[HN Gopher] Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
___________________________________________________________________
Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
Author : shankarro
Score : 576 points
Date : 2021-12-18 04:13 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (benwajdi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (benwajdi.com)
| themadturk wrote:
| Games are completely out for me, except for Microsoft Solitaire
| on my phone for odd moments. I haven't found an immersive game
| since playing Harpoon in the early Aughts. They require too much
| time, too much hardware, and give me little return.
|
| But I do read a lot, still, thanks to the Kindle. I re-read a lot
| of beloved books, so having the library on the device or easily
| available is important. But I also find as I grow older it can be
| harder to concentrate on things. The TV is on too often in my
| house, and there's really not a good place to escape from it, and
| it is much more a distraction than the Internet.
|
| Still, I manage to get through between twenty and forty books a
| year, both new and old.
| [deleted]
| mrslave wrote:
| > In an essay he published in The Guardian (which is by now
| removed from their website, following a massive Twitter campaign
| against the novelist mainly because of his opinion on techno-
| consumerism), titled "What's Wrong with the Modern World?",
| American novelist Jonathan Franzen wrote:
|
| For the curious, the removed article is here:
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/13/jonathan-franz...
| and archived here:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20130915070641/http://www.thegua...
| a_bonobo wrote:
| Is there any source as to why it was removed? The OP says it
| was because of a 'massive Twitter campaign' but I can't find no
| source on that.
|
| I can only find some lukewarm Reddit discussion, it seems to
| just be a bad essay?
| https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1mcuva/jonathan_fran...
|
| or see this review https://observer.com/2013/10/bigmouth-
| strikes-again-what-in-...
| dnsco wrote:
| This piece argues he was an early symbol/scapegoat in the
| conversation around equity in the literary world. I found it
| to be pretty sympathetic and enjoyable.
|
| https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/22691692/jonathan-f.
| ..
| chernevik wrote:
| The Internet is quite new, smartphones are newer still. We're
| still working out appropriate usage, and social norms about such
| usage.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if, in 2035, looking at your phone in
| public marks you out as a loser who can't focus on anything.
|
| I think the greatest threat to reading is the evolution of our
| education systems into factories for conformity and
| indoctrination.
| Arisaka1 wrote:
| All I have to offer is nothing more than personal anecdotes.
|
| I think there is a "habitual framework of the mind" that we
| condition ourselves to operate, and that it's a side-effect of
| the ways we consume information on a daily basis.
|
| Now we simply want to learn about what big event happened moments
| after it happened. We want to be entertained in our free time and
| there's a surplus of ways to achieve it, to the point where we
| can even desensitize ourselves by chasing more triggers than
| before. Another opinionated and not so scientific book about this
| subject is "the shallows what the internet is doing to our
| brains".
|
| Last but not least, I don't believe that this is simply a matter
| of aging. Correlation does not imply causation. It takes time for
| the mind to get into this state but I don't think it's just the
| passing of time that causes it, but also what you're doing with.
| A sufficiently accurate metaphor would be that of the person who
| exercises daily to maintain a level of fitness that's deemed
| "very good" for their age. I'm ashamed to admit that my
| grandfather would easily fall in this category. My grandparents
| lived far away from town and they worked in the fields, biking
| etc. daily. As a result my grandfather could easily kick the
| lights out of me if he wanted to. That's how much of a chair slug
| I am.
|
| And just like there can be a wide discrepancy of physical
| strength that correlates with habits and activities, so can it
| happen for mental strength or parts of which in our case is
| concentration, information recalling and memorizing new things.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| If one wants to read more and willing to try few ideas, here are
| few that works for me and our family.
|
| - Have physical books always around -- at your desk, bookshelf,
| bedside table, etc. My current ratio is roughly 1:4 of physical
| against Kindle.
|
| - Read multiple books at a time.
|
| - If you get bored, don't feel like finishing a book; let it go.
| May be you can come back to it later.
|
| - Always try to carry your Kindle or other readers with you on
| your Uber/Lift/Ola rides, Train/Metro/Planes, etc.
|
| - Or buy at-least one copy at the start of your flight, and try
| books that you can finish off in that leg of the flight.
| Personally, I try to give it to a random stranger on the way out,
| "It was a good/awesome book. I have finished reading it, please
| go ahead and read it."
|
| - I don't care who read my blog but I try to publish/write few
| lines about the books I read on my blog. Have been doing it for a
| few years now.
|
| ## Kids Rule;
|
| - There is no limit to how much books (digital or physical) my
| daughter can ask me to buy as long as she finish reading the last
| one.
|
| - If she can't or don't want to finish the last book, wait for
| one week to pass.
|
| - She gets [?]100 for every book she finishes regardless of
| genres but [?]500 for any non-fiction documentary-ish like a
| biography of a great person.
|
| Of course, there is nothing entertaining/social on my phone.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| adding to this: if your issue is one of _focus_ , try a
| pomodoro timer. it's a great way to shut off that voice nagging
| you about all the _other_ things you need to remember to do,
| because you can forget about all of those and know that in 25
| minutes you 'll have an opportunity to reconsider them. if
| you're really strict with your time management, another
| approach is to use detailed calendars, but that's a lot more
| work than just a simple timer.
| batman-farts wrote:
| Reading multiple books at a time has been a big one for me.
| When I was younger, this concept didn't even enter my mind... I
| had one book I was reading right now, and I wouldn't pick up
| another until that one was done.
|
| But I feel like having multiple books "in flight" is crucial
| for comprehending denser topics. I might only be able to get
| through one chapter a night of a particularly dense book (right
| now, for me, Understanding Media by McLuhan), but I can still
| burn through a sci-fi novel or a light biography in a few days
| at most.
| hiq wrote:
| > - She gets [?]100 for every book she finishes regardless of
| genres but [?]500 for any non-fiction documentary-ish like a
| biography of a great person.
|
| Are you sure that's a good idea? At least at one point,
| pecuniary incentives for children for "good" behavior were
| considered harmful to their education, but maybe that has
| changed.
| zeristor wrote:
| " In an essay he published in The Guardian (which is by now
| removed from their website, following a massive Twitter campaign
| against the novelist mainly because of his opinion on techno-
| consumerism), titled "What's Wrong with the Modern World?" "
|
| https://archive.md/85tep
|
| Just wanted to use the _archive.md_ site the way it was intended
| rather than circumventing the jaws of cookies.
| 0898 wrote:
| Why was it controversial?
| knaik94 wrote:
| I strongly dislike the continued push to categorize bad habits
| using technology as an addiction. Addiction is not a description
| of a behavior that you think is bad and wish to change. Addiction
| is life damaging compulsive action that you wish you could
| control but can't due to psychological and sometimes physical
| dependence. If you are using technology as a means of escapism
| and it becomes a detriment to your health, for example you start
| struggling with person hygiene, you delay or miss appointments or
| meetings, you forgo or isolate yourself from your social support,
| and you see the negative effects of choosing technology and yet
| don't change your actions, then it can be considered an
| addiction.
|
| Getting distracted while reading the paper edition of a book and
| googling something isn't an addiction or "withdrawal effects", it
| means you find that book boring.
|
| The reason I, and I imagine many others enjoy, reading digitally
| is because of two main reasons. One is the sheer abundance of new
| reading materials I will find interesting. I no longer feel an
| urge to spend my time and energy on writing that's obtuse as a
| way of considering myself enlightened for having finished reading
| it. I value my time differently because of choices technology
| presents me with. The second reason I prefer reading digitally is
| the accessibility of the discussion and conversations around
| whatever I'm reading. It's easier to create and engage with
| others regarding a piece of writing thanks to technology.
|
| Sometimes I wonder if people, like the author, who decide to
| forgo the use of internet during reading use it positively, the
| way I do. Any word or phrase I don't understand can be instantly
| looked up. I can learn the context about the setting an author
| uses, like looking up pictures of certain types of geography.
|
| The biggest thing that I think the people who decide to go paper
| only miss out on is the novel ways in which writing is evolving.
| Fanfiction and independent publishing is a lot easier when it is
| digital only. Textbooks are becoming better at incorporating web
| technologies, for example I'm learning a new programming language
| and the ability to test and run exercises at the end of each
| section is so helpful in keeping me engaged. There are digital
| choose your own adventure stories and visual novel games that
| immerse me in a way no book ever will. The simple ability to copy
| and paste is groundbreaking when I want to interact with the
| text.
|
| Many of the downsides the author lists as negatives of digital
| reading seems to actually be regarding people skimming instead of
| intentional reading. I would argue that this has more to do with
| people being conditioned to no longer waste time and poorly
| written articles that are 90% fluff and 10% content. The biggest
| problem for me has been the current state of local news articles.
| A single story reworded and posted multiple times by different
| news agencies in order to generate content and keep people
| engaged on their site. I'm not sure if clickbait news articles
| are gone or if I just have gotten better at filtering them out.
|
| But it's necessary to try to read because the old mediums of news
| delivery are dying. Why wait for the familiar well spoken news
| anchor to tell you the most important events of the day over the
| radio or tv when you can look up the details yourself online?
| Twitter is one of the most current ways to stay updated on a
| story because people report live.
|
| The world has become a place where using the internet to stay up
| to date and read is necessary. People have adapted to having a
| constant stream of information that can keep them occupied. Most
| people aren't clinically addicted to the internet, people just
| don't want to miss information that feels important at the time
| it's released.
|
| I love my ereader. Books aren't going anywhere. The romantic
| experience of what past generations defined as reading is
| disappearing. Some people have a harder time adapting to that
| truth. Reading to me has never been about the paper, the
| tangibility, or the fact that you don't need electricity. The
| most important thing about reading, to me, has been
| accessibility. I have read an entire harry potter books on an
| ipod touch, bored in class, while in high school. I do not
| consider myself a poor student and neither did my teachers. I
| enjoyed the story just as much as everyone else. I appreciate
| some people value the concept of physical books more than I do.
| The doesn't change the fact that the value of writing comes from
| the ability to convey ideas to another, the medium is an
| afterthought.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I find I get my best reading done or can bang out an unusually
| amount code while I'm on a long flight or passenger rail (Amtrak)
| without fast, stable internet.
|
| I would love if someone opens up a no-internet cafe. And you can
| pay an optional, arbitrary "deposit" where if you leave early you
| get charged whatever amount you deposited.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I used to read a lot of books but now it is hard. Sometimes I can
| get into something and the pages fly. Often though I space out,
| my eyes move but I don't read the words, it's not great.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| It takes discipline to return to active reading, to re-acquire
| the proficiency in automated reading.
|
| > _my eyes move but I don 't read the words_
|
| That's also an understandable consequence of having become
| information scavengers, used to spend time trying to retrieve
| the important signal in the mass of noise. The information
| available in the formation years of many was structured in the
| essays ("careful pace") and breathing in the narrative ("flow
| and occasionally pick") - today facing "informational
| landfills" is much more common (this included, e.g., newspaper
| titles, with few exceptions). One should probably consciously
| scavenge the more loose texts, and return to a punctual reading
| of the more structured and reliable texts, after evaluating
| what kind of text one has in front - to use the type of reading
| that is appropriate.
| Paul_S wrote:
| While the article veers a bit all over the place at its core it's
| about a topic I have given a lot of thought to - relationship
| between information form and content and our expectations.
|
| I still read books but I'm very against fetishising them. I don't
| understand the emotional connection with paper, typewriters and
| the general attitude that medium destroys the content. What I
| think happens a lot is the old correlation vs causation mistake.
|
| Let me illustrate with an anecdote. When I was beginning
| woodworking I discovered a lot of educational youtube channels
| which I thought were great. At the same time I bought a lot of
| books. A couple of years later I realised that those youtube
| channels were mostly worthless but I still use those books to
| this day. The paradox is that it should be obvious that video is
| a much better medium to teach you woodworking. Unfortunately, due
| to factors outside of those dictated by form, it so happens that
| books are better, even though they are limited by their form.
|
| Sometimes I think it's self reinforcing by people producing to
| the expectations of the platform - so the real limitation is not
| the form but the customer's expectation.
|
| People quickly create mental shortcuts and hence the cargo cult
| of paper. I reject it. I often find that after reading a history
| book I learn and am entertained more by reading a few wikipedia
| articles on the subject. Paper is no guarantee of quality, and
| modern form is not the limit (modern form has in fact fewer
| limits than paper).
| pm90 wrote:
| Ultimately I believe what books help is to create a shared
| perspective of the world. If everyone has read a book, you can
| quote a passage and everyone gets what you're trying to
| communicate. You may use it in clever ways in your daily
| interactions. In premodern times, books literally shaped
| language by introducing new words, terms and phrases.
|
| Today, the closest thing I can think of is popular TV shows and
| movies; but also, video games, social media etc. What was once
| the exclusive domain of books is now accessible via other
| media. Of course the book people are mad at this but I agree
| with you that it's kinda antiquated to lament that books have
| lost that place in society.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Interesting counter balance. I still think what makes books
| perceived as more valuable is based on a actual facts that
| comes out of this medium: barrier of entry.
|
| It takes serious dedication to author a book. Writing over 100
| pages on any subject takes dedication, ability to organise
| thoughts, multiple reviews and editing passes. Most other media
| don't require this level of dedication and abilities to
| formulate valuable thoughts. Twitter is on the other extreme of
| the spectrum. Just a short phrase and tap "publish". Can do
| this on the toilet seat. Even making a video now takes far less
| effort than writing a book given the productivity tools made
| available to anyone who has a mid range smartphone.
|
| Edit: it doesn't imply all books are valuable, actually most
| aren't. But the barrier of entry leads to less noise than found
| on most other media.
| bambax wrote:
| Socrates famously hated the written form, not because it was
| technologically advanced for its time, but because it was "dead":
| you can't have a conversation with a piece of writing, or ask the
| author to explain something that's on the page.
|
| I disagree (and agree, indirectly, with the OP): deadness is a
| feature, not a bug. The problem with Internet writing is not just
| its addictive nature, it's groupthink. It is too much alive. You
| have to either follow popular opinion, or oppose it vehemently;
| tangential or orthogonal thinking is almost impossible.
|
| Books, because they are not part of an immediate, global
| conversation where people share opinions and judgements and
| signal their virtue to one another, are something very different
| and allow for a very different experience than any written text
| found online.
|
| Maybe books will slowly fade; but I think it's unlikely they
| would ever completely disappear, as they offer something unique
| not found anywhere else.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| It reminds me of this short essay [0] I came across in Harper's
| a while back, which, at the time of publishing, was in a
| section devoted to the defense of books. I believe it's from
| 1999.
|
| _" [...] a treasured book is more important than a dance card,
| or the photo that freezes you in mid-teeter at the edge of the
| Grand Canyon, because such a book can be a significant event in
| the history of your reading, and your reading should be an
| essential segment of your character and your life. Unlike the
| love we've made or meals we've eaten, books congregate to form
| a record around us of what they've fed our stomachs or our
| brains. These are not a hunter's trophies but the living
| animals themselves."_
|
| 0: https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/living-animals/
| cjameskeller wrote:
| I think a parallel argument to Socrates's could be made for the
| internet -- it is "alive", but in a much lower-dimensional way
| than real conversation with people in the world who have bodies
| and families. Online, everyone is a disembodied psyche -- so
| much is abstracted ideas, universalized groups and events,
| unbounded emotion/impulse. Talking with someone in real life
| almost requires confronting the shared humility and complexity
| of being a person. Avatars and text do not.
