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The new Apple screen time app really is a tremendous addition to see just how bad it is. A lot of time on my phone I'm doing things that I still consider productive like reading technical articles, and doing my anki cards, but the amount of time I can spend looking at my phone is absolutely outlandish in a given day of free time.

My big time sucks are hn, fark for news, and occasionally reddit. I'd like to at least drop reddit from my routine, and maybe only come to hackernews when I've gotten through every other article open on my phone.

Seem like good goals. The screen time app is nice because you can actually set limits on how much you can use an app then it bugs you with a warning.

I've been trying to read more lately, it's wonderful. Just finished For Whom the Bell Tolls, and started in on some Kafka. But it's definitely different then when I was younger and would just tear books up.

I think maybe I'll blacklist reddit at least with the proxy on my phone and then only browse that on the laptop which would be much rarer and far less likely since there's so many more interesting things to do on the computer (I just discovered the joys of tmux, how was I missing you all these years? With tmuxp, what a powerful set of tools.)

Anyways, that's my experiences, these little gadgets are incredibly addicting, and with three link aggregates with nigh on never ending pages of links it's ridiculously easy to spend a tremendous amount of time with your face in the screen.

But it's definitely different then when I was younger and would just tear books up.

When I was 19, I finished John Grisham's The Partner in one sitting - without even getting up for food. Something like 24-30 hours non stop reading. There's no way in hell I'll be able to do that now.

I never read a whole book in one sitting, but I could read for hours. For me it wasn't the internet/phone distractions that broke me of that ability, it was having kids. There was just not time to do that anymore. Now, for better or worse, I still read a lot of books but in very small rapid chunks, even standing in line at the store. I treasure the times when I can go to bed and read for an hour or so, though I usually just fall asleep after 20 minutes.

> I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird?

I try to make it a point to ignore my phone while I'm eating lunch with people. I do wish others would do the same. Sometimes, it does require politely asking them to put their phone away and just spend lunch with me (typically just with friends, not everyone).

However, I think it annoys me more that it's becoming harder and harder to find restaurants that don't have 5+ TVs in your face no matter which way you turn.

> Perhaps hanging out at an old fashioned bar might not be bad. Not the ones with fancy music but the ones that remain somewhat rustic, where you can just have a beer and a random conversation.

This is one thing I loved about rural Ireland. The service out there was so shitty and was a pain in the ass to get a text message in the old pub, let alone data. So it forced you to be more in the present with the people you're chatting with, even if they were just locals while you were visiting. It was really nice, actually. I wonder how a bar that is built to specifically jam signal while inside would fare?

Edit the DNS records for your #1 time wasters to 127.0.0.1 , on your main PC only.

You can still use your mobile then but it's nowhere as easily done as a compulsive action.

Sauce: I had to do this myself for a few sites including HN at work..