A friend pointed out that the method that worked for me to break my phone addiction is similar to the book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" by Allen Carr. This book's method, similarly, doesn't rely on willpower to break the addiction, but understanding the nature of it. It suggests the experience of smoking in itself is not pleasant, more like wearing tight shoes for the pleasure of taking them off. The smoker is encouraged to break the illusion that it is actually the smoking they like in order to quit. There have been multiple randomized trials that support the Allen Carr's method. If anyone has used it or something similar, I'd be curious how the experience was, whether the physical addiction aspects were truly possible to overcome with the change in mindset.
Studies: Frings, D., Albery, I. P., Moss, A. C., Brunger, H., Burghelea, M., White, S., and Wood, K. V. (2020) Comparison of Allen Carr's Easyway programme with a specialist behavioural and pharmacological smoking cessation support service: a randomized controlled trial. Addiction, 115: 977-985. doi.org/10.1111/add.14897.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.14897 Keogan S, Li S, Clancy L. Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - A randomised clinical trial. Tob Control. 2019 Jul;28(4):414-419. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054243. Epub 2018 Oct 25. PMID: 30361322; PMCID: PMC6589447. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6589447/
Hi, I think you have a typo in your second paragraph: you've written "the Allen Carr's method", and I think you might mean "Allen Carr's method" or "the Allen Carr method". Very good video!
@@FerencGazdag Addicted? I was addicted once... They put me in a box. A skinner box. A skinner box full of pidgeons. Pidgeons made me addicted...Addicted? I was addicted once... They put me in a box. A skinner box. A skinner box full of pidgeons. Pidgeons made me addicted.
Friction in the form of scarcity is one of the reasons I’m still on TH-cam. The subscriptions tab remains one of the precious few spaces on the Internet that is still a) self-curated, b) finite, and c) sorted in chronological order. I try very hard to avoid the endless scroll of the homepage, and I’m very picky about who I do subscribe to so I don’t clutter up that space too much. (Always nice to see one of yours crop up in that space btw! Hope you’re doing well.)
i have tried to poison my home page by marking interesting things as "not interested" which caused my homepage to become extremely boring. still scrolling on it though, but often not finding anything to watch. not sure if this helps me save time.
Have you ever tried using freetube? you get no ads, no algorithm, auto skip sponsor, only subscriptions tab Ive been using it and I love it, I would rather watch on freetube than on youtube. Theres not even a google login, its all private info just make a list of subscriptions and its great
I knew a lady who worked at CERN. She quit her job there and moved to Tokyo to be Chief Science Officer at a company that analyzed phone data. She worked on figuring out the best moment to send notifications play mobile games for each user. This was 8 years ago but I'm still sad her massive brain was used to wind up skinner boxes.
Capitalism doing what it is designed to - legitimizing and maintaining power for those born into it. (Look into the data on "social mobility" if you don't believe me).
I just set an obnoxious password on my phone so inputting that every time was a legitimate deterrent to my lazy ass such that I would rather just stare at my ceiling or touch grass instead of opening my phone and looking at youtube shorts everytime I have a moment to myself
Can't I deal with this the way you dealt with lactose intolerance by doing a bunch of social media all at once until I cultivate an enzyme to deal with it for me?
I like your moderate, self-forgiving approach to this. I'm working to remove algorithm-curated feeds from my life wherever possible, and this motivated me to finally start blocking the TH-cam "Home" feed. Anyone who browses it regularly knows you're absolutely right, it's obviously purposely designed to kinda suck as recommendation engine, feeding you just enough gems in the garbage to keep you hunting. Good alternatives to complex algorithm feeds are chronological subscription feeds, human-curated playlists, content naively sorted by human-votes (like your reddit tabs example), and good old-fashioned personal recommendations.
I like your description of this approach as “moderate” and “self-forgiving.” I feel like we, both as a society and as individuals, would benefit from applying those adjectives to any number of vices, addictions, and so forth…
@@meowchin This is actually what I did, too. That along with blocking Shorts are the main reasons I can't go back to a vanilla client. I'm torn on how much to actively promote it, though, I feel like popularity will only hasten its demise. Which is probably the point where I migrate away from TH-cam altogether, like I did with reddit after they killed 3rd party apps. You have to stay nimble to keep ahead of enshittification.
@@zumabbar I actually have it downloaded and want to live stream it sometime, ideally while playing a recording of me reading Heart of Darkness during the downtime haha
I've never thought of this topic in this exact way, but I've definitely been aware of it for longer. Something I tend to do to stay out of the infinite scrolling loop, is just to scroll down a bit and then read in reverse. This guarantees a natural stopping point! And if I want to continue after, that is fine, but it makes it a conscious decision.
This is a neat idea! Just don't let it catch on too much or they'll start re-randomising things we've scrolled past. Though I think the platforms already try to do that by very conveniently failing to restore the last thing I had open.
Remove the Skinner Box elements of TH-cam then. Disable the search history so that your watch recommendations aren't polluted, be fastidious about marking stuff you don't want to see as "Don't recommend this" (and if you watch something you regret, delete it from your watch history), and never, ever scroll through vertical videos-go back to the thumbnail view and click something explictly rather than giving into the all-knowing feed. I still watch a lot of TH-cam, but surprisingly I actually run out of stuff I actually want to watch, which makes it easy to stop.
try the untrap for youtube extension or similar. You can customise all of sorts of things. Disable autoplay, infinite scroll, hide shorts, hide comments etc.
@@cmmartti All good recommendations, and I'd add that the DeArrow extension is a nice addition to this so that when browsing thumbnails it's clickbait getting you, but actual interest in the topic.
I dont understand the relevance of everyone in the comments mentioning this. "I started using heroin, and only because I did, did I find a rehab group".
I appreciate that this is not just a knee-jerk "technology bad"/"social media bad" approach, but rather one that is supposed to make one evaluate what is truly best for them. I personally appreciate removing friction, but only when I understand the cost, and the cost is acceptable for me. So for example, ordering food? Great if I'm not in the mood to go somewhere or cook something, the cost is just money and the food being a bit worse. But asking AI about things? The cost is the fact that it's going to be often wrong, so at best, in its current shape, it might be a starting point in looking for actual answers. The cost of using it as an end to end solution is just way too high. Anyway, I'm pretty fortunate that this kind of thing doesn't seem to work on me all that well (or rather, for the things that do work, like watching youtube, I don't look back and think that I wasted my time). Now if you had a hack to fix my food addiction...