| kashyapc wrote:
| Incidentally, this morning I finished reading the Socratic
| dialogue, _' Phaedrus'_[1]. At the end of the dialogue (and
| also in a couple of other dialogues), Socrates makes his famous
| rebuttal against writing:
|
| _You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with
| painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are
| alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most
| solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You 'd
| think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but
| if you question anything that has been said because you want to
| learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing
| forever._
|
| _When it has once been written down, every discourse roams
| about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with
| understanding no less than those who have no business with it,
| and it [writing] doesn 't know whom it should speak and to whom
| it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it
| always needs its father's [the writer's] support; alone, it can
| neither defend itself nor come to its own support._
| - - -
|
| What is Socrates' proposed solution, then? A combination of two
| things: (1) of course, the so-called Socratic method (
| _elenchus_ in Greek) of refutation, that teases out better
| hypotheses by "identifying and eliminating contradictions",
| and (2) the "art of dialectic", i.e. the art of investigating
| the truth, which Plato makes Socrates use in his later
| dialogues such as the _Republic_. I 'm sure we don't miss the
| irony here--we gain many of Socrates' insights, regardless of
| what we think of them, thanks to Plato's writing.
|
| PS: I agree with you on books, modulo this: it's more likely to
| see pigs flying than to see "books starting to slowly fade
| away" :-)
|
| [1] This English translation (by Nehamas & Woodruff) is
| excellent:
| https://www.hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/phaedrus
| kinghtown wrote:
| After reading a few of the dialogues, love reading these BTW,
| I highly suspect that Plato often misrepresented Socrates-
| would often put words in his mouth. With that said..
|
| I think it's very OK for Socrates to be wrong or to disagree
| with him. He's the kind of guy who would change his opinions
| in light of conflicting evidence or an iron clad logical
| argument. Just because he said that about writing doesn't
| mean he's right nor does it mean he's done with the tangent.
| kashyapc wrote:
| I forgot to add: Socrates actually _does_ sort of say that
| even writing is okay--as long as you 're doing it in the
| right spirit (seeking truth) and are not deceiving your
| audience.
|
| In the _Phaedrus_ , Socrates rails against the
| "speechmakers" who don't truly know what they're talking
| about, but instead write based on "what is likely" to
| persuade the audience.
|
| And yes, in the later dialogues (e.g. the _Republic_ ),
| many scholars agree that Plato used Socrates as his
| "mouthpiece". I don't care either way, they're insanely fun
| to read.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Well, the Internet conversation mediated by the concept of
| engagement wasn't what Socrates had in mind opposing writing.
| The value of well constructed and structured dialogue is
| enormous. If it's between two people, it's already quite
| powerful, then you add complexity by adding an additional
| voice. We've been doing this for millennia, and it works, it's
| just not what the internet translated.
| densh wrote:
| I am surprised nobody brought up "Deep Work: Rules for Focused
| Success in a Distracted World" by Cal Newport. The book explores
| the idea of the post in more detail and argues for concentrated
| work ("deep" work) lifestyle that's devoid of shallow activities
| such as reading Twitter or Facebook feeds. It heavily affected my
| view on the harm of addictive and distracted habits. Decreasing
| shallow activities has improved my ability to focus both for work
| and for leisure reading.
| hackermeows wrote:
| Why is it bad though . I don't have hours to spend reading a
| book. Did they not say the same thing when TVs initially came out
| ? Seems like just another "back in the good old days" post .
| rmason wrote:
| I had the advantage of becoming an adult before the Internet even
| though I was on it earlier than most people. So I can clearly
| remember both before and after. While its overwhelmingly
| beneficial not all of it was good.
|
| I've observed that some of my richer friends are limiting their
| kids screen time. In fact it's becoming almost universal among
| those who work in tech. Clearly some of them want their kids to
| become more balanced. It's hilarious to see these kids to be told
| to leave the house and play with your friends. They don't know
| what to do! Boomers never had that problem or had to be asked
| twice.
|
| I've got an extremely talented friend who is paying each of his
| kids to read the classics and write book reports which he
| reviews. The kids in the beginning did it for the money but there
| is a sense of pride on what they're learning that their peers are
| not. Certain books became classics for a reason!
|
| My late Mother took us to the library every single week and often
| checked out and read more books than we did. I naively thought
| that everyone's parents did the same but I learned that wasn't
| the case. I think fostering a love of books is one of the
| greatest gift she gave us.
| chadlavi wrote:
| Internet is the new boogeyman. TV used to be it. Radio was it one
| time. Hell, _novels_ were treated this way.
|
| The one thing they all have in common is being new behavior
| patterns that people can worry and kvetch about.
| rfrey wrote:
| Most moral panics are in-retrospect entertainment. But some are
| on the money.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Not really. Moral panics are like their names suggests panic,
| on baseless fear. Even if it is a problem to be concerned
| about like kidnapping they will focus on the wrong aspect
| that incites the most fear instead of what is actually
| germane. See "stranger danger" and fears of pedophiles
| looking for some lurking creeper when they should be looking
| at their divorced ex or a trusted part of their kid's life.
|
| It is a common problem, they always look for some sort of
| cartoonish villain to blame things on.
| vkk8 wrote:
| And to some extent, all of the nightmare scenarios from those
| technologies happened. Over time, those scenarios just became
| the new normal way of life and we adapted to it. Of course,
| many have made the case that a lot of our psychological and
| societal problems have their roots in those technologies just
| as their opponents originally thought they would have, but,
| again, this is the new norm now so people mostly don't think
| about it.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| I agree with you somewhat, but there's something unique about
| the internet I think is dangerous: there's no clear boundaries
| of when to stop. Radio stations would stop broadcasting, you
| reach the end of a book, and tv shows end. But, the internet
| just keeps going. You can just keep scrolling and clicking
| through website after website until you die, with very little
| prompt that it's time to stop.
| acchow wrote:
| You go to the next book to read in the same way you click on
| the next link on the web.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| Yes but with substantially more friction. I have to stand
| up, walk over to my bookshelf, go through my books, grab
| one, sit back down, and start reading vs click
| stinos wrote:
| _have to stand up, walk over to my bookshelf, go through
| my books, grab one, sit back dow_
|
| You can treat that as a chore, or as something exciting.
| Pick the latter and it's not really friction anymore, in
| that it's enjoyable friction: there's a certain
| expectation I get from picking the next book,
| encountering something I haven't read for ages and
| remembering how good it was.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Not if you bring the whole pile around with you or you
| have a Kindle!
|
| Not that I've ever done such things. Carrying around 4
| books would have been absurd. Not me.
| filoleg wrote:
| Or even more obviously, keep clicking and scrolling to the
| next channel on TV. Not that much these days, because
| everyone switched away from cable onto the streaming
| services, but it should still be an easy comparison that is
| understood by most here.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Broadcast TV stations used to stop broadcasting every
| night. By midnight or 1:00 or so, none of the three or
| four channels you could receive was showing anything at
| all.
| bmitc wrote:
| None of those things have the addictive and distraction power
| of the Internet. Along with the Internet has come ubiquitous
| things like laptops, tablets, and cellphones. It is an actual
| problem, not one for people to merely "worry and kvetch about".
| acchow wrote:
| Wasn't TV viewed in the same light?
|
| I imagine a large segment of humanity has always looked for
| addictions.
| createunderrate wrote:
| TV was viewed in the same light, and a large chunk of the
| population remains addicted to their TVs to this day.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well most of the population seems to drink coffee and is
| somehow proud of not being able to quit, so yeah. Addiction
| is a part of our life, we just have to be careful to not
| form harmful ones.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| They are radically evolved means of consumption, too. If you go
| back far enough, even back to single cells, it's all been
| consumption this whole time. The more modern means help us
| select for specific types and amounts of energy via
| stimulation. Which is pretty amazing really.
|
| That helps put it into perspective for me. I can watch the
| stimulation and consumption from the outside, so to speak, and
| get a helpful picture of what's going on in my life.
| mFixman wrote:
| Actual data points at millenials and zoomers actually reading
| more books than other generations [1].
|
| This seemed weird to me until I figured out how few books my
| parents actually read.
|
| This thread is full of social media as a generation-destroying
| boogieman, but nobody seems to consider how much more common
| youth alcoholism was 20+ years ago or how much of our parents'
| lives was spent in front of the TV.
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/01/16/millennials...
| moffkalast wrote:
| When you think about it, the internet is very interactive and
| most of it is reading (youtube aside), compared to TV which
| is 100% preset video content.
| cyber_kinetist wrote:
| Exactly, because of the Internet we (as a collective) are
| probably reading and writing the most amount of text in
| history.
|
| The difference between the past and the present is not that
| we're on the direction of illiteracy, but that the
| structure of text is becoming much more non-linear than
| before (distributed, discretized, highly referential,
| algorithmically sorted and processed text rather than
| continual, serial, and isolated text) which has
| consequences (both positively and negatively) in shaping
| our way of thinking about reality.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > In short, voracious readers ultimately become critical
| thinkers.
|
| No relationship whatsoever. You develop critical thinking when
| you are in touch with reality, or when you do stuff, more than
| spending your time in books.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| is it the generalization you take issue with (i.e. the
| implication that reading _of any kind_ in enough volume can
| teach critical thinking)? or do you actually take issue with
| the voracious readers of epistemology /philosophy of
| science/etc who are explicitly trying to use books as an aid to
| become more critical thinkers?
| [deleted]
| mountainb wrote:
| The way to cure this is to develop a habit that severely limits
| undirected online browsing and socializing. Part of it is just an
| education of your own aesthetic sentiments. I read James Clear's
| "Atomic Habits" (not that this is a special book, I was just on
| another kick in which I really needed to improve my productivity
| and picked up a suggestion to use a physical counter of some kind
| to make a habit stick.
|
| I bought a bunch of marbles, and for every bloc of time that I
| avoid undirected browsing or social media use, I move a marble
| from one container to the other. My goal every day is to get
| through an arbitrary number of marbles (160 right now), after
| which I can do whatever. If I slip up and open a social media
| page, HN, or start browsing newspapers, I dump all the marbles
| out of the container, which generally makes it impossible to meet
| the day's goal unless the slipup is very early in the day.
|
| This has been nothing short of amazing for my life. One issue
| that I had is I had a physical twitch that would start developing
| after a couple minutes doing one thing, like a work project, at
| which I would feel the urge to check the news or social media.
| This twinge would show up and I would type into a browser window
| to relieve the sensation. Instead I more or less replaced that
| twinge with moving the marble from one container to the other.
| It's made it a lot easier to focus. Over time, I stopped caring
| as much about the news and became more easily satisfied by very
| briefly reading summaries every few days.
|
| I think a lot of web addiction is less driven by thoughts or
| brain issues and more by physical habits akin to nail-biting or
| cuticle-picking. Most of the attempts that I've made to stop
| addictive behavior have not worked: they were based on schedules,
| timers, articulated goals, and other things like that rather than
| recognizing the physical trigger for the habit, the result of
| that trigger, and just redirecting the stimulus with another
| physical action rather than trying to suppress it.
| tbonesteaks wrote:
| Thank you writing this. This was such a succinct explanation.
| Really helpful!
| wilkommen wrote:
| Wow this is pretty interesting. In my experience checking
| social media is also a lot like a physical twitch. I might buy
| some marbles.
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| Atomic Habits is an excellent book, highly recommend it to
| anyone struggling to fix patterns of behavior.
|
| I've started to curate any environment I use to avoid
| unintentional triggers. For example, when you reach for your
| iPhone to open up Medium or Kindle, you are forced to see all
| the different notifications and home screen icons. If there is
| a social media app or Safari icon happen to be there, your
| craving to open it and check the feed will get triggered
| unconsciously. There will be no "decision to check news" --
| you'll just find yourself scrolling through the feed. So what I
| have now is a clean setup which makes sure screen pages with
| valuable apps are not arranged together with distractions. I
| also try to keep my phone away on the other end of the room, so
| that reaching for it would require more efforts, breaking down
| old habits of mindless browsing.
|
| I find ideas from Atomic Habits interesting as they suggest
| improving your life through pre-defined policies and good habit
| design, not through conscious decisions made in the moment.
| Made me look at many other things (e.g. management, teamwork
| environment) in a different way.
| nefitty wrote:
| I am able to achieve this by supplementing with the amino acid
| precursor N-acetyl cysteine. I've done the container goal with
| paper clips, have used pomodoros, full-time accounting, to-do
| lists, commitment devices, aversion stimulus, and on and on. I
| don't use any hacks or techniques any more.
| blockwriter wrote:
| The present state of reading and the internet is another example
| of the familiar tension that a healthy diet and processed foods
| demonstrate. Those that still read and write are like those that
| jogged, abstained from smoking, and ate balanced meals in the
| seventies. There is an intrinsic good to reading, one that
| readers have an intuition for, and that good merely needs to be
| discovered again by the culture and made explicit. No few of us
| are lost to the negative effects of internet, just like no few
| people simply will not overcome their reliance on sweets. We do
| go on, but leave the kind of material in our wake that the likes
| of the Johns Stewart and Oliver can use to make their living.
| cloudengineer94 wrote:
| I have to get into the habit of reading books again, because of
| the internet I started to just read stuff online because it was
| just so much easier to keep up to date on things.
| htor wrote:
| TL;DR
| selfhifive wrote:
| No it isn't. I check HN every three hours and manage to finish a
| book every two to three days. (On vacation from college)
| jimmyvalmer wrote:
| The article quotes W. Zinsser:
|
| _But I do know they [technological advances] won't make writing
| twice as good._
|
| So wrong! There's no question Google has improved my writing,
| enabling "google-fu" which dials in the precise historical
| reference or literary turn-of-phrase I'm looking for.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Or research for fiction writers. It's SO MUCH easier to write
| decent fiction now.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| What a great read! I am and author and I just emailed a link to
| three friends who write and my wife.
|
| I guess the summary is just being mindful on how we spend our
| time, deep thinking rather than shallow reactive thinking, etc.
|
| I use a service https://freedom.to to restrict access to much of
| the Internet except for specific times. I find this useful as
| well as the freedom.to podcasts and newsletters - really good
| material on using technology with purpose.
| aurea wrote:
| Having failed to truly "disconnect" in the past, my
| recommendation in order not to be distracted by the internet is
| to first and foremost write down everything that you would have
| the urge to google. Instead of googling it, put it on paper, and
| continue your activity. Once you are done you can review the
| points that you have wrote down, and think whether they are
| really worth pursuing. And if they are: stop right there! Don't
| google it. Think about how you could get this information without
| the internet.
|
| This process has helped me rediscover atlases, dictionaries, and
| many other forms of offline knowledge. I almost see it as a form
| of survivalism: asking yourself how would you learn without
| electricity?
|
| Of course there will be failures, either due to loss of focus, or
| maybe because of perceived boredom. But if one sticks with it, it
| really does become a good habit.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| The first part makes sense. Not to distract and interrupt a
| productive activity.
|
| But the second part just seems pointless improductivity,
| doesn't it?
|
| I mean, to counter lack of exercises due to excessive use of
| cars, you would at times avoid it. But not every time, when you
| really can benefit from its speed, safety and comfort.
| aurea wrote:
| I see the fact that searching for the information without the
| internet (or electricity in general) is more difficult as a
| filter to select what is relevant and discard the noise. In
| these cases I simply accept that I need to pick what I want
| to focus on.
|
| But I am in no way advocating for a 100% electricity free
| lifestyle, nor am I saying that one should ditch all modern
| technology. Something that I do are offline days [1] during
| which I try to apply what I wrote about here. On other days
| it will depend on the urgency of the task itself.
|
| You can of course also apply only the first part (noting down
| things to search later). Whatever works for you ultimately.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/OfflineDay/
| [deleted]
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I'm not in the whole anti-Internet camp, indeed my viewpoint is
| far closer to Randall Munroe's[1]. But it is a little sad how few
| of my peers read books. I just finished three volumes of the
| Robert Caro series on Lyndon Johnson along with The Power Broker.
| Now, granted, these are big tomes. They also cover a topic that
| most people would not find interesting. Yet I still find it very
| depressing how almost all of my peers balk at the idea of reading
| them. Part of the reason they balk is, yes, the length and topic,
| but also because reading has become such a chore, such an unusual
| event, that the idea of reading a 800 page book is akin to
| running a marathon. If you struggle to read a 200 page book, an
| 800 page book appears impossible.
|
| And yet, inside these books, there is absolutely multitudes.
| There's more insight and political knowledge and facts than
| thousands of blog posts and news articles, aided by thorough,
| comprehensive decades-long research. There's also pure pleasure.
| The writing quality is so far and above the pedestrian prose that
| you see on the internet. It's like eating your first bite of top
| notch sushi after years of cold supermarket stuff. I can't tell
| you how emotional I got reading about the Civil Rights movement,
| about the trial of Emmett Till, about Coke Stevenson[2], about
| the Rural Electrification movement. There's no blog or article
| that compares.
|
| [1]: https://xkcd.com/1414/
|
| [2]: Even if that portrayal is considered to be suspect. Although
| if you ask me, I think the rebuttal of "but Stevenson was a
| virulent racist" ignores the fact that everybody, LBJ included,
| was a virulent racist at the time and to tar Stevenson with that
| brush is to apply modern sensibilities to a different era.
| 123anonanonanon wrote:
| I've read The Power Broker. But to be honest, I don't remember
| much.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| the quality of any body of work is incredibly _subjective_.
| take a look at any best-sellers list and pick a random book off
| it: chances are (if you 're like me) that you'll think it was a
| waste of time after having read it. so then how do you find
| good content? 1) have friends with common tastes, and consult
| them. this becomes difficult if you're a millennial surrounded
| by peers who don't read. 2) find short-form blogs for which the
| sunk cost in deciding if you like them and want to follow them
| is low; expand into adjacent blogs & writers. blogs don't link
| to each other quite like they did in the past (e.g. webrings),
| so this almost always puts you back into some form of social
| media for the aggregation (reddit), and those aggregators quite
| often degrade/drift over time. 3) follow the algorithm. the
| only platform i've found that's semi-decent at introducing me
| to new, quality, creators is YouTube (or TikTok, but that's a
| substantially different genre).
|
| books are cool, but if any of the above tracks with you, the
| barrier to entry is actually a lot more substantial than the
| other forms of media we're accustomed to (tv shows, video
| games, etc). writers shoot themselves in the foot by writing
| massive tomes that take 800 pages to say what could have been
| better communicated in 200. introductions are the epitome of
| authors totally losing track of what the value they provide is
| -- and yet _new_ authors still include them freakishly often.
| richardw wrote:
| I used to read non-stop. My kindle is now filled with hundreds of
| books I haven't read.
|
| I don't generally do New Years resolutions but fixing that seems
| an excellent candidate.
|
| Edit: I've just deleted all my standard newsy favourites and
| moved my Kindle app to where browser usually goes. Browser in
| same "distractions" folder as Tweetbot.
| jmacd wrote:
| I relate completely with the comments here. I have only recently
| even managed to finish reading a couple of books, but it took me
| months.
|
| I would really like to blame how busy I am (new startup, 3 kids,
| other commitments), however I see my wife who is a physician who
| works in 2 departments and also teaches and runs a residency
| program and I know she is quantitatively much busier than I am
| and has far less control over her time.
|
| However, she manages to read a couple of books a month at least.
|
| I think that during the 2000s/2010s when I was sucking in a
| firehose of information and learning to consume exclusively in
| places like HN, she was still researching, studying and learning
| through long form papers, textbooks and experiments. Our brains
| are trained on very different cadences.
|
| So when she sits down to read, there is almost no distraction,
| her comprehension is far better than mine, and she sort of shoots
| through a chapter with much better momentum than me.
|
| I've recently resolved to stop trying to read anything
| popular/trendy that I might be attracted to just because it's
| there and instead only read history, which is my real interest.
| No more business books or novels I don't really enjoy. That has
| made a difference and it's already becoming much easier as I am
| more disciplined about it.
| hiq wrote:
| > Our brains are trained on very different cadences.
|
| I think this is a very interesting concept. If you're used to
| quickly finding out which information is relevant or not for
| you (e.g. from technical docs, emails, etc.), going back to
| reading a book from cover to cover is a completely different
| approach from what you're used to. In this case, would it be
| easier to try to read books just like you usually read,
| possibly in a non-linear order, starting with what seems to be
| more important?
|
| I know too many people who seem to struggle with reading,
| simply because they have this idea ingrained in them that they
| have to read the whole book, from the first page to the end.
| Even if you're a good reader, it's not clear you want to read a
| book like this when it's still of unknown quality to you.
|
| See also: the levels of reading mentioned in How to Read a
| Book[0].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
| [deleted]
| ggfgg wrote:
| An alternative perspective. The reason we don't find them
| engaging and are so easily distracted is because they're not very
| good and we didn't have anything to compare them with until
| recently. This includes _classics_ as declared by some entirely
| subjective arbitrary literary authority. It's no different to
| wine tasting; status is more important than enjoying the thing.
| Practicers of Tsundoku are a fine example of the propagandists
| pushing the literary agenda forwards when in reality they read 5%
| of every book and are too ashamed to throw it in the paper
| recycling where it belongs and mistake the physical presence of
| the book as the value of the words.
|
| For me, _peak book-reading_ was the 80s and involved dragging
| myself through the local library because the other option was
| smoking, lurking around in public parks drinking or being a petty
| criminal. There are better things to do now, like complain about
| this on HN. There are also far more interactive communication
| pursuits these days and better story telling mechanisms.
|
| I do still read books. I think I knocked about 15 on the head
| this year, mostly Pratchett and The Expanse series. But it's on a
| Kindle, it's not a magical romantic experience and I tend to read
| while pooping, waiting for someone to do the shopping, when
| picking the kids up from school or stuck on a really long Zoom
| meeting which I don't need to speak during.
|
| One notable disaster book this year was The Complete Navigation
| Manual. I am attempting to relearn map/compass based navigation
| again after a 25 year hiatus. This entire book could have been
| condensed down into a single markdown file in github that I could
| have read and understood the key points in 30 minutes. Such low
| information density is not something I am used to or like.
| farrarstan wrote:
| lol at foregrounding Franzen as your main guy to hang your piece
| on. Just...
| Exendroinient wrote:
| The worrying thing is that mainstream social medias are stopping
| reading as a form of the content consumption. Videos are becoming
| shorter and more condensed. It will end badly for brains of the
| generation raised on tiktok.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I strongly suspect that video as a medium (especially video
| social media, but also including TV) has been eating literacy
| (including text forums) for a while and will continue until we
| can program our video social media apps by talking and gesturing.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I consider myself to have an internet addiction, and it has
| definitely cut down on my previously extensive book-reading, and
| I don't like it.
|
| > Personally I'd been deprived of access to computers and the
| internet for several straight months. It was a tough experience--
| not by choice, but by obligation.
|
| Wait, what happened to the author that led to this obligation to
| not use computers for several months?
| dougmwne wrote:
| An aside, I find it a bit interesting that at some point we
| stopped talking about internet and game addiction. It used to be
| a hot topic, but I guess now that we are all completely addicted
| after decade of intense behavioral experimentation, none of us
| are interested in reading about it anymore.
| wccrawford wrote:
| We didn't stop, it just stopped being a hot media topic. I
| still see threads about it on reddit (and sometimes HN) at
| least once a month, and probably more like once a week.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| It was a hot topic because we make hot topics out of the "doom"
| of [insert new/cool thing here]. We've villified reading,
| chess, video games, television, dungeon and dragons, driving,
| dancing, and so on - and vilifying it all goes out of fashion.
| bananamerica wrote:
| We surrendered.
| baby wrote:
| Same for coffee. It's now a socially accepted drug and I'm
| wondering if there'll be a future where it's badly seen to work
| without drinking coffee ("how can you even be productive?")
| knaik94 wrote:
| I think we stopped talking about it because most people
| realized that it's not a proper application of the word
| addiction. Adapting to the changing times doesn't make people
| ignorant. I dislike how when certain groundbreaking changes in
| the way people consume content is introduced, people who don't
| understand it call it an addiction. It's insulting to people
| who suffer clinical addiction. A perceived bad habit isn't an
| addiction.
|
| We aren't addicted to having to use cars in suburban towns. But
| some can argue that people's legs aren't used like they were
| used to and we should all embrace biking or running everywhere.
| Not to mention traffic, pollution, road accidents. There's
| articles written in the last five years that use the term car
| addiction to describe modern population's necessity of cars for
| travel. https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-
| news/en/articles/news...
|
| I think most people realized that the term internet and game
| addiction is most often used by people who simply don't
| understand the culture surrounding the internet or gaming.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Frankly, I'm still shocked at the shift from how it was
| during my childhood to the extent where we're on desktop
| computers for over eight hours a day. Though I suppose
| sedentary office work has long predates PCs.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| These two could have made sense if at the time we had a very
| solid grasp about the two topics, their place in society and
| their real impact. But the "addiction" label was thrown around
| at a time of uncertainty as they were too new, with a huge
| scoop of "back in the days" rhetoric.
|
| There must be people studying actual internet and game
| addiction, but it won't make headlines as much as it will be
| for actual pathological behaviors, affecting the few people
| that need actual treatment.
|
| The same way we'll probably have a flurry of "VR addiction"
| panic articles in the next years, that dies down when we get to
| better understand the topic.
| standardUser wrote:
| It's like saying we have a driving addiction or a going to work
| addiction. Not everything can or should be couched in that kind
| of language. I've always found articles about internet and game
| addiction to be incredibly myopic, assuming that the "normal"
| of the 60's or 70's or 80's is somehow universal or worthy of
| being preserved, and that any deviation from it is an illness.
| bambax wrote:
| Addiction exists, though. I often browse Twitter for no
| particular reason. Six months ago I changed my year of birth
| for something like 2017 because I was annoyed it was
| compulsory. That resulted in an immediate suspension, as
| Twitter forbids minors to use it (rightfully so); the
| suspension would only be lifted if I submitted an ID.
|
| At first I thought "who cares?" But then I found myself in
| want of browsing the (few) people I follow, and eventually
| did submit an ID to have my account restored.
|
| I get nothing out of Twitter. Absolutely zero value. Still,
| apparently, I can't live without it. That's a problem.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > I get nothing out of Twitter. Absolutely zero value.
| Still, apparently, I can't live without it. That's a
| problem.
|
| Knowing nothing about you, the way this sentence is put is
| the most disturbing part. If you can't live without it, at
| least it fills a hole in your life and that's as much value
| as you could expect from anything.
|
| How many things do you do in a day where you can put a
| crystal clear value on it? I mean, I'm writing this and I'd
| be hard press to come with a valuation, and I also don't
| think it matters much if I don't find any.
|
| If looking at Twitter reduced your life expectancy by 25%
| we'd look at it differently, but from your description it
| doesn't feels so.
| rlt wrote:
| Life expectancy isn't the only metric we should care
| about. Life satisfaction is arguably more important.
|
| ...as I sit here on my phone at 1 am, responding to
| comments on HN for no particular reason other than
| worthless internet points, I guess, moderately depressed
| and anxious, despite having an objectively pretty great
| life.
| batman-farts wrote:
| I browse directly to the accounts of the few people I still
| want to follow, and refuse to log in or use the general
| feed. There's a nagging pop-up demanding that you log in if
| you try to click away into a retweeted thread these days,
| so that helps keep me from getting sucked into the rabbit
| hole. Maybe that can help for you.
| knaik94 wrote:
| The addiction isn't to twitter. You feel like you will miss
| out on some important information if your access to twitter
| is blocked. You aren't browsing for no reason, while
| browsing a part of you has decided this is the best use of
| that time. Whatever else is going on isn't important enough
| to care about more than you care about seeing if there's
| new tweets.
|
| If the people you follow stopped posting on twitter at the
| same time you changed your birthday, would you have cared
| about getting it restored? Valuing and caring about tweets
| people have sent isn't the same as being addicted to
| twitter. Maybe the problem is how much you value seeing
| those tweets the moment they are tweeted.
| camillomiller wrote:
| >I get nothing out of twitter.
|
| That's what made me quit Facebook. Best decision ever. I do
| miss the random international friend update from time to
| time, but nothing vital.
|
| Still working on Twitter.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I understand what you're saying. Still though, you drive to
| get places or for fun sometimes, some people do it for sport
| for a living, but you don't find yourself just compulsively
| driving 8 hours a day. There are people that do find
| themselves staring at a phone 8 hours a day. The word
| addiction might be thrown around a little too loosely than it
| should be, but there's definitely widespread addiction to
| social media. I find it comparable to couch potatoes that sit
| down and watch TV all day.
| knaik94 wrote:
| Staring at a phone doing what? Swiping to refresh on social
| media for hours and hours at a time?
|
| Using a phone is like going to the library, what you do
| there is what actually matters. Checking social media can
| be thought of as asking a librarian what new books are in.
| If you're asking every minute of every hour for 8 hours,
| then I can see that being a problem. But that's not really
| how people use the phone. You check email, you read news
| articles, you look at posts from friends on fb or
| instagram, you interact with people in a comments section,
| you take or share pictures, you have music or video essays
| playing to help you focus on work, you message coworkers,
| coordinate a meetup in a group chat, among other things.
|
| I don't find it comparable to being a couch potato and
| watching TV all day. That analogy falls apart because
| watching TV isn't an interactive exercise.
| kinghtown wrote:
| "using a phone is like going to the library" lol
| math_denial wrote:
| >Staring at a phone doing what? Swiping to refresh on
| social media for hours and hours at a time?
|
| Yes, for the technologically-not-literate people that I
| know, Internet = social media, and they totally spend
| every waking hour refresh the page to see "what's new". I
| used to do that on reddit.
|
| >check email, you read news articles, you look at posts
| from friends on fb or instagram, you interact with people
| in a comments section, you take or share pictures, you
| have music or video essays playing to help you focus on
| work, you message coworkers, coordinate a meetup in a
| group chat, among other things.
|
| Half of this thing are mental garbage, the other half are
| FOMO and outrage economy, so not doing them may result in
| a positive outcome.
| knaik94 wrote:
| I agree with you that escapism with tech can be more than
| a bad habit and it can take your attention away from
| things that would be more productive in the long term.
| However I don't know if I agree that it's a compulsion
| the way you'd think it with traditional addiction. If a
| friend you haven't talked to in a while suddenly came
| over to hang out, would you sit there and continue doom
| scrolling?
|
| I also should clarify that I don't categorize reddit as
| social media because it's generally not people I know. I
| would consider fb, insta, snapchat as social media but
| not YouTube, reddit, or even here.
|
| This reminds more of somewhere in between. Like
| stumbleupon but with a comment section where you can
| discuss things.
|
| I am only differentiating because I believe the
| motivation for refreshing news aggregation sites vs
| social media is different. There's a much higher sense of
| urgency and importance when it's news. What you find
| interesting is also different between social media and
| news.
|
| I think having a catch all term of being on the phone is
| not productive in helping people understand when the use
| of technology becomes unhealthy. Calling technology use
| unhealthy or even an addiction based on the perception of
| how long you spend is meaningless.
|
| I agree that for some people using technology less would
| be positive, most often because they stop using
| technology to escape and ignore their responsibilities.
