Well I'm sure you could come up with a few ways to work around your locking container but why isn't that also a problem? I think it comes down to the level of "activation energy" it requires, which may include breaking it open and also getting a new one.

In a similar way your digital block needs to have a high enough activation energy (both in getting around it and then turning it back on) that it effectively blocks you. It doesn't need to be impossible, it doesn't even really need to be that hard since we tend to be tempted with these things when feeling at a low energy (or we would be doing something else). As an example, I have the leechblock extension where turning it off would require uninstalling it or typing in something really long, I havent touched it in years.

Think of it as an aid to will power, you'll need higher obstacles the lower your wall of will power (a limited resource)

> Another issue is that sometimes sites have valuable information.

You should try blocking the feeds and recommendeds instead. Setup some regex rules, use ublock lists, get extensions which block the home page etc. But you shouldn't block them permanently, set just enough time to catch up / remind yourself that most of the content is useless then move on

In fact, blocking tools can actually make this worse. Using a blocking tool is tacitly saying "I can't control myself. I need to hand control to something outside of myself" This basically reinforces the belief that you cannot control your problematic consumption.

You need strategies that reinforce the opposite belief: You are in control of your usage.

I recommend looking into books like Feeling Good and Feeling Great. Get a greater understanding of your emotional state and work out how that feeds into your social media usage.

There are some tools that are useful. The first is time tracking tools. They let you look back on your day and work out how you spent your time. What are the patterns of your usage. Do you always end up struggling after lunch? Or in the evening? What are your triggers?

While I wouldn't recommend blocking sites completely, blocking the most distracting parts of sites can be useful. If you're studying from youtube videos, using a plugin that blocks comments and suggested videos is extremely useful. This means you will no longer catch a glimpse of a thumbnail of something interesting and go off task.

Overall, you have to tackle your emotions and your beliefs about yourself.

What do you want to do instead of digital media consumption? If you do more of those you'll naturally have less time for browsing.

For me, that's been taking up the following (the specific items change with time, but when I notice myself spending more time mindlessly scrolling it is a good reminder that I need something else to keep me busy):

* Running (with race goals) - doing this 4x a week sure takes up a lot of my time.

* Physical meetups (local philosophy groups, museum events, actively scheduling coffee with friends, etc)

* Crafts (cross stitch - started when I took on an ambitious Birthday gift project for my boyfriend and now it's kind of a meditative experience)

* Studying (part-time university course where I have to read a paper and complete a study guide once a week)

Those four things, along with full time work, don't leave much time for mindless scrolling unless I intentionally want to just chill and schedule a block of that in (and I don't feel guilty about doing that anymore because with all the other stuff enriching my life I feel there's nothing wrong with some occasional browsing).

1. I uninstalled the mobile apps and turned on 'desktop site' view on my phone browser. That way I never really "quit", but the experience of scrolling comes with so much friction that I don't feel like opening it unless absolutely necessary. The added battery life is a bonus.

2. I reduced my feed with extreme prejudice. My fomo wasn't letting me unfollow pages, so I moved them to alt account/custom feeds/bookmarks. Muted the remaining ones except the handful friends I wanted to see updates from.

Finally, don't be hard on yourself. You're going against meticulously engineered data streams that have been perfected over the years with the assistance of top behavioral scientists.

- For Youtube, delete and disable watch history. This will make the "home" and "shorts" tabs blank, and make the below-video recommendations less effective. Your subscriptions and everything else will still work normally. Also uninstall the app from your phone, so you have to access it in a browser (even on Android you can "disable" it).

- For Reddit, block r/all (and maybe / (home)) in your adblocker on all your devices. (For ublock origin the rule is ||reddit.com/r/all^$document ) The block can easily be clicked through, but that means you'll leave it in place for next time. Non-r/all pages will still work. Again, uninstall any apps.

I don't have similar advice for Facebook and Twitch; maybe unfollow everyone on Twitch so you have to look up channels intentionally?

In general, focus on good content, cut out bad content.

2. Install the LeechBlock extension [2] in the browser on all your devices. Lock out the sites you want to lose from your life. You can add a time-limited override for some, if you want. Dont feel bad or weak about yourself for doing this: these sites are largely designed with psychological input to be addictive.

3. Find something else to do. If its reading, always have a book in progress and one that you'll read next. Or cooking, exercise, sex, study, whatever.

4. Exercise anyway. Hydrate, sleep well.

[1] Don't use gmail - google are not on your side. Get a domain and use a proper email service like fastmail or protonmail. Sign up for kagi and dump google search.

[2] Available for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc. via the browser extension stores.

Thing about tricks of any kind, like boundaries around when you get the thing is that you don't end up really addressing the root causes of the issue. If you're just locking up your computer or fencing yourself off you're not actually mastering self-control and discipline. If you're handing control to others you're burdening them and messing with your adult relationship. Like it's not healthy imho.

I'm not advocating that you should quit cold turkey or that those methods you describe about not snacking are not worth it. Breaking a real addiction often requires drastic measures. But it's much better to do the actual work on your root emotions to understand yourself. Especially if you're an adult and we're talking about something low-stakes. A part of that involves also accepting that you can let yourself sometimes have the thing and the world won't end.

I deliberately left many social media websites, and I regularly simply uninstall Instagram, video games. But I've also accepted that they're sometimes just fine and I will sporadically hop on them for a couple days. I've noticed their addictive potential is greatly reduced. I've found that rotating and shifting between them makes them more enjoyable but also makes me more dynamic less passive.

For the online world actually participating makes a huge difference. Putting yourself out there, be it typing out a comment or making a video is a much more rewarding experience as opposed to passive consumption.

But yeeah long story short what you really want to work on is the underlying emotions and only you can do that in your mind.

FWIW asking tenants of HN for advice on this is like asking smokers how to stop smoking.

Delete any accounts you have with these services.

When you’re home, put your phone away, don’t carry it on you.

Read the book “How to break up with your phone” by Catherine Anne Price.

Have one or two books that every time you are tempted to go to one of those services you pick up and read that book instead.

Meditate. Exercise. Do gardening.

BUT ultimately… figure out the root cause of your addiction and work on that.