
People in the room are like this for me. Or pets. Distracting even if they aren’t trying to get my attention, because they might do so at any moment. Also, chores. Undone chores are a pebble in the shoe of my mind.
There are maps now that can completely lock up the use of some specific applications or websites. Digital Detox for example has all the basic functionalities you expect and is free.