|
| I don't know how fair it is to say it's garbage, some
| people like watching terrible films, some watch reality
| tv, some like video games, some like learning baseball
| stats, some like collecting NFTs, some like following
| twitter drama, I personally enjoy this kind of discourse
| on HN. How people choose to spend their time and what
| they enjoy is up to them.
|
| I don't personally believe in the idea that constant
| stimulation is a bad thing as long as my responsibilities
| are taken care of. But I also have adhd so I don't know
| if everyone would share that sentiment.
| allenu wrote:
| I remember about 10 years ago or so, smartphone addiction was
| something we talked about as well. People looking at their
| phones during dinner out was something we consciously called
| out. Now, it's such a normal thing that in commercials you see
| families depicted as all staring at their own devices like it's
| no big deal. Streaming services and internet providers promote
| bingeing of TV shows as well.
|
| During the pandemic, my internet usage has been through the
| roof. At all hours of the day I'm online. It's really my only
| regular social outlet. It's weird how quickly norms change
| around you.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Microsoft tried to save us, but Windows Phone failed
|
| https://youtu.be/l9evyGr57hs
| Nasrudith wrote:
| It is because people lacked interest in it and ran out of
| things to say. The conversation was more or less saturated such
| that it occurs only mostly organically like an author's book
| coming out or an actual story related to the far dysfunctional
| outliers who let their kid starve to play more Everquest.
| Except with smartphones you can always half-ass most functions.
|
| The media itself has an attention span of a small child in its
| pursuit of ratings so they move onto the next emotional source.
| vkk8 wrote:
| It seems to be a recurring thing with new technologies.
| Something new arrives and some people instantly see how it can
| ruin some aspects of our lives and warn about it. It gets taken
| semi-seriously, but in the end not seriously enough and the
| thing that those people warned us about ends up happening.
| After the fact no-one cares, because the new normal is now the
| thing that used to be unthinkably horrible before.
|
| I remember someone here on HN once commented something about
| how the Amish instead of just categorically opposing all new
| technologies decide collectively which technologies to use and
| take into consideration how the technology might affect their
| culture and communities and this has lead them to reject things
| like the television and cars. I can't find any more realiable
| sources on this, but it sure seems like a much better way to
| build the society than ours is.
|
| The "free" Western cultures are increasingly vulnerable to
| hacking of either human psychology or collective customs and
| laws. It's like a code base where every new commit
| automatically gets accepted and only occasionally some commits
| get reverted because someone managed to prove without doubt
| that it was a bad idea. To continue the metaphor, this sort of
| project management might make sense when the code base (or the
| civilization) is new and the focus is on just getting something
| running as quickly as possible, but makes the code base (or the
| cultural heritage of a society) bloated, unmanageable and
| vulnerable to attacks over longer time periods.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| Breaking it feels hopeless.
|
| If I wanted to quit a drug addiction, I could probably find a
| sober community to try to bond with, and you can do stuff that
| doesn't involve drugs.
|
| But it doesn't feel like there is a real-life world left for me
| to return to. If I turned off the Internet, I'd be even more
| alone than I am being on the Internet talking to people all
| day.
|
| I can't imagine what withdrawal would be cause I can barely
| conceive of not immediately lighting up again every couple
| minutes
| dougmwne wrote:
| I've taken breaks before, and it's really not that bad and
| you do adapt. But you're absolutely right, there's less and
| less of a "real-life" world left out there. I lived in a
| cabin and carried around firewood for 6 months. It wasn't
| exactly modernity.
| dash2 wrote:
| I wish there were a community that people could move to where
| everyone agreed they _wouldn 't_ be on their smartphone.
| Maybe we could fix up some shacks in the hills and ensure we
| are out of 4G range.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Put a jammer in your house? Then you could live there and
| not have to move.
| dash2 wrote:
| The point is that a whole group has to do it together.
| See the GP.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| "When we track the hours, we become shocked--not at the numbers
| per see--at what could have been learned, grasped, or done during
| these wasted hours."
|
| This is the big thing for me. I easily waste an exercise habit, a
| social life, and a hobby most days. None of it spent on anything
| fulfilling. Then it often seems like I'm bored or there's nothing
| else to do and I distract myself from the reason why with the
| reason why.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I have definitely replaced my book reading with the web. But I
| did that at least a decade ago. I still "read" a lot of books and
| novels, I'm just listening to the audio version now. Not as good
| for recall, I will readily admit, but on the other hand it does
| let you re-listen again with almost equal enjoyment. I've
| replaced all television watching - except for live sports and
| news - with YouTube. All movies are now watched at home.
|
| Information consumption habits change as the media does.
| "Reader's Digest", among other magazines, used to be required
| reading for any well-read person and now it basically doesn't
| exist.
|
| I assume this trend will continue apace.
| joshink1 wrote:
| Dopamine exhaustion from over-stimulation may be a reason for the
| common "can't focus" complaints. Dr. Huberman claims that he has
| treated this with dopamine budgeting, information diet, etc...:
| https://youtu.be/QmOF0crdyRU
| pitspotter2 wrote:
| Yes. Dopamine is the mediator of the brain's seeking system,
| SEEKING being one of the seven emotional drives, according to
| Jaak Panksepp and Mark Solms. The full list of instinctual
| emotion systems comprises SEEKING, LUST, PANIC, GRIEF, RAGE,
| CARING and PLAY.
|
| https://www.therapyroute.com/article/what-is-emotion-by-m-so...
|
| Seeking makes a cat play with its prey before eating it.
| Presumably the exercise of skill and the risk of losing lunch
| make the overall process more satisfying.
|
| What might be the reading equivalent? Something like having to
| track down one's target book in an elaborate and interesting
| library, complete with secret rooms and hidden shelves (this
| being an analogue of the internet). In the process one risks
| being tempted and distracted by other volumes and other
| authors...
| 2ion wrote:
| I jealously preserve my time and habit of reading lots of books
| because it's a main contrast to digital life. A welcome pause
| from the distractions of nonlinearity in online media and
| electronic devices (such as e reading devices). It's relaxing.
| Physical books are still a favorite pastime.
| waylandsmithers wrote:
| My side project tries to address this! by replacing the habit
| with a real book. It's a little half baked but personally I've
| read 20 books this year, which is the most I've ever read as an
| adult. Won't self promote beyond that but the link is in my
| profile.
| seaman1921 wrote:
| Very productive discussion here with lots of tips shared here. I
| am grateful that HN is one of the places which still feel worth
| the time spent. I would like to share my own thoughts as well..
|
| Personally, my weakness is video-games and I have lost the
| ability to stop playing once I start. Gaming sessions usually
| last for hours and hours until I feel satisfied (Doesn't matter
| whether I am winning or losing). I tried several strategies for
| self-control but none worked out, so I have taken extreme
| measures to completely stay away from gaming.
|
| - I have deleted my steam and similar profiles (they don't make
| this easy)
|
| - I do not own a mouse anymore (switched to a trackpad
| completely)
|
| - If I really feel the need, I just watch a gaming-stream on
| twitch/highlights on youtube - I would like to phase this out as
| well, but have not found an effective strategy to do so yet,
| since blocking these websites is not a reasonable option.
|
| Finally, about reading, I have been doing more of it lately, but
| I usually read research-papers related to my work and some
| popular self-improvement books. What really helped me is
| purchasing a kindle - it offers a free feature to convert PDFs to
| kindle format - which doesn't work so well with research papers
| with lots of images and charts but otherwise really helpful.
| pm90 wrote:
| I doubt what I say might be helpful here, but in the spirit of
| sharing...
|
| I grew up severely addicted to video games. My parents didn't
| buy me a PC until I was in college, and so I would befriend
| anyone in school who had a PC and was willing to let me play/
| take turns in playing. It was pretty insane now that I think
| back... I didn't even mind watching others play, I just loved
| video games so fucking much.
|
| In college, the semester I did get my own machine, I got Cs in
| most of my courses (while I had been a mostly A and some B
| student in previous semesters). I returned my machine to my
| parents in the hopes of improving my grades, but I would just
| borrow a laptop from a friend and play anyways.
|
| I didn't get a console for the longest time as an adult.
|
| However when I saw a pretty great game on a PlayStation at a
| friends place, I was hooked and bought it. The addiction was
| back: couldn't stop playing until I completed the game; I
| barely got by with other things while I played.
|
| However, I guess my life got more interesting so there were
| other things that I really liked doing too. But If there is a
| really cool game, I will get it, and the rest of my life takes
| a backseat while I complete it. During the pandemic, I went
| really hard for factorio and would spend hours upon hours in
| the game, to the point that I was dreaming in designs for
| solving problems in the game.
|
| Today, I would say I have a good relationship with video games.
| When a new game is released that I find interesting, I am
| hyped. I'm very upfront about this to my coworkers and my
| manager, that I might be less productive because a game is
| coming out. Sometimes I take time off just to immerse in the
| game completely.
|
| I'm happy that I have a somewhat healthy relationship with
| gaming today. I couldn't have gone through the pandemic without
| video games... and some games are just so good, there are
| moments from these that are very memorable. I know not everyone
| may be able to get this balance, I guess I'm just happy I was
| able to because I really love gaming. As a socially awkward
| teen, it provided me an amazing escape and I latched on to it
| really hard. As an adult, I still love the feeling of escaping
| reality, of total immersion in a story, in a different
| universe.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| We haven't scrutinized video games enough after the "video
| games cause violence" myth was debunked.
|
| Hands down the biggest addiction among my friends in their late
| 20s and early 30s.
|
| The problem is that none of them see it that way.
|
| They take breaks from "known" addictions (alcohol, cannabis)
| repeatedly, only to still fail to reach their goals, without
| ever acknowledging the gaming issue.
| pm90 wrote:
| What kind of goals is it preventing them from reaching?
| gman83 wrote:
| Well I don't know what he was referring to, but at some
| point while I was at university I became totally addicted
| to the game "Football Manager". I would stay up entire
| nights playing that game. I had to completely quit playing
| it or I would have flunked out.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| As an aside, I wonder if we've missed out on longer term
| repercussions of violence in video games, after the hysteria
| of video games _causing_ violence turned out to be false.
| You'd think immersing people in unreality for extended
| amounts of time could have a desensitizing effect. Sure,
| there's violent movies and other media, but the degree of
| immersion _feels_ like it should make a difference. And I'm
| still weirded out how kids these days can get an elementary
| familiarity with real-life weapons not from gritty adult FPS
| like Doom, but the cartoony Fortnite.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Doesn't help that every product is trying to be as addictive
| as possible these days. All the psychological devastation of
| hard drugs and none of the euphoria.
| 4monthsaway wrote:
| I was a voracious reader as a child all the way until I got to
| university where I had to consume incredibly dense tomes of the
| most boring subjects known to man. It took me a while to get into
| the habit of being able to consume 10-15 of those a year. I did
| it. But it forever killed my thirst to read anything afterward
| that wasn't consumable within 30 minutes. The great irony of
| this...I write for a living now.
| jquery wrote:
| I read more books than ever these days. It's so convenient to be
| able to carry my entire library on my iPad.
| maxdo wrote:
| I've been in the same spot as lots of people here. I started
| doing some changes.
|
| I started to practice meditation, with no guidance and no bs like
| headspace. Real meditation is exercise on how to focus on what
| makes you happy and avoid any thoughts in the process. Basically
| find a focus point to watch, or close eyes , count, if you have a
| thought - start counting again.
|
| I deleted social media. All of them. the only one left is
| youtube. Even for youtube I have two profiles one for work, where
| I search only tech related stuff. I still had to curate and spend
| ~3-4 hours to delete, remove from recommendations everything.
|
| I installed app called Lock. That literally block all the apps on
| the phone for defined amount of time.
|
| Meditation + deleting everything makes you rethink of what is
| really important to you. Every of this new youtubers looking at
| you offering to watch a new review about Travel, Space, Tesla,
| Ecology, News , anything you think is interesting.
|
| You start see social media producers and their real relationship
| with YOU in a different way. They eat a lot of your time. Don't
| Believe ? check screentime. They bring you very little real
| value. You just watch another stupid episode with mediocre value
| you barely even able to share with friends to make them
| interested.
|
| They all fight for your attention , once they grab it, they will
| try to monetize this attention to sell you something.
|
| Another side effect of this relationship is separation of
| interests. Since there are a lot of them, they tend to go into
| not very crowded topic. While it's good, it creates more and more
| bubbles you can get into. I like EV's my friend still own an ICE
| car? Our content will be different. We will be laughing different
| jokes. And that's happening in hundreds of dimensions.
|
| Now ask yourself a question, do you really want to have a
| relationship, when the best person knows you is algorithms of
| TikTok/Youtube. Because that's what they created for... This also
| leads to disconnection from society offering you more and more
| curated content about your phone brand, car brand, space company,
| travel style , food, anything you wish.
|
| Without a mental model to resist such trend you're done as a
| fully integrated to society individual.
| xcambar wrote:
| Suite timely, a few days ago, I've asked HN about reading habits:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29530981
| ivan_ah wrote:
| I'd like to share two hacks that have made a big difference for
| me:
|
| /1/ black-hole certain websites in /etc/hosts, see here for
| details https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29217297
|
| /2/ making the computer read books to me using the text-to-speech
| feature. See here for instructions to setup keyboard shortcut for
| Mac OS users
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...
| and this is the command line version
| https://gist.github.com/ivanistheone/de3ccb244224d101bb93320...
|
| Hack /1/ was useful to get rid of the "new tab > enter
| distracting site url" urges that I get several times per hour.
| The error loading the page reminds me of my commitment to seek
| less superficial distractions and practicing better information
| hygiene. Disclaimer: it's not easy to stick to this (for god's
| sake I'm no HN right now!!), but I sometimes get good chunks of
| disconnected time (several weeks in a row).
|
| Hack /2/ has allowed me to read A LOT more books then ever before
| in my life (like one book per week): I simply open the PDF,
| select a good chunk of text (like one chapter or something), then
| listen to the book while doing other things (e.g. exercise,
| cleanup, or computer tasks with low cognitive requirements).
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| For 1, I use Focus: https://heyfocus.com/
|
| It used to be much cheaper, but it really helps to stop the
| surfing urges for a time. Well, not stop them so much as force
| me to realize when I have them.
| Void_ wrote:
| FocusLite (https://focuslite.app) has interesting business
| model - you purchase a consumable ($7.99 I think) to start a
| streak. If you wanna cancel blocking, you have to delete the
| app. And once you've done that, you have to purchase the
| consumable again.
| BMorearty wrote:
| SelfControl is a nicely done, free open source program that
| does the same thing. https://selfcontrolapp.com/. Code:
| https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol/
| the_af wrote:
| Re: 2, I find that listening to something (that is not music)
| while doing something else makes me zone out for one of the two
| activities.
|
| I tried listening to podcasts/conferences while coding, or
| listening to a zoom meeting while reading my email or doing
| work, and it doesn't work. I tend to zone out on the listening.
| If it was audio, I must rewind and listen to it again. If it
| was a zoom call... oh, well, "what were you saying again?".
