Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I don't know why the author spends half of the article justifying how can youtube addiction be a thing, it seems to me that social media addiction is now an established thing, which a large proportion of people are subject to

If you own an Android phone there is a "Digital well being" settings which allows you to block applications after a certain amount of time spent every day, it also work for time spent on certain website on chrome, and it contains other features (focus mode, black and white mode) which I've found really useful. There are equivalent browser extension for desktop

Though blocking websites/apps is not a magical solution, in the past I've found myself just disabling the blockers when I really wanted to watch something, I think it only works combined with discipline



They tell you why they spend so long justifying it as a thing, because people around them said it wasn’t a thing.


Depending on how the subject if framed or the angle chosen by the author those kind of posts attracts the crowd of people for whom it's one's sole responsibility/fault to be addicted or to fail to ward off addictive products or to restrain themselves. It often happens in threads about sugar and diet.

"There's no addiction because nobody is forcing you so it's your fault". Something like that.


I've set myself Screen Time on iOS for this exact reason.

Yes, it takes discipline to stop, but it's still a good thing that the OS notifies "You've spent a hour on social media already".


Great to know that iOS has the same kind of thing, I was honestly surprised when I discovered it on android, it seems to go against the "engagement maximization" trend and all, I guess it shows that it's a serious enough topic




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: