Update
Hi there. I’m blown away by the quality of responses I’ve received here. Throughout, there are some extremely useful perspectives on what might be going on and the underlying motivations that are leading to my behavior. My next logical step is to be mindful of the emotions that I’m feeling when I start to feel these reset behaviors, and to extend my awareness of them outside of just the example I shared below. The next logical step is to seek out a therapist or other sort of psychological support. I just want to thank those have commented and encourage users to keep conversations going between them. My interaction with this post will likely slow a lot as I contemplate and try to find a normal. For the curious, I resisted a strong urge to do a reset yesterday at work and instead of spending a couple hours doing that, I spent considerable time learning through some blind spots in a language I’m supposed to be an expert at. Thanks again to all of you.
While all comments were useful in one way or another, I was especially impacted by comments from IonAddis and Boozilla
Original Post
I’m struggling to find relevant information or shared experiences on this topic and I’m hoping that someone here can point me in the right direction. I seem to have always struggled with what I’m calling tech permanence. I define tech permanence as the ability to use some form of tech (either a phone, an operating system, a library, a package manager, etc.) for an extended period of time.
My issue is then that I struggle with maintaining long-term relationships with these technical aspects of my life and it’s starting to affect my work and mental health. An example is likely the best way to describe this.
At least once a week I reinstall the operating system on my desktop computer at work because I can’t seem to commit to Linux or Windows 11. I’m not distro hopping on the Linux side of things (always Debian 12).
I’ve identified a cycle where this behavior repeats:
- Get excited by something that is only available on Linux: this can be a specific software, but more often than not it is actually the file system itself. I love everything about it.
- Work on Linux for a couple of days: in this stage I’ll painstakingly craft an environment that is needed for my work.
- ** Mental cry**: in this stage my mind will tell me that I’m just using Linux to use Linux and everything I want to do I can do on my MacBook or on Windows. I’ve seen this coupled with a bit of anxiety about not being able to use Microsoft products if requested (though I know there are a million work arounds).
- Searching for greener pastures: a stage in which I want to just use products that are more reliable, and honestly, just more pretty. This is the stage that perplexes me the most and often where the reinstall of my desktop to Windows occurs.
- Work on Windows for a couple of days: in this stage I set up my environment, do work for a couple of days, and then wonder why I don’t just use Linux.
- Repeat: I repeat this cycle 1-2 times per week.
This can be mapped to phone operating systems too. An example is that I use an iOS device on a daily basis, but sometimes I’ll go get a cheap Pixel just to throw GrapheneOS on, then to revert to Android, and then back to iOS.
I’ve tried pretty hard to search for relevant examples of this online, but I can’t seem to find the right search terms for any of this. The closest I’ve seen is “object permanence” in the ADHD research, but I’m pretty cautious to start self-diagnosing as I’m not a professional.
Can anyone comment on this or point me to a more appropriate community?
I agree this sounds like ADHD to me, but I’m curious and a bit concerned. You say you’re doing this to your work computer? Most places I’ve worked were committed to one flavor of operating system, so I’m a little curious about what you do [which is something you don’t have to answer, obs].
On the work side, however, this constant tinkering with your operating system has got to be affecting the amount of work you can get done. If this isn’t a job you care about, fair enough. If it is, I’d likely survey my coworkers and use whatever OS they’re using - at the very least, it increases the chances of confrere “tech support” when something goes wrong, plus the ability to share tools and methods.
If you’re not willing to dual boot, is there a chance you could set up a second PC, running one for each OS? You could get a KVM switch to swap between “instances” and save yourself this endless OS reinstallation process.
I don’t mind! I am a data scientist at an academic research institute. We have almost complete freedom with our technical devices due to the policies in place by our university’s IT arm. We don’t even have to domain our machines if we choose not to.
I was having a chat with another commenter and this sort of behavior tends to arise when I have a slowdown at work. Luckily it hasn’t tangibly affected my output, but it has a dramatic effect through opportunity cost - where I could be learning something that would improve my output and skillsets.
OS across team members (about 15 people) vary widely by project, but most people have permanence with MacOS and Windows, with the former being the bulk. We also have several team members who only use Linux operating systems (they’re also good friends which likely increases my FOMO). So our surface is relatively mixed.
My current strategy is to just get focused. Today my plan is to work on my Windows machine and not think about the operating system at all. Staying plugged into this vibrant comment chain on this post has been immensely helpful in grounding me.