Computers are tools. You either use them, or get used by them.
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Computers are everywhere, from phones, gaming PCs, MacBooks, Linux Think-pads, PlayStations and even in some fridges and coffee machines.
What I’ll try to explain in this short but straight to the point article is: You either use these to your benefit: e.g. using a computer to build a business, programming, studying — or you get used by them to the benefit of companies like TikTok, Reddit, Google’s YouTube, Meta apps or certain video games.
The Distractions
Social media
Who hasn’t been endlessly binge-consuming content like YouTube videos, Reddit feeds or TikTok scrolling. Social media platforms are built to captivate you for as long as possible, that’s a fact you’ve probably heard before. You are simply(part of) the product. That’s why it’s free to use.
They captivate you as long as possible, so they can push you content like Ads which they directly make money from. Another possibility for the owners of platforms is to be able to control the narrative: controlling people’s mind (views, ideas) is possible via a feed-algorithm platform, like TikTok. Although this is not really the incentive today, however, it’s worth to know it’s certainly possible.
Gaming
Gaming is another form of attention grabbing: tapping in to people’s competitiveness and winner instincts in order to create profits.
A really good, if not the best example: League of Legends
Just like the social media platforms that use algorithms to keep your attention, competitive never-ending games like League of Legends are based on 10-player matches that last between 15 to 40 minutes, where the only persisting progress is your rank and some character-specific stats. At the start of each game, you start over from level 1. Yet there are millions upon millions of players that keep coming back to play, even though their time could most definitely be better spent elsewhere in a more productive matter. The key thing here is the ranking system of League of Legends: the system that keeps players hooked in order to play as much as possible in hopes of ranking up.
So then you may ask yourself: How can this be profitable? Each 10-player match requires infrastructure to be run, which cost money… how can this go on if it’s free to play the game?
That’s where the genius of Riot games comes in. In their own way they revolutionized the gaming industry by offering their newly developed game LoL for free, despite most investors warning against it and all their competitors were selling the games and making an instant profit. Riot games had something else in mind: micro transactions. By offering players the option to purchase certain things like skins and different game characters (champions) which normally take a very long time to get or are simply unobtainable without spending money. By getting players hooked, those who can will most likely spend money at some point.
So it’s all dark and we’re all doomed?
No. You can learn valuable things from scrolling TikTok, browsing Reddit and watching YouTube. Things that are not found otherwise, or where the medium is just very fitting for the message to come across.
At the same time, gaming can be a fun way to hang out with friends.
Be aware of these hidden incentives behind the products that prey on addiction, identify problems and think of solutions. Or take some from me and my experiences:
The solution: Awareness and Environmental Simplicity
It all becomes a problem when you’re not aware of what you’re doing
The result is then often binge-consumation, whether it’s a social media platform or a game, or something else.
The solution is what I call Environmental Simplicity: Design your environment to not get sucked into the attention grabbing distractions, because it’s so very easy to fall into.
Here are some personal tips and tricks to avoid falling in to this trap:
How to handle Social Media
- Uninstall social media apps from your phone, or set hard time limit via settings if you can’t uninstall for some reason. On iPhone this is called App Limits in the Screen Time category.
- Get browser add-ons that remove distractions: Feed Eradicator for Chrome/FireFox and SocialFocus for Safari.
- Delayed gratification apps are OK, but I find them to be annoying since I often use social media platforms for getting info in problem solving, like Reddit posts or YouTube videos on specific topics and issues.
- Feed eradicating plugins are better for this reason. It removes the algorithms, yet leaves you with access to all knowledge that is found within the platforms. It gives you the best and removes the worst of these attention grabbing algorithm platforms.
- If this was possible on phones, it would be OK to keep the apps — but it’s not. That’s why browsers are preferred and your phone should be clean of these controlling apps.
How to handle Gaming
- Get rid of gaming PCs. They are expensive machines that are built to do one thing: play games.
- Want to play games with friends only for the social benefit? You might be able to use cloud gaming such as GeForce Experience, which lets you play games via cloud computing. It does come with a noticeable delay, so it clearly degrades your competitive performance. Perfect! Or you might have another older gaming PC that can do some light gaming, but not optimally. That’s also perfect, because that too reminds you to not bite into the never ending competitiveness of the games, and just play because it’s a social activity. Even though it’s really fun to be competitive, your proactive energy is better spent elsewhere being productive — that’s why you’re reading, right? Remember, most free to play competitive games are hidden profit machines that are made to keep you addicted, so remember to see through it and only rip the benefits!
- Quit cold-turkey: If you don’t play with friends and find yourself sucked into addicting games, the best thing might be to just quit cold turkey. Sell your expensive PC made specifically for gaming, remove gaming from your life, and get yourself a machine that fosters creativity instead. After all, a computer is a tool, so make sure to use it to your advantage.
- For me, the machine that fosters creativity is a MacBook for a number of reasons, like the fantastic hardware and clean it-just-works software that makes it a joy to use without any maintenance or tinkering. This is not an Apple ad, just why these machines spark creativity in me and makes me want to focus on quality in my creativity.
- If you’re not a fan of Apple products, which is completely fair, I suggest getting a Linux machine. There you have very powerful features that aren’t found elsewhere, like privacy and complete control over your system. It might require some tinkering in comparison to a Mac or a Windows machine, but it’s fun if you’re interested and leaves you with complete control and a fantastically optimized OS that does nothing other than what you want it to. Goodbye Microsoft spying and force-feeding of Bing, Edge, shopping coupons and whatever is in Microsoft’s best interest for you to use this month.
- If you aren’t a fan of Apple, nor a fan of Linux, it is of course possible to use Windows for strictly productivity work, even though Microsoft makes that harder. Download O&O Shutup10 and remove the unnecessary bloated crap Microsoft crams into Windows, in addition to most of all the spying.
- Another option I’ve not tried, but heard great things about, is to have Linux on an external SSD, which you can boot from any other device. It’s a Linux-powered portable work station! Say you require Windows and a graphics card for work, this might be a good option for personal use, if you wish to use Linux for its benefits instead of Windows.
Thanks for reading my first post on Medium. These are only some of my quick ideas on the topic. If you found them interesting, please let me know, and I’ll consider writing more in detail about this issues and the things that helped me gain control of these products that tap into addictive traits.