Distracting yourself from distractions by building an overly complex system to help you do that, and writing an article about it, is certainly a very HN-ish thing to do.
But on a more serious note, distraction and focus are difficult topics. When I'm highly motivated, I'm utterly indistractible. When I have to do boring toil, absolutely anything & everything can distract me.
If you identify a problem behavior then putting extrinsic constraints to manage that behavior seems like a reasonable thing to do. This comment reads like disparaging an ex-smoker for not still walking around with cigarettes in their pocket.
It is possible that OP has made some parts of the story up or at least sexed it up a bit to jibe with the HN mindset (whatever that is).
I found the article refreshingly short and to the point whilst being jolly amusing and informative. The bloke is German so English is a second language - very good skills.
Distracting yourself by reading and commenting about someone distracting themselves from distractions by building an overly complex system is the ultimate HN thing to do ;P
I love it though!! These kinds of projects are fun to do and attack a real life use case for the creator. I bet he and his girlfriend get good use out of it. If my roommate wasn't so insistent on unfettered access to internet, I'd try to do similar DNS filtering for our apartment.
But, even AdGuard isn’t that complex, I think it’s a one time distraction with some maintenance, compared to endless ads eating away at your brain, hours after hours. Worth it I say =)
Many years ago we gave our then-toddler an old digital camera to play with. Some time later, we looked at the pictures he took. We were horrified to find out that he took pictures of the outside of the house at night. As in, our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed. I bought some wireless door sensors and created an automation where if the sensors are triggered between 10pm and 6am, the lights in our room would turn on to wake us up.
I expanded this later and today we have sensors on all doors/windows that kids can use to leave the house (we have 4 young kids). As it happens, these are the same doors/windows that burglars can use to enter the house, so this doubles as an alarm system (that we can activate when we leave the house and will notify us remotely if the sensors are triggered).
The best part is that with Home Assistant you are not locked into an app/ecosystem. Our door/window sensors are of a different brand than our lightbulbs, and we control everything from a single app.
This, for me, is the most interesting part of your comment:
> our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed.
Did you ever ask your toddler why they did this? The thought process, for a toddler, to do that, to want a photo of the outside of the house at night enough to do that. That's some high level curiosity, worth fostering.
One of mine at that age would have had that level of quirkiness, but probably would have been too scared of "the dark" (also, our house already had a security system installed when we bought it, which we still set off accidentally every now and then, so the kids would probably have known that as well).
Here is a gradated set of exercises to determine one's phone addiction, if any, in increasing levels of potential difficulty.
1 - on an off day, with no reason to require phone use,
put your phone in a dresser drawer for the day and
do not use or look at it.
2 - on an off day, with no reason to require phone use,
put your phone in a dresser drawer for the day and
leave your residence for at least one hour.
3 - leave your phone at home when either meeting friends,
getting lunch, or going to the grocery store.
4 - leave your phone at home when going into the office
for one day.
5 - leave your phone in a dresser drawer for an entire
weekend.
6 - leave your phone at home when traveling for more
than a day (vacation, visiting family, etc.).
I guess it's a good test for something, but I wouldn't call that something "phone addiction". I think wanting to be reachable by friends and family is fine and "addiction" starts when you start compulsively using your phone, like if you're scrolling through [insert social media here].
And phones are much more than content consumption machines - I like having a little pocket camera with me in case a see a new cat in the neighbourhood or something, and looking up bus schedules, renting city bikes, calling a cab, etc. are things I all but need to be able to do when I'm out.
My trick to almost never looking at my phone has been, somewhat ironically, having a smartwatch, as well as carefully curating the notifications I get on my phone. If I know I can't miss an important notification, I'll never even look at my phone, so there's no chance I even see one of those time wasting apps. And when a notification buzzes on my wrist, I can see in a fraction of a second if it's something really important or if it can wait.
These are very good. I take phone-free walks around the neighborhood, to the store, downtown for a festival. It feels weird at first, then it's nice.
I took an internet-free vacation last spring, and it was lovely.
While planning the trip, I made sure my old TomTom's built-in maps seemed accurate to what I was seeing online; there wasn't a lot of road-building activity there in the last decade or two. Then I turned off my phone and locked it in the glovebox, there in case of emergency.
Then I took a deep breath, started the car, and headed north.