Also, for the record, comment sections can be skinner boxes too. Some of these comments are really good and interesting, how many uninteresting comments will you scroll past looking for the next good one? (the answer's zero because this community is phenomenal, but apply this logic to the comments of other videos by creators with less phenomenal communities)
I got used to arguing (not in a ragey way) with people I found ignorant or hostile in comment sections and it has been spooky to see my own addiction to it grow, I disabled notifications but then started keeping tabs on which video I wrote what under, and coming back to look at the "engagement" The most bizarre things can really hook you, and here I am in yet another comment.
I appreciate this analysis of breaking phone addiction instead of every other youtuber just saying willpower, put your phone across the room, use screen time, blah blah
Another tool to use in this fight: I often found myself having learned exactly where the addictive apps were on my phone and opening the apps by reflex. It helped to move the addictive apps to a place where I needed more clicks to reach them. Breaking the reflex habit.
Yep! As a bonus I put them in a folder called "time wasters" so that I'm forced to acknowledge each time that what I'm choosing to do is waste time. Wasting time isn't always a bad thing, of course, but I think it's healthy to be honest with ourselves when we're doing it.
During WWII Skinner tried to turn his brainwashed pigeons into weapons. He created something called Project ORCON, where he trained them to peck at images of battleships. Then he put a wire grid over the images that could be used to turn the pecks into electrical impulses. Then he put the wire grid and the pigeons into the nose cone of a missile and hooked the wire grid up to the steering mechanism of the rocket. the idea was that the rocket would be launched in the general direction of an enemy fleet and as soon as the pigeon in it saw a battleship it would start pecking in its direction through the grid in the forlorn hope of getting food, steering the missile towards the target. It worked as a concept, but was never adopted because the pigeons weren't so great at telling the difference between American and Japanese battleships. There's probably some horrible metaphor there about how we're all pecking away at the internet in the hope of getting some reward, but really we're just hurtling towards certain annihilation. Believe it or not, Project ORCON wasn't even the weirdest animal-based weapons experiment of WWII. That honour probably goes to Project X-Ray, which (and I am being completely serious here) involved capturing bats and strapping tiny bomb vests onto them so they could be dropped out of planes onto Japanese cities. Again, it reached the testing stage and was considered a partial success after some of the weaponised bats woke up from their artificially-induced torpor early, escaped, and burned down the air base where they were being kept. Anyway, this seems like really good advice and I'm going to try something like it it with a few of my own time sinks.
Ahh, it sounds like those missiles had an early form of unreliable AI. There's a YA book by Kenneth Oppel called Sunwing (sequel to Silverwing) that uses these bat-guided bombs as a plot point. It's written solely from the perspective of the bats so obviously there are a lot of liberties taken for storytelling purposes. Nonetheless, it's a good book for the intended audience.
@ I've been a fan of the Bat Bomb idea for a while (as an abstract comedic concept, rather than thinking it was morally acceptable in any way at all, I immediately hasten to add) but I'd missed that. Thanks!
I think the bat one morbidly makes sense since they are trying to use an existing 'targeting' behaviour. Unless I was lied to I believe it was incendiary devices and their *natural* desire to roost in the eaves and attics of thatch/plant/wood roofed buildings. Honestly the bats already make me very sad but there are worse stories about armies trying to train animals to carry bombs toward the enemy. I suggest caution googling such questions though. It almost always is just a story of hubris where people assume made up truths about animal behaviour. The skinner pigeon missiles suck in practice but at least their theory was thoroughly studied and proven.
Projects like these make me lose faith in humanity and maybe helping it destroy itself will just shorten the agony. Indeed stupidity is not an intellecutal deficiency, it's a moral one.
I have a degree in psychology, and specifically studied dopamine pathways in particular, and I was today years old when I learned that the act of scrolling itself is a rewarding behavior. I knew the novelty was obviously reward condoning, but it didn't occur to me that the scroll itself was dopamine releasing. Also that Reddit hack is brilliant and exactly my kind of insane.
I've had someting similar about frictionless Christmas. Caroling, tree, decorations were pain un the hurty bitz, but once you remove all that bothers you are left with... sterility
The description is pretty much where I'm at right now. I can buy damn near anything I want on Amazon. I never have to leave my house! And for... several years, that's exactly what happened. I didn't leave my house more than once every few MONTHS for... years. Then a series of events has me going out almost every week. I go to the local butcher, and I get *incredibly* good meat and polish food. I go to the mall and walk with my husband and get physical books and interact with people. My favorite leaf juice vendor is locally owned, and while they're more expensive, they have such a great experience that I'm willing to accept it. Hell, I bought a new microphone recently. I could have ordered it from Amazon, but I chose instead to get it from the manufacturer, and not only was it somehow cheaper, their customer service has been phenomenal. Friction and finding the things that are WORTH that friction is what makes life vibrant and exciting.
Same here, working from home, i've got into a habit of going grocery shopping and getting my deliveries from a pick up point just as an excuse to go out more. Can't say my groceries are that much better when i pick them by myself, but it's the process and thrill of it that matters :D
I like the idea of focusing on/analyzing your current feelings. Somehow that awareness does seem to get suppressed when browsing and it is satisfying to just pause and realize you feel a certain way.
I found your channel recently by accident and I was enchanted by your interesting mix of curiosity, research, trying-to-fix-your-life and overall just being cool. Now, this video spoke to me directly and I think I'll stay longer!
Thanks to your video, i'm now more aware of that emptiness feeling i get when i scroll on shorts for half an hour, try to search for a video orjust playing black hole video games. I spent so much time in those skinner boxes that i no longer get a good enough dopamine flow thus leading to boredom, lonelyness, frustration of not enjoying anything, maybe a pinch of depression. I'll take time to think about it and watch that video again later. Thank you.
This has described my relationship with social media since I shelved Twitter when it was purchased. Eventually Instagram started to lose its lustre and now I too only go to Reddit for a dose of the scrollies. But that only happens at MOST once a day for 15 minutes. Thanks for putting a scientific understanding to the thing I just happened to do for myself.
This made me realise how people discuss "brain rot" videos, some say modern ones are identical to how they were in the past, some are adamant they're different. But in the past, they used to be specific videos we shared directly with people. We watched it, and we're done. But nowadays it's fed to us on drop feed using the Skinner box method so it just appears, then sometime later the next, and so on. That immediacy of the past is gone.
@@olgierdwisniewski7063Yes, and additionally cynically, the companies know that many people consume content about being aware of these things and how to get out of a cycle, yet they stay hooked on whatever media/consumption.
The most intresting and personally the most impactful video on curing one's addiction or dependence on social media of which there are unlimited videos now ironically enough.
