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Show HN: Seven39, a social media app that is only open for 3 hours every evening

(www.seven39.com)
735 points mklyons | 1 comments | 11 Mar 25 01:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source

I built this site as a quick test if a time boxed social media experience feels better than an endless one. So far I've just been using it with friends and it feels nice, but it seems like it is time to bring it to a larger audience.

Let me know what you think! It is just based on EST for now, sorry.

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bluebarbet ◴[11 Mar 25 09:41 UTC] No.43330758[source]▶
Great effort.

But I will make the obvious point that does not seem very fashionable these days. What if we chose instead to cultivate self-discipline? This project is a technical fix to a human problem, but human problems can also be addressed with human solutions. Is there no value in doing things the time-honored way?

Personally, I'm not addicted to social media but I do have a sweet tooth. The classic hack here is not to have sugary things in the home, or only in such small quantities as to neutralize the problem. But these technical fixes are expensive. Restaurant desserts are poor value compared to an industrial-sized pot of Nutella, consumed slowly.

Well, I've discovered that, with practice and determination, and of course some rules about quantities and time windows, it is in fact possible to resist temptation, even when it's sitting right in front of me all day. Personally, I find this human solution to be liberating and empowering.

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1. comboy ◴[11 Mar 25 10:19 UTC] No.43330985[source]▶
If you have sweets in front of you and some cognitive dissonance in your head about how you both want and don't want them at the same time, this CPU time could be spent on more interesting things.

If you understand you don't want them given a broader context, then it requires no self-dispcipline - you just don't want them.

But if you can't untangle your contradiction, i.e. if self-discipline is required, why would you want to spare any thought on that?

I understand your point about this resisting temptation being a skill, a muscle that you train, that you want to master and that feels empowering. I'm just pointing out that when truly mastered it is 100% effortless - and when it is 100% effortless it means you either can't have it or understand that you don't want to (which is the same as simply not wanting to).

Otherwise it's a cognitive dissonance, a distraction.