Committing to Change
Spring Cleaning for Technology Habits, 2024: Considering commitment devices and reflecting on my experience with Peco and Ruth Gaskovski's communal digital fast
In the beginning of their first joint Substack piece, “The 3Rs of Unmachining: Guideposts for an Age of Technological Upheaval,”
and share a quote from highly respected British author C. S. Lewis, which reads, in part:“If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.”1
I’ve deeply appreciated the Gaskovskis’ “3Rs” (and subsequent work), especially their clearly stated conviction that willpower alone is not enough to change our habits of technology use, whether on an individual or societal level. However, it took me a while to admit to myself what that means for me in practice, and to truly “make an about-turn” in my own life. More specifically, it took me a while to admit that in addition to setting clear and specific goals and intentions, I benefit greatly from using the “commitment device” of a sophisticated website blocker.
In this edition of Digital with Discernment, I’ll share what I learned this winter about how humility can finally catalyze action, and how such action can lead to true, positive change. I’ll make the case that such “drastic measures” should be more widely considered as tools to help everyone live out their convictions, whether these measures take the form of a website blocker or something totally different. Finally, I’ll share some advice and encouragement that I hope will improve the experience of using a commitment device for those who decide to try one or, like me, continue with their use.
One last note before we get started — if you’re new here, welcome, and if you’re not new, thanks for your patience while this piece (really, this experience) came together! This edition follows the pattern of my long-form pieces: each numbered sub-section should take about 5 minutes to read, so you don’t need to carve out time for the whole piece at once. Please feel free to come back as your priorities and “real life” allow!
One: Acknowledging My Need for Help
Let’s start with discussing how I finally admitted that I needed concrete, external help to bring my use of digital technology into closer alignment with my values and intentions. The story involves a stomach bug, but I promise to spare you the gory details and expand on the concepts afterwards. My family had a couple of rough cold and flu seasons after moving cross-country, as we dealt with the post-COVID “immunity gap” in addition to simply being exposed to a new array of what was going around locally. This past season, however, we miraculously avoided catching a stomach bug for months, until early January. When it became clear that my newly four year-old had caught what her older brother had the week before, in the wee hours of a mid-January morning, I decided that I would catch up on some Substack articles while I watched for any further incidents. I told myself I was totally not using my technology in an unhealthy way; I was being inspired to embrace my life, to keep going even when I had to deal with more of the same old difficulties. I was pursuing the work I wanted to do as a writer on Substack by reading others’ work. I was definitely making better use of my time than I would be by just sitting there, waiting to see if nausea would once again overcome my sleeping daughter. Right?
Fast forward a couple days, when another child had fallen (spectacularly) to the virus, and my husband and I were on edge, waiting to see if the toddler would be our family’s only hold out. The new washing machine we had just had installed was not working, and we were told it might not be replaced for another two days. I was running on empty from being up with sick kids, and the solution I had been counting on had simply fallen apart. I knew I needed to prioritize, strategize, and figure out what could wait and what I’d need to do despite having no motivation to do so. I knew no one was going to tell me what the best way forward was. So what did I do? I refreshed my email. The account I use almost exclusively for Substack had become much more enticing to me than email had ever been, and I knew in the months before that I was checking it too much. But in that moment, what Peco Gaskovski had written about boys a generation younger than me came flying back into the forefront of my mind:
“If any delicate sparrows of intrinsic motivation are flitting about his head, he might not notice, or if he does, he might try to pursue them through the screen, as if he could find real things in virtual worlds.”
from “The Hollow Boys, and Girls: Restoring Risk, Efficacy, and the Small Triumphs of Life”
I had identified with this idea when I first read it — I remembered the many times I had decided to “just keep scrolling” (most recently on Substack Notes) when I knew I should be doing something in my real life. However, to some extent, continuing to use my device didn’t feel like pure escapism, or refusal to take action; it almost felt like finding and reading yet another insightful article was somehow equivalent to throwing in a load of laundry, or clearing dishes from the sink, or reading aloud with my kids. In those moments I had often justified away my discomfort — I can do the laundry later, at least the table’s cleared, the toddler will climb on me and push the book away if I try to read anything for the older kids. Yet in that moment of my fight against the stomach flu — when I found myself looking to my inbox for something it could never give me, rather than to my own critical thinking and problem solving skills — it became incredibly obvious how my default “solution” was almost laughably pathetic.