It was awesome just knowing there was no way a notification could ding, nobody could call me, no news headline could pop up and harsh my mellow. Even if those things didn't actually happen constantly, simply existing in a state where they could was stressful, apparently, and turning the damn thing off was remarkably cathartic.
The problem is I know that I am completely addicted, but I cannot stop. I feel like I'm the alcoholic drinking a bottle of vodka a day. I have tried to give up many times but I just can't crack it. Every time I have a good day the next day just slides right back into addiction. I probably average around 5-10 hours of pointless screen time a day (scrolling random youtube clips. Researching items I will never buy. Fantasizing about jobs I can never get. )
I have tried all kinds of blocking software and strategies. Blocking software, however elaborate, never seems to make a different. You find one way or another to get around the block and then after a while turning off the block just becomes part of your muscle memory. The most extreme thing I tried was cutting off the internet to my house and going back to a dumbphone for 6 months. For sure, I probably had less screen time. But I also spent many hours sitting in the station using the public wifi or watching hours and hours of pointless television.
This is a really tough nut to crack. I think there is probably no technological solution to it.
I also recommend getting an Apple Watch with cellular – that way you can still be reached for emergencies, while not having access to any social media or other distractions. Since I got an apple watch I find myself leaving the phone at home more often.
Looks like I just inadvertently skipped to level 4 every workday, due to working inside of a restricted area with lots of proprietary industrial stuff.
Very nice, will use it on my child, but this doesn't cover my case.
I have it as a wallet (those flip cases) so it is always with me. But it can stay in backpack for days without using it, except maybe for calls (to talk with parents after I don't call for weeks :D) and to pay for public transit (huge mess to charge nfc cards). I don't use social networks, chat software (sms excluded) at all, never even registered to fb, cant even remember when was the last time I installed any app.
I consider this a very sane use of phone. It is not addiction, rather satisfying addicted society that is pressuring me to use it.
I don’t think addiction is the right way to look at it.
I think most people can easily do all the way through #6 if they put their mind to it. It’s not a physical addiction.
The real cost is when you’re not intentionally trying to deprive yourself. Do you gravitate back to unhealthy (at least the way you define it) behaviors?
Most of the time, I don't carry a wallet so I just use my phone to tap and pay at the store. To get to the store, I use my phone on the bus to tap and buy ticket. To get back into my residence, I need to use the app on my phone to open the main gate as well as access the lift.
I can still do the first two without the phone but my housing society has eliminated physical cards with basically zero consultation.
I feel like I always “need” my phone, as it is my car key, workout tracker, garage door opener, baby monitor, and HVAC controller. Obviously I could have separate physical devices for all those tasks, but the whole reason I run my homelab is so that I can control them from one portable item that’s always on me
A good compromise is to set apps to use only wifi and disable data mode of the SIM card, this way you don't receive notifications when you're outside without sacrificing the ability to call for support in case of emergency or simply take photos to capture a fleeting moment.
Level 0 or 100 depending on the person: take your phone with you and just don't a) look at it every 5 minutes, b) reply to incoming messages instantly or c) check in to see what some pointless celebrity posted in the last 3 minutes.
Interestingly, I'd find #1 to be significantly harder than 2 and about half the scenarios in 3 [waiting for friends and would make me nervous without real time updates].
The temptation is too great to get bored and check my phone when I'm in the house with it.
The one thing I’ve found that works for me on my phone is the OneSec app. It hooks into shortcuts (for apps) and a Safari extension (for websites) to prompt you with a small task to do (eg a 20sec breathing exercise) before you access the softblocked content. The time delay + task is enough for me to remind myself that this isn’t what I want to be doing. And in the instances where I actually do consciously want to visit XYZ platform, I can just do the exercise and be granted access.
The only downside is that the Safari extension is granted full access to my web browsing in order to facilitate the website blocking. They say they don’t capture any data and at this point do trust them (you may feel differently). For blocking apps, no private data sharing is required.
> The one thing I’ve found that works for me on my phone is the OneSec app.
Sometimes the simplest solution is the Luddite one; put the phone down and step away from it.
