· 2 min read

Making Internet Less Distracting

Dodge Recommender Systems

Dodge Recommender Systems

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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?

Footnotes

  1. Photo by FLY:D on Unsplash


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