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Comment by p0358 | Hacker News Reader

As someone who used to have actually slow phones before: this will not help your doom-scrolling. You will still doom-scroll, but you'll just be frustrated and miserable due to the lags. You're welcome.

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My solution to doom scrolling on the desktop was to edit my /etc/hosts file to disallow me from going to the offending sites. After a few weeks, the habit was broken and I didn't even miss them anymore.

Ha, I did the same about 15 years ago. Nowadays don’t need the file anymore but it was a good way to get rid of that initial automated behaviour.

For those who don't use it already, the following is a great compilation of curated block lists you can put into your etc/hosts file to block traffic :)

https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

I did have something similar, but in my case it was an involuntary favor from Meta, as they presented a blocking screen asking whether I agree to use my personal information for targeted ads. The options were I agree or I pay. So I just wouldn't click either and hence I just couldn't access their sites anymore lol. (yeah well, I didn't give up that easily originally, as funnily enough you could find methods to bypass the screens and the APIs in apps would still fully work and let you use it, but it was more trouble than worth it eventually)

There was also Twitter, which had also solved the problem by itself. After the take-over, the quality of content rapidly plummeted so hard, at certain point I just didn't feel like ever visiting the site again.

So I'm almost thankful to these companies for actively pushing people out like that, y'know? I'm just sorry for people still stuck in there, it must be even more miserable presently...

Doesn’t work for Safari on macOS, as it does not respect /etc/hosts nor your DNS settings, it uses its own.

I think it’s a valiant effort. Sometimes having multiple influences can make it easier to change behavior.

Maybe it can work to some degree for some people. But there are other methods that should help much more effectively, without being self-destructive and miserable. I view this solution in similar categories as, say, suggesting someone should drunk themselves off to the point of passing out, because you know... at least they won't scroll at that point probably? And yet there are some very obvious downsides of such approach.

I mean if someone wants to try something in this direction, but without the misery, I'd suggest things like making the screen monochromatic, which will make the content seem less appealing to the brain, but without that being a nuisance.

> I mean if someone wants to try something in this direction, but without the misery, I'd suggest things like making the screen monochromatic, which will make the content seem less appealing to the brain, but without that being a nuisance.

That’s a common suggestion, but personally I found it ineffective. Like you GP comment states, it made everything worse while mitigating or solving nothing.

Have you tried using NoScript? Works for me (except HN).

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