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| There have been many studies on this, people much
| overestimate their ability to multitask. Of course if you
| listen to a book being read to you while doing other stuff,
| retention isn't going to be as high. You also won't be able
| to reflect as much on what's being read to you as you would
| if the book had your full attention.
|
| What I'm curious about is if people actually read less or if
| people who read less tend to congregate on social media,
| which would make sense.
| ivan_ah wrote:
| True that -- I can only combine the "speech input channel" in
| my brain with _very_ low cognitive load tasks like data entry
| or doing the dishes.
|
| Interestingly, I've noticed that "can you understand the
| article while doing the dishes" is a very good test of the
| quality of a piece of writing. Whenever I lose track on the
| narrative repeatedly (I must stop the computer and restart
| from the beginning) it's usually a sign that whatever I'm
| reading is too "fluffy" (convoluted sentence structure, no
| clear point, roundabout explanations, all-opinions, outrage
| narrative, etc.).
| ticklemyelmo wrote:
| I feel like I actually get a bump in comprehension if I do
| a menial task like dishwashing while listening to an
| audiobook, versus sitting down with my eyes closed. I think
| the key is to occupy that little bit of your brain that
| would otherwise spin off on an internal tangent with every
| new idea you hear.
| bluedays wrote:
| I have noticed I have the same issue, but I can play
| Minecraft while listening to something. So I spend a lot of
| time listening to podcasts while playing Minecraft.
|
| I assume the same would be possible with audiobooks.
| biophysboy wrote:
| I've had the same experience, although it depends on the
| difficulty of the podcast and the difficulty of the task. I
| feel like I have an inner threshold.
|
| Also, I'm convinced that multitasking obliterates your long
| term memory, in addition to stunting your short term memory.
| bobiny wrote:
| I read less books than when I was school age. I have a couple
| that are sitting in Books app that I read a few pages at a time.
|
| I think the "problem" is twofold: 1) phones are too much 2) too
| many books
|
| 1: using a book used to be easier than computer. You had to turn
| it on, wait, sit in a chair. With book it's just grab and start
| reading in any position. People were/are reading standing up in
| Moscow metro. Computer was also limited in what you can do with
| it: I had a few games, a few programms and if I wanted more, it's
| either going to a store for CD or using a slow Dial-up (check if
| no one is talking on the phone or expecting a call). With
| smartphone now there is Youtube, games and a ton of text that
| talks back to you (like HN or Twitter).
|
| 2: I find that many books and movies just say too much. I went
| out of the movie theater from Hellboy reboot when they started
| explaining the lore right away. I don't mind a bit of exposition,
| but a film is not the right medium imo. Similarly with books: I
| feel like at least some of them could be a series of Substack
| posts if not Twitter threads.
|
| So I agree that books are dying out a bit, but I'm optimistic
| that they are being replaced with mediums more suitable for the
| message. Also I hope there will be more specialized gadgets like
| ReMarkable tabled that you can't do everything with.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I find your point 2 very odd on both counts. First, I would
| find it pretty surreal to walk out of a movie theater because
| of 1-2 minutes of exposition. You literally spend more time
| walking from the booth to your seat or watch advertisements
| before the movie starts then the few noments of on boarding for
| those that don't know the universe.
|
| Second, there are literally millions of books published each
| year. Yes many are bad fiction or bad nonfiction but there is
| an incredible wealth of books that use each page well. E.g. I
| read 'Sex, Power, Suicide' by Nick Lane a few weeks ago and
| there was not a single page that felt wasted - every page i
| learned something new. Similar with e.g. Hans Rosling's book.
| And there is much fiction where each page matters in driving
| the plot.
|
| Tl;dr: choose good books.
| heisenbit wrote:
| I find the long form linear book format puts me into a calming
| perceiving mood. It became a much needed method of taking a break
| at a time when multiple high pressure projects and private stress
| at the same time were pushing me towards collapse. Internet is
| fractured and many encounter either directly elicit an emotional
| response of ask of me some form of judgement. Not helpful when
| needing to calm down.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Without facial expressions, it's a problem that its hard to tell
| how serious someone is being on the internet. So every comment is
| treated like the persons solemn sworn testimony for which they
| should be judged not just in the current moment, but forever into
| the future, and everything they every said in the past is
| relevant, if need be, to show how bad of a person they've been.
| aurea wrote:
| To any future digital archivist reading this line, please know
| that I smiled while I wrote it.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > I sometimes wonder what will happen if the internet gets
| suddenly shut down worldwide? Will hundreds of millions of
| internet addicts go down the streets protesting, and possibly
| overthrowing their governments?
|
| That is downright laughable. So much hinges on the internet these
| days that society would literally grind to a halt even without
| considering anything non-essential. Databases offline,
| communications down, supply chains gone in an instant. Most
| businesses would be bankrupt within a week not being able to
| access their CRM, or emails, or you know... bank accounts. People
| would be too busy dying to protest.
|
| But sure some teenagers with a mild psychological addiction to
| browsing tiktok or whatever would be upset! Self centered writers
| with jobs that entail scribbling down fiction on a piece of paper
| seem to easily forget what are considered essential utilities in
| this world these days and how fragile is the house of cards we've
| built.
| a_bonobo wrote:
| If you can, give Tim Maughan's Infinite Detail a try. It's SF
| on what would happen if the Internet disappears, and goes quite
| deeply into collapsing supply chains.
| yholio wrote:
| That sounds like a wild exaggeration. The internet is a fast
| communication tool but most critical communication tasks can
| still be performed by telephone, mail, courier etc. All of the
| physical production and transport infrastructure is still
| there, people are smart and resourceful and will quickly route
| around the failed part of the infrastructure, albeit with
| degraded performance.
|
| You might not hear from your grandmother for a while, but the
| John Deere company will immediately cough up their root
| "internet only" master key when the army show up at their door
| demanding those tractors work for national security.
|
| A company might go bankrupt by way of CRM crash today, when
| every competitor has a working CRM. If their activity becomes
| critical for keeping a large part of the population alive, then
| silly things like investor and management decisions, accounting
| law, employee freedom to not come into work etc. go out the
| window. Money is ultimately just a symbolic representation of
| work and value, in a crisis they can be completely ignored for
| a limited time.
| gregjotau wrote:
| With regards to blocking sites to concentrate, adding a comment
| as to why it was blocked in the first place might help. It is
| something I try now to see how effective it is.
|
| My etc/hosts:
|
| # This should never be commented out unless my life depends on
| it. If # We get an article or there is CRITICAL information there
| it is OK, but # in 99% of cases you will just waste your time on
| these websites. GO OUTSIDE INSTEAD! 0.0.0.0 dn.no dinside.no
| nettavisen.no itavisen.no e24.no vg.no www.dn.no nrk.no
| dagbladet.no https://dn.no https://www.nettavisen.no/
| www.nettavisen.no shifter.no www.shifter.no nettavisen.no nrk.no
| www.nrk.no
|
| # FB might be relevant for work, but ONLY uncomment if you have
| something CONCRETE to do on the platform. # Delegate to someone
| else if possible, which can be done in most cases. # TRAIN or GO
| OUTSIDE instead of wasting time here 127.0.0.1 facebook.com
| login.facebook.com secure.facebook.com latest.facebook.com
| inyour.facebook.com beta.facebook.com static.facebook.com
| touch.facebook.com developers.facebook.com newsroom.fb.com
| pixel.facebook.com apps.facebook.com graph.facebook.com
| m.facebook.com upload.facebook.com www.facebook.com
| https://facebook.com # LinkedIn should only be used for
| marketing, DO NOT COMMENT UNLESS YOU HAVE A CONCRETE THING TO DO.
| # TRAIN or GO OUTSIDE instead of wasting time here. 127.0.0.1
| linkedin.com www.linkedin.com https://linkedin.com
| a9h74j wrote:
| > "A restlessness has seized hold of many of us," wrote the
| American author Rebecca Solnit, "a sense that we should be doing
| something else, no matter what we are doing"
|
| However, as the article testifies, there is still pleasure
| (including a calmer intellectual pleasure) to be found in
| isolation with a book.
|
| A useful hypothesis: Loss of attention span (due to an internet
| focus) can be reversed, and it is worth doing so.
| senortumnus wrote:
| HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally
| afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web -
| reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to
| the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you
| get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading
| material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular'
| web. And I don't think I'm alone in always keeping an eye out for
| the next serious hub of real reading material!
|
| That said I don't read nearly as many books as I did in high
| school. Books are wonderful things and can be a portal to a novel
| frame of mind. But then again my life is much busier these days
| and there are more demands on my time which are not responsibly
| ignored... So I cherish HN as a flourishing intellectual
| community, in easily digestible chunks. A bit like the
| "periodical" era of newspapers a century or two ago.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Okay I do like HN--I'm here for a reason after all--but it is
| flawed like any other curation. For one, I find that it veers
| extremely literal and nerdy. For some topics such as
| programming and math, this is wonderful, as programming and
| math are both topics where literalism and nerdiness are
| required.
|
| But in some cases this blend is not great. I wouldn't put HN as
| a great place to get your knowledge of more social, cultural
| content. There are good articles on occasion and of course
| great users/comments, but there are times when I am confronted
| with the fact that there is a remarkable homogeneity which is
| reflected in the discourse on race, gender, politics, etc. This
| is a site populated by primarily tech workers and we have to
| face facts that tech workers are predominantly white and Asian
| and male, indeed predominantly cis-hetereosexual male. I don't
| mean any of this in an accusatory fashion; this is simply the
| reality of tech. But it does mean that the discourse is not
| capturing the entire spectrum of experiences and the few voices
| who do not fit these paradigms can, on occasion, be overwhelmed
| by the majority.
|
| Not to mention, as a tech worker forum, I'd hazard that the
| average commenter is far more well versed in tech than in say,
| US politics or third wave feminism. Much as we'd find the
| discourse on technology in a politics forum rather naive and
| uninformed, I'd have to imagine that a politics expert would
| find the political discussions on HN similarly so.
|
| TL;DR: Use HN as part of a balanced information diet. Read
| books and try to get out of the tech worker bubble.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| > tech workers and we have to face facts that tech workers
| are predominantly white and Asian and male
|
| In the US at least many tech companies have way more Indians
| that white. It's funny to me how Indians in the US are
| usually not in the white/asian conversation, and even often
| put in the "people of color" group. Just shows most people
| think race is about skin color.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I view it as Indian [?] Asian [?] people of color. I agree
| that Indians are often neglected in the Asian discourse,
| although I think there's been more work to include non-East
| Asians in the conversation lately.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Reminds me of one bit of a conversation I heard post-
| graduation ceremony from an Indian fellow grad insistent
| upon Indians not being asian on the grounds of it being
| its own distinct subcontinent with its own ocean. I'm not
| entirely quite sure what to make of that personal
| perspective and what it qualifies as.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| The term people of color is bad and shouldn't be used. We
| shouldn't classify people into group of colors. When
| people see an African American person they are likely to
| have different bias about the person than when they see
| an Indian person. The bias is not about the skin color,
| it's about the group the person belongs to. Another
| example, Indians and African American have completely
| different issues in the US. Indians have great
| representation in academia, all top professions (tech,
| medical, law, etc), live in rich suburbs, etc. Racism
| against Indian people is usually from anti-immigrants
| people. African Americans have bad representation in
| everything I just listed and racism against them have
| nothing to do with immigration. In the US at least, the
| Indians and white groups are much closer to each other
| than Indians and African Americans (obv I'm generalizing
| here, even white is way too broad as a group).
|
| Sorry for digressing on the topic here...
| kinghtown wrote:
| Very much agree. Computer related stuff in general, like
| anecdotes about buying brands to high level programming, and
| a wide spectrum of STEM discourse is great on HN, but I often
| find myself scratching my head like "lol really?" at comments
| which fall outside that. A lot of people here have a bit of a
| chip on their shoulder in topics outside their expertise just
| because, I guess, they have a false sense of confidence in
| all topics, art to philosophy to psychology to parenting etc
| etc, due to having high level ability in one hard one.
|
| But to be fair, reddit and every other social platform is
| mostly terrible with both STEM and humanities.
|
| Books will always be supreme.
| verse wrote:
| Do you have any examples of places someone could go to find
| more "social, cultural content"?
|
| I don't think my info diet is very balanced. I'd love to be
| introduced to other places where people talk about different
| things
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > predominantly white and Asian and male, indeed
| predominantly cis-hetereosexual male
|
| What I appreciate about HN is that we don't make everything
| about race, gender, and politics, for no reason.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I'm not a huge fan of the "make it about
| race/gender/politics" rhetoric, and frankly this
| demonstrates the issues I mentioned in the post. The entire
| framing of "making XYZ about race/gender/politics" implies
| that XYZ was not about race/gender/politics and that the
| addition was simply unnecessary. However these issue of
| race/gender/politics permeate our society and do have an
| effect on a lot of issues. If I'm being honest, it's
| usually the demographics who have the least discrimination
| and the most power who think that these issues do not
| permeate. It's quite easy to think racism has no relevance
| to your daily existence when you don't get stopped by the
| police; when people don't commit hate crimes on people who
| look like you; when your existence is validated by media,
| government and society as a whole. Racism doesn't operate
| on a neat time clock. It shows up everywhere.
|
| Of course there are exceptions. Some people of color truly
| do believe this "not bringing race" rhetoric. The very
| existence of Black and Asian republicans demonstrates this.
| But they're pretty rare. And there are people of color who
| use race as a cudgel to attack others. But they're also
| pretty rare. I'd advocate that if you see someone bring up
| race/gender/politics, try to not see it as someone
| "bringing in race", but someone sharing their experiences,
| experiences that may not be yours, but are still valid
| experiences.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I'm not sure where parent argued that we should not be
| concerned about police brutality, hate crimes, or the
| ongoing fraying of the social fabric which gets commonly
| internalized as a sense that "society is not validating
| my existence". Framing _those_ issues are purely matters
| of race /gender/factional politics is just as harmful.
| Mezzie wrote:
| You're both right. (I'm half in the in-group and half-out.)
|
| It's nice that there's no political litmus test to post
| here. My gay butt would rather have to read some eyeroll
| inducing things but receive a greater variety of opinions
| because I favor variety in topics and opinions. This is
| because I think opinion and topic variety is important to
| synthesizing new ideas, to discovery, and to serendipity,
| which is what I like about tech.
|
| On the other hand, it means if you point out that these
| demographics impact the tech world or its discussion
| centers, you get poo-poo'ed.
|
| As somebody who would love to discuss things like the
| benefits, unexpected consequences, and drawbacks of more
| women in STEM or how, if all developers on a project share
| traits, they're more likely to miss needed features or key
| bugs depending on their audience (something I've also seen
| on all 'marginalized' teams), there's not anywhere to have
| those discussions that don't turn into shit-flinging
| contests that would make chimpanzees proud.
| macrolime wrote:
| I "read" much more books than when I was a teenager. The
| difference is that they're all audiobooks that I listen to
| while I cook or do other housework or during commutes.
| tclancy wrote:
| But how much of that busier life is real and how much of it is
| a feeling from being online so much? I usually have a couple
| hours to myself at night and still wind up doing "Just one more
| crossword" or checking up on some sports team rather than
| shutting down.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| HN, while being a step up the likes of reddit, is still a
| shallow, compulsive activity.
|
| Which I've been engaging into a bit too much (yet again) in the
| past days.
|
| So I guess that I can thank this article as I will now "log
| out" and do something more productive with my life.
| marto1 wrote:
| > Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and
| its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web.
|
| Yes, but incentives are not there. Where incentives are is
| throwing flack at anything and anyone that is popular(including
| HN) since they also get clicks by association. So it simply
| does not matter how far and wide you shout stuff like that will
| always get created and will on occasion rise to the top.
| politelemon wrote:
| > HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is
| generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals
| of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc
| etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product
| placement; you get the idea.
|
| HN _thinks_ it represents a wellspring of deeper reading just
| like every other site mentioned also thinks. Same as the others
| it is a shallow echo chamber, and reading through TFA it's
| pretty easy to see the behaviors described being here too. We
| should not fall into the hubris of assuming we are 'better'
| than others.
| matwood wrote:
| Agree. I purposely spend less time on HN now because it's a
| lot of the same thing over and over that I realize I get
| sucked into. A site like https://techurls.com/ lets me see
| what's trending without getting sucked into the comments.
|
| As far as books go, I read every night and usually bounce
| between entertainment and usefulness.
| politelemon wrote:
| Thank you for this, techurls looks like something I didn't
| know I needed!
