Wrapping this up just a week into the experiment. The results were so good that I don't feel like I need to wait 1 whole month for the experiment to finish. After hiding the view count on my posts, my urge to check view counts started decreasing significantly. A few days after hiding the view count, the compulsive behavior to check views have gone away.
Even after unlisting this journal from the Read Write.As feed, I noticed that I still kept checking the view count on my posts. It's almost like checking for “Likes” on Facebook or Instagram. I want to stop doing that. So I've decided to hide the view count on my posts using custom CSS.
I'll let this run for a month, though I am almost positive that I'll keep this setting going forward.
Update: Experiment Log – 002 Results
Tags: #ExperimentLog
Trying out a new experiment. I will be setting this site to “unlisted” publicity as of this post. That means my posts will not show up on the Read Write.As feed. My reasons for doing so are:
I'll let this experiment run for at least a month. Maybe two months if I feel like there are benefits to not publishing to the feed. If it goes really well, who knows I might even just keep the “unlisted” publicity setting on.
Update: Experiment Log – 001 Results
Tags: #ExperimentLog