One thing that helped me get rid of all of these time-wasting apps was deleting them from my phone, but allowing myself to use the app’s website. It only took a few days for that small bit of friction to make me want to avoid the apps altogether. I did this with all my social media apps a while ago and eventually deleted the accounts.<p>I recently had to do this with YouTube because YouTube Shorts were getting very addictive. I still use YouTube on my computer, but my overall usage is significantly down.
Ditched reddit about halfway through 2023 and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I study and read actual stuff on my phone now, instead of browsing increasingly crappy content.<p>I do log on occasionally but it's only ever to ask a specific question or look at a game thread for one of the sport team I follow, and that is only once a week for a couple minutes. Hope I never go back to being a regular redditor.
I've found 'one sec' [0] to be one of the most valuable apps on my phone.
Its concept is refreshingly simple – it uses an iOS Shortcut to introduce a customizable delay whenever you attempt to open a chosen app. In my case, I didn't even have to delete or hide the app I wanted to quit. Over time, my brain associated the extra seconds with a tad bit of boredom, naturally curbing the impulse to open it frequently and after a couple of months, I just completely forgot this app existed.<p>Surprisingly, 'one sec' is free, even though I remember paying for it around ~4 years ago, at some point the developer shifted to a subscription-based model, though it is entirely optional. There might be similar apps on the market too, or you can even try crafting your own iOS Shortcut. Overall, I highly recommend giving this a shot before diving in and uninstalling apps outright.<p>[0]: <a href="https://one-sec.app" rel="nofollow">https://one-sec.app</a>
> Social media apps are how we connect with people we care about.. Especially when it comes to social apps, deleting them can seem like a radical move, but it really isn't. You can always download the app again if you change your mind — your account will still be there waiting.<p>Sad, but fortunately not true at all. Recall that people made friends for hundreds of thousands of years before social media apps.<p>"Ahh, but if all your friends are on social media apps, you can't hang out with them if you aren't on social media apps too!"<p>Not true either. I have been off Facebook and Twitter since 2008, and never got on anything newer than that. If you count HN, then that's your choice, but I don't have an app for it, and at any rate none of my friends are here. There are no barriers stopping you and your friends from hanging out in a world without social media apps, apart from inertia and some behavior patterns that look a lot like addiction from the outside. Also, there is no difficulty in communicating with people, or scheduling activities with them either. In fact if you find literally any other shared medium of communication, you will be more in touch with them than you are now.<p>So, don't hide your apps, delete them, pausing only to delete your accounts first, so you can never go back to them.
For bad habits, add friction. Delete the app, block the address at your router, etc. For good habits, reduce friction. If you want to eat healthy, buy healthy food at the store so when you go looking for junk food there's only healthy stuff etc. Doesn't have to be 100%, but the idea is that you make it harder to do the bad stuff and easier to do the good stuff, and eventually that starts adding up.
On Android the most reliable method I've found is to create another Google account, set it up as your "parent", then (while logged into that account) go to familylink.google.com and set app and content limits for the "child". You can block individual apps, set daily time limits for apps, and whitelist websites for browsers.
I've found myself using the browser version of apps (as terrible as they are) in replace of deleted apps. I'm very used to the Chrome -> search bar -> "y" -> "youtube.com" series of taps now.
I buy and sell stuff on Facebook marketplace. I browse some niche groups but I don’t regularly engage otherwise. Half the time I go to check/update/add to my listings, I get lured into the doom scrolling trap. It’s amazing and frustrating how they cater content to you such that the moment you open the app, there is interesting content that just calls to you like a siren in dense fog.
If the app has a mobile site, log in to it on a browser you've installed only to run webapps (rather than search queries, clicked links, etc) and don't add a PWA or bookmark. Put an anki or Duolingo or Wikipedia icon where the app used to be in your home screen. I can still go to Twitter or HN if I want to but this is enough friction that I spend my time differently.