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Kurt Brown

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I got the idea for this prediction from this Vsauce segment about "the TV paradox". The prediction turned out correct: one person said something very similar to the quoted text.

The declutter phase begins tomorrow. Including myself, I have 6 treatment subjects and 5 control subjects, which is better than I expected.

I admit to feeling nervous. Some large part of me is convinced that a life with no quick & easy screen distractions is a life with no breaks or rest. Apparently it's hard to fully imagine myself decompressing when only wholesome activities are available. Well, we'll find out. I'm also really not looking forward to going through the withdrawal, but I think it can be mitigated by getting lots of social interaction.


More anticipations:
At least one person will, without prompting, say that (rot13) gurve fhowrpgvir rkcrevrapr bs gvzr unf abgvprnoyl punatrq. Sbe rknzcyr, "vg srryf yvxr guvf zbagu jrag ol fb fybjyl. Vg srryf yvxr vg fgnegrq guerr zbaguf ntb."
I'll be a little surprised if more than 3 people drop out and quite surprised if more than 5 drop out.

I plan to do a lot of reading already. And I don't anticipate watching 2h of TV every day, this is just my upper limit. If I think I'm watching too much, I'll change the rule--maybe to 6h/wk or less, or only with another person, etc.

I'm still writing the questionnaires, but I think I want to ask weekly for {hours & quality of sleep, subjective sense of productivity, subjective well-being, subjective stress & anxiety, resting heart rate, hours spent socializing}.

As for softer data, I'll also try to get a sense of whether/how much each participant rekindled an old hobby. That's a major promise of the digital declutter, so it will be informative to compare how much it happens in the control group.

I'm only going to ask for a weekly questionnaire and an entry/exit interview since I don't want to scare people off from joining the control group.