I've done something similar. I deleted the reddit and youtube apps and only access them through the browser on my phone. I also have a firefox extension that redirects any youtube shorts to the normal video player so you can't just scroll to get another video. I still feel like I spend too much time online, but just adding that small amount of friction made a huge difference.
Thank you very much, you inspired me to try it out! While I knew most of what you presented and already are using some ways to add friction in my media usage, I had not thought about the necessity of gaining this self-awareness: I had used an App that blocks certain websites for 30 mins, after using them for few mins. This prevented me for using them for long, but it always took the decision away from me, thus I didn't train my self-awareness. Now, as you say: I will try out whether shrinking that block down to only 20s will force me to reflect more myself, whether I really want to use the website, and thus train my self-awareness and my self-discipline. This would be a more sustainable solution and prevent me from getting hooked by new stuff, where I haven't yet added friction.
I thought I was the only one who used Reddit in a mobile browser. I tried quitting cold turkey after the third-party app debacle, but predictably that didn't last. Truthfully I find the experience poor and sometimes toxic, but it's hard to break a habit I started in high school 10 years ago, and I feel like I'd be totally out of touch with the world without it. That's kinda silly though, Reddit isn't the world, and I'm thinking that using your method might have me quit the site entirely. Whatever happens, this video was suprisingly thought-provoking. So thank you, Hendry.
What you said at the end there really resonated. A friend of mine sadly died recently, far too young. There was so much more that they could have done and wanted to do. You're so right that life isn't there just to slide through with as little friction as possible.
My scrolling would be interrupted with every other post being an ad or promoted content I'm not interested in, so I just deleted social media altogether. And now that I have had allotted 1 TH-cam video for the night, I am going to read a book! Thanks for the content!
The poetic irony of seeing this video while scrolling TH-cam during my morning caffeine intake, the red thingy telling me I already watched it without any memory of it, and realizing it probably just played on autoplay while I had already fallen asleep during my bed doomscrolling.
Thanks for this vid Hendry. Results will tell, but I identify with your struggles before trying this, and I think this might be the thing to help me crack my own bad habits around scrolling.
"The best life isn't a friction-less one, it's one where you spend the most time doing what you value. If your life is too friction-less, you're just sliding down the slick toilet bowl funnel of a meaningless life towards the grave." Truly you have a way with words! Loved it.
I like your approach of evaluating the time spent vs just quiting cold turkey. I feel that sometimes my time on reddit was actually positive, so it woudlnt make sense for me to completely cut it out of my life.
I only use my phone for calls and texts, but I've developed a bad habit of plopping down in front of the T.V. and watching TH-cam for hours on end. Satisfaction from the content is hit or miss and then I just move on to the next video. I've been considering blocking TH-cam on my router, but it is unfortunately also a pretty useful site for reference material when trying to learn new skills. I think I'll try the method outlined in this video to see if it helps get me off the couch and doing things that are more productive. As it stands at this exact moment, this video has motivated me to get off the couch right now. So at a minimum, I'm reclaiming at least one evening.
Plopping down in front of the TV has been the problem back when TVs first appeared too; it works much the same way. But YT and co. make it even worse by making it personalized to you. And exactly, YT has this thing where there is actually a huge amount of really good content... but it always pushes garbage content to trick you all over that, so just blocking it isn't necessarily a good thing :D "Smart" TVs are meant to make us even stupider than non-Smart TVs :D
0:57 if i was in that situation I'd hammer the button too. If the food came out reliably, there'd be no need to worry, but if it was random you'd want to stockpile just in case it stopped altogether
It's so interesting how this channel/you seem to upload funny vids where you dive into strange topics, when in reality it's about self reflection, improvement and education, and I really appreciate that.
This video is very interesting and actually relates to something I have actually noticed in my own life. I need to try this out! Good stuff! Edit, I also appreciate the ominous phrasing.
You proved lactose intolerance was a skill issue and now you've shown us we're trapped in a skinner box while scrolling, also a skill issue (lack of self-awarness). Thank you for the amazing content Hendry
I had figured out the gist skinner box around 2010, in my early 20s. It soured me on games like World of Warcraft that my friends were so addicted to. I later watched that same Extra Credits video and learned more about it, and now I had a name for it, and I started seeing it more places. But around that time I was also trying to become a game developer, I was doing it as a hobby and studying a lot of extra stuff alongside; one of those things was the psychology of video games. I will say, the skinner box is just one thing games and other media do to hook you. It's hard for me to find any game that I want to play anymore, I can see it for all of its constituent parts instead of a magic box of wonder, and especially bothersome is the seeing of skinner boxes and the like. Some games I do go in knowing it's a skinner box on crack, like Vampire Survivors, but it does have natural break points; when you die or complete the level. So I use it as a distracter/dopamine hack. Something to get me through a half hour and not come out feeling gross after.
I've made a lot of progress, at least in the short term, earnestly watching movies again. Not just movies I've been looking forward to or were recommended to me, but just picking a movie off the proverbial shelf and sitting down to watch it all the way through -- whether it's good or bad -- without picking up my phone. It sounds silly to say that I'm improving my attention span and healing my technology addiction by watching movies, but genuinely I can see the improvements already. My brain is re-learning that it's okay to pay, and in fact actually enjoyable, to pay attention to the same "thing" for 90 minutes instead of something new every 10 seconds, and that makes it easier to pay attention to other things for longer periods of time too. Another good rule of thumb that I'm practicing is sometimes limiting myself to only one direct dopamine source at a time. Instead of watching a live stream on one monitor while I play a game on the other, I'll turn off a monitor and only do one of those things. Instead of scrolling reddit while I watch a youtube video, I'll just watch the youtube video. It's boring and understimulating at first, but science says that with time my brain will recalibrate for it.
greatly enjoyed your perspective on video games in this context, probably because it aligns with my own - in the sense that when i was younger i could spend dozens of hours playing something i didn't actually like. i don't do that anymore. based on that last section, i'm sure you're familiar, but i highly recommend giving Outer Wilds a shot.
Thank you so much for this video. I have had the thought that I need to avoid gamification as a solution for building better habits, because I need to actually be doing what I want to do because I genuinely can feel the enjoyment of it in the moment - and not just the artificial construct of enjoyment I built around it. Because at the end of the day I want to be living in a way I consciously enjoy for what it is more than anything. So this solution of frequent re-evaluation utilizes the same underlying logic, training oneself on what you actually want to do, without leaning into doomscrolling or digital detox, but actually into conscious consumption and I love it! It is integrating mindfulness into your media habits.
