Comment on What Eddy Burback got wrong about his phone... [Discussion of Fediverse as an alternative within]

InfiniteHench@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  This is kind of like blamimg the founder of knives because criminals use them to murder people.

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• jeffhykin@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  I disagree. Yes there can be good intermediate steps, but deleting slop is not nearly as healthy as locking a phone away.

  1. Interruptions

  Not just phone calls or texts, but things like typing an email on the phone and then seeing a text. Brains hate interruptions. Those are still going to exist.

  2. Resisting a temptation is exhausting. Its NOT the same as boredom. It’s like saying “not eating candy is healthy”… yes but having a candy bowl right next to your desk is exhausting. Uninstalling an app is like moving the candy bowl to a nearby room, yeah its better, but it only takes 30 sec to reinstall.

  Turning off the dopamine machine (not eating candy) is one thing. But Eddy was showing something a lot bigger than that: he didn’t have the code to the safe. He was showing the mental benefits of not needing to resist a temptation.

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  • unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    I disagree. Most people are able to self-regulate in more instances than you give credit for. In instances where someone is unable to do so, I would agree that a full prohibition probably makes sense; such as with alcoholics who are unable to stop themselves, but this is not the case for most people.

    Interruptions - fear not the notification, for you hold the power to calibrate your notifications to the level that suits you. I’m particularly aggressive about disabling notifications and especially notification categories that do not add value, and you can too.

    Resisting - many humans have reported experiencing even more enjoyment engaging in activities they enjoy if they delay their engagement until meeting a predetermined goal. If you know that scrolling through your favorite app for 5 min will give you a dopamine hit, you can choose to delay using the app until after you’ve completed a chore, for example, and that may offer enough incentive to complete more tasks than you might otherwise be able to perform.

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    • jeffhykin@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Those are really good points, and I appreciate the input. I could see why alcohol being on someones desk isn’t a problem, e.g. depending on the person its possible the bottle doesn’t have a “gravity” tempting them.

      I’m going to guess that reality is somewhere between my points and your points. Notifications can be configured, but my grandmother isn’t going to figure it out. Having a bottle of alcohol on every person’s desk is probably completely neutral for a lot of people, but could be detrimental to others. Etc

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      • unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Agreed. As with most things, the answer is neither black, nor white, but some shade of grey.

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  • InfiniteHench@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    I feel like this kind of misses the point. To be clear: If someone absolutely cannot avoid installing slop apps and enabling notifications for everything, I can see their need for an ultra minimal device or other solution. But I also think that speaks to a larger, personal discussion about discipline and possibly addiction, but that’s outside the realm of this thread.

    My point is we can choose which apps, notifications, features, and algorithms are allowed to get our attention. It’s easy to turn off all notifications or never even allow them in the first place—after all, apps have to ask for that permission in the first place.

    But the choice is the point. If someone is traveling somewhere they probably want maps to tell them important information about the journey. Otherwise why turn on directions at all? That’s the entire point.

    We even have the ability to disable all texting notifications but also choose to allow them from certain people if they’re important enough. These devices are simply tools and we have the power to choose how they operate. The device isn’t the problem, it’s our choices.

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    • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I think addiction is a key aspect. Like with gambling there is of course that aspect of responsibility, but regulation to minimize harm is also important.

      All the major social media apps being designed to exploit that dopamine response is kind of like junk foods being the most common due to being subsidized; of course people just shouldn’t eat junk food, but we should make healthy options the most prevalent and common instead.

      Of course that would require a government that would actually force corporations to implement harm reductive measures, instead of one bought by and working for corporations…

      FOSS alternatives like Lemmy, Pixelfed, and Loops should be much healthier due to no algorithm working to maximize engagement. I also think social isolation is a big part of the addiction aspect, at least in America

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    • jeffhykin@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I’m saying the downsides have nothing to do with self discipline.

      • Even if we never click an advertisement.
      • Even if we never eat from the candy bowl.
      • Even if we never use the bad phone apps.

      Merely living in a world covered in advertisements, living next to a delicious smelling candy bowl, living 30 seconds away from memes, rage-bait, doom scrolling, sports gambling, and other slop – just living next to those things are bad for our mental health.

      Some sources if you’re curious on the research behind it. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4731333/

      ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/…/AJPH.2013.301694

      scholarworks.uark.edu/mgmtuht/31/

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