Kind of ironic you chose quitting alcohol as your comparison - locking people in a room is exactly what many high-intensity anti-alcoholism/drug abuse programs do. You stay in there with nothing but food, water, and maybe some books until you've gotten through the cold sweats, the puking, and the other associated symptoms of withdrawal. Once your body has returned to a semblance of normalcy, you start treating the psychological addition issues - which is virtually impossible while drunk/high or while 'coming down'. So a period of cold turkey pain is some times necessary.
I don't know if that's the 'best' way to handle it (I'm not an addiction specialist, I just have many addicts in my family - 2 of which have gone through similar programs), but it is certainly effective. Both of the family members who went through such programs have been clean for >20 years afterward, after 15-20 years of abuse.
You countered with "So a period of cold turkey pain is some times necessary."
How does that apply to turning off your services? Doe one then seek counseling before turning them back on? Or in the case of the alcoholic, never turning them on again? Goodbye Twitter!
Maybe I made a bad analogy, my point was that information overload is more a general problem than addiction, another topic altogether. But in both cases, you still have to face your problem. Cold turnkey is only a temporary solution.
Avoiding distractions is not a physical addiction that one needs to go "cold turkey" with. If so, the user has bigger problems than information overload. Game addicts would fall into that category, not those following Twitter or any other real-time media.
I use several monitors and have dedicated my social media to only one of them and I removed the audible alerts which I never liked anyway. My work area always remains on the center monitor, whether I am reading an article, writing a proposal or the like. When I need to stop and catch up on my real-time media, it is always there to my left. I don't need to re-open any apps or log back into any services or un-hobble my network. That alone would take more time from my schedule than a little self control.
If we are talking about addicts, then this is another discussion altogether.
I don't disagree with you at all, and you raise a number of good points. I thought we were talking about addicts though - which is why I took it where I did.
I don't know if that's the 'best' way to handle it (I'm not an addiction specialist, I just have many addicts in my family - 2 of which have gone through similar programs), but it is certainly effective. Both of the family members who went through such programs have been clean for >20 years afterward, after 15-20 years of abuse.