How to Protect your Privacy and Mental Health On the Internet - A Step by Step Guide
In my job as a data scientist I spend a lot of time sitting in front of my computer trying to solve complex problems. Outside of my day job, I spend even more time on the computer writing and recording podcasts. In my leisure, I love listening to music and podcasts. So I spend a lot of time on the internet.
I’m also a dedicated student of meditation and mindfulness, so I pay attention to the character of my mind throughout my days. I’ve come to realize that the modern internet is a dangerous place where one can easily squander precious time. But it’s also a necessary tool in our modern world.
I’ve often opened my phone while still lying in bed, stuck headphones in my ears after getting up, and then spent the rest of the day unsuccessfully fighting my impulse for distraction and shallow entertainment. At the ends of such days my mind has become a dark, unfocused cloud, and I’m upset about wasting so much time.
Many of us notice how strange and unsettling our addiction to the internet and our devices is, and this leads some of us to take breaks - we go backpacking, or sit a meditation retreat, or turn our phone off for an entire Saturday. Periodically going off the grid helps, but when we’re on the grid, we have to make sure we use the internet wisely. When I set firm limits for my time and attention, I enjoy productive and fulfilling days coding, writing, and collaborating with others on meaningful projects.
My view on the matter is that we need the government to step in and break up - or at least regulate - companies like Google (owner of YouTube) and Facebook (owner of Instagram), who’ve transformed the internet from a successfully cool experiment into a creepy shopping mall, where our behavior is tracked and modified to generate ever greater profits.
To remain healthy, our society needs to see significant changes made to the business models of our social media companies. Trying to convince enough people to boycott their platforms in order to force these companies to change their business models would be like trying to end factory farming by convincing vast numbers of people to become vegans - it won’t happen. This simple fact underlies most of our social media problems - problems that could be solved if we had laws in place like those that force phone companies to be transparent and ethical. Somehow, we need to see laws enacted that will hold tech giants accountable. Until this happens, as individuals we need to protect our own time and attention for the sake of our mental health, agency and productivity.
Through the last couple of years I’ve researched the subject and done my best to put what I’ve learned into good use. The conclusions I present here are broken into three parts:
Mental Health and Productivity Hacks
Finding And Supporting What's Beautiful On The Internet
Some may see my ideas as a kind of paranoia, but in my mind they can create a healthy level of humility. When I see the data on how addictive technologies can be, I understand that I’m just as vulnerable to these addictions as everyone else. I also know that time and attention are my most precious resources, so taking some time on the front end to set up systems to protect these resources seems to me to be very valuable in the long run.
Note that the mobile steps will be for the iPhone, but I’m sure the steps can be replicated on Android. Feel free to bounce around and see what you think would help you.
Mental Health and Productivity Hacks
Because virtually everyone has become addicted to short term gratification and internet produced dopamine hits, those who are able to protect their time and attention, and work hard on difficult problems, will have a distinct advantage in the modern economy. They’ll also find greater general happiness and fulfillment.
One of the most successful methods these companies implement to steal your attention, and distract you from what’s important, is through strategically timed notifications that are often irresistible. When your phone buzzes, your attention is diverted, which can be enough to interrupt a good conversation, a good movie, a good book, or focus on your work.
I have notifications for texts, calls, and calendar reminders so I don’t forget about scheduled obligations, and nothing else.
Steps:
Go to Settings
Go to Notifications
Customize your notifications for every app. The less the merrier.
Sound sleep is crucial for mental and physical health, and productivity. Scrolling phones before bed has been proven to diminish sleep quality. I used to wake up in the middle of the night from the buzz of texts next to my head, which sometimes kept me awake for hours.
Opening your phone first thing in the morning puts your mind and brain in a reactive, passive and distracted state, setting you up for an unhappily distracted day.
I shared the common fear of missing out on something important if I turned my phone off at night, like an emergency from a loved one, so I found a way around it. These steps are for getting your phone out of your morning and evening routine.
Steps:
Go to Settings
Click Do Not Disturb
Under “Phone”, click “Allow Calls From”, and select “Favorites”
You can also turn on “Repeated Calls”, so your phone will not silence a second call in a row from someone, in case a good friend’s car breaks down, or your favorite hook-up buddy is lonely at 2am.
Now find the “Contacts” app and click “Favorites”
Add to your list of favorites - anyone you would want to receive a call from in the middle of the night. If these people call you, your phone will ring.
Purchase an old school alarm clock with a bird sounds setting.
