Hacker News Reader

Comment by afarrell | Hacker News Reader

One important part of solving this is allowing apps which provide the ability for an individual to bind his future actions. If there should be any government policy, it should be to make these tools which help augment individuals' own strivings for self-discipline.

It would be really nice if Apple would re-allow content-blocking apps on the iPhone.

https://support.freedom.to/en/articles/2259444-freedom-app-s...

It would also be nice if someone would develop a subscription service like SelfControl.app, but which took recurring payments in order to support an engineer making continual improvements. https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol/issues?q=is%3A...

-------

By the way, there exists some similar fintech for substance addictions: https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/next_step-card-...

View on HN

I think the approach of "have more self control" is doomed to fail. We have a social media addiction problem because there are literally teams of scientests using machine learning, A/B testing, and other techniques to get you hooked onto the app.

If you want to break the addiction, the only thing you can do is abstinence from the apps that employ these tactics. I don't think that you can win against adversaries that literally make a living out of getting you to keep clicking.

Media like HN is fine, self control techniques work here because YC isn't doing all of the same dark patterns and addiction strategies that are being employed by facebook, youtube, twitter, snapchat, etc.

If you realize you are addicted to one of these opiate-like apps, you really have to choose cold-turkey.

> Media like HN is fine

There might not be anything purposefully done to get you hooked, but link aggregators have some "innate" features that your brain really likes, such as getting upvotes and discovering cool stuff on a random basis.

I really don't understand these confident assertions that it's literally impossible to change unhealthy usage to healthy usage. Do you mind if I ask why you're so sure that there's no hope at all for incremental movement towards healthy engagement? Leaving aside the fact that I can think of plenty of counterexamples, I've seen this line of thought over and over and I have no clue where it came from, beyond handwaving about all-powerful ML algorithms.

> It would be really nice if Apple would re-allow content-blocking apps on the iPhone.

They did, didn’t they?

Yes, they did. I paid for a lifetime subscription to freedom just for this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com