If this appears to be an insurmountable ask, or otherwise infeasible, I humbly suggest there is a greater concern to be addressed than what yet another app on the phone which cannot be distanced may remedy.
how do you and others get past all the permissions that onesec needs? They say everything remains on device; however, it's a closed source application so there's not really any way to confirm that besides looking at the packets that are going out of your phone.
When I specify smart home stuff, I have several criteria. Things like controls must be mains powered or on UPS or both.
If it is important, then if wifi/ethernet out then it should still work. So my doorbell used to have a link to a mechanical chime (Doorbird), the current Reolink jobbie does not but it is PoE and all my switches have UPS. The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera.
Oh and none of my home things ever get unfettered access to the internet. I have two VLANs for IoT: things is for most devices and sewer is for those that scare me somewhat.
I treat the whole thing the same way I do corporate IT and I do point Nessus at it. I have several Home Assistants that I look after - home and work and several customer ones too.
The OP's choice of smart plug is clearly designed to be mildly inconvenient to get at but also reliable. I'll put money on there being a monitoring function too.
> The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera
I started using PoE to DC power adapters for most of these use-cases. It lets me centralize my UPS to the utility closet, and offer a ton of runtime that way. My router + switching setup now powers my entire house including remote switches (PoE++ powered) and access points. Security cameras (and slowly now - security floodlights) are PoE powered as well. I have probably 12-14 hours of runtime off a large stack of UPS batteries, and could add a few days to that if I wheel my "whole home" UPS I never had the time to hardwire into the house yet into the room.
Items like the fiber NIU and cable modem are powered via PoE splitters into 9/12/24V outputs they require. I still have a few random bridges and other various devices I should convert as well, but I've been lazy lately.
I went with two lower port count "core" switches vs. one so I have redundancy there, so one going out will only take out half my network and I can still operate in a degraded mode - my AP density is such that it works fine, and I can re-patch the in-wall and PoE powered switches for workstations.
The only issue is that it kind of grows with a mind of it's own... I am up to an absurd number of devices on the network now.
I did something more low tech, but much more expensive. Not that I have the tech chops to do anything more sophisticated than install pihole (with help), though. I bought a 2001 E39 BMW that requires some work. I still doomscroll too much, but half is now about this car and car repair in general.
With homeassistant you don't need yaml for 99% of automations. I'm sure OP posted the source code of the automation but used the graphical UI to make it.
You also have the possibility to use Node-Red for that.
I just had the plug laying around, and since it has a button, it does the job.
But it actually has an advantage: I can plug a small lamp into it. After 14 minutes, the plug switches on and off every 2 seconds, indicating that the time runs out, adding a little drama.
Great concept. But author, if you're reading this: a piece like this could be so much better with a quick summary of what it does somewhere in the first two paragraphs. Something like:
"I've leveraged my home automation system to limit my access to social media to 15 minutes at a time, no more than once an hour. Using the built-in adblock feature, my router black-holes DNS queries to social media by default—which I can now disable temporarily by pushing the button on any one of several smart outlets around my house."
Unfortunately there is no way to block websites at the network level (that I know of) as browsers and mobile phones have started using hardcoded DNS resolvers, so the utility of this is limited.
> browsers and mobile phones have started using hardcoded DNS resolvers, so the utility of this is limited
Got a source for that? No phone or browser that I'm aware of uses "hardcoded DNS resolvers". They all use the OS DNS servers which the OS gets from DHCP.
> Unfortunately there is no way to block websites at the network level (that I know of) as browsers and mobile phones have started using hardcoded DNS resolvers, so the utility of this is limited.
Any network traffic which goes through a gateway under your control can be controlled. DNSSEC[0] can make this more difficult, true, but not impossible as content ultimately originates from an IPv4/IPv6 address and can be dropped by upstream network devices.
I thought I commented on this from my phone, but it seems it didn't go through, so I'll try again.
Most apps I've tried (and browsers too) can be blocked just fine via DNS. The gli.net interface allows "Override DNS Settings of All Clients" and "DNS Rebinding Attack Protection". This way, the router itself is the only resolver actually reachable. Even if I try some manual `dig google.com @1.1.1.1`, I still get the routers result.
The only thing it can't block is DNS over Https. I think that's by design, it seems it's impossible to block that.
You can still block at network level by configuring your router to intercept all port 53 traffic, redirect DNS-over-HTTPS using firewall rules for known DoH providers, and employ TLS inspection on your gateway for complete control.
