Restrict access to addictive websites
One minute you're writing a practical betterment, the next minute you're watching an ai generated video of a cat being pulled over by the police, the minute after that minute you wake up dead in your grave wishing you made more of yourself — that minute is yesterday, and today is the first day of the rest of your life.
If that sounded incoherent it's because I wrote it after watching just five minutes of YouTube shorts. Brain rot is real and while it may be too late for me, it isn't too late for you.
Restrict access to addictive websites in your browser and reduce your chances of wasting precious time and grey matter watching slop.
Using web extensions to block addictive websites
There are many ways to restrict addictive websites, but I find the most effective way is one that is less restrictive.
If you simply block YouTube outright, you will inevitably unblock it, then forget to block it again, and you'll be back to square one.
If your blocking mechanism can be paused, you'll find you do go back to addictive websites, but you do so less often.
This Practical Betterment was recommended by a reader, but funnily I am also the author of a web extension that is designed to block addictive websites. It is objectively the best web extension ever made, it's also free and has no ads or anything annoying like that.