Ask HN: Who is working on solutions to reduce phone usage?
Is anyone working on something related to decreasing/controlling the amount of time people use their phones?
I'm aware of the CPH Foundation, but I'm wondering if there are more ambitious efforts underway.
E.g., I want to believe that there's a market opportunity here: if there were an alternative to Android/iPhone that would only have "non-addictive apps," I would definitely choose that brand for my kids' phones.
Another less ambitious idea: create a certification/standard, kind of equivalent to "Fair Trade," for "non-addictive," or "ethical towards the user," that would apply to apps that fulfill certain minimum requirements. Feels like a bandage rather than treating the cause, but we're collectively injured so some care is important along with prevention.
I miss being bored. I have to make an effort to be bored now. When I go outside I usually don't bring my phone, but increasingly I listen audiobooks instead of read, and when I walk and listen and my mind wanders I realize it's time to pause the story, stop the influx, and let my mind synthesize, or at least relax. Tech solutions to a tech problem just add more cost. We need better guidance from birth- funding early childhood education for all parents would be a huge step towards reducing all sort of adverse and traumatic experiences so that it's easier to know who and why we are- a sense of meaning and purpose, and thereby less liable to get sucked into videogames with their built-in purpose (that hardly transfers into meatspace, speaking from experience) and phone diversions. Now that I've embraced parenthood my apps on this six year old iOS device have reached a steady state: rarely do I install anything new, and then it's just a tool (Bitwarden, to learn about it before I suggest it to my coworkers), except for a dalliance with Slay the Spire last fall- unistalled twice within a week :) I'm even conflicted about HN; I learn from you all, but time here is time not listening to books, etc., and often my motivation is for the dopamine hit of seeing what's new. Currently Russia and Israel. Thermo-nuclear war is another great idea to reduce phone usage.