I did a digital detox in July of 2020, I had become overwhelmed with Discord and Reddit moderation and trying to Keep Up. I burned out hard. I turned off all electronics for a month and uninstalled the apps and restricted my phone use to calls and responding to 3 close friend's texts at a set time each day--I didn't keep it on me at all. No video games, no TV, no watch or music streaming. I had my library of local music loaded to my trusty Zune and used that exclusively for music as the only device I carried with me.
I read through the entirety of the Percy Jackson books and the Heroes sequels, the Mortal Instruments, the Seven Realms Novels, and the complete unabridged HHGTG. All it took to get my book-a-day self back was bringing myself back to my teen years when I wasn't allowed on the computer with access to the internet and my texts cost .3 minutes to read or send and I only got 100/mo. I was averaging roughly 350 pages per day.
When I wasn't reading I was drawing or writing or outside being active when it was cool enough which improved my mental health even in spite of my heat based SAD.
At the end of the month I had the attention span when I got back online to attend to a cross country move and secure a job and an apartment by the end of August. I had been intending to move for the 3 years prior.
I wonder how I could go about taking advantage of the burst of creativity and focus while still being online enough to develop some of the software ideas I have that I never follow through on without getting overstimulated and distracted.
I know of someone who has undergone a similar detox. From what I've heard it's been somewhat life changing (in a positive way). I don't necessarily think it's lead to more _material_ success, but they seem happier and more positive generally.
I'm trying to do a light version of this. I'm not sure I can ever completely give up the internet and video games. They're a big source of enjoyment for me. How much of that enjoyment is rotting away at my ability to focus and do great work for long periods of time? I'm not sure... but I'm also not sure I'd want to give up the things that I really enjoy, just to work more?
I'm trying to just find a balance in life. I don't necessarily need to be producing code 24/7. I just want to enjoy myself the times when I am working, and feel positive at the end of the day that I wasn't ultra distracted and fragmented.
Regarding reading ...
I have been reading a lot more lately, but I'm not sure I could ever reach 350 pages a day. I just get bored after a while. I'm sure that's directly related to a life of internet + gaming, but, I have a super hard time believing I will EVER find books as interesting or engaging as the internet and video games. That cat is out of the bag. So I can give about an hour or two a day to a book, but then I'm pretty much disinterested and find myself "reading" but not actually paying attention.
Due to RSI long ago I replaced video games with board games.
I do play some video games now on occasion, for example interactive fiction and VR dance games and The Forest VR.
Interestingly I've been trying to reintroduce video games in my life, in moderation, because video games are fucking great and I'm sad that I'm not playing anymore.
Now that app makers have realized we're muting our phones and disabling app notifications, they're doing them within the apps... It creates dependency and anxiety. The best way I've found to deal with the constant prodding is to simply leave my phone at home or in the car nearby whenever I want to enjoy a day or moment. It's a device I paid for, it shouldn't cause me stress.
Google and Apple can easily set up reasonable standards for app makers, but they chose not to, because they themselves are tied to the constant financial greed of the ecosystem. There is now no way to buy a highly useful device that isn't laden with advertising capabilities, and robust enough for you to disable tracking... The only way to limit all of that is to simply leave the devices and step away from them for sanity.
Talking to real people creates more dopamine for me than the Internet does now, it's a gift... We shouldn't ever take our ability to talk in real life with people for granted, because the Internet is turning fast into a distorted reality bent on spamming us for profit and scams now more than ever, and no one there cares about the damage they do until it shows up in their own households (far too late to fix the problems they caused).
I recently find that anything on my phone or computer that tries to grab my attention, whether it's in an app or on a website, produces immediate annoyance from me. Even some genuinely helpful (but unnecessary) notifications. Popups, badges, dings, etc.
I hear about how "people" get a dopamine hit from the dings or whatever, and meanwhile I'm basically the opposite.
If they're replies to messages you've sent (i.e. the continuation of a conversation) or your latest instagram post getting a like, you're gonna get that hit. Namely, for the validation that someone out there is interested enough in something you put out there to respond to it.
At the other end of the spectrum it's Uber Eats promos∆, news headlines, or Google Maps begging for a review. Maybe you'd place them elsewhere on the dopamine-spectrum but you get my point.
∆especially annoying because I want them on when I have a delivery coming, but off at all other times!
Stress. Especially on Twitter, every news today starts with “NEWS ALERT!” + a boring news or analysis that everyone knows. It produces stress. The content of the news is always highly disappointing.
> Now that app makers have realized we're muting our phones and disabling app notifications, they're doing them within the apps... It creates dependency and anxiety.