This realization finally got me to admit that my brain is just as susceptible to digital technology’s effects as anyone else’s. I may have known intuitively and for a decade that TikTok was terrible for teens’ concentration, and I may have agreed in the abstract with Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains — but I needed to acknowledge that I, too, had been rewiring my brain by spending countless hours “foraging” on the Internet for nuggets of information and reward.2 This incident wasn’t just some fluke, but the result of a decade and a half of effectively training myself to look to my devices for what I felt I needed. In other words, I needed to start acting with far more humility about my technology use.
Two: It’s Not Just You
Humility is a tricky thing to discuss nowadays, and I’ve found that even contemplating the topic of humility and technology is not an easy undertaking. For one, the virtue of humility has largely gone out of style; in fact, to modern sensibilities, humility is not a virtue at all. We live in the time of the “personal brand,” the “influencer,” and the celebration of pride and “empowerment” more generally. Even if we see through all of this, or reject it outright, it’s still deeply entrenched in our society, and it’s impossible to escape entirely. It’s also been easy for me to bypass honest reflection on my own need for humility when I’ve been distracted with anger or indignation at the lack of humility exhibited by the “titans of technology.” However, I’ve come to believe that embracing humility is critical to breaking the unhealthy or even toxic habits around digital technology that so many of us struggle with.
It’s easy for us to isolate ourselves in shame and frustration over the mismatch between our behavior and our values about digital technology use. It’s easy to judge ourselves, to believe that we must be the only ones who struggle to “simply” exercise some self-control, that certainly that friend or acquaintance of ours couldn’t be struggling with this, so we’d better not say anything and just get our act together. After all, it’s just a little plastic and metal box, right? And yet, somehow, it’s not, and our instinct to hide our failures or berate ourselves doesn’t get us anywhere. That’s where humility comes in.
I think it’s rather likely you’ve heard or read the argument that humans are inherently drawn to digital technologies, and in many cases this attraction is used to exploit the technology’s “users.”3 Digital “services” are often designed for and optimized to promote ever-increasing usage, even if that means people will get trapped in unhealthy patterns or fall victim to deadly extremes.4 But let’s take that argument to its logical conclusion — if we are all inherently vulnerable to the beckoning of digital technologies (whether it comes with the “ping” of a notification or not), such tendencies are human limitations, not uniquely ours. It follows that deciding to humbly act in accordance with our human limitations is not somehow an admission of failure or a cause for embarrassment, but rather a reasonable and perhaps even wise way to make positive change in our lives. Of course, that conclusion is sometimes easier to accept intellectually than it is to accept emotionally and practically. That’s why I opened this edition by sharing my experience, and why we’ll consider more stories below before diving into the nuts and bolts of how we can act with humility about our technology habits.
Though I was impressed by many aspects of The Center for Humane Technology’s film The Social Dilemma, the scene I think about most often is a former social media executive’s confession of his unhealthy use of that same social media platform (and other digital technologies). The scene opens with an on-screen quote from Edward Tufte: “There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.” It then shifts to former Pinterest president Tim Kendall, who is also listed as a former Facebook executive and CEO of the tech company Moment.5 As a tall, physically fit, and not quite middle-aged man, Kendall certainly doesn’t seem like the stereotypical Pinterest user — but he candidly describes the reality of his life very recently:
“Rewind a few years ago, I was the president of Pinterest. I was coming home, and I couldn’t get off my phone once I got home, despite having two young kids who needed my love and attention. I was in the pantry, you know, typing away on an e-mail, or sometimes looking at Pinterest. I thought, ‘God, this is classic irony. I am going to work during the day and building something that then I am falling prey to.’ And I couldn’t — I mean, some of those moments, I couldn’t help myself.…
“It’s interesting that knowing what was going on behind the curtain, I still wasn’t able to control my usage.…
“I tried through willpower, just pure willpower, ‘Oh, I’ll put down my phone, I’ll leave my phone in the car when I get home.’ I think I told myself a thousand times, a thousand different days, ‘I am not going to bring my phone into the bedroom,’ and then 9 p.m. rolls around. ‘Well, I wanna bring my phone in the bedroom.’”
