
I cured my tech fatigue by ditching feeds - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/28/how-i-cured-my-tech-fatigue-by-ditching-feeds
======
hoodoof
I check websites obsessively, over and over. Same sites.

I'm really wasting my life.

Toying with getting a dumbphone... I think I owe that to my kids.

~~~
jen729w
You don’t need a dumbphone. You just need to make the phone you have dumb. I
did this two weeks ago and it’s working for me:

1\. Take Safari and the App Store off your phone. If you have an iPhone, you
can do that with Restrictions.

2\. Move everything off your home screen. Minimise the icons on your Dock.
(Mine has Messages and OmniFocus.)

3\. This sounds crazy, and probably isn’t necessary, but to make your phone
_boring_ \- make it greyscale! Accessibility, Display Accommodations, Colour
Filters.

I look at my phone waaaaay less than I used to because it simply doesn’t do
anything. It should go without saying that Twitter isn’t on there. I don’t use
Facebook.

My leisure time device - the one I’m on now - is my iPad. It’s a conscious
choice to use this device; when I pick it up, I know I’m “just browsing crap”.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
I use grayscale when I'm finding I'm too distracted by all the stuff on my
phone or computer. It helps me focus on what I'm doing sometimes and is a
visual reminder that, for whatever reason, I need to try harder than usual to
avid distractions that day.

This has been a little trickier since I have started programming more. I
really like syntax highlighting.

~~~
terminalcommand
Another solution to this problem could be opening seperate users on the
computer. One for serious work, one for leisure.

One could probably block facebook, hn, news sites, etc. on the work user, and
only have files and programs related to work.

~~~
ashark
I really want switchable, individually suspendable workspaces as an OS
feature. A workspace for each development project, one for each
writing/research task, one for time-wasting browsing, one for gaming, and so
on.

~~~
terminalcommand
Actually KDE has had a similar feature for a while now. You can define
"Activities" in KDE, when you switch between them all your settings and opened
windows change.

For example you can define an Activity for each project, arrange your windows
and settings (ie. desktop shortcuts, widgets, etc.), work on you project, then
switch to a different activity. When you come back to your project, you'll
continue from where you've left.

------
sampl
Totally agree with this.

Good thing I compulsively refresh HN 100x/day, otherwise I might have missed
this article.

~~~
placebo
:-) was about to respond in a similar way, and I probably won't be telling
anyone something they don't know by reiterating the cliche of "it's a matter
of balance". There is nothing wrong with feeds, just as there is nothing wrong
with ice cream. Addiction is the problem to address...

~~~
crehn
Moderation is hard. It's personal, vague, variable and difficult to grasp
without experience.

Extremes are easy. Easy to define, visualize, and apply. As such, they feel
more rewarding and beneficial.

While taking extreme measures over superficial things might help, I think it's
more important to recognize and address the underlying issues.

------
soneca
Overfeeding is only good for who is feeding and for who eat the overfed.

Advertisers get the _fois gras_ , social networks get the money for selling
it. We are the goose

------
caseysoftware
April of last year, I logged out of Facebook. I didn't log back in until the
birth of my son.. and only to announce it, share some pics, and get back off.
As a result, I missed Facebook's entire reaction to the 2016 US Election.

Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to
block them. A few I check in on once a week or so.

More focus, less noise.

Overall, I think my life (and those immediately around me) are better for it.

~~~
imron
> Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to
> block them

And yet here you are :-)

The worse thing about being technically literate is knowing how to get around
all the blocks you put in place to stop wasting time.

~~~
tertius
My guess would be that he/she has a device that is used only at certain down
times that does not have a blocked hosts file.

------
JoshMnem
"Feed" in that article really means "timeline" or "news feed" \-- not RSS/Atom
feed.

Feeds are great, but they should be ones that you can curate yourself
(RSS/Atom). Otherwise you get sucked into a void of others' intentional
manipulation of your attention.

~~~
elliotec
Does RSS have any good readers anymore? What is the preferred one?