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| I like the irony that most people probably didn't read the
| article (or hardly ever read the articles) and yet agree that
| the content they find on HN must be so deep and that we're
| special.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Exactly. The parent comment is the funniest thing I've read
| since seeing someone on Reddit claim the same about that site
| a couple of days ago.
| beeboop wrote:
| I agree - HN is still an echo chamber rage machine, and
| people engage in the outrage and negativity on HN as much as
| reddit or twitter or facebook or whatever. Yes there's also
| articles mixed in about some niche technology topic sometimes
| too.
| wincy wrote:
| I used to read books all the time. I spent most of my waking
| hours as a teenager reading books. I'm 35 now and can barely
| hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a year if I'm
| lucky. Even on Hacker News I almost exclusively read and
| comment on the comments, not the actual article unless I see
| someone says "have you read the article?"
|
| I don't really know why. I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my
| iPhone, which isn't even including my Mac and work laptop which
| I might browse HN on. I feel sort of lobotomized but most
| people I know are still way dumber, I'm muddling through my
| career and not getting negative attention. I'm not even busy.
| I'm just lost and exist mostly moment to moment, and am lucky
| enough to have developed enough skill to write code before all
| this happened to me.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| One comment about only reading the HN comments and not the
| article. I usually do the same. I think that's the nice thing
| about HN. The commentary can be more interesting than the
| article. Also some articles are way too long to read when
| you're browsing HN and not really in "read mode".
| theNJR wrote:
| 1. Join a book club. Even with just two other friends. It
| holds you accountable and will force you to read most days. I
| often find myself aimlessly watching YouTube and reading
| Reddit comments at 8:30pm. It's that bored stage of the daily
| social scroll where I'm not getting any novelty or pleasure.
| Then I realize I can read my book instead.
|
| 2. If you have a significant other, trying reading a short
| story out loud at night. My wife and I did this for a while
| and it's awesome.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I'm the same way. As a teen I'd sit down with a several
| hundred page book and spend an entire day reading the whole
| thing. These days I spend my spare time on reddit/HN or
| gaming (which I did in my teen years as well). Much less
| reading, although I aspire to read more and have a long
| backlog on my Kindle.
|
| Maybe I'll commit to reading an hour a day or something. I
| certainly have the free time. In fact, I'll start now. Wish
| me luck.
| najqh wrote:
| These days, I can't even concentrate in games or media such
| as movies. I wish I could, because I remember having lots
| of fun playing games. Oh well.
| watwut wrote:
| Maybe it is not such a bad thing. We spend 8+ hours a day
| doing concentrated work. Then we drive cars some more
| time and spend some more time learning. Not doing
| concentrated work afterwards makes sense. It makes sense
| to do less concentrated hobbies after - sport or crafts
| or whatever.
|
| If your work is boring and unchallenging or if you have
| as much free time as students or kids, concentrated
| hobbies makes massive sense.
| klohto wrote:
| I had the same experience but my problem was from the
| sheer amount of games being released. I couldn't pick
| one, became overwhelmed and then lost the drive to try
| something.
|
| So I stopped worrying about the reviews, about length
| about all the details behind a game. I check out Steam
| 250 or SteamDB charts, pick one out and just try it. I
| have no expectations going in, and I'm happy to drop it
| if I don't find it enjoyable, there is plenty more to try
| :) You also have to listen to your mind and don't force
| it if you don't feel like playing.
|
| This has been a success with me trying out Timberborn,
| Dyson Sphere, Gunfire Reborn, Valheim as well trying out
| Minecraft again.
| Akronymus wrote:
| > I had the same experience but my problem was from the
| sheer amount of games being released. I couldn't pick
| one, became overwhelmed and then lost the drive to try
| something.
|
| Yeah, I don't even pay attention to what is coming out
| anymore. If something is worth playing, it'll reach me
| through the grapevine.
|
| Altough, I only really play very few games atm. Dead
| cells, payday 2 and warframe in this case.
| najqh wrote:
| Nah, doesn't work for me. I know the games I like; they
| are all old and I know I love them. I don't follow the
| news on new games at all. I simply can't concentrate on
| the games I like for more than 15 minutes. I get
| distracted, I alt-tab out all the time, and eventually I
| close them. It's the same with movies or books. It takes
| a superhuman effort for me to sit still and watch a
| movie.
|
| If anybody has any recommendations on how to proceed from
| here my fried brain and I would be eternally grateful :P
| keyle wrote:
| I feel related to this. I wish I had a way out to tell
| you but I can only provide comfort in the thought that
| someone else feels the same.
|
| I think a big part is the constant dissatisfaction, that
| time is wasted, and I should be doing something more
| productive. I start a movie, I see where this is going,
| this is not even that great -> I should be doing
| something else... I play a game, I understand the
| mechanics, I see the grind ahead -> I should be doing
| something else...
|
| It's a negative loop like doomscrolling a news site. Very
| few things are truly offline and I don't think about the
| time I'm wasting.
|
| But computers, they give me the best, and they give me
| the worst of myself.
| WouterZ wrote:
| I'm 35, I'm an addict as well. I suffer from a grinding
| omnipresent feeling of wasting time.... I have a wife
| cery anti drugs. My cou try has legalized weed... Very
| rarely use it... Once a year maybe. But I have incredible
| rich experiences being stoned, being in the moment. Maybe
| to truly check out we need some form of drugs... Dopamime
| shots retain us, THC gives us temp relief?
| Mezzie wrote:
| I find it helps a little to remember that learning and
| observation are skills and humans, like other animals,
| 'play' for a reason. Even if you didn't 'produce'
| anything, you practiced your skills of observation and
| deduction, which are survival skills.
|
| I'm also someone who has to have a real 'reason' to do
| things. The best short-circuit I've found is finding the
| value in my own desires.
| watwut wrote:
| Maybe the real question, why do you want to do thise
| things? Because games and movies don't matter that much,
| really. Nor do books, really.
|
| You dont need to force it. Try something else. Try
| different hobbies to spend time with.
|
| And also, old games are not as good as nostalgia has us
| remember. Maybe you are alt tabbing, because the books
| you ate picking, movies you watch were good for past you.
| And now your interests changed and they don't fit you,
| actually.
|
| You may just need to change genre.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| You make a good point, and I think there is fear in that
| the hobbies that we used to enjoy get replaced by
| something less substantive, even less "productive" -
| scrolling for endless content, engaging in short-term
| meaningless comment threads like this, consuming
| information that the brain forgets within hours.
| watwut wrote:
| Yes, but also it can be signal that old hobbies are not
| right for changed lifestyle, changed experience and so
| on.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Meditation. Unironically. I haven't kept up with it
| because I'm a lazy person who's been too busy having a
| mental breakdown, but I find I often end up pulling
| something up when my attention wavers or I have a stray
| thought that pulls me out of the moment. When I meditate,
| I'm more aware of my thought patterns and can notice
| stray thoughts as stray thoughts (as opposed to boredom
| or disinterest; they're surprisingly hard to
| differentiate sometimes, at least for me.)
| vict00ms wrote:
| >I know the games I like; they are all old and I know I
| love them.
|
| >I simply can't concentrate on the games I like for more
| than 15 minutes.
|
| Maybe you should try playing something different. A new
| challenge might encourage you to concentrate more and/or
| build neuroplasticity, and you could find some
| satisfaction there.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| go visit an arcade. crazy enough there are still
| companies out there making new arcade hardware and the
| benefit of being out of your home, in a place _dedicated_
| to gaming, will help you concentrate.
| fouric wrote:
| Two suggestions:
|
| (1) Try learning a highly complex game like Dota 2. You
| can't alt-tab (well, you can, but you'll likely die
| fairly quickly), and the sheer number of things going on
| at once will require your full attention... but there are
| still many small things that you can succeed at that will
| keep it fun while you're learning.
|
| (2) Consider doing some "concentration training" where
| you engage in a non-media activity (that's still
| enjoyable) in order to improve your concentration. For
| instance, for me, this is programming - unlike a movie
| (which I also get bored while watching), I can dedicate
| my entire brain to programming and still not be bored -
| but it's still enjoyable for me, and doesn't feel like
| work.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| My experience matches those of others in this thread. I
| barely read anymore and find it difficul to focus. Largely,
| my tastes have calcified and narrowed quite a lot. I used
| to be an adventurous reader and always tried random books I
| saw on the library shelves, but these days I find it
| difficult to get into something new, and if I do read a
| book I've probably read it before.
|
| I think if I just start reading it'll come back to me.
| Starting is the hard part. So like you I may as well start
| now instead of browsing HN. An hour a day is more than
| doable given how much time I waste here and elsewhere.
|
| Good luck!
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| One thing that seems to have helped some of my friends
| who have experienced the same issue of not wanting to
| read anymore is to find one particular book or style they
| liked before and go deep into that author's backlog or
| similar styles. And to add to that, don't be afraid of
| reading pulpy fiction; you're not trying to impress
| anybody with what you're reading, you're doing it for
| yourself. Enjoy it. Read young adult fiction, read
| Stephen King and James Patterson, read Beverly Cleary,
| whatever. As long as you're reading, you're building that
| bit of your attention span back, and you can move on from
| there to other things.
|
| I fear there is a big subconscious element to it in
| "smart people" circles where it almost feels bad to be
| reading without learning.
| rurp wrote:
| I strongly recommend this approach, it's exactly how I
| got myself back into reading. I started back by just
| picking up a super light read, then some fun novels from
| a couple authors I liked from back when I used to read a
| lot, and now I'm starting to branch out more again.
|
| Like so many others in this thread I had completely
| stopped reading in favor of quick bites on the internet.
| One thing I've been surprised to notice with reading
| again is how deep the experience can be compared to an
| online article, even for a pretty light book.
|
| So yeah, for anyone who misses books but is having
| trouble getting back to them, try picking up the first
| thing that looks fun, even of it's silly or easy compared
| to your favorite books in the past.
| viceroyalbean wrote:
| I started reading Brandon Sanderson with this mindset and
| I'm loving it. Before I would only really read nonfiction
| but I would easily get distracted and didn't read much in
| practice. Now I'm reading like 100 pages a day and
| hopefully it improves my concentration. Even if it
| doesn't I'm really enjoying the books
| christophilus wrote:
| Which books? I've only read his Wheel of Time books (the
| last 3 of the series). They were great, but I never
| picked up any of his other works.
| throwyuno wrote:
| His Mistborn series is a good place to start. Helped get
| me back into fantasy/sci-fi after a 15 year hiatus.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| May I suggest the Expanse series. It's I think a good
| "split the difference" book series. Not too pulpy, not
| too intellectually straining that I'm struggling to hold
| my attention like a Neal Stephenson book either.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > And to add to that, don't be afraid of reading pulpy
| fiction;
|
| Amen. I have an unreasonably large collection of 40k
| books, they're ace.
| marcusverus wrote:
| > I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my iPhone.
|
| For a long time I thought that my constant internet use was a
| symptom of my disinterest in other things, but more recently
| I've come to realize that it is, in fact, the sole cause of
| said disinterest. The quick dopamine hits you get on the
| internet have subconsciously convinced your brain that the
| internet is what matters, and that everything else (i.e. your
| life) is simply a distraction.
|
| Don't take my word for it. You can test this hypothesis in ~2
| hours. Hide and/or turn off all of your electronics, and
| wait. You'll sit on the couch, you'll eat a snack, you'll
| find that your phone has magically appeared in your hand
| (how?!?), but just put it back down. As you try to go 2 hours
| without any passive entertainment, and I can almost guarantee
| that you'll discover that your mind will begin to show
| interest in things like hobbies/reading. If you can't get
| online, a book sounds pretty nice.
|
| There's the rub--if getting online is an option, it's
| _always_ the best option. The only way to do other stuff is
| to carve out time where getting online (or, for me, passive
| entertainment of any kind) is not an option.
|
| Fun fact: If you can forego passive entertainment for the
| week, you will see all of that junk for what it really is, to
| your horror and eternal benefit.
| szundi wrote:
| Tried that and worked. Started programming :)
|
| Did anyone else try?
| chrisandchips wrote:
| Even though I can see the value in what you're saying and
| agree completely, I can't help but feel like my attention
| span has been ruined by my casual internet usage.
|
| I've been reading again, before I go to bed, and after
| months of picking back up the habbit I still only feel half
| as able to concentrate on novels as I was as a teenager.
| l8nite wrote:
| Are you me?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Can you get absorbed in a movie or binge watch a TV show? If
| so, I suspect your attention ability is still intact. You
| just need to re-practice consciously directing it again. I
| still struggle with it too, but was able to "get lost" in a
| book again. It was key though to move my phone way out of the
| room, and was hard to get started.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| I can't stand most modern media, the only way it's
| tolerable is by watching at 2x speed.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Can you get absorbed in a movie or binge watch a TV show?
|
| As a fellow 34 year old, no. Most movies these days are way
| too long and boring. Most shows it's tough to watch even a
| full episode in one sitting. Let alone binge a season.
|
| I think, for me, it's because there's just too many things
| on my mind. And a lot of stuff just feels like it isn't
| worth my time. Why am I sitting here watching a dumb thing
| that kinda bores me when I could be working on any of the
| multiple dozens of tasks on my plate?
|
| The only thing that works is getting a little high. Because
| you do need to give your brain a rest.
|
| For reading books, audio and going on a long run is great.
| I read dozens of books per year that way. It's great and
| far less boring than shows.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Hi Swizec. Coincidentally, a few days ago I found your
| internet diet article from a decade ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2894658
|
| Have you tried it again since then?
| knaik94 wrote:
| I would give you more credit and say the landscape of how
| content and news is delivered has changed. Many articles are
| written in a way to generate engagement first and then
| inform. I don't feel bad about not wasting time on clickbait
| or sensationalized articles. The comments section is a good
| litmus test to see if something is worth spending my time on.
| I imagine you've learned the same habit.
|
| When you were younger, I imagine books were the primary way
| in which you learned new things. Now there's fantastic blog
| posts, articles, video summaries, and discourse about
| basically everything. Multiple people don't have to
| independently spend energy distilling the same article over
| and over in order to have a meaningful conversation about it.
| With a place where I trust the people discussing something, I
| don't have to spend energy verifying their conclusions
| myself. That frees up time to do other things.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I kinda feel like we were trained to be maximally receptive
| in an era when information was just recently proven to be the
| most valuable thing, but also was still kinda rare. And then
| they just fucking dropped the information hose into our
| livingrooms and... now I'm blinded.
| sul_tasto wrote:
| I think information is no longer the most valuable thing.
| Attention is. That said, I too am struggling. The dopamine
| response to new content is addictive, and I rarely keep the
| promise to myself to go back and extract the substance from
| the resources I discover.
| subpixel wrote:
| YouTube and Instagram search (each of which make a
| concerted effort to derail your search with dozens of
| shiny examples of viral content) is a good example of how
| difficult it is to maintain focus against tools optimized
| for their own benefit (engagement).
| petra wrote:
| Attention is rare, definetly.
|
| But some types of good information are very valuable too.
| Surely it's available somewhere today, but finding it can
| sometimes be very difficult.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Yeah. As somebody who's always had a strong interest in
| archiving, information organizing, and information
| persistence, this is certainly... an era. It's so hard to
| stop, and it's a lot harder when my personal life is so
| intertwined with the things I'm
| professionally/intellectually interested in.