Modern day methadone maintainence plan. So many people in this world need this button! Goodluck on your journey!
I quite tech at home when i started working as a software engineer over 20yrs ago. Hobbies are a great way to break free, and quitting news fullstop is another good way to avoid social media. You dont even need to delete your accounts, just turn off all notifications of every app and avoid coupling your life to them in any way.
Nice idea. But it needs to be harder for me to reverse. I think I would very quickly develop the reflex of disabling WiFi on my phone so it loads the site via mobile data.
Yeah, thats just how it was when I completely blocked those services on my network.
My hope is that this gentle nuding towards "come on, you've had 15 minutes, now just wait another 45, please?" is enough of a hurdle. I think it's a moderation tool.
Seeing this, I had the initial idea of using AdGuard logs to trigger a power-down of your device if you try and visit brainrot content. I think I like it that way more.
I do something similar but with a global keyboard shortcut on my Mac managed with Alfred. When I hit the shortcut it just changes my system's DNS resolver to 1.1.1.1 and reset the macOS DNS cache. And then automatically switches back in 1 minute or 10 minutes depending on the shortcut.
Quite easy, but doesn't help anyone but me. Though I like that it only disables blocking on my device and not my entire network.
This is so much easier to accomplish with a pi-hole and the pihole remote app[1]. Block requests out to forbidden sites at the network level, disable the pihole for an amount of time when you want to slum it.
Well the inconvenience is kind of the point. I don't want another app on my phone to allow me to indulge.
The point is that I have to walk, physically move, to the corner where the plug is, push the button and be allowed to procrastinate. That is the design hurdle, not so high as to block completely, but just high enough that I don't get sucked into the endless feed each time I'm bored.
Edit: Also I want the granularity. Ads should always - without exception - be blocked. Social media should be allowed on demand and within the rules.
An ikea tradfri on/off switch seems better for this purpose. I think the one with just on/off switches is discontinued as it's no longer listed in their website, and it has steep discount in their brick and mortar stores, cost <$8 the last time I grabbed one.
I have found that the problem with smart home automation is that it suddenly stops working after an update, and fixing it becomes annoying, and when you have multiple triggers and routines you lose track of what activated what.
Their routers are OpenWrt compatible by design, the factory firmware is based on owrt or you can flash upstream for a "pure" image. I've used them for many years and they're great.
I really like them too. Not only are they OpenWRT compatible, they run more or less stock OpenWRT with a custom UI. They do also expose the standard LuCi for advanced settings too.
I do the same but I'm embarrassed to say sometimes I go into the parental settings and change them to "get my fix". I haven't found an option to "lock" the settings from being changed when I need them most.
"The internet is the bane of my existence. Ads, distractions, sponsored content, bad news, bad ideas, more ads, social media, antisocial media, even more ads." that is call for Pi-Hole on a Raspberry PI install. Wide block of ads and dns firewall all in one, without any "free trial" from AdGuard. I wonder what is their default "white list"...
I don't know if this'll help anyone else or if it's just specific to me but I'll throw it out there anyway.
Drop the idea that short form content like youtube shorts or tik toks or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time.
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool.
Keep doing this, whenever you've got some free time and there isn't something else you want to do more binge that short form "brainrot" content. Do not let the thought that you're somehow "wasting" your time enter your mind. You're having fun, and that's all that matters.
If you're anything like me once you've internalized the idea that it's just dumb short videos for fun and you've watched hours of them, you'll just get bored of it. Maybe you'll spend 20 minutes scrolling occasionally but your brain aint gonna rot.
I’m glad that you had an experience where you found the corner of your internet to be boring. I do not think this is the common experience.
And simply because you didn’t feel impacted by it, does not mean that it’s not bad. This is obviously hyperbolic, but your comment reads to me like someone saying, “I used narcotics all of the time when I was younger, and I’m fine now. So everybody chill out.” That doesn’t mean narcotics are ok.
Social media does change your brain. It doesn’t take much to find research on this, but here’s an example of a longitudinal study of US adolescents
[0].
This type of online content is a form of a non-pharmacological “drug”, so to say, as it can dramatically impact reward system connectivity.
