Show HN: I built a tool that blocks social media until you scream "I'm a loser"

Re:Show HN: I built a tool that blocks social media until yo... by latexr on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @09:57AM (#44377412)

> To your point, just flipping this around to “I’m a winner” doesn’t seem quite right either. But more importantly, reinforcing the idea that “I’m a loser” seems counterproductive either way.

Maybe the solution would be to have to shout something embarrassing but not deprecating towards your own self-worth. Like “I eat spaghetti through my nose” or “my poop comes out really soft”. You’d certainly avoid using social media in public.

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Re:Show HN: I built a tool that blocks social media until yo... by haswell on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @11:16AM (#44378310)

I think the issue is more broad though.

While a “punishment” that involves calling oneself a loser is a problem, the entire approach of punishment-based learning has given way to reinforcement approaches because they tend to be more effective in the long term without the negative effects of punishment-based approaches.

To put this another way, using punishment to stop using social media is probably not a good approach either way. Yelling “I’m a loser” is just one of the worst variants of this specific approach.

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