~~~
Arcsech
Newsblur is my preferred one. They even let me pay them actual money instead
of financing the service by selling my data! (Though they do have a free
option if that's important to you)

RSS is very much not dead, although it's probably gotten less popular since
the death of Google Reader.

~~~
chadgeidel
Another satisfied NewsBlur subscriber here. I’d add that the iOS app is
excellent and I regularly switch between web and mobile without any
synchronization issues. Highly recommended!

------
Theodores
Just move to China then! If you really wanted to cut the cord and get that
project done then you could rent a room in some Chinese town and stay there
for however long is needed. I imagine rent would be cheap and you could AirBnB
out your home to get all the bills paid. For the duration you will have the
Great Firewall of China stopping that casual browsing of Western social media
sites. Would reading Facebook be worth going to prison for? Nope. Problem
solved. But I am not seeing these people that want to break free from social
media doing the obvious thing of moving to a country where the populace are
spared such things. Clearly North Korea is a bit 'far', but China is fine to
live and work in as a Westerner and you could just go there if social media
was 'ruining your life' and you were addicted to it. But nobody is cutting the
cord that extreme, are they?

~~~
fastbeef
... what? Was this written by a Markov Chain bot?

~~~
tertius
Perhaps just not an American...

------
ThomPete
Next year I am going to ditch my phone and just have a watch instead. One of
the things I want to explore is how many things I can do with voice commands
and hopefully some ideas pop up.

Another rule I have is only to check mail in the morning and in the evning.

Solving our addiction to infomration is all about perspective. Some people
will be lucky to think about it the right way others will never be able to
escape it.

------
binaryapparatus
I even got rid of RSS several months ago. Couple of news sites, several tech
news feeds (did I really need 9to5mac, macrumors AND Cult of Mac??) and few
job related feeds.

Didn't really need ANY of them as it turns out.

I don't know the way to filter RSS in any meaningful way so that had to go
too.

(Never was on facebook or twitter so my main nemesis is/was web browser and
RSS feeds).

~~~
482794793792894
Filtering RSS depends on your RSS client.

On the desktop, QuiteRSS [1] is really good at it.

On Android, SpaRSS [2] isn't entirely terrible at it, though there might be
better ones out there (I've essentially only looked on F-Droid).

[1] [http://quiterss.org/](http://quiterss.org/)

[2]
[https://github.com/Etuldan/spaRSS/blob/HEAD/README.md](https://github.com/Etuldan/spaRSS/blob/HEAD/README.md)

~~~
binaryapparatus
I was mainly using [https://newsbeuter.org/](https://newsbeuter.org/) and it
has great filters. Just that action to reward (circumventing filters) does not
require enough effort to prevent me from not looking outside of them.

The only thing I still look at is HN and, as we can see, that goes almost with
success.

------
gmemstr
I would love to dump feeds, get off Twitter and nuke my Facebook, but the sad
thing is I can't. They are legitimately tools (moreso Twitter in my case) for
networking and connecting with people. Twitter is used daily for talking to
friends and reaching out to people, and Facebook is pretty much required so I
can talk to colleagues because apparently texting is antequated. I'd like to
move everything off social networks and rely on Telegram or SMS, but it's not
possible. If anyone has suggestions how to get around this I'm more than
willing to try something else out.

~~~
jordwest
I built an extension [1] that might be helpful to you. It blocks only the
Facebook news feed but still allows you to use Facebook normally otherwise. I
found the news feed was always the thing that drew me in mindlessly - I'd go
on there to send someone a message and end up just scrolling for hours.

I don't believe Facebook is on a path that will end well for itself.
Anecdotally it seems there's an increasing number of people like yourself who
are fed up with Facebook and looking to dump it.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-
eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-
for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

~~~
machtesh
Came here to post this. It has drastically reduced the time I spend on
Facebook but still lets me access the parts of Facebok I "need". Thanks so
much for making it!

------
vhost-
I got rid of facebook in 2010. I never looked back, but I needed a little
social fix now and again, so I started using instagram. We all know what
happened there. It was so perfect. Now it's ad, line of stories, boomerang,
boomerang, ad, boomerang, boomerang, ad, line of stories.

I really do like seeing my friends pictures on occasion and I think the multi-
picture feature they released was awesome. Stories really made me hate
instagram, though. People I follow story the same thing over and over again.
It's really frustrating. But I keep looking. Oh god... I keep looking.

I might just get rid of them all.

~~~
jwong_
I deleted instagram on the phone, and use it exclusively (1 or 2 times per
day) on the computer through a browser. With uBlock origins, there's no ads,
no boomerangs, no "live" part. Now, since Instagram doesn't seem to get a good
signal on what I find interesting, I quickly get bored within 5-10 posts, and
shut it. That helped me kick the "check every 10 minutes" habit.

------
riantogo
I made up a “digital diet” where for the first week I completely gave up news
and feeds. Then in week 2 I reintroduced news but strictly scheduled for few
mins in the morning and evening. In third and the last week of the program
feed time was added. It worked wonders. Huge noticeable difference in quality
of life.

