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Comment by deergomoo | Hacker News Reader

I uninstalled Apollo yesterday and I’m kind of embarrassed at how many times since I’ve tried to open it without even thinking about it.

It’s only when the app isn’t there that your brain snaps out of it and you wonder what the hell you’re doing.

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I think it’s a testament to just how good Apollo is, and how addictive reddit can be sans the dark patterns.

I haven't uninstalled, but I had to hide my Sync icon in a folder I open rarely, to keep from clicking it out of habit.

Staying away from Reddit hasn't been too hard but it gets new stuff faster than the newspapers or other media sites I regularly go to. This forces me to slow down and read the other sites' articles more thoroughly which is probably good.

I did the same with other social media apps like Instagram a while ago. What I realized is that since then, I am filling up the time spent on those platforms otherwise. Now I am constantly refreshing hacker news or my YouTube subscription feed instead. So while it's still procrastination it's at least a little more productive and without ads.

Absolutely this. I’ve only had a single Home Screen since Apple added the App Library. I’ve always had Apollo in the same position. I swapped it out with my grocery app. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve opened that grocery app without thinking.

I put an app timer in my Digital Wellbeing settings for RiF, with 0 minutes allowed per day. I'm surprised how many times I had to see that "You've exceeded your minutes for today" message just from pure habitual clicking.

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