Making the Internet Boring

zzdw 3 days ago 31 commentsRead Article on cemrehancavdar.com

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Discussion (31 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

_ink_•about 2 hours ago

I also need a solution for my addiction. I was thinking of blocking all addictive apps in my main (phone) account and set up a kids account for myself where all the drugs are installed. Then I need to ask myself for screen time. I hope this is annoying enough to not switch accounts constantly. If that doesn't work, I need to give another person the control over the screen time.

walt_grata•5 minutes ago

I deleted almost every app on my phone. I use reddit a bit and hn, but that's all the social stuff i do. Hell i use a pixel and disabled YouTube. It's a bit of a challenge at fist, but much much better after you adjust

usern20260720•about 2 hours ago

ask a relative that you visit from time to time what's their favourite book on their shelf and why. This way, you at least make sure that they would not toss the book in a whim. ask them to write the parental control PIN on one or two pieces of paper and then type it on the phone screen to lock it. ask them to store the piece/s of paper in their favourite book/s.

bow to never bother them about the piece/s of paper unlesls you are stranded in the middle of the ocean and need to use the phone. When you visit them, you might unlock the phone and repeat the process

IanCal•about 1 hour ago

How many of those things do you really need? As in how bad would it be if you fully deleted those accounts completely?

ViktorRay•about 4 hours ago

Some more good advice:

Turn off your YouTube watch history. This disables video suggestions when you open the website or the app.

teddyh•18 minutes ago

Useful: <https://lawrencehook.com/rys/>

burningChrome•about 3 hours ago

On my smartphone I'm not using Google Play Services so when I open the app, all I get is the search box.

I told a friend this and told him this flips the script on the Algo. Now instead of YT telling you what to watch, YOU are in control of what YOU want to watch.

We have to start breaking this cycle somehow. This is a great way to do it.

zdw•about 3 hours ago

Or only use the subscriptions page, and never visit the home page.

Getting only the stuff you've curated is way better than the algorithm.

input_sh•about 2 hours ago

I'm one of those that instinctively types the letter "y", presses the down arrow, then enter, and goes straight to the subscriptions page.

Unfortunately, I now have to scroll through the "most relevant" section, then through shorts, and only then do I reach the videos in the chronological order. What I also hate is how when a channel I usually engage with uploads a video I have no interest in, then it's stuck on top of my subscription page in that "most relevant" section for like a week.

t_mahmood•about 1 hour ago

You can use Firefox plugin "Unhook remove youtube recommended and shorts" I think I also have some ublock filters that blocks those things. So, I only have videos.

Bang2Bay•19 minutes ago

you can reduce shorts for a period of 3 weeks or so,

drivers99•about 3 hours ago

> Turn off your YouTube watch history

Just to add to that, it's a two step process: disable saving new history, and then clear all history

I estimate my watch time dropped by half per day the first time I did that. Then I started curating my subscriptions better, and watching from that.

baron3dl•about 1 hour ago

its suggestions are the best way to get me to leave. not that i find myself there often, or stay long anyway. hn on the other hand...

dylan604•about 4 hours ago

Or don't login. It will still learn about you so you don't always receive the blank main page. My browser is set to clear that data, yet with a single video being played the algo is already suggesting more content.

ChickeNES•about 2 hours ago

This is so weird to me, I curate my watch history, and the vast majority of suggestions I get are relevant to me. Am I the only one who does this? (I especially make sure to open any unknown or political videos in a private browser as well). And if any garbage appears in my recs, I just tell it "don't recommend this" and it seems to work?

MisterTea•about 4 hours ago

I did similar for my work PC but for the browser: turn off all the conveniences. No history in the bar so there's no way way to lazily navigate to a website, I have to manually type in the URL. Saved passwords and cookies? Nope! closing the browser wipes history.

rglover•about 3 hours ago

Putting in blockers and the like helps, but what I've found worked best was to consider this quote by Anthony DeMello:

"When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power."

When I learned to stop feeling bad/guilty/thinking this was a problem to solve and just let my mind drift, I found that my mind naturally learned when it was disciplined work time vs. browse the internet time. Personally, I noticed that when I didn't have any artificial restriction, I was less inclined to waste time on those things.

In practice: "oh, my mind doesn't want to do that other thing right now but it does want to go look at this thing; let it." The more I've loosened my grip, the less distractions have affected my productivity.

fxd•about 3 hours ago

It’s like those diet commercials from the 90s:

“I simply eat more and the weight just falls off!” Showing pictures of chocolate cake and burgers.