I kind of agree, but the cost is high for young people. I see similar problems between brain rot and junkie snack foods. Older people grew up without this instant gratification and arent used to it the same way young kids are. I grew up with snacks and crave them regularly, but all my older friends don’t even think about snacks the same way I do. I think the addictive this fades with the development of your brain around 25 years old, as well as increased life experiences, but the addiction to short form entertainment is strong enough to prevent you from getting other forms of life experiences that would eventually make that content boring and feel unfulfilling.
As an example, I used to watch a lot of dance videos. Recently I started taking dance classes and the videos just hit different now. The bar is so much higher for me to feel impressed because I’m digesting the content much more efficiently now and so much content is just repetition with slight variation.
Actually, I've already tried that and found it boring from the start, not just after a few hours. I found context switching between videos to be exhausting, not worth it given the low amount of content per switch, and I prefer vegging out in front of a movie, documentary, or even 30 min YouTube video to be lower effort. This is independent of any consideration of nobility or scorn.
I think the fact that people are scrolling through this stuff and NOT getting bored or tired is interesting, people are different to me in some way I don't understand.
There are helpful nuggets of wisdom here. Also let's acknowledge some people are prone to watch hours of short form content a day, every day, at the expense of everything else in their lives, for a very long consecutive time (of course I know him -- he's me). They really are addicting!
Perhaps it's just the ones people keep sending me links to, but I've seen nothing to indicate that short-form videos are not worthy of scorn. At best you get a moderately funny joke, but most I've seen either breeze through a topic that deserves a longer format or they present extremely one-sided views of complex topics. The fact they're often used to further drive the political divide that's destroying my country just makes it worse.
Want me to instantly lower my opinion of you? Send me a link to a Tik-Tok.
It seems you're already down voted, but I'd like to respond to this comment anyway. Also, I'll rephrase it slightly:
"Drop the idea that drinking alcohol like shots or beer or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time (and brain cells).
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool."
The key is moderation.
I'm not against drinking and I'm not against using Youtube, Reddit, Instagram, Hacker News. But I get sucked into it way more that I want, and this is my way of having a nice old lady ask "haven't you had enough, honey?".
Damn, I've spent days on Youtube, not even on "silly" stuff. There's a limitless supply of educational videos, PBS Space Time, Stumpy Nubs, Phil Salmony, DIY Perks.... But I still have a limited amount of hours in a day. Also I have shared responsibility of several humans and animals in this house, I can't just sit idly behind a screen all day (except for the eight hours I get paid to do it).
oh, I wish. I have spent multiple 16 hour days watching just minecraft youtube videos. I'm an adult with responsibilities and many sources of joy and fulfillment outside of youtube. My personal appetite for mindless internet content appears to be infinite.
For some people, that approach may work. If it does work, it's great since it avoids the mental anguish of beating yourself up (which is damaging in it's own right). That said, I can see two scenarios where it won't work: (a) those who have been dealing with the problem for an extended period of time, and (b) those who replace one counter productive habit with another. At the end of the day, we must face the reality that these products are designed to gain and hold people's attention. They are intended to be psychologically difficult to escape from.
userbinator|8 months ago
elric|8 months ago
But on a more serious note, distraction and focus are difficult topics. When I'm highly motivated, I'm utterly indistractible. When I have to do boring toil, absolutely anything & everything can distract me.
cainxinth|8 months ago
_Algernon_|8 months ago
gerdesj|8 months ago
I found the article refreshingly short and to the point whilst being jolly amusing and informative. The bloke is German so English is a second language - very good skills.
That's a skilled technical writer, that is.
Bookmarked. More please!
dirkc|8 months ago
s3p|8 months ago
nsgi|8 months ago
illiac786|8 months ago
But, even AdGuard isn’t that complex, I think it’s a one time distraction with some maintenance, compared to endless ads eating away at your brain, hours after hours. Worth it I say =)
smileysteve|8 months ago
polivier|8 months ago
Many years ago we gave our then-toddler an old digital camera to play with. Some time later, we looked at the pictures he took. We were horrified to find out that he took pictures of the outside of the house at night. As in, our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed. I bought some wireless door sensors and created an automation where if the sensors are triggered between 10pm and 6am, the lights in our room would turn on to wake us up.
