I turned my iPhone into pure utility device by uninstalling all the entertainment apps. I only allow music and podcasts as those don’t require my active attention.
Then I have an iPad mini at home which has all the entertainment and social media stuff installed. However I don’t have many opportunities to use that device during the day..
After maybe a week of having this arrangement I found myself being less and less interested in grabbing that iPad. It’s been few months now and I only check my socials maybe twice a week.
Also since I deleted Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube and TikTok from my phone the battery life almost doubled. It was eye opening to see how much these apps drain battery even when the device is left untouched.
I now regularly force myself to "actively" do nothing for 15 minutes and just think.
All the things I put into my brain as "todo, please remember" at some point in time are coming back during these 15 minutes.
I get quite a lot of clarity with this exercise.
As soon I pick up my phone afterwards and start browsing the clarity evaporates which feels bad.
So wasting time on my phone becomes less and less appealing to me.
Lets see where this leads me.
I so far wasted quite a bit of time with my phone.
Damn this really rings true to me, and makes me deeply wish I had my own office again. There are advantages to a cubicle environment but the noise means headphones which means distraction.
I never found a reason to buy a tablet but it seems that you have given a very good one.
Moving all the distractions to another device that I can't carry around with me is a great idea and I'm going to try it! Thanks Miika!
This is what i do with the tablet i have. Its an Android tablet, but de-googled with a spoof account. That way i can play games / apps and not have any account tried to it.
I can easily listen to podcasts while doing household chores. Most podcasts aren't that information-dense anyways and while retention isn't perfect, you get an overview of a topic and can still dig deeper (or not) later. Or to flip it around: most podcasts don't give you that much benefit anyways.
YMMV but I sometimes listen to a podcast or audiobook while playing mindless video games. I can't watch a show while playing video games, since I need to actually watch the screen. Since the game doesn't require mental thought, I can still pay attention to the content of the podcast.
This is exactly what has worked for me as well. Before this, the iPad was rotting in a corner for years, because the phone was just always available and I had consumed everything on the phone already, obliterating the need for the iPad.
I deleted all social media as well, but I did keep YouTube (NewPipe, that is) with a curated list of subscriptions and no auto-suggestions/trending/shorts. I find many interesting things there.
I haven't had any of those apps installed for years. It's using the web versions in my browser that kills.me, because I can't get by without a browser.
Stay logged off in the browser, don't carry (unique, complex) password around if you have to.
But this is desperate level of proper addiction, when serious hard look at one's life is by far the best course of action. Professional help is not a bad idea neither. Life can be pretty amazing, but screens won't get you there, in contrary its cheap basic addictive 'fun' for poor.
Many years ago I removed all FB apps and messenger from my phone (due to their crappy engineering their constant snooping of user's activity was, draining batteries fast even when not using them). Have them on desktop only. Pretty amazing move, can't recommend enough.
There is something magical in 2025 to practically disconnect from all the social noise. But one can't be total piece of s*it who can't stand themselves of course.
I am experimenting with using freedom.to to block social media in the browser. It creates a VPN profile that blocks these sites in the browser (it also uses the Screen Time API to block specific apps). The downsides are that you can just go into iOS settings to disable the profile, and I am paying Freedom a subscription for something I could set up for free. The upside vs. managing it myself is that it's much easier to create a schedule (eg block during weekdays, instead of block 24/7).
I use Burnout Buddy, it can block both apps and websites, you can set up custom rules, time based, usage based or triggered by Shortcuts (for instance I have one set up to block Reddit when I enter the gym).
Just want to say I was looking for something like this the other day that didn’t feature an obscene subscription and I’m very glad you made me aware of this app. It’s lovely and free!
You can block them on dns level. That's what I did when I wanted to stop wasting time playing 2048. (Not sure how to configure DNS on phone, I was using PC to play at the time)
I have NextDNS profiles on my phone and PC that block problematic sites, as well as the settings dashboard itself to stop me touching it unless I'm on my tablet.
+1 for NextDNS.
Last week I experimented with building a Brick[0]-like solution from my Android phone, by using an old badge I had lying around acting as an NFC trigger to launch a Tasker automation that enables/disables filtering profiles in NextDNS via REST API.
It's working nicely, although it takes a while to effectively enable/disable filtering, I assume because of DNS caching on the phone.
Also sometimes I actually need YouTube/Reddit/Instagram/etc. to look up something, so for now I settled on the slightly less nuclear option of using ScreenZen[1] to make my app opening a tad bit more mindful. I sometimes found myself going around the restricted app opening count/time limits by using my iPad, but overall my mindless screen time is decreasing, so I don't stress it too much.