Many others in the film persuasively explain the reasons that people have such trouble using social media in moderation — calling it “a supercomputer pointed at your brain,” for example — but Kendall’s admission in particular stands out for its humility. He is not simply saying, “these technologies are a problem for humanity,” but rather, “these technologies are a problem for me.” Despite his external aura of success and what some would call privilege, Kendall is not immune to the allure of digital technology — and in sharing this reality, he makes it clear that it’s not uniquely shameful if you find yourself struggling with your use of digital technology, too.6
I’ve also been inspired and encouraged by the examples of more and more Substack writers who’ve written with frankness and humility about their experiences with digital technology. Below I’ve collected a few of these examples; all are from Substack writers who have consistently written from a “tech-cautious” or “unMachining” perspective,7 and together they represent three generations. I’d encourage you to read their full pieces, not just these excerpts, when you get the chance.
In his piece “On Going Light,”
discusses why he decided to switch to a “dumb phone,” and the benefits he’s already seen from doing so:“I’ve always been profoundly interested in technology.…It felt like a new frontier ripe for exploration and discovery. But even with all the tools of character, wisdom, and knowledge which I inherited from my upbringing and education, I was like a paper boat set adrift amidst a storm in the deep sea. We all were…But one day I decided it was time to try cutting myself off, freeing myself from the burden that having the internet in my pocket 24/7 had become.”
In “Build a Songbird Compass: Agency, Communion, and Tech,”
Gaskovski describes how, despite having no screen addictions or similar struggles, his behavior is significantly — and not always entirely consciously — influenced by digital technology:“[T]he screen, its unnatural blue glow, is intimately familiar to me, to the point that it has become a part of my being. Not so long ago, our family went to visit extended family in another town.…It was a day free of technology, and rich in human contact; just the sort of day many of us long for. Then something strange happened when we returned home. I took my coat and shoes off, and I went upstairs to my office, and turned on the computer, waiting as the screen lit up. I had no work to do, no emails to check or tasks to complete, and yet I was there, anticipating something in the glow of that screen, feeling the rise of some primitive foraging instinct within me, as if I were an animal about to go hunting, except my wilderness was a digital wilderness and my prey was unknown, though I sensed it was out there.”
In “The Happy Failures of Unplugging,”
reflects on her practice of “unplugging” that she described in an earlier piece. I particularly appreciated her conclusion:“So here I am, seven months in, to tell you that my Weekends Without Wi-fi are still working. They are working imperfectly, which is exactly how they should be.…I want others to know that tech resistance and unplugging isn’t about superhumans doing perfectly that at which ordinary people fail; it’s about ordinary people dusting themselves off repeatedly and trying again, because the goal of a more humane life is one worth pursuing, even in our failure.”
I couldn’t agree more. It’s time to stop accepting the lies that we tell ourselves and start rejecting the alienation that is so pervasive in our digital age. It may be beyond cliche to say, “you’re not alone,” but still — if you struggle to fully align your technology use with your values, it really, truly, is not just you. The good news is, it also doesn’t need to be just you in your fight against your harmful tech habits.
In my case,
’s early February piece “Communal Digital Fast & Call for Anachronistic Photos” became the first major source of help that I found after my mid-January realization. Though it wasn’t hugely different than Ruth’s other work, it finally got me to explicitly and physically write out the specific “usage rules” I wanted to follow to limit my tech use for about a month and a half.8 I had known that physically writing things out is good for memory and probably much more, but I had mostly neglected this aspect in my past efforts to change my tech habits, and I believe it was very important in fueling real change. This was probably partially because physically writing forced me to truly and carefully consider the reasoning behind each usage rule — for example, I wanted to dramatically decrease my tech use in the early evenings (4-8p.m.) because that’s the main timeframe I have to spend with my school-aged son on weekdays. I also began the exercise by formulating and explicitly writing out an overall goal, “stop using technology as a digital security blanket — or worse,” which I think further cemented my commitment to change and created a sense of unity and direction across my usage rules.Three: Considering the Commitment Device
My second major source of help this winter was, I suppose, less “conventional,” so I’d like to spend a bit longer discussing why I found it so important, and why I think it should be more commonly used. That is, I believe that more people should humbly accept the help of the team that created, maintains, and continues to improve a sophisticated website blocker. (By “sophisticated,” I mean a website blocker which allows you to create a consistent schedule tailored to your needs, rather than simply blocking a given website in its entirety indefinitely.9) But before we consider website blockers specifically, let’s discuss commitment devices in general.
