I had this interesting talk with a close friend who is a therapist about her work with patients on all sorts of addictions. Modern gen-z millennial patients have issues with addictions across the entire gamut from video games to drugs to media to medication, you name it.

Thing about tricks of any kind, like boundaries around when you get the thing is that you don't end up really addressing the root causes of the issue. If you're just locking up your computer or fencing yourself off you're not actually mastering self-control and discipline. If you're handing control to others you're burdening them and messing with your adult relationship. Like it's not healthy imho.

I'm not advocating that you should quit cold turkey or that those methods you describe about not snacking are not worth it. Breaking a real addiction often requires drastic measures. But it's much better to do the actual work on your root emotions to understand yourself. Especially if you're an adult and we're talking about something low-stakes. A part of that involves also accepting that you can let yourself sometimes have the thing and the world won't end.

I deliberately left many social media websites, and I regularly simply uninstall Instagram, video games. But I've also accepted that they're sometimes just fine and I will sporadically hop on them for a couple days. I've noticed their addictive potential is greatly reduced. I've found that rotating and shifting between them makes them more enjoyable but also makes me more dynamic less passive.

For the online world actually participating makes a huge difference. Putting yourself out there, be it typing out a comment or making a video is a much more rewarding experience as opposed to passive consumption.

But yeeah long story short what you really want to work on is the underlying emotions and only you can do that in your mind.

FWIW asking tenants of HN for advice on this is like asking smokers how to stop smoking.