Insightful article highlighting tech detox benefits, though lacks broader societal impact analysis.
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this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Striking results - 91% of participants improved their mental state, and typical improvement was similar to reversing 10 years of age-related decline.
… the assumption here is that people know what they find fulfilling. Before the internet people would stare at the tv for 12 hours a day.
Yes, we love science unless it's critical of our own behavior, right? Lemme think now... who else has that attitude?
I have several very fulfilling hobbies but I don't have enough money or time (especially time) to do them. Hurray.
I often feel like I don't have time for my many hobbies, then I realize I've just spent 3 hours on lemmy or reddit.
I bet it's not about the internet, just the social media apps. Why not just uninstall the apps or tell the participants not to use them?
I agree. I’m on lemmy because Reddit wouldn’t allow me to control what I was seeing. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air not it being continually bombarded by DT this and DT that. It has me thinking maybe I just dump the social media apps all together.
I did something similar to what this article describes a bit back. For me it was turning off my phone, the effect was staggering. Anxiety etc dropped immediately.
For me in particular, it was being constantly available to anyone in my life, but also the doom scrolling, and knowing there's a vast ocean of infinite content at my fingertips. Sure, I could curate my experience, and block people, but overall the phone is still functioning largely the same as it ever does. I can always turn those features back on. By changing how the device works externally, you're disconnecting those people from the decade and a half of reinforcement and whatever they have associated with their phones.
To get similar results I was able to just turn off my phone, but that might vary for some. Anyway, it seems reasonable for the experiment at least.
So, what would be the best way to "block the internet" on an Android phone while still being somehow able to use it for communication with the family & friends, navigation and stuff like that?
Uninstall the browser and any social media apps. Google Maps and Signal aren't what's damaging your mental health.
rethink is pretty good for that. it lets you control how applications can access internet
Download maps, turn off wifi and data, and use SMS for friends and family. Wait, SMS is compromised now? Nevermind.
Meshtastic and a solid network?
Printing the case for my first node (arriving tomorrow) now, we'll see!
You use either focus mode or parental control tp restrict all apps except messaging ones and navigation
Or simply Do Not Disturb
Install a firewall app and restrict access for every app on your phone?
The internet is what you make it. I've never spent much time on overtly corporate media social or otherwise. Combined with largely avoiding the most politically toxic places both maga or ML.
Most of my time online is spent visiting places focused on retro Computing, Retro Gaming, music or some other hobbies. The internet hasn't changed drastically in 30 years. Just the way average people use it.
The corporate sites will never respect your time or privacy. They're just endless treadmills to keep you busy and engaged. We've always been able to hop off.
While I agree with the sentiment of your post - you can tweak your own Internet usage and you should - this part is just ridiculously untrue:
The internet hasn't changed drastically in 30 years.
In the last 30 years, we saw coming of google, facebook, amazon and others as a major forces on the Internet, deploying Skinner boxes for billions of people and shaping what internet is to vast majority of users...
Those are services etc on the internet. Not the internet itself.
Yeah definitely. I just heee to disable social media and anything that’s based on addictive behavior, algorithmic feed etc. and I automatically start doing more interesting things online, such as read Wikis of subjects I like, play with programming etc.
The problem is everything that’s driven by engagement and made to keep you scrolling artificially is toxic by consequence.
Anecdotal, but I can see this. Last year, I took a 2-3 months off of what I now call recreational internet use (e.g. keeping up with the news, forums, etc.), because my mental health and cognitive abilities have deteriorated a lot. The result wasn't just improved mood but also regaining cognitive skills that I thought I had lost forever. Brain fog also lessened. A year later now, and the improvements are stable and still there, even though I do use the internet recreationally again. It's still not where I used to be before, but it's a work-in-progress anyway.
I have a very similar experience as you, using the internet less as recreation and more as a tool definitely helped my mental health
How did you even do that, assuming you didn't prevent your usage of computers and smartphones altogether? Just sheer willpower?
Yeah, it was prevention - to my knowledge there wasn't a comparable internet-blocking feature in Android at the time. I have a dumb phone from way back that I switched to, and I shut off my smartphone. For desktop, it was primarily site blocking extensions like Block Site, and willpower to develop a habit. I'd still use the internet for things like banking and - since I was re-studying CLRS - SO and reference collections, but I trained myself to a hard cutoff of not using it besides the purposes I switch it back on for. The rest is on paper: my books are physically with me or loaded on an e-reader.
I should clarify that I had taken last year off to recover from burnout, and I was freelancing. I think that helped a lot with being able to detach for that long.
The internet just isn't a good space to spend a lot of time. It's mostly corporate controlled and they've found anger drives interaction online so most things you read are designed to be upsetting. I've drastically cut down on my internet usage over the last few years and while I do spend more time doing things I enjoy, due to not being online, I've found that going back on reddit or something similar can send me right back into a negative headspace for the rest of the day like when I was online more. I just think that most parts of the internet are miserable places to be.
I don't remember it always being this way either. Back when small formus were the norm I found the internet to be much less hostile overall. Not that there weren't jerks and chuds online back then, but there wasn't the profit incentive to drive engagement over all else
"Ignorance is bliss"
the subjects could still go online using a computer
Are you suggesting that people who are intermittently connected to the internet instead of tethered to it by a pocket device are somehow more ignorant?
Yes
Counterpoint: The unexamined life is not worth living.
(ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ)
~ Socrates (Plato's Apology)