Recommended Apps, workflow for digital minimalism?

Cool Workflows
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Hey guys,

Been trying for many years to find a way to intentionally use social media. I love the social connection but hate the infinity/doom-scrolling that happens as a result. I have tried many things including “Freedom”, Screentime, and now I am looking at upcoming Unpluq.com (soon Iphone version to be released). My solution so far is to give my wife my screentime passcode to limit social media. My ideal case scenario would be to keep facebook /instagram/twitter but remove all the feeds. Anyone found any good apps or workflow to achieve this?

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I find not having social media apps on my phone is best. The Facebook app - lord knows what it’s tracking, stealing from you, to say nothing of the battery drain and bloat.

Now that Elon has taken third party Twitter clients offline, I especially don’t use the Twitter app for anything - it’s awful. This makes it easier to take it off your phone.

Check the feeds once a day and limit yourself to 10 mins (or whatever), and then leave it.

One thing I’ve noticed with my own social media use; the less you use it, the less you want to use it. It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. Your desire to stay away just grows and grows.

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I have been using Freedom for years and it works as advertised.

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Freedom is one of the only apps I have encountered that:

  • lives up to it’s name and company promise
  • actually, like really REALLY provides you with an option to prevent you from changing settings (or rebooting your computer) and circumventing Freedom settings
  • has great customer support.
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Freedom’s been a lifesaver for me as well, for the same reasons. Earlier on, I caught a few bugs and they were interested in the feedback and implemented fixes.

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@Avrum @cornchip are you still using Freedom, any issues ?

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I haven’t used it since I posted (the need comes and goes) but recommend trying it.

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I use ScreenZen. That allows you to do a delay like the One Sec app. It also allows you to set a grace period after which you can only open your app N times for M minutes (both can be set in the settings). Does the job for me. My issue are mostly news websites. Since I classified them as surfing and use Reading List as my RIL app, I feel pretty much ok about my phone habits. ScreenZen takes over screen time.

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I use it everyday and its pretty robust.

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Delete the Apps and use them exclusively on the web or better yet on a device separate from your phone (either an iPad or on desktop). There is a Safari Extension called #blockit that blocks the feeds on the websites. The only Meta App I have on my phone is Facebook Messenger because Meta nerfs it on the web for mobile devices.

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