Unfortunately my phone is literally the first thing I do when I wake up, and last thing at night. Is sometimes an hour on the phone before actually getting out of bed. I had to quit Reddit years ago because of the addiction. Don't really use Facebook. But Twitter currently has its hooks in me. It is a news source to me, about the pandemic, election, protests. But it manages to suck me in to reading extra comments and stuffs. I have been realizing it more lately, and don't want to give it up because I do think it helps me stay informed, but I need to find a way to change my usage habits because its not good.

> Unfortunately my phone is literally the first thing I do when I wake up

If this is true, like if you use your phone as an alarm clock, you’re screwing yourself.

BJ Fogg’s book Tiny Habits walks through this exact example, and spoiler: it’s hopeless unless you physically separate from your phone. The only levers you have to manipulate your behavior are prompt, ability, and motivation.

Your phone prompts you reliably, it’s easy to stay in bed and easy to look at social because your notifications are right there, just move one finger, and you’re motivated at a visceral level to look at social because of that dopamine hit.

The only solution he provides is removing the prompt. Get an old style alarm clock and put your phone in the other room at night.

I do, but with the whole current WFH thing it doesn't do a whole lot, since I am awake before it anyways. Its actually nice to naturally wake up without an alarm most days.

I also don't have any notifications on from social media. Texts, important email, and important slack. Almost nothing else, mostly stuff that I need to go clean up and turn off the notification permissions anyways.

But I totally get your point. Its right there and accessible. I woke up early today, rather than going back to sleep for another hour spent it on the phone for some reason. Definitely have some work tonight to try and figure out some better habits.

I'm with you wrt Twitter.

It is an amazing source of information, but much of it is daily drama that is a form of entertainment -- a modern Jerry Springer.

These tweets and videos serve as a conversational currency of sorts. Not sure it's worth it.

I feel this way too. I think you can still get access to a lot of the "conversational currency" by just checking it less frequently. Making highly curated lists helps a lot too, since you can isolate a lot of the more drama/entertainment-focused users to particular feeds.

Yesterday I spent 9h 31m on my phone (according to the built-in screen time tracker on my iPhone). It doesn't make me happy, but I can't stop scrolling. I think I have an issue.

> Yesterday I spent 9h 31m on my phone (according to the built-in screen time tracker on my iPhone). It doesn't make me happy, but I can't stop scrolling. I think I have an issue.

What are you scrolling, which app has that hold?

I'm not the person you replied to. However, when I used to browse reddit - my phone logged an unhealthy amount of time spent on that app (in roughly the same ballpark).

I don't use an app to browse reddit, so it usually went like this: close reddit tab. Open new tab. Automatically type in reddit.com.

And I'm sure, 100% sure, that I'm not the only one with that problem...

You know I've had times in my life where I've had this issue as well. I personally think our inability to turn off the deluge of pixels is a real problem. But I want data to back up the thought. In 2017 Youtube users watched a billion hours of video a day. [1] Some rough numbers show that in 2018 Facebook users spent about a billion hours on facebook every day [2].

Multiply these numbers across reddit, tiktok, the various international social media giants. Are the >2 billion hours a day people spend glued to their screen limiting social progress? Is it fear mongering and ignorant to even ask? One thing I know for certain is there will be a growing group of people seeking help to limit their watch time on these services. The algorithms are simply too addictive.

[1]: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/02/you-know-whats-cool-b...

[2]: https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/06/people-still-spend...

Same here.

I've found many tricks that help. For example, erasing some urls from autocompletion (fn mayus backspace for chrome in mac) helps fight against the muscle memory, when you have to type the whole thing. There are also extensions like stayfocusd that help. In a smartphone, switching the icons (for example putting ibooks or spottify in place of the broweser) helps.

It's basically a reverse UX problem: you try to create as much friction as possible.

My problem is that it works for a few weeks or so. Then for whatever reason I get to a point where reddit is super useful (like buying a specialized products, where the communities can help get somewhat unbiased opinions and reviews) and I'm back to square one.

This site produces the same effect btw. It's just that the content is at least somewhat limited to a point where checking more than once or twice a day isn't worth it.

I stopped reddit cold turkey 6 years ago for that reason. I’m sure there is a healthy way to use that site but I don’t want any parts of it. Its ability to provide fresh content every second of every day is not good for me.

The time in itself is not bad. It could have been 10 hours of important reading for your study or whatever. So do not get hung up on numbers, that will only lead to negative double-bashing of yourself. I observed myself trying to avoid using the phone for obvious things like navigation and weather forecasts because I wanted by all means to reduce the screen time. That is as irrational as anything.

Focus on what you want to do instead and use the time on that. Start reading books, go for walks, dance, play an instrument whatever it is. Focus on that instead of narrow focus on screen time.

While I just had to check if there was such a "time tracker" on my iPhone. Yes there is and I had not activated it.

Why do you keep scrolling on the phone instead of a proper PC with a bigger monitor? (or at least a laptop)

I am in a similar boat. I am a software engineer and I can't ditch it.

Well, you have external constraints that prevent you from doing so. The suggestion is that, without such external constraints, it's fairly likely that you would be waking up with looking at your phone. But even if you didn't, it wouldn't be particularly relevant. Looking broadly across everybody I know, and that I know of, the use of electronic screens is ubiquitous throughout their lives.

Your statement basically amounts to "Well, I don't look at my phone in the morning, so clearly most other people also don't look at their phone in the morning". Which is obviously false (at least in the sense that one doesn't follow from the other).

Yeah. Seems like you are a big exception. Good for you. Tell us how we can learn from you

You're one of the few. I try to avoid it so much, but too often find myself checking emails and the news on my phone when the alarm goes off.

Do you use a dedicated alarm clock? I use the alarm on my phone, so the first thing I do in the morning is look at my phone to turn off the alarm.

Yes, dedicated alarm clock indeed. However I wouldn't count "swiping the alarm off" as a valid case of "looking at my phone first thing in the morning" if you just stick to turn off the alarm.

That's the way to do it. It's easier said than done to stick to just the alarm when the phone is already in your hand with an active display. Especially if you have new notifications.

I use it effectively to wake up - the flash of blue light and notifications often work better than a cup coffee.