You’re gonna eat more: Milkshakes, pasta, French fries!

You’re gonna lose more weight.

And you’re gonna feel great.

After only 19 payments for $24.99!

Call now

surya_waters•12 minutes ago

Internet is so much noisier these days. Even hackernews has become much noisier in the past year or so. These days i only visit hackernews every couple of days or so towards the end of the day, and use youtube occasionally after work and on weekends. I have shifted to more analogue media like paper books and vinyl.

Self Plug : If someone is interested, I built a plugin for youtube called Flowtube - Distraction free youtube on chromestore http://tiny.cc/w4s9101. It blocks all comments, recommendations, sidebar and homepage.

hemmert•40 minutes ago

I made a browser for this: https://leash.ax/ – it cut my own screentime to two hours per day. Boring, in a good way!

sheepcow•about 1 hour ago

I configured uBlock to hide comments and suggested videos from YouTube. Couldn't recommend it enough. I don't miss either of them and now (usually) only go to YouTube to do something useful.

Edit: Forgot to mention I also blocked Shorts. In fact, I forgot they even existed. I guess the medium is the message. Short and forgettable.

Gecko4072•about 2 hours ago

YouTube's only goal is to make more money. Most YouTubers' only goal is to get more views. Sure it can be useful but that's a perfect excuse to live on forever. People were fine before YouTube, and you can learn anything from words an images.

I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.

jasode•about 1 hour ago

>, and you can learn anything from words an images.

A lot of info on Youtube is not available in alternative forms such as books or blogs with just words and images.

E.g. A random person uploads a video on how he repaired my particular washing machine by isolating the relay that broke. It's not in blog form because the guy is not an HTML expert or WordPress user. Instead, he simply used his smartphone to record a 10 minute video of what he did and uploaded it to Youtube.

Was I "fine" before Youtube?!? In the past with that type of situation, I would have spent $1000 on a new washing machine instead of spending $2 for a new relay part and soldering it myself. There was no equivalent resource available to show me how to DIY repair it. Trying to avoid $1000 by calling an appliance repairman wouldn't help because these days, they charge a $150 trip & diagnostic fee just to show up ... and then in the end, they say the electronics board that's fried is discontinued so they can't get the part which means the only the only remedy is to buy a new washing machine. So I would end up paying a guy $150 to tell me to pay another $1000 for a new washing machine... for a total of $1150. Youtube helps in avoiding all that. As a knowledge base for DIY learning how to repair random stuff around the house, there is no alternative to Youtube.

Gecko4072•33 minutes ago

How did that person who uploaded the YouTube video figure it out? They didn't have a video to watch. So why couldn't you?

I'd say it's more of specific hypothetical, and I don't understand how one couldn't read about a fuse on a forum or in a manual and diagnose with a DMM. Sure, YouTube is convenient because we are all out of time, all the time.

It's also a further reflection of how helpless we have become with regards to so much of what we rely on.

ikesau•about 3 hours ago

Blocking recommendations is the one thing I'd add to this list. You can easily do so with uBlock Origin, and it's made the biggest difference for me.

Water still finds cracks, but it's about reducing the likelihood and increasing the time between binges (so that they mentally register as necessarily intentional and abnormal)

owisd•about 3 hours ago

If you've got an iPhone/Mac I recommend Apple's free Apple Configurator tool to lock down your phone to only the set of apps you whitelist and/or route all traffic through a VPN/Proxy that whitelists only certain IPs. You can only change the whitelist when you're physically back at your Mac so prevents me impulsively relaxing the restrictions in any moments of boredom.

Sha1rholder•about 3 hours ago

I uninstalled some of my additive apps and enabled gray scale after reading this... Hope it helps

- from a phone addict

MarkusQ•about 2 hours ago

You might want to try coding in monochrome as well occasionally. Syntax highlighting can be useful, but it has hidden mental costs.

ChickeNES•about 1 hour ago

Doing that would make it harder to use Claude and Codex

colincowardly•about 3 hours ago

The internet is a rich tapestry of human knowledge and experience. When I scroll Instagram, I often discover incredible new artists who present in human form. Once you start tapping like on things, the journey of discovery is almost biblical.

The secret is learning to use your tools to bring joyful moments of surrender into your otherwise mundane existence.

phainopepla2•about 1 hour ago

Satire?

Edit: looking at your other comments, the answer is yes