Now you can turn on your phone’s “Do Not Disturb Mode” at a specified time at night (I shoot for 9pm, an hour before I want to fall asleep) and physically distance your phone across the room from your bed. I like to go to bed early enough so that I can wake up naturally, without an alarm, when my body feels ready to wake up. But on days when I have to set an alarm I wake up to bird sounds on the alarm clock, and the first thing I see and touch in the morning is not my phone, so I’m not at risk of starting my day scrolling.
With these steps in place you can complete a deliberate morning routine - whatever yours might be - before you open your phone or use the internet, and thus set up your brain and nervous system for a healthy, fulfilling day.
Steps For Morning Meditators:
Purchase a cute, classic wind up timer.
Meditate in silence in the morning, and save your guided meditation from an app on your phone for your evening session.
Naval Ravikant says: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” If you play the game of trying to build a social media following, or gain social validation through posts about what you’re doing, you should be sure you have a clear idea of what that prize actually is, and what kind of sacrifices you’re making in order to get it.
Most of us think these products are free, and that we’re the lucky customers who get to use them. The sad truth is that advertisers are the customers of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (Google), and we’re the product. Our habits and behavior are collected, sold, and manipulated, and hugely profitable companies thrive because of the amount of time we spend on their carefully manipulated platforms. The more we scroll and click, and the more ads we see, the more money they make, enabling them to keep making matters worse.
Companies like Facebook, Instagram (owned by Facebook), Twitter, Google and Snapchat fight to grab user attention. They employ teams of software engineers whose job is to make their products as addictive as possible. The same psychological strategies used to keep people sitting at slot machines are used to keep us scrolling apps.
Mounting evidence suggests that social media use is contributing to an increased risk of anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide. This is especially true amongst adolescent children, and most true of adolescent girls, as they compare their own imperfections to the impossible beauty standards that they constantly see on their phones.
All of us can think of things we like about these platforms, but even the relatively good things are in an ecosystem of manipulation and distraction that’s ultimately making people depressed. Some use social media to stay up on current events and politics, but, of course, social media just makes us more polarized, and less able to find true and useful solutions to complicated problems.
I write here at length about the ways in which social media is damaging our politics.
We’ve all been given our own political silos on social media and YouTube, and we tend to think those who disagree with us are ignorant or insane, when really they’re just getting different information. Social media and YouTube are also largely responsible for the rise in conspiratorial thinking.
If your business or livelihood (truthfully) depends on social media, then try to limit your connection to only what assists in that project. If you’re only using media for social purposes, try deactivating all accounts for 30 days. If that makes you feel happier and better about your life, delete them for good.
Author Neil Strauss was featured in Tim Ferris’s book Tribe of Mentors, where he wrote the following:
“We are in the arms race against distractions. Our devices and technology have gotten to know us so well that we now need devices and technology to protect us from them. Especially our time. So what’s helped me say no to distractions is the app Freedom on my computer, which I’ve set to block the Internet 22 hours a day…”
Freedom makes it possible to set up systems to block distractions on the internet. Imagine if a shoe repair man had hundreds of rooms in his shop, all of which would give him a brief hit of entertainment and shallow pleasure. It would make focusing on shoe repair very difficult. That’s the situation all of us face as we’re trying to do our work on the internet. Even though we want to be working on a fulfilling project, we have to continually summon the willpower not to open YouTube, or check the news, or check our email. These distractions make deep, fulfilling, and creative work, which requires both boredom and persistence to accomplish, very difficult to manage.
With Freedom you can close all of these distraction doors. I have one block list set to protect me from YouTube and the News for 20 hours each day (I have a 5pm to 9pm window). I also have another much stricter blocklist which protects me from everything that isn’t directly related to my work. I can sit down and flip this on for a couple hours when I start a work session. It’s amazing how often I still try to open YouTube, ESPN.com, etc… and each time I’m reminded that my better self is committed to working on a problem that’s important to me.
You can download the Freedom App here. The small investment of $29.99 per year has saved me tens (maybe hundreds) of hours that would have otherwise been spent in a YouTube or Reddit haze.
The engineers who work on your iPhone make the phone as sticky and enticing as possible. One way to take control of your attention is to intentionally eliminate their efforts by switching to Grayscale.
Go to Settings
Click Accessibility
Click Color Filters and Flip to On, and Select GrayScale
This makes a phone so ugly that I feel myself getting disoriented after looking at it for too long. It’s a strong incentive to use a phone as a tool, and do what you need to do before getting off of it to enjoy the genuine beauty around you.
