I, like you, look at things on the internet. Only God knows, but I'm sure that the time I've spent consuming Web content over the last decade would add up to literal months of my life. A sizable portion of that time was kicked off by me visiting Reddit, Hacker News, YouTube, Instagram and, for a while, Twitter.
My goal is to lower my intake of the sites I mentioned to near nil. Let's say a 95-99% reduction from the peak. Here's what has and hasn't worked for me so far.
The Stuff That Works
Redundant Technical Blocking Works
Willpower is great, but breaking my ingrained habits required technical prevention. I'm going to describe several ways that I block my own access to specific websites, but before that I need to say the most important word: redundancy. If I enable blocking for some site, but it takes me ten seconds to unset it, then it's just a roadblock. It might work for a while but eventually I'll be in a tired, low willpower mode, and I will tear down the blockade.
But when I put multiple redundant layers of blockers in place I got to the point where I didn't even recall the precise steps required for me to regain access to a site, and backsliding became unrealistic.
Parental Controls through my Wireless Router Works
I use the parental controls of my TP-link wireless router to block access to reddit.com, news.ycombinator.com, youtube.com, etc. on every device I use to access the internet — my iPhone, my laptop and my desktop. Other people on my home WiFi can reach youtube.com on their devices, but on mine it spins forever without loading. It makes no difference which Web browser I use on those devices.
This is my first line of defense. There's no way for me to quickly change these settings. I have to load the router admin page, remember my password, type in correctly, and then click through a bunch of menus before I could change anything.
While this works great when I'm at home, it doesn't help me at all when I'm away. And I can get around it by disconnecting my phone from WiFi and using cellular data.
Having a Screen Time Accountability Partner Works
Screen Time is the main way to restrict specific site or app access on an iPhone. Years ago I asked my wife to set up the passcode for Screen Time, and I have never known what she set it to. When I want to change Screen Time settings, either to make them more or less restrictive, I have to ask her to take my phone and insert the passcode. This doesn't happen often.
Preventing New App Installation Works
In this iOS Screen Time settings I set the time limits for Reddit, YouTube and Hacker News to zero. This prevents me from accessing these sites via their app or through Safari. However, I found that I could install a different Web browser app like Firefox Focus, which bypassed the Screen Time limits, giving me free range.
What worked was flipping the Screen Time setting "Installing Apps -> Don't Allow" for my phone. Now the set of apps on my phone is now frozen: there's no way for me to temporarily install a different Web browser to get around the Screen Time limits. I can't install the YouTube app, the Instagram app, etc. On the rare occasion that I have new app that I actually want to install, I ask my wife to unlock it for me.
Blocking All Images and Videos on my Phone Browser Works
I installed Pacific Block on my phone, which prevents Safari from rendering all images and playing any videos. On my phone the Net is text only, Gopher-mode! I've had it this way for over a year and have never turned it off. Pacific Block also works great as an ad-blocker, since every banner ad image, and autoplay video is hidden.
News Feed Eradicator Works
Because I want to retain access to Facebook Marketplace, I don't want to block all access to facebook.com. But I can't abide being subjected to whatever algorithmic content they think will most entice me to stay the second I load the page. I found the News Feed Eradicator extension for Firefox which completely hides the main feed content on sites like facebook.com and instagram.com. This isn't a true blocker; with it installed I could still click around to get to the doomscrolling stuff on Facebook and Instagram if I wanted. But it has prevented me from going down rabbit holes when I am loading either of those sites with some goal in mind.
Hiding News Blurbs Works
Algorithmic content feeds aren't limited to social media sites. Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari all impose "Recommended Stories" on you when you start them up. I turn all of these things off in the browser settings.
Turning off Browser Autofill Works
I've long turned off the auto complete in my browser's URL/search bar. I don't want to be shown a bunch of irrelevant trending searches when I've only gotten a few words into my search query.
Reading Newsletters on my Kindle Works
I've decided that a few email newsletters are worth my time. Readbetter is a paid service that automatically converts newsletter emails and sends them to my Kindle. When I compare the reading experience on my laptop versus my Kindle, I find that I am much more likely to skim through the page or bail altogether on the laptop.
The Stuff That Helps
It Helps to Have Something Else I'd Rather Do or Think About
This may actually be the most important item in the list. If there truly wasn't anything that I'd rather do than browse the internet, then that's what I would do.
I say that this "helps" rather than "works" because my desires are fickle. I've experienced prolonged stretches where I never thought once about visiting these time-sucking sites, because I had an ongoing project that was monopolizing my thoughts and my free time. But for me this kind of deep focus eventually reaches a cool down period, and that's when I'm more likely to slip back to older web browsing habits.
Hostfile Blocking Helps
This is was the first tactic I ever used to block sites on my computers. Laptops and desktops contain a "hosts" file deep in the system, which you can edit to point internet hostnames to specific IP addresses. As a trick you can use a hosts file to redirect a hostname like www.reddit.com to a special blank blackhole IP address 0.0.0.0 which returns nothing. I use StevenBlack/hosts to manage the /etc/hostfile on my Linux computers and block ads at the hostfile level as well as the sites on my blacklist.
While blocking with a hostfile technically worked, it was too easy for me to subvert it. I just needed quickly delete one line in a file on my computer in order to regain access. So while I still use this method, it's mostly as redundancy in support of the other blockers. Though when I travel away from home with my laptop, hostfile blocking does become the primary blocking mechanism, since I've left wireless router blocking behind.