But like with any other diet I’m back to my old ways, being a slave to news
and feeds.

------
hoodoof
My girlfriend once got up in the morning and kissed my computer and said
"That's how much you love your computer."

~~~
tomxor
That was your opportunity to impulsively destroy the computer in a fit of
madness and make a proclamation of love to her on the spot... then quietly
recover the hard drive before putting it on the bin :D

------
vonnik
It's kind of ironic that a reporter whose livelihood involves adding content
to tech feeds is telling us his life is better when he ignores tech feeds...
by writing something that will end up in our tech feed.

~~~
hkon
and if the advice is followed, will reduce the amount of readers alltogether.

------
chrisper
The Google App feed used to be good like 6 months ago. It often showed me
stuff I was interested in from interesting websites. Now they changed it and
now it is really bad. It feels more like a Facebook feed with a bunch of crap
and clickbait. I eventually disabled it on my Pixel.

~~~
lighttower
How do you disable the feed in pixel? I hate seeing stories pop up whenever I
want to do a search. It's horrible. Moreover the stories often anger me and I
would have been better off not knowing

~~~
lighttower
Here's what I want to disable [https://ibb.co/hGVc1R](https://ibb.co/hGVc1R)
notice the clickbait that showed up as you try to search

~~~
colejohnson66
Is that clickbait? Yes, the headline does have a question, but it also answers
it. So for me, I’d say no.

------
agumonkey
This era is going to show that we need locality and sophisticated person to
person interaction.

I loved the freeing of remote chat, you get to talk about subject freely
without the burden of group or geography. But it's only good up to a point.

Having a nice chat with someone in a space digs deeper into you than anything
internet can.

------
abledon
“””Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next
to you.”””

I think with the rise of looking at smartphones, it’s become the norm to zone
out into it. If I randomly start talking to other people in the line I feel
they’ll be like , “what the heck! What does this person want? He’s probably
crazy/unstable or trying to scam me.”

Maybe the icebreaker now adays is “hey what’s up, I cant believe we’re not
distracted into our phones , longer line than usual blah blah” to specifically
trigger in their mind — “oh right strangers used to talk to one another before
these devices entered our society”

~~~
b4lancesh33t
I randomly talk to people in lines commonly,and nobody has yet acted strange
about it.

~~~
abledon
What are your icebreakers ?

~~~
b4lancesh33t
Normally it's just about stuff that's going on. I've complimented a person's
t-shirt, discussed the weather or a parade, talked about something interesting
the person was buying, react to their comment about my son or talk to them
about their kids, etc. I don't force it or talk in every line. Just when it's
natural.

------
tomxor
As a non-smartphone user, or as I call them zombies, I have some bad news for
life on the other side...

When you are not one of them, dealing with them in public can be extremely
frustrating, simply walking along the street at a normal non-zombie pace takes
considerably more effort than it did 10 years ago because it's one way
navigation problem... it's like that film "Surrogates" where Bruce Willis
breaks the mould and goes out into the real world to walk among the surrogate
robots, it's basically the same problem (insensitivity to their surroundings),
that film was spot on, the only difference is that it's little glass
rectangles and mind manipulation instead of robot surrogates.

That's the most obvious example, but it extends to everything that people do
in public, simple things like waiting for someone to get on a bus, trying to
cross the road, trying to go through a door, and even driving... it's gotten
to the point where rather than simply an annoying distraction, smartphones are
now the main focus for many of these people and the real world is a
distraction. The other day I got a scornful look from a woman in her car as I
was forced to beep my horn multiple times to prevent her from rolling into me
as she was staring down intensely at her phone at a traffic light, as if the
urgency of crashing came second to her fucking facegram feed, it makes me want
to slap people around the face to wake them up. I hate hating people but it's
impossible to avoid this now.

Then again, I've never been a smart phone user, so perhaps this difference is
more noticeable to me than those coming back to the real world.

~~~
flotillo
On the other hand, smartphones in cars are very useful for navigation, with
real-time feeds of traffic congestion, voice control, and so on. I know you
can do this with a dedicated navigation system, but I've never used one as
good as what's built into every modern Android device. You just have to be
disciplined enough to use it only for that purpose while driving.

I know what you mean though. Yesterday I was stuck behind a car doing 50 on a
70 road, and as I overtook I saw the driver was busy fiddling with their phone
while they should have been paying attention to the road. Especially dangerous
at that speed of traffic! Thankfully, I've found this sort of behaviour to be
a rare occurrence.