I don't have any issues with notifications really as I usually set them up to only receive what I deem important from the get go when I install a new app, and I also have Do Not Disturb and Routines enabled most of the time, plus a smartwatch to take a quick glimpse at messages if needed.
My workaround for this is to always log in from porn/incognito mode where it doesn't remember cookies. Each time I have to type password and go through 2FA.
iPhones have a website blocking feature built in. It's possible to set up separate time limits for different websites. Setting a limit to 0 effectively block the site. Ask family member or a friend to set the pin for you and you're set.
I’m thinking what I could offer for the world if there was no computers or even electricity. I don’t have too many ideas and this article didn’t help.
To continue working without coding, while still making use of coding skills and experience, I suppose roles like CTO or technical project lead might be suitable?
Alzheimer's may not be primarily a brain disease but rather an autoimmune disorder where the brain's immune system mistakenly attacks its own cells, with beta-amyloid playing a central role.
There is a growing consensus that focusing solely on beta-amyloid has led to stagnation in treatment development, prompting researchers to explore alternative theories and treatment pathways.
Also there is potential fabrication of data in a key 2006 study linking beta-amyloid to Alzheimer's and the FDA's approval of aducanumab, which has faced criticism for its incomplete data.
I used to explore similar stuff and prototyped something I call “Vanilla Components” but then in the end I fell in love with Web Components and quit React (and all other frameworks).
I see it like this: after I have seen some colors and a ball I can then imagine a ball in any of those colors.
In other words, everything I have experienced and memorized becomes this pool of resources I can imagine from. More I have seen, more combinations I can imagine.
Then I understand how traveling actually broadens my view. It’s not just some nice phrase but hard reality.
Also this means maybe anything we can imagine we can also create. Because whatever I can imagine I can also plot a path from here to there, imagine all the steps in-between.
Sometimes it seems to me that many of us are in a state of
permanent entertainment. It has become our default mode so
any break from it may trigger even anxiety..
In my life I find that what works the best for my kid and for
myself are physical activities such as climbing, swimming and
walks in forest.
I'm trying to find ways to replace dopamine with serotonin
(replacing pleasure with happiness) and it seems that usually
involves some form of physical activity where mind needs to
focus on the movement and surroundings, so that there is
simply not much room for thinking and desires.
If security is top priority, to me it starts from deciding what kind of data actually needs to be stored. Then the service is designed from that perspective.
More sensitive data I need store, more I need to think about security as well (and more expensive it gets).
If it's obvious that the service doesn't have much worth of hacking for, it's already better starting point than if I know it's going to be hack attraction.
This Jelly thing is the first Android phone that makes me think about switching from iPhone to Android.
I have been waiting for iPhone Nano for years. At this time Apple could make absolutely amazing mini phone if they wanted.
Imagine something like two Apple Watches put together. UI could be something similar to Watch OS with only the essentials, maybe with a bit more capabilities.
Now I'm hopeful as Apple discontinued iPhone mini. To be honest 12/13 mini was OK but it was too close to SE and it didn't really deliver the promise of a small phone. It was good but not inspiring or super exciting. I think they should try to blow us away with something really small and innovative.
Meanwhile I'm going to try Jelly Star as secondary phone. I was surprised how good it was, being full Android phone in a small size. Even typing with such a small keyboard worked surprisingly well.
The diagonal size is impressively small, but it’s crazy thick. It’s more than 1.8cm thick! In their images it’s nearly as thick as a roll of film which is just absurd. I’d love a small phone and I’m willing to compromise a bit on it being thicker than the average iPhone, but this thing looks insane.
For a small device like this, I don’t think I’d want it to be thinner. Thick and rounded like this just seems like it would be the most comfortable design for using with one hand.
Ever since LLM’s came out many of us has been wondering these things. It would be easy to say that perhaps our attention and senses somehow come together to formulate prompts and thoughts etc what appears in the mind is the output. And everything we ever experienced has trained the model.
But of course we can be assured it’s not quite like that in reality. This is just another example of how our models for explaining the life are reflection of the current technological state.
Nobody considers that old clockwork universe now, and these AI inspired ideas are going to fall short all the same. Yet, progress is happening and all these ideas and talks are probably important steps that carry us forward.
I turned my iPhone into pure utility device by uninstalling all the entertainment apps. I only allow music and podcasts as those don’t require my active attention.
Then I have an iPad mini at home which has all the entertainment and social media stuff installed. However I don’t have many opportunities to use that device during the day..
After maybe a week of having this arrangement I found myself being less and less interested in grabbing that iPad. It’s been few months now and I only check my socials maybe twice a week.
Also since I deleted Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube and TikTok from my phone the battery life almost doubled. It was eye opening to see how much these apps drain battery even when the device is left untouched.