The greyscale, the turning off notifications, the uninstalling of apps, the screen time blocks. The only things that have had long-term (and yet still incomplete) benefit is physically separating myself from my phone, like leaving it in the car or at home during dinner, as well as maximally delaying phone usage in the morning.

Whats frustrating is that the discourse, like in this essay, usually revolves around summoning discipline or willpower on the part of the user, and usually doesn't discuss the behavior of the tech companies. These apps and technologies are engineered very carefully to exploit the fast, instinctual type 1 side of your brain that, for good reasons, has evolutionary has dominion over the deliberate, thoughtful type 2 thinking that I think most of us would prefer to be doing more of.

Because of this, I just don't see this scourge changing through efforts on the parts of the users. Maybe that's pessimistic.