Great video! I had to do this myself a few years ago, and I find this insanely funny because i ALSO have two browsers in order to quarantine social media use. Also great taste re:somnium files.
What's frustrating for me is that I already had that realisation with games - "this is a meaningless grind that isn't fun" but then got sucked into youtube anyway.
Your view on the subject is spot on. Dark patterns in combination with the "gamification" of everything is what makes us addicted to... Well, pretty much anything really! And unironically, as you pointed out, this loop is most likely linked to the wealth of someone in the end (Zuck, Bezos...), who are also stuck in this, since they can never have enough. Thus this never-ending pattern of "keeping the line green" begins, no matter the cost. Cynical I know but, I confirm, as a designer that it IS a trend that has been going for a while. There's this concept similar to the friction you mentioned. In UX it's called micro-breaks and chunking. It forces users to pause, reducing cognitive load and makes information easier to digest. A good example which circles back to what you said: A post on "page 3" will be easier to remember than a post on... well a seemingly infinite list, because a user will have a point of reference and will have to take a very short moment before moving on. But nowadays, our attention spans being reduced to nothing while having access to somewhat of an "infinite dopamine rush" combined with the advent of AI being forced on us.... Ugh I truly hate it. I wasn't aware of Skinner boxes but the connection you make with them is full of sense and sadly a harsh truth most of us won't realize until it's often too late. Those who are conscious about it need to educate those around us who are unaware of the dangers this unhealthy mess. -A Designer with ADHD
It was hard to watch this video without scrolling down to the comments, or opening another tab in my browser while listening etc., but i was able to do it for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. im going to try and do that for every video I watch now.
a nice framing i've come across recently was quantifying things in terms of days you have left. I'm 27. if I live until 75 (safe estimate) I have 17,520 days left. not a lot!
After a quick google I just set automatic timers for my social media apps. In my android phone that was accessible via the Digital wellbeing option in the settings. Thanks for the inspiration! Hehe
8:25 I blocked Twitter on my home's DNS so I have to either switch to mobile data on my phone or log into my DNS server control panel to temporarily unblock it to look at literally anything on that hellsite.
maybe next step is ai agents that block all rage baits and trash info in all social media and give only potentially useful information by choosen topics
I wonder if this could explain the persistence of negative mental states like depression and anxiety. Instead of getting hooked on a reward system that generates Dopamine, maybe their brains are addicted to bad memories and sad thoughts, all of which will generate Serotonin, Norepinephrine, and Dopamine without leaving the bed. Hell of an addiction to kick
The "anticipation therapy" is very interesting. I quit smartphones cold turkey for half a year. And I genuinely started anticipate things a lot more. It wasn't noticible at first but it became very apparent later. Instead of whining about winter I started imagining what I would do when spring will come. I started planing more. Including planing what I would read on a daily commute. What food I would it at evening. I didn't notice the habit dropping when I picked up smartphone again. But it started dropping. I wonder if anticipating stuff in general could scratch this need to entertain yourself at no cost.
Thank you so much. I finally understand. And now that I have reached the natural break point that is the end of this video, I will go and do something else.
One of the reasons that cohost was great is that its bookmarked tags feed had actual pages, and you had to click a button to go to the next page. Made it so easy to just scroll through one or two and then stop
A friend pointed out that the method that worked for me to break my phone addiction is similar to the book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" by Allen Carr. This book's method, similarly, doesn't rely on willpower to break the addiction, but understanding the nature of it. It suggests the experience of smoking in itself is not pleasant, more like wearing tight shoes for the pleasure of taking them off. The smoker is encouraged to break the illusion that it is actually the smoking they like in order to quit.
There have been multiple randomized trials that support the Allen Carr's method. If anyone has used it or something similar, I'd be curious how the experience was, whether the physical addiction aspects were truly possible to overcome with the change in mindset.
Studies:
Frings, D., Albery, I. P., Moss, A. C., Brunger, H., Burghelea, M., White, S., and Wood, K. V. (2020) Comparison of Allen Carr's Easyway programme with a specialist behavioural and pharmacological smoking cessation support service: a randomized controlled trial. Addiction, 115: 977-985. doi.org/10.1111/add.14897.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.14897
Keogan S, Li S, Clancy L. Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - A randomised clinical trial. Tob Control. 2019 Jul;28(4):414-419. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054243. Epub 2018 Oct 25. PMID: 30361322; PMCID: PMC6589447. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6589447/
I'm addicted to your accent
Hi, I think you have a typo in your second paragraph: you've written "the Allen Carr's method", and I think you might mean "Allen Carr's method" or "the Allen Carr method".
Very good video!
I just realised even scrolling the comments here is a Skinner box.
Yeah, I gotta get better about that if I found this comment lol
Thanks to your comment, I will now stop immediately!
So it's chat for streaming.
This comment is in the top 3 now. I think I'm going to keep scrolling a bit more
Addicted? I was addicted once, they put me in a box, a skinner box, a skinner box full of pidgeons.
Are you saying you're addicted to pigeons?
Addicted? I was addicted once... They put me in a box. A skinner box. A skinner box full of pidgeons. Pidgeons made me addicted.
Do you eat squab
@@FerencGazdag Addicted? I was addicted once... They put me in a box. A skinner box. A skinner box full of pidgeons. Pidgeons made me addicted...Addicted? I was addicted once... They put me in a box. A skinner box. A skinner box full of pidgeons. Pidgeons made me addicted.
I, too, used to want to shoehorn a "D" into pigeon.
Friction in the form of scarcity is one of the reasons I’m still on TH-cam. The subscriptions tab remains one of the precious few spaces on the Internet that is still a) self-curated, b) finite, and c) sorted in chronological order. I try very hard to avoid the endless scroll of the homepage, and I’m very picky about who I do subscribe to so I don’t clutter up that space too much. (Always nice to see one of yours crop up in that space btw! Hope you’re doing well.)
i have tried to poison my home page by marking interesting things as "not interested" which caused my homepage to become extremely boring.
still scrolling on it though, but often not finding anything to watch.
not sure if this helps me save time.
Have you ever tried using freetube? you get no ads, no algorithm, auto skip sponsor, only subscriptions tab Ive been using it and I love it, I would rather watch on freetube than on youtube. Theres not even a google login, its all private info just make a list of subscriptions and its great
RSS feeds are the only way to go :)
How do you fit in discovery? e.g. new channels to subscribe to
@ f.r.e.etube
I knew a lady who worked at CERN. She quit her job there and moved to Tokyo to be Chief Science Officer at a company that analyzed phone data. She worked on figuring out the best moment to send notifications play mobile games for each user. This was 8 years ago but I'm still sad her massive brain was used to wind up skinner boxes.
