
Siempo's new app will break your smartphone addiction - andrewmd
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/19/siempos-new-app-will-break-your-smartphone-addiction/
======
arrakeen
imo these apps are completely unnecessary. all i needed to do was leave my
phone on do-not-disturb mode at all times. this way, i don't have
notifications and vibrations constantly nagging me, and i only check my phone
during natural breaks in my activities

give it a try

~~~
andrei_says_
That’s where it’s at.

The constant stream of notifications does not distinguish well what’s
important and too much of it ends up in the Important/Urgent quadrant.

    
    
                    Important | Urgent
                    ------------------
                              |
        Important             | 
                              |
                    ------------------
                              |
        Urgent                | 
                              |
    

I hope we'll start seeing more app- and os-level tools to sort out
notifications into the correct quadrant. _This_ is where I'd welcome AI-based
solutions. Gmail already offers me to unsubscribe from un-opened newsletters.
Can't wait for a _She_ -like AI-assistant who would take on the drudgery of my
inbox.

Such changes of course would be counter productive to the business model of
many social apps which use intermittent rewards to create easy to exploit
addictive behaviors allowing them to monetize on the unregulated resource of
human attention. This includes establishing addiction in children, as a
business model.

Attention is one of the most valuable assets human beings have. Focused
attention + time are two of the pillars of any achievement and becoming.
Robbing humanity of its power to become and achieve is not a healthy or
sustainable source of profit.

~~~
on_and_off
I suspect Android is pushing more and more in that direction. I have not seen
it in the announcements but one of the features I sea on the P beta is that
when I dismiss a notification, the OS might ask me : 'you often display these
notification, should I continue displaying them ?'

The groundwork is here with the channel API anyway.

Apps can declare as many channels as they want in order to post notifications
there.

For exemple a music app will have the music channel (duh) and maybe a push
discovery one.

The developper sets whatever property they want for these channels, but the
users can override them. You can for example change the priority, sound or
even completely hide them.

~~~
andrei_says_
The thing is, not all content in a channel is created equal, so maybe one day
we’ll see a more granular approach.

But a more granular approach means more complex configuration.

Instagram should notify me about my fiancee’s feed. FB messenger should notify
me when I get a message from my company’s page or one containing a family
emergency. When I leave the office priorities would swap.

I should be able to easily schedule office hours, and notify people when I’d
be available, similar to some of the features related to driving right now.

And, a powerful AI will read my mind and tweak the settings for me ;)

~~~
on_and_off
the API is also there for that :)

A dev can dynamically create channels.

Communication apps is the best application indeed, some of them (for example
TelegramX) already leverage this by creating one channel for each of your
contacts.

So my gf has an 'interrupts do not disturb' rule while my noisy friend on a
time zone can't make my phone ping.

Now it is up to devs to leverage this and implement this in all the apps.

If it starts to become common enough, it looks like an AI could classify these
signals based on how you interact with them.

------
Rotdhizon
RIP to anyone who clicked that link without ad block.

The app is a cool concept but I don't see it ever taking off. They broadly
assume that people want to be distanced from their phones, which I'm sure most
don't. There is nothing wrong with enjoying technology. Yes I check my phone
at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does that made me an
"addict"? I'm not checking social media, I'm just browsing through the things
I have installed to pass the time or have some laughs. Add on the fact that
this is a paid app once it releases, who is actually going to pay for an app
to inconvenience them? Some of the features are noble, such as forcefully
blocking notifications until user specified times, and putting a more human
catered UI for apps in. I applaud the effort, but I just can't see this taking
off and becoming a best seller. Sure many people will pay for it, but it won't
reach as many people as they are hoping.

EDIT: Adding on some more thoughts There are absolutely people who have
unhealthy addictions to phones. I have a nephew who is staring at his phone
screen nearly every waking moment. Every minute he doesn't have a phone in his
hands he is whining. That is a new generation of smartphone addiction that I
don't think most current adults have. Do you think these type of people want
to forcefully have that addiction helped? Do you think they'd actually pay
money to inconvenience themselves?

I agree with whoever said that app notifications need to be catered to. It
might not work well with generic settings. Allow all and deny all for apps
isn't doing much. I agree with the other fellow who also chimed in about
smartphone addiction really not being a newsworthy topic. It's not something
that can really be fixed at large. Even getting a small number of individuals
to break their truly unhealthy smartphone addiction seems near impossible.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
>Yes I check my phone at last once every few minutes when I'm at home, does
that made me an "addict"?

I'd say undoubtedly so.

"Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in
rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction)

The adverse consequences is debatable but it is very likely we are all missing
out on experiences and losing health by checking our phones every few minutes
for those hits of neurotransmitters.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5076301/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5076301/)

"Cell-Phone Addiction: A Review"

~~~
Rotdhizon
What you described is precisely what's not happening though. In that there are
no consequences to my frequent phone checking. If I'm playing a game and
waiting for a match to start for example, it's not affecting me negatively in
any way to just open youtube and watch a quick video. That's one of my points
here; in that enjoying smartphones and being addicted to them gets muddled.

~~~
jclos
It's not affecting in ways that you notice right now, but we don't really know
the true effects of never letting your brain be bored.

