A specialized iPhone app was used to block internet access, recording any time that the feature was disabled.
In numbers, nearly all the participants — 91 percent — improved on at least one of the three outcomes, while around three-quarters reported better mental health by the end.
The findings even suggest that the intervention had a stronger effect on depression symptoms than antidepressants, and was roughly on par with cognitive behavioral therapy.
What’s driving all this? Ward suggests that the simplest explanation is that the experiment forced participants to spend more time doing fulfilling things in the real world.
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?
You use either focus mode or parental control tp restrict all apps except messaging ones and navigation
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.
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”
Counterpoint: The unexamined life is not worth living.
(ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ)
~ Socrates (Plato’s Apology)