In his practical and engaging book Atomic Habits, James Clear defines a commitment device as “a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future. It is a way to lock in future behavior, bind you to good habits, and restrict you from bad ones.”10 This is a rather broad definition, and I appreciate that it allows for creativity as you’re choosing how you will do your very best to break your harmful tech-related habits. Of course, not everyone needs a commitment device; I don’t mean to suggest that those who already (or still) live lives that are insulated from digital technology’s harms should disregard their own self-assessment and download a website blocker, “just to be sure” that their behaviors and values will stay aligned. However, it’s easy for those of us who do struggle with our technology habits to think, “It would be better if I could just kick this habit myself. I shouldn’t need help or automatically-enforced limits, especially not limits enforced by yet another technology. I should just be stronger.”
To address this objection, let’s look at what’s been called “the quintessential commitment device.” It’s found in the epic poem The Odyssey, when hero Odysseus commands his men to tie him to the mast of their ship before they sail past the call of the sirens, whose irresistible song had led countless crews to shipwreck their boats and die. The Odyssey is over 2,500 years old, and it’s not the only ancient story with a commitment device, either. It’s clear that humanity has long recognized the benefit of committing yourself to a course of action ahead of time, enough for the commitment device to be promoted in stories that still survive today.
I think it’s also clear that there’s a reason so many people have referred to technology’s “call” to humanity as a “siren song.” The specific incident of Odysseus lashed to the mast stands out because of course, this not how he usually sailed his ship; he took these “drastic measures” because of a particularly dangerous and powerful temptation. For those of us who have spent years conditioning ourselves to look to our digital technology, these patterns truly are strongly engrained in us, and though our tech habits might not be dangerous, per se, they can certainly be unhealthy or even toxic to our relationships, and otherwise detrimental to our lives. And I think it’s important to note that Odysseus does not lash himself to the mast, but rather has his men do so, and ensures that all his men block their ears with wax so they don’t fall prey to the sirens’ song, either.11 As I pointed out in my previous piece, “Hercules, the Hydra, and the Holidays,” it simplifies the story to portray the hero as conquering obstacles alone, but it completely changes the story’s meaning. Though our individualistic society would encourage us to do so, we should not assume it’s better to simply take action without help.
However, I do think that it’s wise to carefully assess the sources from which we seek and accept help, and I think that’s particularly true when we consider using a digital technology to help counter our harmful habits around digital technology. I want to be very clear — I believe that in most cases, website blockers should be used as a temporary and flexible tool, not a permanent “solution.” Our goal should not be simply “eliminating behaviors,” but rather working toward the life we want, with strong support that helps us break longstanding and harmful patterns. Now, at least at the time I write this, software and other digital technology is conceived of, designed, developed, and improved by human beings.12 That means that we must assess the motivations of the people who are “behind” the technology, as well as the consequences we can reasonably expect from using the technology. I definitely don’t think website blockers are inherently “pure” or without downsides; the teams behind them have no incentive that I’m aware of to help you grow beyond needing their service, and it is certainly possible that using a website blocker could lead to complacency and delay further growth. However, I’d argue that we’re all in danger of falling into complacency if we don’t regularly engage in honest reflection, regardless of whether or not we make use of a commitment device. That’s why it’s critical to regularly take time to reflect on your goals, desires, and values, and determine the best way to bring your behavior into further alignment with them. Fostering regular reflection was my intention back when I started my explicitly annual “Spring Cleaning for Technology Habits” series last year, and I continue to believe in the importance of reassessment and continued growth, even when it feels small or not frequent enough.
Ultimately, the best argument I have for using a technology to improve our technology habits is not really an argument at all. Rather, it’s a striking illustration of the concept from E. M. Forster’s 1909 novella The Machine Stops. In Forster’s dystopian civilization, each person lives in his or her own underground room, filled with, among other things, what Forster calls “artificial air” — and therefore, when one of the novella’s main characters decides he wants to visit the surface of the earth, he must use a respirator. He explains his feelings afterwards, in part:
“How can I possibly explain this? It was naked, humanity seemed naked, and all these tubes and buttons and machineries neither came into the world with us, nor will they follow us out, nor do they matter supremely while we are here. Had I been strong, I would have torn off every garment I had, and gone out into the outer air unswaddled. But this is not for me, nor perhaps for my generation. I climbed with my respirator and my hygienic clothes and my dietetic tabloids! Better thus than not at all.”
For some of us, “climbing out” of our harmful technology habits might be best accomplished with the help of the people who’ve created a different, more humane technology — at least at first. As Forster says, better thus than not at all.