I hope the pay was good or better at least
@@score38 Obviously it was. And _that_ is sad.
Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do to feed your family.
@locinolacolino1302
Said the guard in the concentraton camp tower
Capitalism doing what it is designed to - legitimizing and maintaining power for those born into it. (Look into the data on "social mobility" if you don't believe me).
First i cured my lactose intolerance, now its time for phone addiction. I love your videos
When we gonna cure our broken hearts
@olgierdwisniewski7063 real 😔
@olgierdwisniewski7063 😢
@@olgierdwisniewski7063 the answer is always - video games
wow ,when you gonna cure your gay profile pic
I just set an obnoxious password on my phone so inputting that every time was a legitimate deterrent to my lazy ass such that I would rather just stare at my ceiling or touch grass instead of opening my phone and looking at youtube shorts everytime I have a moment to myself
OMG yes I'm stealing this idea, but I'll probably do it for certain apps instead of the whole thing
Doing nothing is better for you than scrolling, it allows your mind to think
Good idea. 👍
That may also be why I didn't enable facial recognition/fingerprints on my new phone.
You can avoid shorts by watching TH-cam on your phone browser and installing an extension that removes them, that's what I do
Can't I deal with this the way you dealt with lactose intolerance by doing a bunch of social media all at once until I cultivate an enzyme to deal with it for me?
Just tape your eyelids open and scroll the apps until you go blind. Problem solved the biological way :D
@@HGModernism LoL - Clockwork Orange style! Worked great there...
I like your moderate, self-forgiving approach to this. I'm working to remove algorithm-curated feeds from my life wherever possible, and this motivated me to finally start blocking the TH-cam "Home" feed. Anyone who browses it regularly knows you're absolutely right, it's obviously purposely designed to kinda suck as recommendation engine, feeding you just enough gems in the garbage to keep you hunting.
Good alternatives to complex algorithm feeds are chronological subscription feeds, human-curated playlists, content naively sorted by human-votes (like your reddit tabs example), and good old-fashioned personal recommendations.
you can also block the shorts element from any youtube page. it helped me a lot.
I like your description of this approach as “moderate” and “self-forgiving.” I feel like we, both as a society and as individuals, would benefit from applying those adjectives to any number of vices, addictions, and so forth…
I feel no regret from deleting all my social media
In Revanced, you can configure which tabs are visible in the app. Your comment actually made me go to settings and disable the Home tab.
@@meowchin This is actually what I did, too. That along with blocking Shorts are the main reasons I can't go back to a vanilla client. I'm torn on how much to actively promote it, though, I feel like popularity will only hasten its demise.
Which is probably the point where I migrate away from TH-cam altogether, like I did with reddit after they killed 3rd party apps. You have to stay nimble to keep ahead of enshittification.
Was that a Spec Ops The Line reference in my probiotics/ biology/ gastromancy/ movie review/ social commentary/ wikipedia arguments youtube channel?
Pick a niche they said
@@HGModernism yeah but a niche that still exists... ((wait was it only on stream or also anywhere else??))
@@zumabbar I actually have it downloaded and want to live stream it sometime, ideally while playing a recording of me reading Heart of Darkness during the downtime haha
haha I felt the same. Great game
@@HGModernismit's a great semi-anti-war message
I've never thought of this topic in this exact way, but I've definitely been aware of it for longer.
Something I tend to do to stay out of the infinite scrolling loop, is just to scroll down a bit and then read in reverse. This guarantees a natural stopping point! And if I want to continue after, that is fine, but it makes it a conscious decision.
I love how elegantly simple this one is. Think I will call it the “yo-yo scroll” henceforth
Wow, that's such a good idea!
This is a neat idea! Just don't let it catch on too much or they'll start re-randomising things we've scrolled past. Though I think the platforms already try to do that by very conveniently failing to restore the last thing I had open.
I found your video while trapped in a skinner box of TH-cam though 😂
the youbutton keep on giving
Remove the Skinner Box elements of TH-cam then. Disable the search history so that your watch recommendations aren't polluted, be fastidious about marking stuff you don't want to see as "Don't recommend this" (and if you watch something you regret, delete it from your watch history), and never, ever scroll through vertical videos-go back to the thumbnail view and click something explictly rather than giving into the all-knowing feed.
I still watch a lot of TH-cam, but surprisingly I actually run out of stuff I actually want to watch, which makes it easy to stop.
try the untrap for youtube extension or similar. You can customise all of sorts of things. Disable autoplay, infinite scroll, hide shorts, hide comments etc.
@@cmmartti All good recommendations, and I'd add that the DeArrow extension is a nice addition to this so that when browsing thumbnails it's clickbait getting you, but actual interest in the topic.
I dont understand the relevance of everyone in the comments mentioning this. "I started using heroin, and only because I did, did I find a rehab group".
I appreciate that this is not just a knee-jerk "technology bad"/"social media bad" approach, but rather one that is supposed to make one evaluate what is truly best for them.
I personally appreciate removing friction, but only when I understand the cost, and the cost is acceptable for me. So for example, ordering food? Great if I'm not in the mood to go somewhere or cook something, the cost is just money and the food being a bit worse. But asking AI about things? The cost is the fact that it's going to be often wrong, so at best, in its current shape, it might be a starting point in looking for actual answers. The cost of using it as an end to end solution is just way too high.
Anyway, I'm pretty fortunate that this kind of thing doesn't seem to work on me all that well (or rather, for the things that do work, like watching youtube, I don't look back and think that I wasted my time). Now if you had a hack to fix my food addiction...
Also, for the record, comment sections can be skinner boxes too. Some of these comments are really good and interesting, how many uninteresting comments will you scroll past looking for the next good one? (the answer's zero because this community is phenomenal, but apply this logic to the comments of other videos by creators with less phenomenal communities)
There's also the aspect of explore/exploit going on the comments -- getting data on new ones, so it's a 2 for 1
I got used to arguing (not in a ragey way) with people I found ignorant or hostile in comment sections and it has been spooky to see my own addiction to it grow, I disabled notifications but then started keeping tabs on which video I wrote what under, and coming back to look at the "engagement"
The most bizarre things can really hook you, and here I am in yet another comment.
@@Amynon1660 comment sections ruined my life
I appreciate this analysis of breaking phone addiction instead of every other youtuber just saying willpower, put your phone across the room, use screen time, blah blah
Bro wtf I remember watching your telebrush video it was great
I think willpower is great for rare one-offs temptations, but no one has enough will power to push back daily
@@BeansAreOk❤❤ Thank you brodie much love
Your videos are the definition of philosophy, love of wisdom, and are very interesting, thank you!! 🌟🏆
Another tool to use in this fight: I often found myself having learned exactly where the addictive apps were on my phone and opening the apps by reflex. It helped to move the addictive apps to a place where I needed more clicks to reach them. Breaking the reflex habit.