This is so true and so widespread that I haven't even realized it's happening. I disabled most push notifications on Android and have the phone muted almost all day. Still, I'm fighting with attention fragmentation, decreased memory etc. Nowadays most apps/web apps you open have a 'notifications' tab, menu item etc. creating yet another inbox for us. (Which we probably don't need unless it's work related or something.)
In terms of developing software without distractions, I like to recreate airplane conditions.
I load devdocs.io in a persistent tab, get all the software I think I'd need for the day/weekend and turn on airplane mode. I don't need to Google everything - between devdocs, man pages and just figuring stuff out by myself, it can be very fun to code disconnected.
I've recently realized I'm uncharacteristically productive on airplanes. I did a deep read of the first 8 chapters of a book I've been meaning to read on my last long flight. I had every intention of continuing at the same pace through to the end as soon as I checked into my AirBnB.
The moment I got internet back at touchdown marked the end of my progress on the book. This was... four days ago. I think some airplane condition replication might be just what I need. I'm curious if I could go as far as to get some uncomfortable airplane seats and a simulated sky window.
When I want to read, I go to the local park and grab a bench. I’m a productive reader when I get away from distractions, but not at home. I was able to read effectively as a teen, but not since we got super online.
I used to be able to code on airplanes but i just can't type in most seats given how cramped they are now.
that said I flew economy plus on lufthansa from seattle to frankfurt in 2019 and sat in the front left bulkhead seat. Being a premium seat they completely ignored the 3 bags I had up against the bulkhead at takeoff (safety rules and plastic utensils are for the cattle, comfort and metal cutlery are for those who pay). It was great. I had my latop comfortably on the folkd out tray, and I watched big hero 5 and 2 other shameless airplane movies on the pull up tv. I reviewed over 30 docs in offline mode, and was able to build a very good root cause and action plan (I was doing failure analysis).
A offline/online docs site would be quiet helpful as what styimies me from coding is not having that one dependency or one doc I need and having to pivot.
Amazing story and anecdata. It seems almost impossible to attain this today since real-life events require being online - Airbnb requiring Facebook login, needing WhatsApp, Instagram DM, messenger to keep in touch. And Facebook for real-life events. Of course have to use instant msging now through Slack (email used to set the right expectations)
I always feel like garbage during the summer, but always chalked it up to allergies, some kind of low level chronic dehydration, or poor schedule discipline (used to be, when classes ended, my bedtime became about 3 am almost immediately. I'm older and that doesn't [can't] happen anymore, but since the sun sets very late now, I still get a minor version of it).
There are a lot of external factors that I thought might contribute also. For one thing, every weekend of the summer is pretty much booked up, which becomes exhausting. Back in college, I also remember feeling kind of bluesy in the summer. I guess I didn't have the <whatever> to activate my brain by myself, so I looked forward to fall/learning time again.
I'm rambling, but interested to hear a little more about what you mentioned.
I've been working on an app (for myself, but I guess I'll share it if it ends up working for me) that pretty much asks me every two weeks to fill two lists: 1) things in my life that I want to accomplish (in the next two weeks) and 2) things that I want to do more of, or less of. Every two weeks it asks me to summarize how I did for every item I had listed, and if I want to keep/remove/add more to list 1, and what I want my new list 2 to be.
The idea is to make it a browser plugin, that forces me to fill that form every two weeks by making every new tab that form until I fill it.
I've heard that reading from a novel daily, with a large continuous story, increases empathy. This effect is said to last for 5 days after the last reading session. Unfortunately I can't find the source, but I think that this is a helpful data point. With the moral of the story being that it's something to continuously keep up, to have the benefit.
I've learned to steer clear of the "hot topic" threads with over 200 comments. Usually the conversation has long since derailed from the original topic of the link.
There are also smaller, more frequent threads that focus on recurring topics such as big tech power, cryptocurrency, Elon Musk, H1B visas that also head in predictable directions and can be avoided.
I read through the entirety of the Percy Jackson books and the Heroes sequels, the Mortal Instruments, the Seven Realms Novels, and the complete unabridged HHGTG. All it took to get my book-a-day self back was bringing myself back to my teen years when I wasn't allowed on the computer with access to the internet and my texts cost .3 minutes to read or send and I only got 100/mo. I was averaging roughly 350 pages per day.
When I wasn't reading I was drawing or writing or outside being active when it was cool enough which improved my mental health even in spite of my heat based SAD.
At the end of the month I had the attention span when I got back online to attend to a cross country move and secure a job and an apartment by the end of August. I had been intending to move for the 3 years prior.
I wonder how I could go about taking advantage of the burst of creativity and focus while still being online enough to develop some of the software ideas I have that I never follow through on without getting overstimulated and distracted.