Comment by IKnowNothing on Dear Self; We Need To Talk About Social Media · 2021-12-08T16:56:51.844Z · LW · GW

In general, you should be open to having more electronic devices that only do one thing: I know it seems dumb when your phone or laptop can already do the thing, but it really does change how you relate to the activity.

 

I'd be curious to hear some examples on this subject: things you've tested out and found helpful / not helpful in the long-term. 

I've had a similar idea as a means of keeping my brain in a more Quiet state: it's a bit of a meme to talk about the progress made by computers and phones rendering other tools obsolete, but it has been helpful for me to explore selectively "unbundling the phone" by thinking of use cases through the lens of "sure my phone can do this, but would I be less prone to interruption if I used a separate tool?"

The main example that has stuck around for me is using a separate alarm clock, and sleeping with my phone in another room.