What’s the painting called? Looks so atmospheric.

Thanks, I didn’t know that was an option. But these easier ways of blocking can be reversed within seconds, right? I need something that is difficult to undo.

Thanks, I needed that post. I’m in a similar boat. I get addicted to this stuff (YT, lemmy, reddit etc.) easily, and I’ve found that a moderate use is just not possible for me in the long run. It can’t really coexist in my life with leisure activities that require me to sustain my attention for longer, like reading, practicing an instrument, or even just sitting down and listening to a good album intently.

What helps me a bit is putting all kinds of hindrances in place:

• storing my phone in a drawer and only taking it out when I want to do something specific
• not having my router always running, but only turning it on when I want to use the wifi for something specific
• browser extensions to block certain sites
• using screen time limits in the Android settings
• rooting my phone and blocking addictive sites in my hosts file (unfortunately I only found out afterwards that subdomains (*) like m.youtube.com aren’t blocked by blocking the main sites like youtube.com and now I can’t add them to the blacklist without much effort)
• (similar solutions for my laptop)

But none of that has worked as much as I’d like. It’s a constant struggle and I’m still looking for a better solution.

Doing interesting stuff has somehow in my mind turned into work.

That’s the worst part. Scroll too much and that state becomes your new baseline. Now anything that is less captivating and effortless than that feels difficult.

(*) I’m not sure if subdomain is the correct term here. If anyone knows, please correct me.

Totally relate to that. I love discovering new things and reading many different people’s thoughts on a topic, but every platform based around scrolling on a feed is too addictive to me. If I use them too much I can already start to feel some cognitive abilities decline after a few days. The slow pace of lemmy is really nice.

You might also be interested in curating an RSS feed for yourself if you haven’t already.