Yep! As a bonus I put them in a folder called "time wasters" so that I'm forced to acknowledge each time that what I'm choosing to do is waste time. Wasting time isn't always a bad thing, of course, but I think it's healthy to be honest with ourselves when we're doing it.
During WWII Skinner tried to turn his brainwashed pigeons into weapons. He created something called Project ORCON, where he trained them to peck at images of battleships. Then he put a wire grid over the images that could be used to turn the pecks into electrical impulses. Then he put the wire grid and the pigeons into the nose cone of a missile and hooked the wire grid up to the steering mechanism of the rocket. the idea was that the rocket would be launched in the general direction of an enemy fleet and as soon as the pigeon in it saw a battleship it would start pecking in its direction through the grid in the forlorn hope of getting food, steering the missile towards the target. It worked as a concept, but was never adopted because the pigeons weren't so great at telling the difference between American and Japanese battleships. There's probably some horrible metaphor there about how we're all pecking away at the internet in the hope of getting some reward, but really we're just hurtling towards certain annihilation.
Believe it or not, Project ORCON wasn't even the weirdest animal-based weapons experiment of WWII. That honour probably goes to Project X-Ray, which (and I am being completely serious here) involved capturing bats and strapping tiny bomb vests onto them so they could be dropped out of planes onto Japanese cities. Again, it reached the testing stage and was considered a partial success after some of the weaponised bats woke up from their artificially-induced torpor early, escaped, and burned down the air base where they were being kept.
Anyway, this seems like really good advice and I'm going to try something like it it with a few of my own time sinks.
Ahh, it sounds like those missiles had an early form of unreliable AI.
There's a YA book by Kenneth Oppel called Sunwing (sequel to Silverwing) that uses these bat-guided bombs as a plot point. It's written solely from the perspective of the bats so obviously there are a lot of liberties taken for storytelling purposes. Nonetheless, it's a good book for the intended audience.
I didnt know that!. Thanks :)
@ I've been a fan of the Bat Bomb idea for a while (as an abstract comedic concept, rather than thinking it was morally acceptable in any way at all, I immediately hasten to add) but I'd missed that. Thanks!
I think the bat one morbidly makes sense since they are trying to use an existing 'targeting' behaviour. Unless I was lied to I believe it was incendiary devices and their *natural* desire to roost in the eaves and attics of thatch/plant/wood roofed buildings. Honestly the bats already make me very sad but there are worse stories about armies trying to train animals to carry bombs toward the enemy. I suggest caution googling such questions though.
It almost always is just a story of hubris where people assume made up truths about animal behaviour. The skinner pigeon missiles suck in practice but at least their theory was thoroughly studied and proven.
Projects like these make me lose faith in humanity and maybe helping it destroy itself will just shorten the agony. Indeed stupidity is not an intellecutal deficiency, it's a moral one.
I have a degree in psychology, and specifically studied dopamine pathways in particular, and I was today years old when I learned that the act of scrolling itself is a rewarding behavior. I knew the novelty was obviously reward condoning, but it didn't occur to me that the scroll itself was dopamine releasing.
Also that Reddit hack is brilliant and exactly my kind of insane.
Just goes to show that having a degree in a field doesn't immunise one to ignorance of even basic aspects of said field
I've had someting similar about frictionless Christmas. Caroling, tree, decorations were pain un the hurty bitz, but once you remove all that bothers you are left with... sterility
The description is pretty much where I'm at right now. I can buy damn near anything I want on Amazon. I never have to leave my house!
And for... several years, that's exactly what happened. I didn't leave my house more than once every few MONTHS for... years.
Then a series of events has me going out almost every week. I go to the local butcher, and I get *incredibly* good meat and polish food. I go to the mall and walk with my husband and get physical books and interact with people. My favorite leaf juice vendor is locally owned, and while they're more expensive, they have such a great experience that I'm willing to accept it.
Hell, I bought a new microphone recently. I could have ordered it from Amazon, but I chose instead to get it from the manufacturer, and not only was it somehow cheaper, their customer service has been phenomenal.
Friction and finding the things that are WORTH that friction is what makes life vibrant and exciting.
Same here, working from home, i've got into a habit of going grocery shopping and getting my deliveries from a pick up point just as an excuse to go out more. Can't say my groceries are that much better when i pick them by myself, but it's the process and thrill of it that matters :D
Thank you for explaining something that has robbed years from me, I finally understand the trap. This is so beyond messed up
Hmm to make this 5:19 chart into a phone case might be a good visual reminder for phone addicts
I'm so glad I found this channel.
Hendry is exactly my kind of person.
I like the idea of focusing on/analyzing your current feelings. Somehow that awareness does seem to get suppressed when browsing and it is satisfying to just pause and realize you feel a certain way.
Yes, new video! I loved 😍 your videos about lactose!
I found your channel recently by accident and I was enchanted by your interesting mix of curiosity, research, trying-to-fix-your-life and overall just being cool. Now, this video spoke to me directly and I think I'll stay longer!
extra credits was so good back in the day. havent kept up since the host change but shout out
That was a name I havent heard in a long time.
I add friction also, watching you now on my phone browser's, app un-installed. No notifications, less recommendations. Love it
Thanks to your video, i'm now more aware of that emptiness feeling i get when i scroll on shorts for half an hour, try to search for a video orjust playing black hole video games.
I spent so much time in those skinner boxes that i no longer get a good enough dopamine flow thus leading to boredom, lonelyness, frustration of not enjoying anything, maybe a pinch of depression.
I'll take time to think about it and watch that video again later. Thank you.
I love your videos, so thankful they started randomly showing up on my youtube page
This has described my relationship with social media since I shelved Twitter when it was purchased. Eventually Instagram started to lose its lustre and now I too only go to Reddit for a dose of the scrollies. But that only happens at MOST once a day for 15 minutes. Thanks for putting a scientific understanding to the thing I just happened to do for myself.
Insane how good this channel is. Doesn't make me lose hope that there's still NEW quality content to be discovered on TH-cam.
Have recently started to set timers when gaming. Interesting how i now suddenly run into your coverage of the topic.
This made me realise how people discuss "brain rot" videos, some say modern ones are identical to how they were in the past, some are adamant they're different. But in the past, they used to be specific videos we shared directly with people. We watched it, and we're done. But nowadays it's fed to us on drop feed using the Skinner box method so it just appears, then sometime later the next, and so on.