|
| For example, I'm fascinated by how people on TikTok
| conceive of the algorithm and the mutual push-pull of
| category definition. How the hell do I explore that without
| spending 2 hours derailed by fun history facts? Answer: I
| do not.
| fouric wrote:
| > How the hell do I explore that without spending 2 hours
| derailed by fun history facts? Answer: I do not.
|
| Actually, the answer is "train your brain". Nobody's
| _forcing_ you to get distracted and start clicking
| /tapping on other things - you're taking the actions
| yourself.
|
| Now, of course, TikTok is designed to pull you in as much
| as possible, but ultimately it's still completely
| manageable. The maximum addictiveness of the internet
| (and adjacent things) is still not even comparable to
| that of hard drugs, and people can quit _those_.
|
| It can be hard (depending on brain chemistry and how deep
| you're in), but it's doable, just like starting an
| exercise habit, quitting smoking, or learning to control
| video game use or eating habits.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It might be interesting to see how humans solve this. Maybe
| it will prople some denser / easier way to explain things.
| Or maybe we'll just stop the flood and go back to calm
| learning with the good old material.
| nvarsj wrote:
| I used to read voraciously as well. It's very time consuming.
| Looking back, I spent at least one university summer simply
| reading every day, rather than doing a boring internship to
| get me a high paid job out of university. Reading is
| ultimately a leisure activity, like watching movie or
| listening to music. It may occasionally cause you to think,
| but it is another form of consumption. Reading HN has done
| more for my career than any books I read.
|
| Not saying that is bad though - honestly I miss those
| carefree days of my youth terribly. I hate the rat race I
| live in now and the modern TC driven tech culture.
|
| Lots of what you describe sounds to me like symptoms of
| depression and burn out, which is something I'm familiar
| with. Could be you need to change jobs or change something
| else to get yourself out of the rut.
| newsclues wrote:
| I'm in the same spot and found that using screen time limits
| on the phone have been a large improvement on my mental
| ability.
| madiator wrote:
| I am similar age as you and I finished almost 25 books this
| year, and similar number for the past few years. It's had an
| amazing impact so far. Hopefully this can motivate you.
|
| What you need is a habit change, which begins with an
| identity change (becoming a reader, or book club member).
| That will have long lasting effect, but identity change is
| not easy to begin with. So you setup systems and structures
| in place to encourage reading. The easiest way I think of is
| to download audio books that you would like and go for a
| walk. Other examples: You can uninstall distracting apps. You
| can publicly announce how much you want to read, or commit to
| writing some article that requires you to read something.
|
| These ideas are outlined in Atomic Habits. So the solution to
| your problem of not reading lies in reading this book :)
| andai wrote:
| I think much in the same way that heroin makes the ordinary
| pleasures life of life seem completely irrelevant by
| comparison, the supernormal stimulus of the web browser does
| the same thing for books.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I call it hypermedia dependence.
| 0x008 wrote:
| You might be interested in the book ,,dopamine nation"
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Anna Lembke, _Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age
| of Indulgence_ (August 2021)
|
| The book <<explores how to moderate compulsive
| overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world>>.
|
| > _Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford
| University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford
| Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. ... She sits on
| the board of several state and national addiction-focused
| organizations_
|
| > _In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke ... explores the
| exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the
| relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain... and what to
| do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-
| understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding
| contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in
| check_
|
| --
|
| I am curious about how and how much discipline overrides
| the practical need for this theoretical field.
| dTal wrote:
| Can it be condensed into a HN comment I won't get bored of
| halfway through?
| anoncow wrote:
| Somethings that helped me -
|
| 1. Delete frequently visited websites in chrome on Desktop
| and mobile and populate it with websites that you want to
| visit more frequently.
|
| 2. Create a new profile on YT and subscribe to channels you
| like that add value.
|
| 3. Keep a separate work phone.
|
| 4. Keep your personal phone away for certain times of the day
|
| 5. Read a book that you have been waiting to read on a
| dedicated Kindle or in a physical copy.
|
| Ask yourself what the problem is and try to find a solution
| that works.
| senortumnus wrote:
| #1 is a big thing - delete your links to FB, reddit,
| whatever it may be. Diminish your portals to the engineered
| attention sucks out there.
|
| I aspire to a separate personal phone vs work phone. Have a
| lightphone but have not set up separate numbers for work &
| personal so I can't yet fully unplug from work when
| desired.
| distances wrote:
| In the same spirit:
|
| * Block time sucking websites in .hosts file, or in
| uBlock Origin custom filter. Latter works well for
| Android
|
| * Delete mobile apps, or add strict usage timers (at
| least Android supports this)
|
| * Never take phone to bed. Leave outside of bedroom or by
| the door where you have to get up to reach it
| marto1 wrote:
| I also agree #1 is big, BUT a lot of sites are platforms
| now so ideally you'd have something that just throws out
| the particular parts of the platform that train you for
| dullness, etc. My method is rss/atom feeds whenever
| possible, basically use alternative channels to get to the
| same information.
| TriNetra wrote:
| Try the Black Lotus app [0]. It has well-researched, applied
| framework called RARE to help you gain back your control on
| attention, build concentration and mindfulness. It's
| basically exercising of the brain/mind which we usually tend
| to ignore. The founder is an expert meditator and he has
| demonstrated voluntary activation of any region of the brain
| just by one-pointed concentration, under lab conditions [1].
|
| 0: https://blacklotus.app/ 1: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abs
| tract/document/8717094./autho... (An EEG based Quantitative
| Analysis of Absorbed Meditative State, IEEE, 23 March 2019)
| sosuke wrote:
| Try listening to books and articles. Worked great for my I've
| past 370 trash novels this year. I listen to everything at 2x
| and slow things down when I hit a new concept.
| Brybry wrote:
| As a similar-yet-different anecdote: I used to read all the
| time as a kid and I still read a lot as a 34 year old. I
| never stopped the habit.
|
| I usually spend 8+ hours a day in front of my PC and I still
| read 50+ books a year (mostly fiction). The internet didn't
| replace my reading habit though it did replace my TV time. I
| haven't spent more than a couple minutes in front of a TV in
| years.
|
| Also don't sell yourself short. Whether you read books or not
| does not make you dumber. It's just another way to spend what
| time you have.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| This was the exact realization that I had. At one point I
| noticed that when I was 16 I could sit down with a 500 page
| book and read it in one sitting while as an adult I can't
| concentrate even for 30 minutes.
|
| Feeling stupider than my teenage hormonal self was honestly
| so embarrassing I just forced myself to read an hour per day
| without distraction and only work with everything else turned
| off except for music. It's better now but I still feel like
| years of constant internet multitasking and browser tab-
| switching have fried my brain somewhat
| kqr wrote:
| > I used to read books all the time. I spent most of my
| waking hours as a teenager reading books. I'm 35 now and can
| barely hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a
| year if I'm lucky. Even on Hacker News I almost exclusively
| read and comment on the comments, not the actual article
| unless I see someone says "have you read the article?"
|
| I used to be this way too. Then I just started reading again
| and now I can't stop. The trick for me -- which might be
| circumstantial and not related at all -- is an e-reader I
| always carry on my person, and an unlimited free books policy
| from my employer.
|
| Sometimes I only get a few minutes of reading here and there.
| Sometimes there's a few hours at a time. But it's on the
| level of when I was a child and teenager again.
|
| I mean, I still don't, generally read the article because the
| comments on HN are often higher quality. But the books I read
| are even higher quality.
|
| And the things I've learned from mathematical, financial,
| systems theoretical, organisational, political,
| anthropological, and technical literature has really taken me
| places.
| ilteris wrote:
| What's your e-reader of choice and what kind of unlimited
| plan are you on? Thanks
| ryantgtg wrote:
| Kobo Libra 2 is nice. Easy to hold, has a warm toned
| backlight (I switched from kindle to kobo for that reason
| alone) and with Overdrive it's really easy to check out
| library books.
| kqr wrote:
| It's not really my choice. My employer threw a Kindle at
| me on my first day, and then I e-mail my Amazon receipts
| to an administrative person at work who makes sure I'm
| reimbursed as part of my next salary payment.
| zero_ wrote:
| Usually this kind of literature are however more similar to
| university textbooks for which I prefer to read them as
| PDFs on the iPad as my Kindle tends to mess up the formulas
| and figures if you get them in an Amazon Ebook format.
|
| Sometimes you get a PDF from Amazon to begin with, for
| which I find the the Kindle a subpar experience.
| kqr wrote:
| I totally see what you mean. For the most part, I have no
| trouble deciphering the garbled equations on the Kindle
| based on context and general understanding and subsequent
| description. When I do struggle, I tend to fall back to
| the PDF to clear the confusion up.
| Levitz wrote:
| I've come to dislike the pdf format more and more with
| time. It's great for printing, it's great to show
| documents really as they are, and it's bad when it comes
| to... Well, about anything else?
|
| I feel it has become an standard of document _viewing_
| when it should have never gone beyond document _sharing_.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I have started to dislike pdfs a lot more since I bought
| an e-reader. A lot of them are basically scans of pages
| and basically there is no reflow; I just have to
| constantly zoom and scroll which is a major put-down.
| snth wrote:
| PDF is my favorite book format. I like the idea of
| reflowable text, but my experience is any book with
| pictures, tables, or math looks pretty terrible as an
| epub or kindle book. Books that would be suitable for
| Kindle (usually fiction), I find listening to as an
| audiobook much more convenient .
| Izkata wrote:
| > Sometimes I only get a few minutes of reading here and
| there. Sometimes there's a few hours at a time. But it's on
| the level of when I was a child and teenager again.
|
| So I dunno about everyone else, but thinking back on my
| teenage reading habits (which, like plenty others here, I
| could sit and read for hours and never find time nowadays),
| I didn't _only_ read for hours at a time. I always had a
| large book in my backpack I could read a few pages of
| between classes, a smaller book that would fit in a pocket
| outside of school for similar short waiting times, and a
| third book sitting next to my bed where I 'd read one full
| chapter each night. Then the full-day reading times would
| usually be if I found a fourth book where I couldn't help
| myself.
|
| I brought back the one-chapter-per-night thing several
| years ago and I've been getting through books fast enough I
| no longer feel like I'm missing out. It's still rare that I
| sit for hours reading, but so many times I've had to make
| myself stop and go to sleep I no longer feel like it's out
| of my reach.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > I used to be this way too. Then I just started reading
| again and now I can't stop. The trick for me -- which might
| be circumstantial and not related at all -- is an e-reader
| I always carry on my person, and an unlimited free books
| policy from my employer.
|
| I was facing similar challenges and I'm doing something
| similar and I can see my interest in reading gradually
| going back up (I bought an Onyx Note 3 e-reader and the
| fact that I can checkout books from the local library is
| doing wonders for me and my daughter). I'm hoping this
| sticks and would recommend trying out this approach.
| Fannon wrote:
| So I come from where you come from.
|
| However, I have mostly (60-80%?) retained my ability to focus
| on reading without distraction. But there has been something
| lost and sometimes it feels like an uphill battle to retain
| your ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. Would be
| curious what makes a difference here?
|
| I did some conscious choices, not sure how they contribute
| but I have the impression that each of them helps a bit:
|
| * Not using social media and treating messengers more like
| email. A real-time conversation may happen, but does not need
| to.
|
| * I (mostly) avoid browsing news sites where there is endless
| scrolling / content. I try to mostly read and almost never
| comment (as this makes me curious on what the reactions on it
| are)
|
| * I bought a Kindle to read without distractions. It's in
| airplane mode most of the time, too.
|
| * I separate my work and private equipment
|
| * Only play games casually and sometimes not at all for
| longer periods of time. I mention this, as games usually have
| "optimized" on (rather quick) reward feedback and I can
| imagine that this is very similar as social media in some
| sense.
| toper-centage wrote:
| It's funny you place games in the "bad" side of things,
| this hich need to be reduced. I group gaming with reading
| because the kind of games I play require a level of focus
| and engagement, and my brain rather spend hours scroll HN
| and Reddit. It really is an uphill battle.
| kurthr wrote:
| Based on the context, it would appear that he is
| referring to mobile games like CandyCrush and their ilk,
| "games usually have "optimized" on (rather quick) reward
| feedback and I can imagine that this is very similar as
| social media in some sense". I don't think that refers to
| the NYT Crossword puzzle.
| aw9f70gae wrote:
| What kind of games? I'd like to stop playing addictive
| games and start playing games that are better for my
| mind.
| somesortofthing wrote:
| You're probably aware of them but just in case, basically
| anything by Zachtronics fits the bill.
| osense wrote:
| I would recommend The Long Dark and Sable. Heavily
| focused on exploration and immersion. But really any game
| with an open world that doesn't hold your hand too much
| and lets you make your own choices.
| cmehdy wrote:
| Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn, for investigations
| and memory and "human puzzles". Manifold Garden, Opus
| Magnum (+ other Zachtronics game) for puzzle solving.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Outer Wilds became one of my all-time favorites. It feels
| so lovingly crafted in a way that so few games do now.
|
| For a completely integrated puzzle solving Zen
| experience, The Witness is also excellent.
| Claude_Shannon wrote:
| Disco Elysium would be a good recommendation, I believe.
| It is almost all reading based, and the theme is
| philosophical/political.
| mannykoum wrote:
| Kentucky Route Zero has been the most intellectual of
| journeys I went through in 2020-2021. This game almost
| requires that I put it down every now and then to ponder
| and think. It calls for a glass of wine in a quiet place
| at 3am. I wish my friends would play it so I would have
| someone to discuss with.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| Anything, including any game, can become addictive. As
| one of the aphorisms at Delphi said, "Nothing to excess":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself
|
| Having said that, there are many games that are more
| respectful of the player, with quieter user interfaces
| without design dark patterns to keep you hooked.
|
| Here are some suggestions:
|
| *Microsoft Flight Simulator* - Fly around Earth,
| preferably at a low to medium altitude with a small
| airplane. It can teach you about real world flying
| procedures if you are interested, with things like
| Vatsim. You can play with others without worrying about
| griefing as there are no collisions between airplanes
| modelled. If you want to shoot, too, try DCS World or
| IL-2 Sturmovik. https://store.steampowered.com/app/125041
| 0/Microsoft_Flight_...
|
| *Everything* - Meditative game about life and the
| relationships between all things.