I expanded this later and today we have sensors on all doors/windows that kids can use to leave the house (we have 4 young kids). As it happens, these are the same doors/windows that burglars can use to enter the house, so this doubles as an alarm system (that we can activate when we leave the house and will notify us remotely if the sensors are triggered).
The best part is that with Home Assistant you are not locked into an app/ecosystem. Our door/window sensors are of a different brand than our lightbulbs, and we control everything from a single app.
BLKNSLVR|8 months ago
> our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed.
Did you ever ask your toddler why they did this? The thought process, for a toddler, to do that, to want a photo of the outside of the house at night enough to do that. That's some high level curiosity, worth fostering.
One of mine at that age would have had that level of quirkiness, but probably would have been too scared of "the dark" (also, our house already had a security system installed when we bought it, which we still set off accidentally every now and then, so the kids would probably have known that as well).
mcgrath_sh|8 months ago
russdill|8 months ago
AdieuToLogic|8 months ago
franga2000|8 months ago
And phones are much more than content consumption machines - I like having a little pocket camera with me in case a see a new cat in the neighbourhood or something, and looking up bus schedules, renting city bikes, calling a cab, etc. are things I all but need to be able to do when I'm out.
My trick to almost never looking at my phone has been, somewhat ironically, having a smartwatch, as well as carefully curating the notifications I get on my phone. If I know I can't miss an important notification, I'll never even look at my phone, so there's no chance I even see one of those time wasting apps. And when a notification buzzes on my wrist, I can see in a fraction of a second if it's something really important or if it can wait.
myself248|8 months ago
I took an internet-free vacation last spring, and it was lovely.
While planning the trip, I made sure my old TomTom's built-in maps seemed accurate to what I was seeing online; there wasn't a lot of road-building activity there in the last decade or two. Then I turned off my phone and locked it in the glovebox, there in case of emergency.
Then I took a deep breath, started the car, and headed north.
It was awesome just knowing there was no way a notification could ding, nobody could call me, no news headline could pop up and harsh my mellow. Even if those things didn't actually happen constantly, simply existing in a state where they could was stressful, apparently, and turning the damn thing off was remarkably cathartic.
annie_muss|8 months ago
I have tried all kinds of blocking software and strategies. Blocking software, however elaborate, never seems to make a different. You find one way or another to get around the block and then after a while turning off the block just becomes part of your muscle memory. The most extreme thing I tried was cutting off the internet to my house and going back to a dumbphone for 6 months. For sure, I probably had less screen time. But I also spent many hours sitting in the station using the public wifi or watching hours and hours of pointless television.
This is a really tough nut to crack. I think there is probably no technological solution to it.
mwidell|8 months ago
jskherman|8 months ago
stiray|8 months ago
I have it as a wallet (those flip cases) so it is always with me. But it can stay in backpack for days without using it, except maybe for calls (to talk with parents after I don't call for weeks :D) and to pay for public transit (huge mess to charge nfc cards). I don't use social networks, chat software (sms excluded) at all, never even registered to fb, cant even remember when was the last time I installed any app.
I consider this a very sane use of phone. It is not addiction, rather satisfying addicted society that is pressuring me to use it.
CGMthrowaway|8 months ago
ec109685|8 months ago
I think most people can easily do all the way through #6 if they put their mind to it. It’s not a physical addiction.
The real cost is when you’re not intentionally trying to deprive yourself. Do you gravitate back to unhealthy (at least the way you define it) behaviors?
noisy_boy|8 months ago
I can still do the first two without the phone but my housing society has eliminated physical cards with basically zero consultation.
It is basically a losing battle.
leokennis|8 months ago
theoreticalmal|8 months ago
wildpeaks|8 months ago
blitzar|8 months ago
Level 0 or 100 depending on the person: take your phone with you and just don't a) look at it every 5 minutes, b) reply to incoming messages instantly or c) check in to see what some pointless celebrity posted in the last 3 minutes.
BeFlatXIII|8 months ago
The temptation is too great to get bored and check my phone when I'm in the house with it.
subscribed|8 months ago
bravesoul2|8 months ago
thi2|8 months ago
Exoristos|8 months ago
tmhrtly|8 months ago
The only downside is that the Safari extension is granted full access to my web browsing in order to facilitate the website blocking. They say they don’t capture any data and at this point do trust them (you may feel differently). For blocking apps, no private data sharing is required.