Privacy and Agency Hacks
You’ve probably had the experience of talking to somebody about something, and then promptly seeing an ad for whatever it was on your phone. Some of this is likely the cognitive bias of confusing randomness for a pattern, and not noticing how many times this doesn’t happen, but it’s my understanding that your devices are indeed listening to you and collecting data. So we should escape this version of Black Mirror.
Apple and Microsoft are more ethical about data usage than Google, Facebook and Amazon, who are in the business of spying on you and modifying your behavior in order to maximize their profit. But even for Apple and Microsoft products, I think maintaining privacy makes sense.
For iPhone:
Settings
Go to “Siri and Search”
Turn off “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’”
Optional - Turn off “Press Home for Siri”, “Suggestions in Search”, “Suggestions in Lookup”, “Suggestions in Lock Screen”.
For each app, I recommend turning off everything except for “Show in Search”. That way choosing to look at an app is always your own deliberate decision, and not Siri’s recommendation.
For Amazon Alexa:
Find a hard surface outside wherever you live.
Grab your hammer from the toolbox, or borrow a hammer from your neighbor.
Repeatedly strike your Amazon Alexa product with the hammer until it’s smashed to bits.
Sweep up the mess.
Pour out a shot of liquor in honor of Ted Kaczynski.
For Apple Watches:
I would first consider repeating the steps used for Amazon Alexa. Having yet another device that’s apt to distract you and collect your location data is probably not worth whatever benefit you’re getting from it. There’s also no question that traditional watches are much classier and more attractive. You can find some great ones here: https://www.goldandgems.com/watches
But if you want to keep your tacky nerd watch you should be sure to tune up the privacy and notification settings as best you can.
Apple collects data from each app you use, and from your phone usage in general. This section depends on your personal preference - there are tradeoffs to make between privacy and convenience.
Go to Settings
Go to Privacy
First click analytics and Improvements and check off “Share iPhone Analytics”, “Improve Siri & Dictation” and “Share icloud Analytics”
Next you can click on each app and toggle the privacy setting to your preference. Some apps benefit from your location or other information, so you’ll have to decide on these tradeoffs for yourself. It’s good to do this deliberately, because otherwise you’ll be handing out all your data to everyone.
Google has become a nefarious and dangerously powerful company. Everything you search for or click on is stored in your personal digital database at Google, and this data is used to target you with manipulative ads.
If you type into Google “Abortion is,” Google’s suggesion for how to finish the sentence depends on your search history and online behavior. Google will know to finish the sentence with “healthcare” or “murder,” depending on your opinion and your data.
DuckDuckGo is an alternate search engine, and unlike Google’s massive monopoly with over 100,000 employees, DuckDuckGo employs only 81 people, and it feels personal. This is what they write about their search engine:
“You deserve privacy. Companies are making money off of your private information online without your consent. At DuckDuckGo, we don’t think the internet should feel so creepy and getting the privacy you deserve online should be as simple as closing the blinds.”
I won’t lie and pretend that DuckDuckGo is as powerful or robust as Google. There’s a reason why Google has taken over the world, and there have been times when I’ve needed specific information quickly and have missed the Google Search engine. But I’d rather trade a bit of convenience for regaining some internet humanity.
Before you make the switch, you might want to check out the following step - switching to Brave browser - because it goes well DuckDuckGo.
Switching to DuckDuckGo on Desktop:
To switch to DuckDuckGo as your default search engine, visit https://duckduckgo.com. DuckDuckGo will give you simple instructions specific to your default web browser.
Switching to DuckDuckGo on iPhone’s Safari:
(This is a good idea even if you switch to Brave, as Safari will remain the default search engine, and you’ll be directed there from other apps.)
Go to Settings
Click Safari
In Search Engine, switch default to DuckDuckGo
Brave is a web browser committed to online privacy. Here’s the marketing material from Brave:
“As a user, access to your web activity and data is sold to the highest bidder. Internet giants grow rich, while publishers go out of business. And the entire system is rife with ad fraud.”
“The vast bulk of websites and ads include software that tries to identify you. They want to track your every move across the web. Brave blocks all this, allowing you to browse freely.”
I’ve been using Brave now for some time, and I notice no difference in speed or functionality compared with Safari or Chrome.
Install Brave on Desktop:
Download here, install, pin Brave to your doc and unpin your old browser, so you remember to use it.
