[Help] How do you deal with dopamine-addictive technology in this era?

[ak47sergiu]

Almost all platforms we use are specifically designed to keep us engaged for as long as possible, feeding our continuous craving for dopamine. Whether it’s Instagram, YouTube, online forums, or shopping sites, they are built to exploit this fundamental aspect of human biology.


I’ve already cut out most social media, keeping only YouTube, AI tools, and a few forums. I’ve set up content blockers for almost everything else, along with YouTube mods to make the interface less addictive.


Yet, I still find myself craving these quick dopamine hits, especially on days when I’m sleep-deprived. It’s no longer just about the platforms themselves—my brain always finds new ways to waste time. When I permanently deleted Instagram and Snapchat, I simply started consuming more news and engaging more with AI. I block forums, and suddenly I start binge-watching anime. It feels like an endless cycle.


Once, while exhausted on a bus, I caught myself mindlessly scrolling through my phone’s photo gallery for 45 minutes straight—for no reason at all.

Even when talking too much on the phone or on messages with someone feels like my focus is getting fucked.

I realize this constant distraction erodes focus and willpower. How do you manage to maintain control and guard your focus in an era designed to steal it? And of course, your focus and willpower affects your Magick, so that’s why I made this thread. Any advice?

 

[luotenrati]

I also find myself getting dragged into scrolling sometimes. The best method right now has been to replace the habit rather than forcing myself to disengage. For this, I use another screen (my kindle) and read a book that interests me instead. It is quick and frictionless enough to be viable and I can pick up any book I want because I can just download it from Anna's Archive.

 

[Tryp]

It's difficult. I'd love to say I have useful tricks for any occasion and that I'm beyond the whole thing, but I am not. And right as I managed to not use any social networks, I started a project that gave me little choice but to jump in again. For now.

In honesty I can only mention one activity that is effective beyond doubt: working in the garden, which I believe could be replaced by a walk in the forest, if you don't have access to a garden. If I'm in any sort of loop around screens and attention and engagement, I make myself go outside just to do a little bit of cleaning, watering, or simply to check how this or that plant is doing. Once I am outside for a few minutes, boom - the loop is broken, my impulse to go back collapses, and I stay outside for as long as I can afford. Which helps a lot also to feel better and regain perspective.

 

[Digiquo]

Willpower is a finite resource, and you won't be able to develop the discipline to resist every temptation forever. It's an impossible task. The key then, is to completely remove these sources of distraction in the first place.

Number one, completely junk the news and especially AI. There is no news worth paying attention to that you need your phone to find out about it. Real news will come knocking on your door whether you like it or not. And AI, beyond all the environmental and ethical problems, is itself an addictive "pasttime". There is nothing of value in it.

If scrolling through old pictures on your phone is a problem, get rid of the pictures (45 minutes worth of pictures sounds ridiculously excessive to me). If TV shows and movies are becoming too much of a draw on your attention, dump them.

If you're really serious about changing your habits, the only way to change them is, ding dong, to change them. People get hung up so much on dropping simple things like this because they internalize them as being part of their identity in some way. "Oh, I like X, so I'm an X-enjoyer, I can't possibly stop doing X because it goes against who I am", and this is blatantly false. Most of these technological "marvels" are specifically designed to hijack the pleasure centers of our brain. We don't enjoy them because that particular thing is something that speaks to our personal selves, but because it has been designed to be as generically attractive to our brain as possible.

In my case, I have dropped all social media (if you don't count Wizard Forum as a social media), modded my Youtube to never show me recommended videos only watching particular subscribed channels and listen to music with it, installed blockers to remove all AI content and pornography from my web browsing experience, and I've even taken a hard stance against short-form roguelike videogames because they tap into that same quick release dopamine rush and it completely overrides my sense of time investiture.

I've even prepurchased a new phone designed by the revivers of the Commodore 64 specifically designed to remove all such distractions at the hardware level, called the Callback, though this is something of a nuclear option and depending on your needs in our technological world it may be too far disconnected.

 

[ak47sergiu]

Willpower is a finite resource, and you won't be able to develop the discipline to resist every temptation forever. It's an impossible task. The key then, is to completely remove these sources of distraction in the first place.

Number one, completely junk the news and especially AI. There is no news worth paying attention to that you need your phone to find out about it. Real news will come knocking on your door whether you like it or not. And AI, beyond all the environmental and ethical problems, is itself an addictive "pasttime". There is nothing of value in it.

If scrolling through old pictures on your phone is a problem, get rid of the pictures (45 minutes worth of pictures sounds ridiculously excessive to me). If TV shows and movies are becoming too much of a draw on your attention, dump them.

If you're really serious about changing your habits, the only way to change them is, ding dong, to change them. People get hung up so much on dropping simple things like this because they internalize them as being part of their identity in some way. "Oh, I like X, so I'm an X-enjoyer, I can't possibly stop doing X because it goes against who I am", and this is blatantly false. Most of these technological "marvels" are specifically designed to hijack the pleasure centers of our brain. We don't enjoy them because that particular thing is something that speaks to our personal selves, but because it has been designed to be as generically attractive to our brain as possible.

In my case, I have dropped all social media (if you don't count Wizard Forum as a social media), modded my Youtube to never show me recommended videos only watching particular subscribed channels and listen to music with it, installed blockers to remove all AI content and pornography from my web browsing experience, and I've even taken a hard stance against short-form roguelike videogames because they tap into that same quick release dopamine rush and it completely overrides my sense of time investiture.

I've even prepurchased a new phone designed by the revivers of the Commodore 64 specifically designed to remove all such distractions at the hardware level, called the Callback, though this is something of a nuclear option and depending on your needs in our technological world it may be too far disconnected.