~~~
tertius
Yes, normally they're speeding and in-between lanes.

------
fastbeef
This thread has inspired me to un-clutter my mind. The first step I took was
to stop taking the phone with me to the bathroom. It may sound preposterous,
but I genuinely had a feeling of fright over missing something.

Next step is separating my incoming channels from my outgoing by replacing my
iPhone with a dumb-phone + iPad. That way, I can always be available if
kindergarten calls, but still retain the ability to use useful digital
services (e-signing, maps).

------
aquamo
Feed fasting helps me too; I log into FB every 60-61 days or so. I'm thinking
about limiting Twitter to days that start with a 'T' just make it fun. And
hacker news is okay on days that end in a 'y' :-)

Given that these attention grabbers are now weaponized, it's good to fight
back; I think we benefit from periods of boredom and deep thought.

------
abootstrapper
I deleted my Facebook account and can literally feel the extra time I have in
my day. I've unfortunately filed some of that void with Twitter and Reddit,
but I still net extra free time, and Twitter is on the chopping block next.
Unfortunately(?), I'm more tied to that service as I made a small living off
their coattails for awhile.

------
reti
First it was facebook, then it was reddit, now it's the price of a few
cryptocurrencies. I delete the apps due to time wastage, and a week later I
have something else to check.

I miss none of the things I used to refresh tirelessly and gave up on, seems
to suggest that none of those things made my life any better.

------
qznc
Apparently "feed" describes the class of apps like Facebook and Twitter, but
not RSS feeds? RSS feeds give me much more control. With Facebook the choice
is pretty much use as is or not at all. Well, browser extensions can help a
little but for the smartphone app, this is the choice.

------
5_minutes
I want a dumbphone with a great camera.

~~~
hoodoof
Maybe delete Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Twitter from your phone.

That's the idea I've had that I haven't actioned because that would mean
actually solving the information tech addiction problem that I think I've had
since I first saw a computer about 40 years ago.

~~~
imron
See:

[https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-
or...](https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or-why-im-
happier-since-i-disabled-safari-80f8d525b0d8) and

[https://medium.com/time-dorks/my-year-with-a-distraction-
fre...](https://medium.com/time-dorks/my-year-with-a-distraction-free-iphone-
and-how-to-start-your-own-experiment-6ff74a0e7a50)

------
zetetic
Turning on the noprocrast feature on HN has helped me immensely. I usually end
up only checking once a day now.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
a) I wish that setting would have 3 or 4 words explanation on the settings
page so I wouldn’t have to go hunting to find out what it does b) would be
nice if there was an option to exclude weekends

------
Jaruzel
It's time for people to 'Look up':

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY)

------
seba_dos1
Initially I thought that it's about RSS - I rejected it as too extreme. But
then it turned out it's about social media - so, obvious and understandable :)

------
r_singh
I've been thinking about this for a while. There really needs to be a tech
etiquette guide especially with phones in pockets keeping us connected 24x7.

------
JeanMarcS
Technology is wonderful. When it isn't in the way.

------
amelius
I cured my facebook fatigue by unfollowing everybody.

------
p0nce
It's a big problem that every website converges to a timeline sientifically
engineered to be addictive.

------
dawhizkid
Wasn't there a study that just came out that time spent on a feed was
correlated with depression?

------
raister
Forget extensions and add-ons and apps to keep you focused. What really boils
down is _WILL POWER_ , something that we as a whole have forgot to use in a
daily basis. _Will_ will retain your focus; _will_ will help you achieve your
goals; _will_ will make you dump your not-so-smart-phone. Why do we need
something to make our focus come back?

~~~
ThomPete
Thats like saying to someone who keeps forgetting things that they just need
to remember.

Will power is not forgotten at all its just something thats really hard once
you get some sort of addiction. Especially something as complex as information
consumption.

~~~
raister
I disagree, people do forget about will power, otherwise they would know that
something is bad for them and choose something else to do. People are not that
dumb, they know it is taking a toll but they choose to entertain that
addiction by looking at a feed (any feed) and have momentously happiness
lasting microseconds.

~~~
ThomPete
This is just a continuation of the same flawed parent argument you did. People
know very well they should be eating cake or drinking too much or spend their
time on facebook. Remembering they have willpower isnt going to change that.
Its such a gross simplification of reality. Will power is a postrational
concept not som tangible thing.