Install Brave on IOS:
Find the Brave App in the app store (thumbnail of a Red Shield), install, pin to favorite apps and remove safari.
Apple Maps does collect and use your location data, but they don’t share it or sell it. Google wants you to use their maps app, which is why they always try to direct you to their google maps app when you search for an address. Google collects, shares and sells your data.
I don’t know about the other trendy maps apps like “ways,” but if I were to bet on it, I’d put money on these apps maximizing their bottomline with the help of your data.
Finding And Supporting What's Beautiful On The Internet
This is the master rule to keep in mind while using the internet:
Paying a small amount for the things you value will not only support the people doing ethical work on the internet, but will also show that you aren’t satisfied with the ad-based business model in digital media. Have you noticed that formerly reputable sources like the New York Times and the Atlantic now use click bait titles that used to be reserved for shameless bloggers and YouTubers? They’ve been forced to do so because they’ve become dependent on clicks and ad revenue.
You can feel the difference when dealing with digital media companies that don’t depend on ad revenue. We are the customers of companies like HBO, because we pay them! That’s why they’re able to produce outstanding content that we appreciate, without bombarding us with bullshit. Paying for streaming services like Spotify also gives you an honorable user experience, where you can discover and enjoy great new music (this isn’t as ideal as paying the musicians directly, but, unfortunately, that practice has already gone the way of the butter churner.)
I don’t think online advertising is inherently unethical. For instance, if your favorite podcaster reads an ad to start her podcast, everyone is hearing the same ad, and there’s a good chance it’s for a product or service that you might actually want to buy. This is something like a wine magazine having a wine opener ad on one of its pages - it’s completely transparent and ethical, and it benefits the magazine, the wine opener company, and the reader as well if they want the product.
What’s unethical is implementing software that purposefully addicts 15-year-old girls to Snapchat, collects so much of their data that they can accurately predict when the girls are on their period, and advertises products that they’re more inclined to purchase at that time of the month - all the while creating a standard with their filters that makes girls feel ugly and in need of products to fix themselves.
Rather than getting my news from social media and YouTube, I’m now subscribing to long-form journalism (some left-leaning, some right-leaning) and consuming politics there. I’m not up to date on every breaking story, or every new Trump tweet, but I feel both more informed and less angry than I used to be.
I also subscribe to various podcasts and blogs, all for just a few bucks per month, some of which offer ad-free and other exclusive content to subscribers. In total I pay about $25 per month for 10 or a dozen different subscriptions, and this has cleared away substantial bullshit in my online life. The difference between spending 20 minutes scrolling click bait to read fear inducing news takes, and reading a new blog post from Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings, couldn’t be exaggerated.
Rather than documenting your life on Instagram, create a blog and/or an email newsletter and share what you’re up to there. It’s a much more thoughtful and valuable way to share your work or experiences, and you’ll attract the people who really care about you and what you’re doing. And there won’t be a creepy third party profiting off the communication between you and your friends or family.
I sometimes feel a sense of hopelessness about society, politics, and the state of our world, and I know I’m not alone. One wonders how to help make effective change, other than voting. I think a commitment to going deeper than the surface-level distractions on the internet is an important service that all of us can engage in. We can read books and reputable magazines instead of Twitter, talk on the phone instead of Snapchat. If you can carve out a better internet for yourself, you’re doing your part to create a better world.
Switching from gmail to ProtonMail, an encrypted email service that doesn't collect your data. It’s subscription based, for a small fee each month.
Switching from Google Drive to Mega, an encrypted online cloud service that doesn't scan your work and collect data from it.
If you’re interested in learning more about these topics, this is where much of my research has come from:
10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts right Now - a great book by musician and software engineer Jarron Leneir
How a Handful of Tech Companies Control Billions of Minds Every Day - A Ted Talk by Tristan Harris
Why You Should Quit Social Media - A Ted Talk by Cal Newport
The Social Dilemma - A Netflix Documentary on these matters
What is Technology Really Doing to Us - an Episode from The Making Sense Podcast
Digital Humanism - an episode of the Making Sense Podcast
The Great Hack - A Netflix documentary on how social media is damaging democracy and social justice
Digital Minimalism - A book by professor Cal Newport on how to use the internet effectively
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE (The Unabomber Manifesto) - Needless to say, I don’t agree with everything he says here, and I condemn much of what he did, but he has valuable insight into what’s happening to us in relationship to our technologies.
My Distraction Sickness — And Yours - A Great Article by Andrew Sullivan