That immediacy of the past is gone.
The fact that I am only found your channel through endless doomscrolling youtube, leaves me somewhat conflicted about this video.
How. That makes no sense.
These kind of videos are popular. Algorithm can see they engage us more since the problem applies to every single user.
@@olgierdwisniewski7063Yes, and additionally cynically, the companies know that many people consume content about being aware of these things and how to get out of a cycle, yet they stay hooked on whatever media/consumption.
Just treat it like God sending you wake up calls so you can be the greater person you are meant to be
The most intresting and personally the most impactful video on curing one's addiction or dependence on social media of which there are unlimited videos now ironically enough.
I've done something similar. I deleted the reddit and youtube apps and only access them through the browser on my phone. I also have a firefox extension that redirects any youtube shorts to the normal video player so you can't just scroll to get another video. I still feel like I spend too much time online, but just adding that small amount of friction made a huge difference.
This is the way. Click what you like, but preserve just enough friction that you have to make a conscious choice to do it.
ooo, which extension is that for shorts?
edit: found "TH-cam Shorts Redirect by huantian"
There is also this extension called DF tube which can hide related videos, feed, comments, etc.
Thank you very much, you inspired me to try it out!
While I knew most of what you presented and already are using some ways to add friction in my media usage, I had not thought about the necessity of gaining this self-awareness: I had used an App that blocks certain websites for 30 mins, after using them for few mins. This prevented me for using them for long, but it always took the decision away from me, thus I didn't train my self-awareness.
Now, as you say: I will try out whether shrinking that block down to only 20s will force me to reflect more myself, whether I really want to use the website, and thus train my self-awareness and my self-discipline. This would be a more sustainable solution and prevent me from getting hooked by new stuff, where I haven't yet added friction.
I thought I was the only one who used Reddit in a mobile browser. I tried quitting cold turkey after the third-party app debacle, but predictably that didn't last. Truthfully I find the experience poor and sometimes toxic, but it's hard to break a habit I started in high school 10 years ago, and I feel like I'd be totally out of touch with the world without it. That's kinda silly though, Reddit isn't the world, and I'm thinking that using your method might have me quit the site entirely.
Whatever happens, this video was suprisingly thought-provoking. So thank you, Hendry.
Everything you said was so interesting! I'm glad youtube recommended your video :)
What you said at the end there really resonated. A friend of mine sadly died recently, far too young. There was so much more that they could have done and wanted to do. You're so right that life isn't there just to slide through with as little friction as possible.
My scrolling would be interrupted with every other post being an ad or promoted content I'm not interested in, so I just deleted social media altogether.
And now that I have had allotted 1 TH-cam video for the night, I am going to read a book! Thanks for the content!
dang, i love this. Thanks for sharing.
The poetic irony of seeing this video while scrolling TH-cam during my morning caffeine intake, the red thingy telling me I already watched it without any memory of it, and realizing it probably just played on autoplay while I had already fallen asleep during my bed doomscrolling.
Thanks for this vid Hendry. Results will tell, but I identify with your struggles before trying this, and I think this might be the thing to help me crack my own bad habits around scrolling.
"The best life isn't a friction-less one, it's one where you spend the most time doing what you value.
If your life is too friction-less, you're just sliding down the slick toilet bowl funnel of a meaningless life towards the grave."
Truly you have a way with words!
Loved it.
Holy moly, this video is incredible
I like your approach of evaluating the time spent vs just quiting cold turkey. I feel that sometimes my time on reddit was actually positive, so it woudlnt make sense for me to completely cut it out of my life.
Oh man, that was incredibly helpful. Thank you!
I only use my phone for calls and texts, but I've developed a bad habit of plopping down in front of the T.V. and watching TH-cam for hours on end. Satisfaction from the content is hit or miss and then I just move on to the next video.
I've been considering blocking TH-cam on my router, but it is unfortunately also a pretty useful site for reference material when trying to learn new skills. I think I'll try the method outlined in this video to see if it helps get me off the couch and doing things that are more productive.
As it stands at this exact moment, this video has motivated me to get off the couch right now. So at a minimum, I'm reclaiming at least one evening.
Plopping down in front of the TV has been the problem back when TVs first appeared too; it works much the same way. But YT and co. make it even worse by making it personalized to you. And exactly, YT has this thing where there is actually a huge amount of really good content... but it always pushes garbage content to trick you all over that, so just blocking it isn't necessarily a good thing :D
"Smart" TVs are meant to make us even stupider than non-Smart TVs :D
0:57 if i was in that situation I'd hammer the button too. If the food came out reliably, there'd be no need to worry, but if it was random you'd want to stockpile just in case it stopped altogether
I really liked the way you said updown and I had to replay it 4 times.
It's so interesting how this channel/you seem to upload funny vids where you dive into strange topics, when in reality it's about self reflection, improvement and education, and I really appreciate that.
This video is very interesting and actually relates to something I have actually noticed in my own life.
I need to try this out! Good stuff!
Edit, I also appreciate the ominous phrasing.
I remember than Extra Credits video! I guess myself recognizing social media apps as skinner boxes isn't necessarilly enough not to get hooked on them
yo can explain really well and i like how you research your topics very throughout
You proved lactose intolerance was a skill issue and now you've shown us we're trapped in a skinner box while scrolling, also a skill issue (lack of self-awarness).
Thank you for the amazing content Hendry
I love the dark souls 1 map in the background, I always look at it and try to match it up in my head when I'm watching :]
I had figured out the gist skinner box around 2010, in my early 20s. It soured me on games like World of Warcraft that my friends were so addicted to. I later watched that same Extra Credits video and learned more about it, and now I had a name for it, and I started seeing it more places. But around that time I was also trying to become a game developer, I was doing it as a hobby and studying a lot of extra stuff alongside; one of those things was the psychology of video games. I will say, the skinner box is just one thing games and other media do to hook you.
It's hard for me to find any game that I want to play anymore, I can see it for all of its constituent parts instead of a magic box of wonder, and especially bothersome is the seeing of skinner boxes and the like. Some games I do go in knowing it's a skinner box on crack, like Vampire Survivors, but it does have natural break points; when you die or complete the level. So I use it as a distracter/dopamine hack. Something to get me through a half hour and not come out feeling gross after.
I think I'll keep this video and watch it regularly to remind me.
Insightful. Thanks for the video
I have the same dark souls map print on my wall and I lined it up with this video. This pleased me.