AdieuToLogic|8 months ago
Sometimes the simplest solution is the Luddite one; put the phone down and step away from it.
If this appears to be an insurmountable ask, or otherwise infeasible, I humbly suggest there is a greater concern to be addressed than what yet another app on the phone which cannot be distanced may remedy.
dsauerbrun|8 months ago
johncole|8 months ago
mrheosuper|8 months ago
gerdesj|8 months ago
If it is important, then if wifi/ethernet out then it should still work. So my doorbell used to have a link to a mechanical chime (Doorbird), the current Reolink jobbie does not but it is PoE and all my switches have UPS. The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera.
Oh and none of my home things ever get unfettered access to the internet. I have two VLANs for IoT: things is for most devices and sewer is for those that scare me somewhat.
I treat the whole thing the same way I do corporate IT and I do point Nessus at it. I have several Home Assistants that I look after - home and work and several customer ones too.
The OP's choice of smart plug is clearly designed to be mildly inconvenient to get at but also reliable. I'll put money on there being a monitoring function too.
That's a nerd that does things "proper like".
phil21|8 months ago
I started using PoE to DC power adapters for most of these use-cases. It lets me centralize my UPS to the utility closet, and offer a ton of runtime that way. My router + switching setup now powers my entire house including remote switches (PoE++ powered) and access points. Security cameras (and slowly now - security floodlights) are PoE powered as well. I have probably 12-14 hours of runtime off a large stack of UPS batteries, and could add a few days to that if I wheel my "whole home" UPS I never had the time to hardwire into the house yet into the room.
Items like the fiber NIU and cable modem are powered via PoE splitters into 9/12/24V outputs they require. I still have a few random bridges and other various devices I should convert as well, but I've been lazy lately.
I went with two lower port count "core" switches vs. one so I have redundancy there, so one going out will only take out half my network and I can still operate in a degraded mode - my AP density is such that it works fine, and I can re-patch the in-wall and PoE powered switches for workstations.
The only issue is that it kind of grows with a mind of it's own... I am up to an absurd number of devices on the network now.
hydrogen7800|8 months ago
alkonaut|8 months ago
tigrezno|8 months ago
You also have the possibility to use Node-Red for that.
stavros|8 months ago
remuskaos|8 months ago
But it actually has an advantage: I can plug a small lamp into it. After 14 minutes, the plug switches on and off every 2 seconds, indicating that the time runs out, adding a little drama.
rcarmo|8 months ago
remuskaos|8 months ago
I've used his idea and make a home assistant automation that temporarily disables adguard home to do the same thing.
NWChen|8 months ago
rlue|8 months ago
"I've leveraged my home automation system to limit my access to social media to 15 minutes at a time, no more than once an hour. Using the built-in adblock feature, my router black-holes DNS queries to social media by default—which I can now disable temporarily by pushing the button on any one of several smart outlets around my house."
ricardobeat|8 months ago
elric|8 months ago
Got a source for that? No phone or browser that I'm aware of uses "hardcoded DNS resolvers". They all use the OS DNS servers which the OS gets from DHCP.
AdieuToLogic|8 months ago
Any network traffic which goes through a gateway under your control can be controlled. DNSSEC[0] can make this more difficult, true, but not impossible as content ultimately originates from an IPv4/IPv6 address and can be dropped by upstream network devices.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System_Security_Ex...
remuskaos|8 months ago
Most apps I've tried (and browsers too) can be blocked just fine via DNS. The gli.net interface allows "Override DNS Settings of All Clients" and "DNS Rebinding Attack Protection". This way, the router itself is the only resolver actually reachable. Even if I try some manual `dig google.com @1.1.1.1`, I still get the routers result.
The only thing it can't block is DNS over Https. I think that's by design, it seems it's impossible to block that.
ethan_smith|8 months ago
weq|8 months ago
I quite tech at home when i started working as a software engineer over 20yrs ago. Hobbies are a great way to break free, and quitting news fullstop is another good way to avoid social media. You dont even need to delete your accounts, just turn off all notifications of every app and avoid coupling your life to them in any way.
urbandw311er|8 months ago
magarnicle|8 months ago
We have the same technical skills but one of us is not going to stop until he wins.
mikehotel|8 months ago
mingus88|8 months ago
j45|8 months ago
remuskaos|8 months ago
My hope is that this gentle nuding towards "come on, you've had 15 minutes, now just wait another 45, please?" is enough of a hurdle. I think it's a moderation tool.
