Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?

I found the below extremely effective at curbing addictive behaviors myself.

Find somebody you trust and have them password-protect your Screen Time settings and lock them down. Uninstall anything you don't want distracting you. Disable literally everything except the banking apps, texting and calling.

If you really need to get into your phone for whatever reason, there's a feature that allows you to request time.

You can also always wipe the phone using any computer with MacOS on it (or just take it to an Apple Store) if things become desperate.

DO NOT click the button that prompts you to persist your Screen Time settings to iCloud--that crap is nearly impossible to get rid of, and you'll be stuck creating a new iCloud account if your friend disappears for whatever reason.

If you can't do the above for whatever reason, then I'd suggest changing your banking memberships so that you no longer depend on phone apps. If you're really serious about solving your problems then you'll need to be ready to do "whatever it takes."

My time to shine! I spent 2 - 3 years going back and forth between dumb phones and smartphones with various different measures for the same reasons. Here is my video with my final summations on the topic and how some techniques I’ve found may help you (iOS specific): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-TKgRxdA5o

Feel free to follow me on Twitter too and chat about any questions you have. I’ve been playing around with these sorts of ideas for years and find it really fascinating / interesting. I can also recommend some fantastic books.

Sadly I can't find it, but there was an Android launcher that would restrict the number of apps you can have to five or seven.

Sadly there is no such solution on the iPhone.

The rubber band trick [1] really helped me. Took my unlocks-per-day from ~100 to ~20. I took it off after about 2 weeks and it's more or less stayed that way.

1: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/mo...

This is what works for me to cut down on phone time when I get tired of it:

turn off/mute ALL notifications that aren't absolutely critical, crank up your notification/ringtone volume, keep your phone somewhere out of the way but within earshot like next to your front door or in the bathroom, and find other things to play with. Buy an instrument, video games, books, movies, whatever. When you get bored, you need something ready to play with or else you're going to just walk over to your phone

We get addicted to shallow things like phones when we don't have something better to keep our attention. Find something better that you have real fun with, not something that just kills time

Some HN member recently plugged his side project in another thread and it seems quite fitting here: https://pausbox.com/

It's a configurable phone enclosure that physically separates you from your phone but lets important calls get through.

There are surely cheaper and probably more efficient ways to address OP's question but I might throw it in here anyways since it's sufficiently related.

I don't know what options are available to you where you live, but in the US there are local credit unions which have banking available via browser portals.

I use a Light Phone II which has a black-and-white e-ink display and no ability to display images or install applications beyond tools that they develop in-house. It's been great.

I, too, have problems with infinite scroll apps. It's been really beneficial to my mental health to ditch the smartphone and delete my twitter/instagram/facebook accounts.

You can use Screen Time to prevent yourself from installing new apps. First, delete all applications aside from your banking apps. Next, go to Settings - Screen Time - Content and Privacy Restrictions - iTunes & App Store Purchases. From here, you can disable installing apps, which hides the App Store on your phone. You can also disable Safari from Screen Time. If you find yourself turning off Screen Time, have somebody else set a four digit passcode for you. You'll be left with a phone that can only text and bank.