I've made a lot of progress, at least in the short term, earnestly watching movies again. Not just movies I've been looking forward to or were recommended to me, but just picking a movie off the proverbial shelf and sitting down to watch it all the way through -- whether it's good or bad -- without picking up my phone. It sounds silly to say that I'm improving my attention span and healing my technology addiction by watching movies, but genuinely I can see the improvements already. My brain is re-learning that it's okay to pay, and in fact actually enjoyable, to pay attention to the same "thing" for 90 minutes instead of something new every 10 seconds, and that makes it easier to pay attention to other things for longer periods of time too.
Another good rule of thumb that I'm practicing is sometimes limiting myself to only one direct dopamine source at a time. Instead of watching a live stream on one monitor while I play a game on the other, I'll turn off a monitor and only do one of those things. Instead of scrolling reddit while I watch a youtube video, I'll just watch the youtube video. It's boring and understimulating at first, but science says that with time my brain will recalibrate for it.
greatly enjoyed your perspective on video games in this context, probably because it aligns with my own - in the sense that when i was younger i could spend dozens of hours playing something i didn't actually like. i don't do that anymore. based on that last section, i'm sure you're familiar, but i highly recommend giving Outer Wilds a shot.
Thank you so much for this video. I have had the thought that I need to avoid gamification as a solution for building better habits, because I need to actually be doing what I want to do because I genuinely can feel the enjoyment of it in the moment - and not just the artificial construct of enjoyment I built around it. Because at the end of the day I want to be living in a way I consciously enjoy for what it is more than anything.
So this solution of frequent re-evaluation utilizes the same underlying logic, training oneself on what you actually want to do, without leaning into doomscrolling or digital detox, but actually into conscious consumption and I love it! It is integrating mindfulness into your media habits.
Great video! I had to do this myself a few years ago, and I find this insanely funny because i ALSO have two browsers in order to quarantine social media use. Also great taste re:somnium files.
Glad to hear i'm not the only person who uses browser for reddit to use it less. I also do it without logging in to avoid getting into discussions :D
Thank you miss I truly need this. Be careful with the TH-cam shorts That what gets me.
I say this with nothing but love, but the premise of this video could only ever be done by you and I love that for all of us
Another great, super interesting video. I immediately set the reminder to pause in TH-cam.
Good video, subscribed.
Thank you for being the good content in my Skinner box
What's frustrating for me is that I already had that realisation with games - "this is a meaningless grind that isn't fun" but then got sucked into youtube anyway.
Saved this to my watch later playlist so this video will pop up as a reminder in my mindless TH-cam scrolling
Your view on the subject is spot on. Dark patterns in combination with the "gamification" of everything is what makes us addicted to... Well, pretty much anything really! And unironically, as you pointed out, this loop is most likely linked to the wealth of someone in the end (Zuck, Bezos...), who are also stuck in this, since they can never have enough. Thus this never-ending pattern of "keeping the line green" begins, no matter the cost. Cynical I know but, I confirm, as a designer that it IS a trend that has been going for a while.
There's this concept similar to the friction you mentioned. In UX it's called micro-breaks and chunking. It forces users to pause, reducing cognitive load and makes information easier to digest. A good example which circles back to what you said: A post on "page 3" will be easier to remember than a post on... well a seemingly infinite list, because a user will have a point of reference and will have to take a very short moment before moving on. But nowadays, our attention spans being reduced to nothing while having access to somewhat of an "infinite dopamine rush" combined with the advent of AI being forced on us.... Ugh I truly hate it.
I wasn't aware of Skinner boxes but the connection you make with them is full of sense and sadly a harsh truth most of us won't realize until it's often too late. Those who are conscious about it need to educate those around us who are unaware of the dangers this unhealthy mess.
-A Designer with ADHD
Sorting by Top of Month is genius!
It was hard to watch this video without scrolling down to the comments, or opening another tab in my browser while listening etc., but i was able to do it for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. im going to try and do that for every video I watch now.
I am addicted to H.G. Modernism, only unlike the skinner boxes, the content here is always top notch!
Just a comment for the algorithm to keep this video recommended :) Good info!
❤ Great video! Thank you interesting internet girl for changing my life for the better I guess?
Thank you for this video.
a nice framing i've come across recently was quantifying things in terms of days you have left. I'm 27. if I live until 75 (safe estimate) I have 17,520 days left. not a lot!
I kind of did the timer thing regularly, because I like to drink some tea while browsing the Internet. Which means putting a timer on my phone.
After a quick google I just set automatic timers for my social media apps.
In my android phone that was accessible via the Digital wellbeing option in the settings. Thanks for the inspiration! Hehe
Even crazier part is that almost all of us know this, but just doesn't care.
8:25 I blocked Twitter on my home's DNS so I have to either switch to mobile data on my phone or log into my DNS server control panel to temporarily unblock it to look at literally anything on that hellsite.
maybe next step is ai agents that block all rage baits and trash info in all social media and give only potentially useful information by choosen topics
I wonder if this could explain the persistence of negative mental states like depression and anxiety. Instead of getting hooked on a reward system that generates Dopamine, maybe their brains are addicted to bad memories and sad thoughts, all of which will generate Serotonin, Norepinephrine, and Dopamine without leaving the bed. Hell of an addiction to kick
The "anticipation therapy" is very interesting.
I quit smartphones cold turkey for half a year.
And I genuinely started anticipate things a lot more.
It wasn't noticible at first but it became very apparent later.
Instead of whining about winter I started imagining what I would do when spring will come. I started planing more. Including planing what I would read on a daily commute. What food I would it at evening.
I didn't notice the habit dropping when I picked up smartphone again. But it started dropping.
I wonder if anticipating stuff in general could scratch this need to entertain yourself at no cost.
Great video! Hope to see that video on Dark Patterns that you mentioned as well
If you want to quit cold turkey, heat it up
I ADORE AI: The Somnium Files and its sequel!!! I really hope they make another, but I also hope it's up to the quality of the first two.
Thank you so much. I finally understand. And now that I have reached the natural break point that is the end of this video, I will go and do something else.
I really like your reddit "workflow"
I am glad I am an early investor in this channel. This is some good shit!!
you are my favourite creator on youtube
One reason I went back to browsing a bunch of old school forums: No auto-refreshing feeds!
and less garbage guerilla marketing. Reddit's ads are unbearable
Hey, thank you
One of the reasons that cohost was great is that its bookmarked tags feed had actual pages, and you had to click a button to go to the next page. Made it so easy to just scroll through one or two and then stop
In Video game design, random chance of rewards are the bread and butter of keeping players addicted and engaged