FrankPetrilli|8 months ago
varenc|8 months ago
Quite easy, but doesn't help anyone but me. Though I like that it only disables blocking on my device and not my entire network.
baggachipz|8 months ago
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pi-hole-remote/id1515445551
remuskaos|8 months ago
The point is that I have to walk, physically move, to the corner where the plug is, push the button and be allowed to procrastinate. That is the design hurdle, not so high as to block completely, but just high enough that I don't get sucked into the endless feed each time I'm bored.
Edit: Also I want the granularity. Ads should always - without exception - be blocked. Social media should be allowed on demand and within the rules.
neurostimulant|8 months ago
guluarte|8 months ago
bmicraft|8 months ago
suprjami|8 months ago
Their routers are OpenWrt compatible by design, the factory firmware is based on owrt or you can flash upstream for a "pure" image. I've used them for many years and they're great.
remuskaos|8 months ago
BrandoElFollito|8 months ago
cess11|8 months ago
Shame has a better and longer track record.
awaymazdacx5|8 months ago
jz10|8 months ago
day_visit|8 months ago
orsenthil|8 months ago
e40|8 months ago
cdg007|8 months ago
roscas|8 months ago
uwe72|8 months ago
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wqeqweqw|8 months ago
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wqeqweqw|8 months ago
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wqeqweqw|8 months ago
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p1necone|8 months ago
Drop the idea that short form content like youtube shorts or tik toks or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time.
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool.
Keep doing this, whenever you've got some free time and there isn't something else you want to do more binge that short form "brainrot" content. Do not let the thought that you're somehow "wasting" your time enter your mind. You're having fun, and that's all that matters.
If you're anything like me once you've internalized the idea that it's just dumb short videos for fun and you've watched hours of them, you'll just get bored of it. Maybe you'll spend 20 minutes scrolling occasionally but your brain aint gonna rot.
j_bum|8 months ago
I’m glad that you had an experience where you found the corner of your internet to be boring. I do not think this is the common experience.
And simply because you didn’t feel impacted by it, does not mean that it’s not bad. This is obviously hyperbolic, but your comment reads to me like someone saying, “I used narcotics all of the time when I was younger, and I’m fine now. So everybody chill out.” That doesn’t mean narcotics are ok.
Social media does change your brain. It doesn’t take much to find research on this, but here’s an example of a longitudinal study of US adolescents [0].
This type of online content is a form of a non-pharmacological “drug”, so to say, as it can dramatically impact reward system connectivity.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9857400/
markerz|8 months ago
As an example, I used to watch a lot of dance videos. Recently I started taking dance classes and the videos just hit different now. The bar is so much higher for me to feel impressed because I’m digesting the content much more efficiently now and so much content is just repetition with slight variation.
kaashif|8 months ago
I think the fact that people are scrolling through this stuff and NOT getting bored or tired is interesting, people are different to me in some way I don't understand.
loveiswork|8 months ago
spauldo|8 months ago
Want me to instantly lower my opinion of you? Send me a link to a Tik-Tok.
remuskaos|8 months ago
"Drop the idea that drinking alcohol like shots or beer or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time (and brain cells).
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool."
The key is moderation.
I'm not against drinking and I'm not against using Youtube, Reddit, Instagram, Hacker News. But I get sucked into it way more that I want, and this is my way of having a nice old lady ask "haven't you had enough, honey?".
Damn, I've spent days on Youtube, not even on "silly" stuff. There's a limitless supply of educational videos, PBS Space Time, Stumpy Nubs, Phil Salmony, DIY Perks.... But I still have a limited amount of hours in a day. Also I have shared responsibility of several humans and animals in this house, I can't just sit idly behind a screen all day (except for the eight hours I get paid to do it).
OtomotO|8 months ago
I used to watch memes and images for hours upon end. Until at some point I just stopped and never did it again.
Over the years people would send some links. I looked at the picture, maybe laughed, and closed the tab.
unknown|8 months ago
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garrettjoecox|8 months ago
Centigonal|8 months ago
II2II|8 months ago
devttyeu|8 months ago
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