There is some evidence that boredom is good for you as explained in this post:
[http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170719-how-moments-of-
bor...](http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170719-how-moments-of-boredom-help-
us-achieve-more)

~~~
jdironman
Not to mention the people who 'have' to check while say operating machinery.
Also, tallied up the time spent checking / browsing the phone or devices which
could be used either for rest or learning a new skill, or even just being
bored as you suggest.

------
navls
"To help you understand your current phone habits, Siempo needs permission to
store information on this device. We do not read your private files or collect
information about files on your device."

No option to opt-out

~~~
andrewmd
Andrew from Siempo here - with optimizations in an upcoming release we will no
longer need to ask for this permission.

Apologies for the inconvenience! We are committed to respecting user's privacy
and are currently working with The Center of Humane Tech community to improve
our privacy policy word by word, and make the changes necessary for GDPR.

~~~
superflyguy
You've got two days.

~~~
jpzisme
Neat, bro.

~~~
groovybits
Not sure if you know, but GDPR deadline actually is May 25.

[https://www.techrepublic.com/article/gdpr-compliance-
deadlin...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/gdpr-compliance-deadline-is-
approaching-10-things-to-do-right-away/)

------
amelius
I think the per-app distinction of notifications is too coarse.

I want an app that allows me to train it on the notifications I receive,
regardless of what app they come from. For instance, if I get a message from a
random Facebook group that I find not very interesting, I want to be able to
indicate that. Conversely, if I get a Facebook message that is urgent, then I
want to indicate that too.

Please don't ask me upfront whether I want to enable/disable all Facebook
messages, because I can't possibly answer that question now.

------
peacetreefrog
This is pretty cool. Some feedback:

1\. Lock screen functionality would be good. It's sort of jarring to go back
and forth between this (pleasant, mellow) and my normal lock screen (looks
just like my normal phone).

2\. It'd be nice to be able to resize the custom background images.

3\. Not sure I like the distinction between "tools" and "apps", especially
because I try to view all my apps as tools. It'd be nice to be able to add a
custom tool (I wanted to add Audible for example) that would just be on the
one page.

~~~
andrewmd
Thanks for this feedback! Feel free to pass along other thoughts or
suggestions to feedback@siempo.co

1\. We are exploring possibilities for the lock screen. Any ideas?

2\. Absolutely! We plan on offering more formatting options in upcoming
releases.

3\. On our roadmap :)

------
SuperPaintMan
I've been using this as my launcher for the last few weeks, it's actually
pretty good at what it advertises to do. This mixed with a blocking app,
greyscale and the Messenger Lite have made my device a semi-smart. The last
page of the launcher randomizes everytime you swipe over to it so that's super
handy. Notifs every 20 minutes has literally changed how I use my device
allowing me to balance group chats vs constant attachment to my phone.

Devs: Please, please, please add some theming support it's ugly as sin, maybe
regex style controls over which notifs get through on a per-app basis.

~~~
andrewmd
Thanks for sharing this feedback! Check out today's update: we now offer a
dark theme and ability to set custom wallpaper :)

We also let you select apps that may interrupt you during Tempo (Settings >
Control notifications). We need to do a better job of making users aware of
this.

More customizations to come - feel free to send over any suggestions to
feedback@siempo.co

~~~
SuperPaintMan
You're the man, man! Keep up the great work :)

------
solutionyogi
Currently, I use the Moment App on the iOS to keep track of how much time I
spend on my phone and it has been immensely useful. Though it only captures my
usage and can't actively help me reduce my smartphone usage.

I love the ability to batch up the notifications. In my ideal world, I would
get notifications at 8AM, 12pm, 5pm and 9pm. And that's all.

I am jealous of the Android platform that it is possible to create an app like
Siempo. I don't think iOS has an API to create a comparable experience.

I wonder what plans do Siempo team have for iOS.

~~~
tetrep
> I love the ability to batch up the notifications. In my ideal world, I would
> get notifications at 8AM, 12pm, 5pm and 9pm. And that's all.

Couldn't you do this manually by silencing your phone except for alarms, and
then setting vibrate-only alarms at those times?

Alarm goes off, you check your phone and deal with any notifications you have
so far, and then you go back to ignoring it.

~~~
chefandy
For me, this would functionally be no different than just deciding I wasn't
going to check.

Alarms would make sense if I had trouble remembering to check if I didn't
check constantly, but the problem is the compulsion to thoughtlessly reach for
my phone to check for notifications every few minutes. If I could batch up
notifications therefore making the act of grabbing my phone and looking at it
pointless, that seems like it would have a real impact.

------
deft
Is smartphone addiction really a thing that needs this constant coverage? I
use my phone quite often but I've never felt controlled by it or like I need
it. Maybe people should just delete the apps that are causing problems,
instead of downloading another app to manage it. Is this the smartphone
equivalent of safe-injection sites?

~~~
gcp123
>Is smartphone addiction really a thing that needs this constant coverage? I
use my phone quite often but I've never felt controlled by it or like I need
it.

An alcoholic would say the same exact thing. :-) Just sayin!

------
krupan
You can do a lot of this yourself. Put your apps in folders, leave your home
screen mostly empty, turn off notifications. Don't even install apps like
twitter or facebook, you have to use the browser if you want to see those
sites. The phone is still pretty tempting though when there is downtime.

------
thirduncle
It's actually quite easy to "break" your addiction to smartphones:

Don't use them in the first place.

~~~
rkangel
That comment is even less helpful than saying "It's actually quite easy to
break your addiction to alchohol - just don't drink".

The reason it's even less helpful is that, unlike alcohol, smartphones provide
useful functionality in day to day life.

~~~
thirduncle
_Smartphones provide useful functionality in day to day life._

Do they now?

