Making Internet Less Distracting
Dodge Recommender Systems
The following should reduce influence of recommender systems significantly. Making internet less distracting and help improve privacy.
Least Access Principle
This is a security principle.
By default, the number of accesses granted to a user/role/application should be least needed to run that application.
The more access someone/something has, the more will be probability of a security risk.
Reduce Data Points
A recommender system can only work with data we provide. If data is reduced, it will have hard time figuring out what to recommend therefore making things less distracting.
Specifics
Phone
- Do not allow notifications
- Do not give any permission for the application if it is not necessary.
- For iOS 14.5+: Turn off app tracking for all apps
For Services
- Turn off personalized ads
- Do not store unnecessary data. Even after deleting, most services will take 6 months to delete it from all their servers.
For Example: In YouTube you can,
- Delete all playlists
- Unsubscribe from all channels
- Change locations to some other country (I Choose Japan)
- Turn off Personalized Ads
I found that Google services are good at providing these kind of features and changing these settings have an immediate effect. Facebook Products and Amazon hide a lot of details.
Resources
Set it up such that the tab autocloses. Because this reduces a touch point.
Once you realize you had opened a distracting website. Take a moment to notice, what were you thinking or feeling just before opening.
Was it because something that requires relatively-hard thinking came along and your brain decided to switch to something known and easy?