~~~
raister
You're saying that it is enough just to _have_ will power. I am saying that
you must _use_ your will power, and that is two different things. _You_ are
just relying on it to make some magic, whereas I am pointing out that you
should understand that something is making you do harmful things and then act
on it. I guess _your concept of will power_ is severely flawed.

~~~
ThomPete
Will power is not a thing, its a concept and have to do with much more subtle
nuances of the human mind. This is where you are going wrong. You cant just
will yourself to do something if other urges are sronger. What you can do is
remove the things that obstructs you from doing the "right" things. You are
simplifying something much more complex.

~~~
tertius
I guess you have to use will power to make those decisions.

------
hopesthoughts
Well for me Twitter is a distraction. When I want to keep up with news etc, I
use RSs.

------
rljy
I think we will suffer from a bit of reverse survivor-ship bias here. Those
who have gotten unhooked will not respond!

We need some Sidartha who is willing to give up nirvana to travel back to the
internet and tell us all how to escape.

~~~
humanrebar
I'm sure the "unhooked" will go on at length about it at cocktail parties,
just like the hipsters who don't have TVs or gave up gluten.

~~~
odiroot
How is not having a TV a hipster thing?

~~~
jasode
It isn't the "not owning" a tv that's hipster.

It's the _humblebragging_ about not watching TV. (Also known as "virtue
signaling":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling))

~~~
bamboozled
It's healthy for people to discuss this and similar topics such as unplugging.
People should be able to do so without fear of being ridiculed and accused of
"Virtue Signalling.

While going around accusing people who advertise a lack of Televesion
ownership as virtue signalling I think you're missing other reasons they might
be doing it, for example:

\- Openly seeking some validation from their peers about their lifestyle
change

\- Find people who feel similar about owning a Television and share ideas.

\- Yeah, some people might brag, so what?

Why be so quick to judge?

~~~
jasode
_> It's healthy for people to discuss this and similar topics such as
unplugging._

I agree that people _should discuss it_ as long as it's _genuine_
conversation. The negatives of tv have been discussed for a long time. Neil
Postman's 1985 _" Amusing Ourselfs to Death"_ talks about unplugging from tv.
The 1953 Ray Bradbury book _" Fahrenheit 451"_ has been often analyzed for its
themes of censorship and burning books but the author has stated the larger
theme was television and its effect on dumbing down society. Yes, it's healthy
to have an ongoing dialogue about this subject.

 _> People should be able to do so without fear of being ridiculed and accused
of "Virtue Signalling._

The "Virtual Signaling" is a good label because it helps separate the
meaningful from the superficial. Many people who don't watch tv (or have other
strong beliefs such as "not eating meat", etc) lack self-awareness _as to how
it 's perceived by others_ when it comes to advertising their positions. They
think it enhances their appeal when in fact, the opposite happens: the people
roll their eyes at the smugness. If "virtue signaling" as a meme helps people
become more self-aware, that's a good thing.

 _> Openly seeking some validation_

This is reasonable and possible, but in my observations, I've never seen it.

 _> Why be so quick to judge?_

I'm not judging. I was clarifying to the poster (odiroot) that it's not about
the "owning" \-- it's the "signaling".

------
titanix2
Ironically Hacker News is blocked (thru the host file) on my pc for this
reason. I still browse it one my phone, but it is a more conscious action and
it is less confortable, so I waste less time on it.

------
timthelion
I wonder what it would be like to use time tracking software like arbtt, which
instead of simply measuring how much time you spent on the computer, notified
a therapist when you opened up Facebook or reddit or HN. The therapist would
then call you up and ask you what you were doing. What type of feed you were
looking at. Why you were looking at it. How you were feeling. It wouldn't stop
you from looking at the sites. You could look all you want, but in 10-20
seconds after opening up the website, you'd get that call... Would any of you
pay for such a "service"?

~~~
timthelion
The call wouldn't be cruel. I imagine the therapists voice being similar to
that of that one PTA mom who actually cared about me. Concerned and warm...

------
jlebrech
Is there a service that compiles cool stuff into a daily or weekly newsletter?

~~~
qznc
There are a few manually curated ones if that is what you are looking for.

Example: [http://www.hackernewsletter.com](http://www.hackernewsletter.com)

------
snarfy
I loathe notifications and turn them off as much as I can.

"Battery charged"

"App updated"

"Your device was scanned and no threats were found"

I'm busy. When I'm not busy, I'm busy thinking. All of these needless
distractions interrupt that. Unless it's a legitimate emergency, I'll ask for
the information. I don't want it pushed to me, which is why I've never used
feeds.

