The only browser I have on my phone is Firefox Focus (I even disabled chrome and the samsung browser since they can't be deleted), I have deleted Snapchat, Discord, Instagram, etc. My social life is perfectly fine. I just text or call my friends either on Signal or directly using SMS / regular calling. I think it has positively affected my mental health.

I am also at the point where I leave my phone at home when I go out if I can avoid it. The only times I bring it is if I'm going someplace unfamiliar or if I'm specifically trying to coordinate with someone, and they wouldn't be able to reach me otherwise (such as text someone else that I'm with).

Save a hacker news app (Hacki), I am the same way. HN doesn’t have the same addiction cycle that Twitter does for me, so I uninstalled the Twitter app from my phone and only use the site.

I still find myself scrolling on Twitter longer than I wish I would, but usually after about 5 mins of scrolling, I encounter some bugginess that snaps me out of the loop and helps me question whether or not I really want to be spending my time on the site.

What’s funny is that the bugginess is intentional to try to make you download the app, but it has the opposite effect for me.

I turn off all notifications apart from messaging apps, and I use a smart watch to "screen them". I noticed I had a bad habit of getting a message, picking up my phone to see if it's important and then mindlessly opening Reddit/HN and getting stuck there.

Now I just glance at my wrist, decide if I'm going to respond or not (or just reply with "Yes" from my watch), which limits how much I get stuck on my phone. I wish I had self-control to not have to "hack" around it, but alas I don't.

I'm only on LinkedIn, but not on my phone, so no social media. I'm also very reluctant to install apps to begin with, very few things really belong on a phone. I have very few apps and they aren't the kind you'd use regularly, other than a streaming app and podcasts.

Personally I have some issues with limiting YouTube consumption, but not on the phone, because I don't have YouTube on my phone and using it in the browser sucks. When I've attempted to seek out advise on reducing screen time everything seems to focus on the phone, but the phone isn't an issue for me, because the UI is absolutely terrible for pretty much any activity you could ever imagine. The small screen, touch interface and gestures are enough to keep my phone pretty faraway. I use it for calls and messaging.

It still amazes me that people are willing to do pretty much anything on their phones. So while I have looked into trying to dumb down my iPhone, it didn't seem like it was worth my time.

Mass social media: I deleted my Twitter and Facebook accounts years ago. I still use Reddit, but with no app and throwaway accounts. I also use Discord, but only on the computer.

Direct messaging: WhatsApp is installed and in use, but I disabled notification sounds. Work email is only on my work laptop, personal email is on my phone with notifications off.

That leaves iMessage and Signal with notifications on. I use the former with my wife and the latter with my closest friends. But I still mute my phone during focus work.

Aye. It's not the smartphone that's the problem, it's the async notifications pulling you into social media traps.

I dropped those apps about 8 years ago, but started to do most of my _reading_ on my phone - when I pick up my phone and habitually open something now, it's a book of some sort. It's a good idea to have something to replace habits with, if possible.

After I saw an early iPhone had Facebook integration built-in, i.e., the owner cannot remove it, I completely gave up on the iPhone.

If it's really necessary to check Facebook from a phone, then https://mbasic.facebook.com is sufficient.

Yes! I have 2 personal emails. One that I want to be alerted for, and one where I check it once a day. Other than phone calls, the only time my phone reaches out to me is for calendar alerts/reminders, which I set myself, and texts and messanger apps for people I allow.

Everything else can eat shit.

I disabled notifications for everything except messages years ago. Never looked back.

Yep, no notifications except sms+iMessage. And only family uses that to contact me, and only when it's urgent.

All the other apps, especially chat apps (including family if it's not urgent) are muted, and the mute slider is nailed down so it can't move accidentally.

That should solve 90% of the problem. Even doomscrolling if you ask me, because if the doomscroll app doesn't notify you, you'll forget about it. At first rarely, but more and more often in time.

I have often noticed that doing just thing is not enough, time and beyond there would be new apps that you end up installing, some notifications that you can not disable would end up consuming your bandwidth.

Yep. I check out Instagram and reddit primarily on my desktop. I don’t have apps for any of that on my phone for many reasons, including privacy.

Agree 100%! It's really annoying how games (yeah, I confess, I installed a "free-to-play" game recently, I should have known better) and over-gamified apps (looking at you Duolingo) want to "engage" you by flooding you with notifications. "You're back at full hearts, use Duolingo now!" "Only 00:59 left to continue your streak!" (with a live countdown in the notification no less) and so on...

That's a good example. Duolingo really left me with a bad taste. All the silly emails enticing me to come back seemed so manipulative.

For sure. I turned off Duolingo's notifications within two minutes of installing it. Great app otherwise!

Yes. Additionally, am not notified by messaging only phone calls.

I use the iOS "Focus Modes" pretty heavily. All of them are set up in the "whitelisting" mode.

The "Personal" focus allows call and message notifications only from a set list of contacts and apps which are mostly OS-level (alarms, calendar, etc) and the chat app I use to talk to my wife and a couple important friends.

The "Work" focus allows call and message notifications from anyone, and the above app list plus some work-related apps (e.g., Slack).

From time to time if I'm waiting on a notification (e.g., the teleheath app to start an appointment) I'll just turn focus mode off and deal with the firehose until I see the one I need.

Doing it this way I can have the apps available so I can easily use the service/product _when I want to_, but it's never forcing itself in front of my face.

I really don't know how people use their phones otherwise. There's so. much. noise.

Hacker News is a social network.

Sure? It’s not really very similar to Instagram or TikTok even if we all spend some time here. I hardly know anyone else by name or expect them to know me. There’s little to no social clout and few users here are “influencers” in the conventional sense.

And no personalized algorithm designed to generate anger/engagement, hurrah.

Can you expand on the point you're making? I'm not sure what it is.