You are absolutely right. Permanently restricting anything that gets in the way seems like the only real solution. And the Callback phone is really a great idea! I tried all sorts of tricks in the past and nothing worked - Jailbroken old iPhone, Rooted Samsung, thousands of blockers on phone and computer etc. etc. Do you only own that phone?

You mentioned that you use a blocker for YouTube, but how do you make sure that you don't disable the blocker or start disabling "Hide suggestions" on that mod?

When I am sleep deprived for a few days, I lose control and start disabling all my blocks. The mods are a good thing on paper, but bad if you can disable them.

Also, if you use your laptop/computer, how do you deal with the additional unexpected stuff that you make on the internet that will drag you once again in this hell? What blockers and measures do you use?

It's funny because I asked a lot of people this and everyone just told me to work out and meditate or get a job. I already do those, yet still, I couldn't fully eliminate this addicting technology yet. Or at least tweak it in a beneficial way for me.

It just sucks because nowadays you need a smartphone even to go to a gym. The only gym near me is app-based. And I have thousands of examples like this in real life where the smartphone is necessary.

 

[Digiquo]

Blockers aren't perfect specifically because they can be disabled. However, they provide enough friction to usually repel any temptations. I haven't turned off my YouTube and AI blockers since like January, and I've been better about not touching the ones for porn in the last couple months.

One trick for avoiding unwanted content when web browsing is to know exactly what it is you're on there for. Literally the only reasons I even open my web browser anymore are for Wizard Forums, YouTube if there's a particular video I have been meaning to watch (not loading it up to watch something random that pops out at me), or any of a large number of literary resources if I'm looking for a particular book. Sometimes Amazon if I know I need something I can't buy in person around me. I don't use it as a time killer or pasttime in the normal sense.

There is also no world in which you need an app to work out, lol. I can't even fathom how you could concede to an app's authority that you have to work out only in this particular place at this particular time.

It sounds like your physical health in general is maybe not the best, based on your sleep deprivation comment. Taking good care of your physical health, namely in diet, is a necessary requirement for being able to properly tend to your mental health and combat debilitating habitual cycles. Getting poor sleep especially will totally undermine your efforts at exercising willpower.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 5:50 PM

To add on to my previous statement, as that other posted replied, doing something like reading instead, while it may feel extremely frictional and against the grain at the moment of starting, really is a very good way to retrain your brain.

Part of the dopamine addiction cycle is the rapid fire hits of dopamine, and it makes it difficult to enjoy doing things that take a longer time to pay off. The only remedy on that front is to do the things that take longer to achieve anyways, despite the reluctance. I was just starting to really break the cycles this past December, and reading a real book took a collosal amount of effort just to do even 15 minutes of it. Now after much effort, setbacks, and pulling myself back up, I can very comfortably read for several hours at a time. Especially if it's something fiction and just an entertaining story. Nonfiction, depending on the writing style and volume of information being presented, still taxes my brain a lot, but I'm learning something new so it's worth the strain.

 

[ak47sergiu]

Blockers aren't perfect specifically because they can be disabled. However, they provide enough friction to usually repel any temptations. I haven't turned off my YouTube and AI blockers since like January, and I've been better about not touching the ones for porn in the last couple months.

One trick for avoiding unwanted content when web browsing is to know exactly what it is you're on there for. Literally the only reasons I even open my web browser anymore are for Wizard Forums, YouTube if there's a particular video I have been meaning to watch (not loading it up to watch something random that pops out at me), or any of a large number of literary resources if I'm looking for a particular book. Sometimes Amazon if I know I need something I can't buy in person around me. I don't use it as a time killer or pasttime in the normal sense.

There is also no world in which you need an app to work out, lol. I can't even fathom how you could concede to an app's authority that you have to work out only in this particular place at this particular time.

It sounds like your physical health in general is maybe not the best, based on your sleep deprivation comment. Taking good care of your physical health, namely in diet, is a necessary requirement for being able to properly tend to your mental health and combat debilitating habitual cycles. Getting poor sleep especially will totally undermine your efforts at exercising willpower.

Stuff can happen in life that will force you to sleep less or not at all. So that's when those blockers become useless.

Btw, but good for you that you system seems to work just fine.

To enter the gym I go , you must scan a one-time code at the entrance which you get on your phone. So that was the main thing that was keeping me from not throwing the phone away lmao

I came of antidepressants which I used for sleeping and the withdrawal is brutal and lasts a lot

 

[Morell]

Breaking a habit is not once and done thing. So don't feel bad if you fail at start. You have to keep fighting.

Took me some time to break out of this issue though it never got that problematic. Now I have 15 minutes limit on insta, not using any other social app. YouTube I use, because I constantly play some music. AdBlock is basics, honestly.

Though I still fight with rather reading a book than watching YT. Music I ether play from YT, mostly ambient, or from my offline collection in PC or phone that I changed into pocked-computer/non-phone.

 

[Digiquo]

IStuff can happen in life that will force you to sleep less or not at all. So that's when those blockers become useless.

Btw, but good for you that you system seems to work just fine.

To enter the gym I go , you must scan a one-time code at the entrance which you get on your phone. So that was the main thing that was keeping me from not throwing the phone away lmao

I came of antidepressants which I used for sleeping and the withdrawal is brutal and lasts a lot

I understand life throws curve balls and it can disrupt our cycles, however these should not be frequent occurances. If they are, I would hazard a guess there is a particular someone or something in your life responsible for these disruptions. Only you would know this, but if these are frequently caused from a particular source, I strongly urge you to consider the pros and cons of maintaining his/her/its presence in your life.