this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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If the author can't stop using whatever website he's upset about without requiring everyone else to have their smartphones banned, that sounds like a him problem.
It's not a problem that can meaningfully be dealt with on an individual level.
I recommend Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus. It goes deep into influencing factors of why we are having such a hard time of putting our devices down. The first he lists: giant tech companies are employing the smartest people on earth (i.e., smarter than you or me) to maximize engagement. The cards are heavily stacked against any single one of us trying to break free from these skinner boxes. The threat of social isolation you mock the blog's author for is of course another ace up Meta's sleeve. The book among other things tries to relieve the feeling of individual failure at this insurmountable task of constantly fending off the targeted attacks on our attention- I paraphrase: "You didn't fail, it was a losing battle to begin with."
If you yourself don't have this problem, I'm glad for you and I hope it lasts. Many, many people do, and there are ever more tragic news headlines to show for it. We as a society (or is that societies?) need to regulate the tech-oligarchs, and fast. I have some hope left at least for the EU coming around on it.
For every issue there is someone absolving individuals of responsibility. Either people have brains and can be responsible or they are brainless and can’t have responsibility. If it’s the latter then I think we should structure society in such a way that people can’t have free will because they clearly cannot be responsible for their choices.
Edit: every time I’m spending more time than I should on social media I just turn on an app like JOMO and in a week the problem is solved. Techbros do it, they call it screen fasting or some shit like that.
Of course, everybody is trying to develop tricks like yours to resist, but I don't think we should just accept as fact that we need to have those tricks to escape the attention grabbing behemoths with the endless money they throw at this optimisation problem.
It's not like algorithms designed to maximise engagement regardless of societal cost are a law of nature we can never escape. It's just unregulated power, which society has worked very hard to limit and align with "the common good" in the past. Free reign for technocrats that display beauty ads to teenage girls after they deleted their selfies, as a single heinous example, is proof that our control mechanism (democracy in the broader sense, I suppose) isn't working anymore, but that also doesn't mean we should roll over and accept it.
I'm with you that personal responsibility is of course important. The message of Johann Hari's book I tried to convey was (paraphrasing again) "Don't be too hard on yourself when you eventually slip up. It's a steep uphill battle."
It’s not a trick. Just like eating sugar, or drinking alcohol etc. you need to have the self awareness to say “hey I’m indulging too much in this and this is not good for me, let me take a break”.
I think my first post on lemmy was about the necessity of limiting algorithms on social media. So I’m in favor of that. But even before social media people were getting addicted to online interaction, like I have met people that have told me they were addicted to chatrooms in the 90s and early 2000s. So even if you do limit the power of the algorithm you’ll still have people glued to their screens scrolling for hours.
We land on somewhat different sides of the neoliberal fence, I think.
The substances sugar, alcohol, tobacco, sure. Potentially harmful but not malicious. As long as we're talking about adults I mostly agree (although there are many regulations around them in all parts of the world. Smoking in public places, drinking when operating machinery and so on.) A company trying to manipulate people with ads to consume more of these substances: different story altogether since now there's at the very least neglect of societal responsibility involved- can and should be regulated. I can't think of a single reason why ads for alcohol should be allowed, for example. Here in a middle European country advertising spirits or nicotine products is illegal, while ads for beer/wine are legal under certain conditions. Slot machines and similar gambling are illegal while casino games like Roulette and Black Jack are very strictly regulated but legal. What's the situation in your corner of the world and what's your take on it?
What to regulate and to which extent is not trivial of course, but especially when it comes to social media we're so far removed from "too much regulation" that I don't think it's worth going into it here. Banning Smartphones is obviously not the answer either way.
I’m in the US, we have advertising for everything. I haven’t thought about this to be honest. Because advertising medicine feels wrong to me, but at the same time I don’t have much of an issue with advertising alcohol or even tobacco. I think I would allow them with the caveat that for every dollar invested in their advertising the companies also have to invest in a fund for advertising responsible drinking etc. makes it expensive to advertise, but not illegal nor difficult.
I’m for banning or regulating the alteration of products in such a way that they become more addictive than they would naturally be, but in terms of things themselves I don’t think anything being illegal or heavily regulated to the point it is almost illegal solves any issues. So for example smoking being prohibited in public spaces makes sense because you are forcing others to smoke with you; but who exactly is harmed by gambling except the one gambling? Will they stop gambling if it is illegal? Probably not. So for me the historical evidence tells me that prohibiting the supply of anything while the demand exists simply causes black markets to pop up, which cause infinitely more issues than the thing itself being legal. So I’m pretty much against making any of these things illegal.
Limit the age to which the thing is accessible and put some taxes on it that fund awareness of addiction and programs to help people recover from addiction.
In terms of social media I think the regulation should be that by default the algorithm is simply “chronological “ ie it shows you everything posted by everyone you follow in the order they posted it. Then there can be a discovery or suggestion algorithm as a separate feed but it should be fully open so that anyone with the technical know how can pin point exactly what signals it is using to suggest content. I think that would go a long way.
I am trying so hard to not just make snarky comments but Jesus fucking Christ can you actually read the quote you posted and think about what they may be talking about?
I'm not on twitter and never have been. That significantly impacts the information that I recive and I am usually getting news a day or so later than people that are on twitter. That has social consequences and means that I am less able to talk about recent events. That's just one example on how you can not separate yourself from the information economy without negatively impacting your socialization.