Avoiding the News Helps
I'll let Aaron Swartz make the case for why it may be a waste of time for you to read "the news". By breaking the daily habit of reading about what happened in the world yesterday, I now have fewer tethers pulling me toward daily scrolling.
LLM Usage Helps
Often I just want to know what the rough consensus is on some topic. In the past I would read Reddit threads with people discussing whatever I wanted to know about.
These days, for topics of not too much importance, I'm often satisfied with the distilled, common-sense opinions that I can get ChatGPT to generate for me.
Having Two Children Under Two Years Old Helps
As a parent, I have way less free time than I used to, which helps keep me committed to this goal. Spending my precious free time on worthless web junk feels more like a travesty now than when it was more plentiful.
Scheduled Whitelisting May Work
On my desktop and laptop I use the Distract Me Not browser extension (Chrome, Firefox) configured to do whitelist blocking during my work hours. This means that on Monday through Friday until 5PM I will be blocked from attempting to open any page that isn't in my pre-set list. I have access to Github, ChatGPT, the services we use at my work, and nothing else. I can't even do a Google search.
So far this has been going great. Whole classes of distractions are off the table during my work day. I've only had it installed for a few weeks. If I continue to use it I'll promote from "may work" to "works".
The Stuff That Doesn't Hurt, I Guess
Using an Apple Watch Didn't Hurt, but Didn't Help Much
When I wear my Apple Watch around the house I'll be notified of any phone calls or texts that I receive without needing to keep my phone in my pocket, or even nearby. This does decrease my phone usage a bit, but only when my watch is charged, I'm wearing it and my phone is stashed away, which is not always the case.
Turning my Phone Semi-Grayscale Didn't Hurt
On an iPhone you can go into Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters and set your phone to grayscale. I have this turned on with the intensity to something like 60%, so it's not true grayscale, but the colors are all muted.
The idea is that the bright contrasting colors on your smartphone suck you in like a little child, and by turning the color brightness down you will use your phone less. I found that I couldn't stand true 100% grayscale, it made the phone very difficult to use and I wouldn't keep it set for more than a day. 60% grayscale is where I typically keep it now, but I don't know if it has a meaningful effect on my usage.
Podcasts Satiate
Although my time consuming web content is down significantly, I still do listen to podcasts nearly every day. I know that podcasts help me satiate a deep desire for information, and I tell myself that they are efficient because I mostly listen while cleaning up our house or doing chores outside. However, I do worry that the more I listen to podcasts the more I'm still letting others do my thinking for me, crowding out my own thoughts and giving myself less time for peace and contemplation.
The Stuff That Didn't Work
Stashing My Phone Away Didn't Work
I have a phone charging station tucked away inside a cabinet. The idea is that I can keep my phone there for long periods of time. When my phone is charging overnight then it never enters my bedroom for usage before bed or immediately when I wake up.
While I do think it's a great idea to adhere to phone-free buffer times at the beginning and end of the day, setting up the cabinet charging station was not enough to make that stick. I couldn't look at my phone immediately after waking, but when I came downstairs usually the first thing I would do is grab my phone, irrationally checking to see if I had any new texts from the night before.
Knowing my Screen Time Passcode Didn't Work
When I turned on Screen Time on my iPhone, it had me create a Screen Time passcode, which you need to make changes. Setting up a passcode that I remembered was pointless. Whenever Screen Time stopped me from going to Reddit, I would just type in the password and tap "five more minutes" over and over.
Forgetting my Screen Time Passcode Didn't Work
I tried deliberately inserting a random passcode and then forgetting it. Do not do this! I was locked out from making any changes at all to my Screen Time settings, including adding new sites to block. I had to resort to extreme measures to retrieve the password. My memory is imperfect but I believe I had to use some complicated desktop software and connect my phone through a USB cable.
Screen Time Stats Didn't Work
I thought that prominently displaying my iPhone screen time stats on my home screen would encourage me to keep the number low. But there was no way that I could find to display the time spent on activities I wanted to limit and those that I didn't.
For instance it might say "2 hours" of screentime, but if you look at the details maybe half of that was from the exercise app that was open during my workout. I mentally discounted the number and therefore never changed my behavior based on it.
Self-Loathing Doesn't Work
People do all sorts of things that make them feel bad about themselves, and yet continue to do them.
Does this matter?
I'm sure that some people would find this all a bit ridiculous, or assume that I was some extreme addict spending every waking second online. However, I believe that even at my peak I was actually within the fat part of the bell curve, and many or most people that I know have the same usage levels or even more.
Though many words have been written about digital content addiction (most of them on the internet) I feel like we are still coming to grips with it.
Before there was the internet, television sought to command our attention. And in the past if you wanted to get serious about reclaiming your time from television, the answer was simple: get rid of your TV. The negative effects on your life would be negligible.
But today the prospect of abstaining completely from the global communications network seems daunting. I know a couple adults who don't have smart phones but I'm not aware of any adult that I know personally who doesn't use the internet on a device that they own. At one point, I did know some, but they've since passed away. My ninety year old Grandmother is an active Facebook reader.
As it seems like no one in my social circles is considering abstaining from the internet completely, I think it is important to cultivate a set of principles and practices to protect us from this beast.
April 3, 2025