Four: Taking Action Together
Now that we’ve addressed those objections, you’ll need to decide whether you think you could benefit from a commitment device, and if so, consider which kind of commitment device might be best for you. (Or, if you don’t feel you need a commitment device personally, you might consider gently sharing this piece with a friend who you think could benefit).
In their recent piece, “Sacred Synchronies: How to Restore Rhythms that Make us Human,” Ruth and Peco Gaskovski share a great list of daily rhythms that digital technology often disrupts. I’d highly recommend consulting this list, as it can help you consider why you want to make changes in your life. This helps you ensure you’re not getting caught up in the details of a given habit or technology, but rather strategically choosing the commitment device that will be a powerful tool in your pursuit of a richer, more meaningful, more human life.
Depending on your needs and goals, you might decide to swap your “smartphone” for a “dumb phone” (as
did), get an outlet timer that cuts power to your router at a set time every late evening (as James Clear reports a friend of his did), or uninstall your phone’s web browser and lock yourself out from downloading new apps (as my husband did). I decided that using a website blocker was the best choice for me for a few reasons:I was able to quickly implement concrete limits in my life, especially once I gave up on meticulously researching the available website blockers and decided to simply go with the one recommended by The Center for Humane Technology on their page “Control Your Tech Use”.13
The website blocker I chose can be used on multiple devices, so I can enforce my usage rules on both my smartphone and laptop, but I can also customize which rules apply to which devices during which timeframes. For example, “I will observe a digital sunset at 9:30p.m. each day” has much more power behind it when I can cut myself off from my laptop as well.14
Using a website blocker in no way prevents me from trying other commitment devices in the future.
I was also pleased to find that the website blocker I chose had a low learning curve, so I was motivated to keep using it. The occasional glitch or confusing aspect of the system aside, I did not feel any frustration as I adjusted to my commitment device, which is consistent with the Atomic Habits principle “Make It Easy.”
Whatever you choose, you must ensure that your method truly forces commitment — for example, you cannot simply expect yourself to resist tapping twice when your phone’s “time limit” screen appears — and your commitment(s) must actually be aligned with what matters to you. In my case, this is where Ruth’s help and the help of the website blocker team came together — the developers of website blockers can’t know which specific limits you want to impose on yourself, so in order to know which “recurring sessions” I wanted to set up with the website blocker I chose, I had to look to my usage rules. Of course, not all usage rules can be fully covered by a website blocker (or any other commitment device), but some are fairly straightforward to implement, and you can use your commitment device to support your efforts even when it can’t fully enforce your desired behavior. You can also adjust your usage rules as you reflect on what’s working well, what’s not working, and how you’d like to grow further.
It would be neat and tidy for me to share a story of how, since the very day I decided to download a website blocker, my life has been vastly improved. Of course, real life is rarely that simple, but I have been pleased with my progress so far. I no longer read email or Substack on my phone, which I did multiple times daily (mostly without intention) before the Gaskovskis’ communal digital fast. In fact, I frequently leave my phone in my purse after having it with me somewhere like school drop-off — not so much intentionally, but simply because I don’t feel the need to use it for long periods of the day. However, upon revisiting my initial draft of usage rules while writing this piece, I found multiple aspects of my intentions that I could implement more fully. Clearly, I should’ve followed the directions to post my usage rules somewhere they’d be regularly visible to me, rather than leaving them in my notebook and following through only partially.
