Damn this really rings true to me, and makes me deeply wish I had my own office again. There are advantages to a cubicle environment but the noise means headphones which means distraction.

This is what i do with the tablet i have. Its an Android tablet, but de-googled with a spoof account. That way i can play games / apps and not have any account tried to it.

I can easily listen to podcasts while doing household chores. Most podcasts aren't that information-dense anyways and while retention isn't perfect, you get an overview of a topic and can still dig deeper (or not) later. Or to flip it around: most podcasts don't give you that much benefit anyways.

YMMV but I sometimes listen to a podcast or audiobook while playing mindless video games. I can't watch a show while playing video games, since I need to actually watch the screen. Since the game doesn't require mental thought, I can still pay attention to the content of the podcast.

Personally, I listen to podcasts while biking or driving; I can't just sit and listen to them, I need to be physically doing something.

https://gpodder.github.io is a great app to subscribe to podcasts, download them as mp3s, and syncing them to a offline player.

Yes but social media companies have helpfully made this experience unpleasant.

Stay logged off in the browser, don't carry (unique, complex) password around if you have to.

But this is desperate level of proper addiction, when serious hard look at one's life is by far the best course of action. Professional help is not a bad idea neither. Life can be pretty amazing, but screens won't get you there, in contrary its cheap basic addictive 'fun' for poor.

Many years ago I removed all FB apps and messenger from my phone (due to their crappy engineering their constant snooping of user's activity was, draining batteries fast even when not using them). Have them on desktop only. Pretty amazing move, can't recommend enough.

There is something magical in 2025 to practically disconnect from all the social noise. But one can't be total piece of s*it who can't stand themselves of course.

I am experimenting with using freedom.to to block social media in the browser. It creates a VPN profile that blocks these sites in the browser (it also uses the Screen Time API to block specific apps). The downsides are that you can just go into iOS settings to disable the profile, and I am paying Freedom a subscription for something I could set up for free. The upside vs. managing it myself is that it's much easier to create a schedule (eg block during weekdays, instead of block 24/7).

This is my weakness. I really miss leechblock since changing to iPhone

You can block them on dns level. That's what I did when I wanted to stop wasting time playing 2048. (Not sure how to configure DNS on phone, I was using PC to play at the time)

On the iPhone you can use Screen Time to block social media apps, and it will also block their websites.

However since you're the account owner (rather than a child), you can always just bypass the Screen Time block... But at least it adds a barrier.

My workaround for this is to always log in from porn/incognito mode where it doesn't remember cookies. Each time I have to type password and go through 2FA.

iPhones have a website blocking feature built in. It's possible to set up separate time limits for different websites. Setting a limit to 0 effectively block the site. Ask family member or a friend to set the pin for you and you're set.