Infinite scrolling feels just like eating only pure sugar. It’s not quality food but really addictive. To fight this addiction physical blocking is one part of the solution. The other part is psychological and thus personal. What works for me and make me change might not me the same for you. That is why reading a book like Atomic Habits might help, but maybe you’ll need a few others to understand what needs to be changed to fight this. For me, one day I tried to remember what content I saw and what I got from spending tens of ours scrolling. The answer was nothing. I learned nothing and got nothing from it. Just like eating pure sugar all evening vs going out a bit walking and feeling refreshed or biking or whatever. I don’t want to be filled with empty stuff anymore. I don’t want socials to steal hours of sleep anymore. I don’t want to have the feeling that I’m giving McDonald’s every day to my brain. I found the ratio to feel satisfied is more like 10-5% rather than 80% of my free time on it. I deleted every single social app and I never ever missed it. Because they provide really nothing for my life and I have so much better to do around me or with other sources of content. That’s just me

> The answer was nothing. I learned nothing and got nothing from it.

I actually now have the inverse issue : now that I blocked "pure sugar content", I consume a lot of more interesting content. Like, HN is interesting to read, I have only subscriptions I like on YT and I feel like they make me learn. I still watch/read a lot of shit but I've also found a lot of gems I'm glad I found.

I'll read Atomics Habits since a lot of people recommended it to me.

Then it’s a matter of equilibrium I guess. Even if you love biking it’s harder to do it safely at night. So we « naturally » wait for sunlight. When things we love are accessible at all times and this barrier is removed the equilibrium have to be imposed maybe by introducing other thing like, maybe, more social interactions, talking to people etc. Whatever fits in the cycle to maintain an equilibrium.

I've not managed it completely yet but something that decimated (oo, literal usage) my social usage was to get rid of all the apps

The mobile web interface equivalents are usually decent enough to sate the addiction but the quirks and oddnesses that try to push you to the apps will stop you falling into doom scrolling

Also of course when you're up against an algorithm, get rid of the data. All the page likes, groups, friend-of-a-friends, etc you don't need - unlike. Or go nuclear and create a new account

Facebook for example has no content that keeps me coming back on my new account -- it even says that I need to add more friends to get more content, nothing at all on the home feed. I gave it up by accident :)

Thats a good point, up until now I've assumed this is an issue of willpower. But the app is a consumer too, if I can cutoff its food supply, it'll be much weaker.

Read Atomic Habits.