I also wish I had more intentionally followed
’s advice to “add before you subtract” in the realm of technology habits, as she puts it in her incredibly helpful piece, “Tech in the Family Home”. That is, I was happy to have more time to spend in my “comfort zone” of leisure activities during the digital fast, but I largely neglected to consider my need to socialize with others, especially face-to-face. I probably would’ve experienced less angst while “detoxing” from my compulsion to check Substack and email if I had carved out a couple hours per week to print and read the latest pieces written by select Substack writers, because I find that truly meaningful and edifying. I also could have intentionally arranged in-person social time; for example, I could’ve reached out to one of my fellow “tech-cautious” friends about her previous offer to check out the local Pakistani restaurant with me. Essentially, I should’ve made greater efforts to fulfill my social needs during the digital fast, rather than focusing so much on eliminating or dramatically curtailing the unhealthy behaviors I’ve tried to use to meet these needs. Still, despite my imperfect execution and the fact that a website blocker isn’t a “silver bullet,” I’m very thankful for the progress I’ve made over the past months.Ironically, while I was finishing up this piece, my family caught another stomach bug after a few uneventful months on the virus front. Though I wouldn’t have wished for such a chance to essentially perform a “before” and “after” comparison, it has been rewarding and encouraging to observe the differences in how I’ve handled this stressor. I can’t say that I didn’t consider bringing my phone to use while I silently watched my sick kids at 3 in the morning, but I dismissed the idea relatively quickly, and enjoyed feeling in control of my attention, rather than compelled to do something on my phone. In fact, once I was hopeful (but not sure) that my kids would sleep the rest of the night, I grabbed the printed copy of my current draft of this piece, which I had been editing by hand before bed, and took the opportunity to work on something that matters to me. Ultimately, this is what I hope this edition of Digital with Discernment has motivated you to pursue: tangible proof of the fact that you can control your own attention; the feeling of contentment that you do have the time and attention to devote to what matters to you; and the knowledge that you can continue bringing your everyday life into closer alignment with your values. It may not be an easy pursuit, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
One Final Note…
As I work to determine where writing for Substack best fits into my life and my family’s rhythm, your support is invaluable to me. If you have the means to support my upcoming work financially, I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d leave a “tip” in the new Digital with Discernment PayPal tip jar.
I’d also love it if you’d contribute your perspective! Do you have any experience with using commitment devices, especially around digital technology habits? Would you like to share any wisdom, or simply your excitement to try a new approach to your tech use? Please leave a comment!
Finally, it is always an honor to see that my readers value my work enough to share it with their friends and loved ones. Please take a moment to consider who might benefit from this piece, and start a conversation with them about it!
As Peco and Ruth note, though Lewis wrote this in his book Mere Christianity, it seems surprisingly relevant to humanity’s “current moment.” (For anyone who’d like to read more of what Lewis writes around this quote, it’s near the beginning of the chapter “We Have Cause to Be Uneasy” within “Book I. Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe”.)
Peco’s piece, “Build a Songbird Compass: Agency, Communion, and Tech” helped me put words to this feeling of searching for something unknown yet desirable. Keep reading for an excerpt from this piece.
Per Kendall’s LinkedIn profile, where he’s listed as Moment’s co-founder, “Moment is a technology holding company that builds and invests in companies that embody ‘tech for good.’”
I should note that Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris, co-founders of The Center for Humane Technology, also share the digital technologies that they’ve struggled with in this portion of the film. I particularly appreciated that Raskin, inventor of “infinite scroll,” admits, “I actually had to write myself software to break my addiction to reading Reddit.”
My use of the word “or” here is not to say that I think these are different perspectives; the former is a word
has used and with which I identify most strongly, and the latter is a word that Peco and others have used.Also known as “operating procedures” in Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, on which Ruth’s “game plan” is based. I prefer Ruth’s terminology of “usage rules,” so I will use it moving forward.
If you’d like to learn more about this, please visit the Digital with Discernment archives, in which I lay out the case and reference many other people on this topic, such as the experts at The Center for Humane Technology.
Here I’m referring mainly to the tragic stories of teenagers who have been flooded with social media content promoting eating disorders, self-harm, and the like. See also my previous piece, “Fighting for the Next Generation”.
However, I should note that I do believe more stringent website blockers should be used to protect children from online pornography, but that’s another discussion.
See pg. 170 of Atomic Habits, within the chapter titled “How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible”
See the Wikipedia entry for “Ulysses pact,” another name for a commitment device.
AI is increasingly used in the software life cycle, but I am not aware of any examples of AI independently devising and then developing software. However, if (or when) this becomes the case, I’d still advise acting with caution.
Thanks to Peco for mentioning this page in his aforementioned piece, “The Hollow Boys, and Girls: Restoring Risk, Efficacy, and the Small Triumphs of Life”. And to be totally clear, I intentionally do not mention the name of the website blocker I ultimately chose in this piece to underscore the fact that I have no financial association with that company whatsoever.
Well said my friend.
I appreciate this piece and encouragement quite a bit. :)
Kaitlyn, what can I say - this was a most wonderful piece, filled with incisive reflections, humbling insights, and practical encouragement. I really appreciate your style of writing and will be sure to share your piece with our readers. I am so glad that you found the communal digital fast useful and that you have found helpful support in "commitment devices". None of us is strong enough to resist the "siren song" by willpower alone (or at least not for long); finding ways that help reorient us to the real likely differ for each person, but it is so helpful to read about others' specific experiences. Thanks again for your writing!