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/582270/Everything/
|
| *Balsa Model Flight Simulator* - Build and fly radio
| controlled airplanes! By the creator of Kerbal Space
| Program. https://store.steampowered.com/app/977920/Balsa_
| Model_Flight...
|
| I find that keeping a physical journal, writing with a
| real pencil on real paper, while playing games, is good
| for my eyes and my mind, as is taking regular breaks and
| going for walks in the real world, every day.
|
| PS. A childhood friend of mine started this website
| dedicated to relaxing games: https://yinindie.com/
| anthk wrote:
| Text adventures are perfect for that.
|
| Get Winfrotz for Windows or Lectrote under Linux/OSX and
| download Anchorhead, Spider and Web, Make It Good,
| Vicious Cycles, All Things Devour, Enemies and Slouch
| Over Bedlam from IFDB, they should be in Z5 or Z8 format.
| "Heroines" and "Enemies" are good, too.
| Fannon wrote:
| Ok, yes I see your point - I should have be more
| differentiated here. I can see that there are games which
| could also force you to keep focus. What I had in mind
| were more of the "almost instant reward" game mechanics.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Very relatable list.
|
| Kindle also really ignited my love for reading again this
| year. I think it tricks my brain a bit into thinking "oh,
| it's an electronic device anyway" :D Another thing that
| helped, was a bit of a challenge with my partner, reading
| books in bed together, and having reading dates, when we
| would just snug on the sofa reading each other their own
| book.
| brewdad wrote:
| I really like the idea of a reading date but I also know
| that neither of us want to read or hear every detail of
| what the other is reading. Our book interests are quite
| divergent, although we do enjoy sharing an interesting
| passage or description of what we are reading every now
| and again.
| jwdunne wrote:
| Me and my partner have fallen into this pattern too, down
| to sharing interesting passages from whatever ebook we're
| reading. I've read more books in the past month than I
| have the entire year!
| camillomiller wrote:
| Let me clarify: we just snug together reading our
| respective books in silence with a cup of coffee :)
| camillomiller wrote:
| My friend, you just described a form of depression. Not
| inferring anything from an online comment, but you may want
| to tackle the issue from a different perspective. All the
| best. If you're fine and happy, I'm sorry for my comment.
| baxtr wrote:
| You're comment resonates a lot with me. I used to read many
| books and now just mindlessly browse the internet. I feel
| like a zombie at times.
|
| At the same time, I've never read as much as today. I get
| inspire by people like you living at the other side of the
| world. This new world we live in has definitely pros and
| cons.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Hmm, I have both now. During the day, I build up around 4-5
| hours of screentime on my phone, but at night, I have
| basically 3 options.
|
| Read, Play games/program (e.g. boot up my PC) or Sleep.
|
| If I start with any of them I won't get to do the others any
| more (not because of any concious decision on my part, but
| because they all suck me in to such an extend it's 2am by the
| time I'm done).
| maxfurman wrote:
| This sounds a lot like my experience as well. Like I'm just
| waiting for the rest of my life to go away so I can look at
| my phone. It's terribly unsatisfying, like a diet of only
| Doritos, but moment to moment that's what I want.
| redisman wrote:
| The first step is to admit you have a problem.
|
| I've been through many addictions and nothing will happen
| until you look at yourself and the negative effects it's
| having on your life and mental state and say "enough".
| wccrawford wrote:
| I also used to read a lot more books when I was younger, and
| for a while, I read only a couple a year as well.
|
| And then I started reading at bedtime. Sometimes that's 10-15
| minutes, and sometimes it's an hour. However long it takes to
| get sleepy.
|
| Now I read about a dozen books a year, and if a book really
| grips me, I'll read it during the day at times, too.
| criddell wrote:
| I read at bedtime as well and I kind of wish I never
| started that. I've trained myself that reading means sleep.
| At any time of the day if I start reading something long,
| in ten minutes I'm starting to drift off. Any time I pick
| up my book to read, I have to step back a few pages and
| start there because I was in the process of falling asleep
| and don't really remember the last bit of what I read.
| vmurthy wrote:
| >I'm just lost and exist mostly moment to moment
|
| Tbh, this sounds like a cry for help. Have you consulted a
| professional? If it's not a health issue, can I recommend
| changing your _surroundings_ a bit and make it conducive to
| reading? FWIW, I keep my phone in 0 notifications mode and I
| don 't have FB/Insta/TikTok etc. In addition, I keep some
| books and magazines lying around so it's easy to grab a quick
| read every now and then.
|
| Finally, I have a goodreads reading challenge on and it's a
| nice kick to keep getting closer to the goal. This year's
| goal was 22 books and I did it recently :)
| themodelplumber wrote:
| If you search with the term "book" here and sort by date it's
| pretty impressive how often books come up. But also,
| Wikipedia.org is reading too, and I personally find that search
| term way more interesting.
|
| Broad and shallow knowledge can be really helpful for building
| connections, creating new knowledge with overlaid metaphor, and
| priming the intuition.
|
| Plus a lot of people here are very deep workers during hours
| 9-5, and break time is just going to have to be the opposite in
| most cases...
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Whilst I agree with your sentiment, I do think that including
| The Financial Times (ft.com) with Reddit, FB, and Insta.
|
| FT is one of the few newspapers that I feel still doing serious
| journalism that I can sit down with, read and feel better
| informed at the end of it.
|
| A good newspaper and I do prefer paper if at all possible, is a
| stimulating source of reading. Most newspaper has given 90% of
| their space to gossip, sports, "lifestyle" WTF does that even
| mean? I still have not figured that out, lifestyle of the rich
| and famous, random paid for content.
|
| I have for a long time wanted a service that curates today's
| real news and presents it in an easy-to-read format. I would
| prefer an epub, could take a pdf.
|
| Nothing that exists today that I as a regular person could
| afford.
|
| I do think it would be fun to see what the presidential write-
| up is every day.
|
| Hmm maybe I can find it declassified from years in the past??
|
| (I have no love for USA Today so I dont try to argue that one.
| )
| camillomiller wrote:
| > "Isn't the essence of the Apple product that you achieve
| coolness simply by virtue of owning it? It doesn't even matter
| what you're creating on your Mac Air. Simply using a Mac Air,
| experiencing the elegant design of its hardware and software, is
| a pleasure in itself, like walking down a street in Paris.
| Whereas, when you're working on some clunky, utilitarian PC, the
| only thing to enjoy is the quality of your work itself."
|
| Whoever writes this lacks knowledge of the world, and yet decides
| to express an opinion on it. The fact that it's a celebrated
| author like Franzen, makes it even worse. A "Mac Air" is a
| wondrous machine. It's so good that it makes you FORGET about the
| machine so much better than a clunky PC. So, if anything, the
| opposite of what Franzen write is actually true.
| mmar wrote:
| Great read, it has been a while since I subscribed voluntarily to
| a mailing list.
| fma wrote:
| Decent comments and recommendations. I've started to purchase
| more physical books. But I have the same problem as when I
| purchase kindle books - they sit there. When I get the chance to
| read a book and get in, I find that I forget the content. In
| general I don't have a great memory, anyways. Even when I code, I
| generally can't tell you where a file is. I think through all the
| logical steps, from front to back to reach where I need to go.
|
| Nowadays with a young daughter that I need to drive to
| extracurricular activities (2x a week) it gives me 1 hour to sit
| in the car by myself...half of which I am able to get some
| reading done (the other half, on social media of course :( ).
|
| The funny thing is the last book I read, I was able to complete
| it because I thought it was longer than it actually is (it had a
| huge appendix). I have a tendency to finish things to 90%...
| fma wrote:
| Oh I'll also say...one trick I've done sometimes is to read
| using the kindle app or if it's a PDF, xodo...where I can
| highlight. I treat it almost like I'm reading a website.
| geniium wrote:
| I'd really like to add that the most important thing is _blocked
| by focus bot and redacted_
| Natsu wrote:
| I mean, yes, I mostly read things online nowadays, but... I'm
| still reading, it's just on the computer now.
| questiondev wrote:
| this is what i was thinking, i think it depends on the
| demographic but overall i heard that reading rates are way
| higher now due to the internet's text content. granted reading
| books are great but i mostly read those online as well or
| audiobooks in the car
| moffkalast wrote:
| I don't think audiobooks are in the reading category, that's
| more like you know, listening.
| gromitss wrote:
| It's probably shorter material and from many disparate subjects
| in a short time?
| bmitc wrote:
| Long form things? The longest things I read on the Internet are
| articles, blog posts, and papers, which are all at most 30
| pages.
| silisili wrote:
| If I'm blunt, I rarely read long form things. I've found that
| most long form things are filler. If you make a movie, people
| expect 2 hours. If you make a book, people expect 200 pages.
| Both are generally full of a big amount of filler to meet
| said metrics.
| petra wrote:
| Even with that being true, usually a GOOD non-fiction book
| will have more depth and value than browsing the internet.
|
| And you can skip parts while reading a book.
| silisili wrote:
| I definitely agree with this. One thing I've come to find
| out as I age is how much does -not- exist on the
| internet. We like to think all the information in the
| world is here, but a ton only exists in spoken
| word(folklore?) and in older books few will ever read.
| Natsu wrote:
| I'm reading webnovels, including some incredibly long ones
| that span thousands of chapters, so it's not just listicles
| or whatever.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| Only having read some of the comments - which btw. are often the
| best part of a HN submission. It is not like we are only getting
| the fluffy part, just because we are trained to go for the meat,
| when authors often had to literate a whole backstory before
| getting to the point. This ability is what makes a great
| information worker like a developer. So despite only having read
| some of the comments and finding it hard to start reading a book,
| I have no problem to keep my focus on difficult professional
| problems for very long hours (>10).
|
| So I don't think it is attention span in general. Might be just
| your mind being trained for things you value.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| "e-mail address was for professors what the cellular phone was
| for their students: a sign that they were ahead of the game."
|
| What tech flair these days makes you look "Ahead of the game?".
|
| For me it's either:
|
| (a) using an MCU for a substantial project that isn't an
| Raspberry PI or Arduino (hello STM or NXP).
|
| (b) a github repo that proves I know how to use Jest, Nuxt,
| ESLint, Grunt, Gradle, Gulp, or some combination of the latest
| CI/CD/UI frameworks.
|
| (c) being followed on twitter by someone famous.
| knaik94 wrote:
| I think how many stars a github repo that you created or are a
| major contributor of is an interesting tech flair these days.
| Being a early/top adopter/contributor on places like stack
| exchange and reddit is good too. It's probably easier to tell
| in hindsight.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I actually read more books now. I download them and load them up
| on my phone and read them like crazy.
|
| Also discussions on sites like this have expanded my articulation
| and understanding of many concepts and topics. I spent a lot of
| time, years, dedicating a significant potion of my life to
| reading educational material of all sorts.
|
| I don't know if I use the internet differently, maybe, I don't
| use Facebook or twitter or tiktok or any of that. We forget the
| access to information we have, it would be unimaginable 30 years
| ago. I can delve into literally any topic I want as deep as I
| want to go, I can read any book I want right now, for free if I
| were so inclined.
| Zircom wrote:
| I bought a Kindle and that was nice, but I'm terrible at
| remembering to bring it with me when I leave the house, and the
| (admittedly small) effort of having to connect it to my
| computer to load epubs onto it is enough friction to stop me
| from doing it in the first place a lot of the time. I usually
| obtain them from less than legal sources and buy a hardcopy if
| I like it.
|
| For awhile I was buying ebooks straight from the Kindle store
| on the device itself but something about paying the same price
| for a file as a hardcopy left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd
| rather have something to put on my shelf and I can loan to
| friends. Plus paying for the book up front is a bit of a risk
| if it sucks, because I can't return it or resell it or even
| give it away to someone else.
|
| The past few months I've just been loading the books straight
| to my phone and I've read more new books in the last 3 months
| than I have in the last 3 years. Definitely a game changer.
| Laforet wrote:
| I broke my Kindle by dropping it a few years back and the
| number of books I've read really took a nosedive from then.
| Maybe it's time to buy another one.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| Last time I used a Kindle, you could just email a book to
| your Kindle email address and then the book would appear in
| the library. Much easier than physically connecting to copy
| books.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| I consume most of my content within the browser itself, For
| long reads, however, I regularly send the content over to
| my Kindle via. 'push to kindle' [0]; sometimes makes for a
| good bed time read.
|
| [0] https://www.fivefilters.org/push-to-kindle/
| shauryamanu wrote:
| I do own a kindle but reading from it is so unattractive over
| reading from the Hard copy. Has anyone here tried audible?
| Are audiobooks good? I've read a few audiobooks, but it still
| can't match reading from the hard copy.
| boppo1 wrote:
| What apps do you use for books?
| bogomipz wrote:
| The author states:
|
| >'In an essay he published in The Guardian (which is by now
| removed from their website, following a massive Twitter campaign
| against the novelist mainly because of his opinion on techno-
| consumerism), titled "What's Wrong with the Modern World?",...'
|
| I'm having trouble believing The Guardian would remove an article
| by a well-known author because of a Twitter campaign. However it
| does in fact appear to no longer exist on their site at least as
| far as having google search guradian.com. It's here in case
| anyone is interested:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20130915070641/http://www.thegua...
|
| And for a critique from the same time. This Observer article had
| some amusing points: https://observer.com/2013/10/bigmouth-
| strikes-again-what-in-...
| cosmotic wrote:
| What does the author think people are doing on the internet? At
| least some are reading.
| dang wrote:
| Since the article seems mostly concerned with book reading,
| I've added that to the title above.
|
| (All: please respond to the substance of an article and not
| technicalities or provocative bits.)
| klyrs wrote:
| Yeah... but if I want to actually read a book, I need to put my
| phone in another room. It's honestly embarrassing.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I'm the opposite, if I'm staring at my phone for hours on end
| I'm probably reading a book. I have a respectable library
| right here in my hands right now.
|
| But I do get what you're saying, I've had a problem with
| dicking around on Reddit before, for a couple of years I
| spent beyond productive amounts of time on that site.
| [deleted]
| jrmg wrote:
| _At least some are reading._
|
| But are we _thinking_?
|
| I find that there's something about reading a book that is more
| 'calm' than reading online. I think it's the knowledge that
| switching away from it is a 'chore'. If I get distracted, I'm
| likely to look into space and think for a moment, then return
| to the page, because I can't just reach for the address bar and
| start typing.
| shankarro wrote:
| Some are reading with great comprehension rates, most are
| skimming through content, and up to the..next piece.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Are comprehension rates that important when your goal isn't
| something serious like education or self-help?
| DoItToMe81 wrote:
| For me, it was my school's enforced reading and book reports
| that taught me to skim and just pick up enough info to write
| a report, and the internet was ultimately what restored my
| capability to read and attention span, as I could find things
| that genuinely interested me.
|
| Obviously, the internet has changed a lot since I was a kid,
| but I'm not entirely sure that there's just nobody being
| exposed to larger amounts of text and that few people online
| have interests greater than TikTok.
| resonious wrote:
| I think this is pretty natural given we live in an
| information-abundant world now. Taking the time to read
| everything you could get your hands on makes a lot of sense
| when you don't have constant access to everything.
|
| For me, there are some writings that are really great and
| some that are a drag. I typically skim to figure out if
| something is really great. If it looks good after a skim,
| I'll dig deep. I suspect many others are the same, though
| there probably are some junkies who never dig deep.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| How is this different from reading books? Most people are
| likely not "reading with great comprehension rates" when they
| read a book either.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| If you read fiction books that way, you're not going to
| enjoy the book very much. In fact, you likely won't finish
| it.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| Counterpoint:
|
| With the right perspective the internet is the ultimate medium
| for books (ebooks and audiobooks) and it's easier to read
| hundreds or thousands of books than it has ever been in history.
| shankarro wrote:
| In terms of accessibility and ease of finding your next
| read,yes I would agree with that. But, the culture of Goodreads
| et al. would make you do you reading like people do everything
| else nowadays to "show off" (i.e. share it) with your "friends"
| so they too know how many book you can handle per year. That's
| why I hate Goodreads for instance.
| rlt wrote:
| Millennials and especially Gen Z are thought to have higher rates
| of depression and anxiety than previous generations. I would be
| very surprised if social media weren't a factor.
|
| Despite making a career in tech I believe some of what we're
| doing is very harmful to culture, mental and physical health, the
| environment, and democracy.
|
| At some point I would like to focus on mitigating these problems.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I disagree with tbe self-flagellation Zeitgeist. If we didn't
| have social media we would still have problems with all of
| those things. It isn't the well of all sorrows that the
| Zeitgeist is set on scapegoating it as.
|
| It just displaced several of the other ills for more or less no
| difference. Remember obsessive tabloid celebrity culture and
| reality TV being big things? Things like news media
| unironically going "we interupt this story from Iraq for news
| about Britney Spears being released from jail?".(Ah yes, the
| same media claiming them going out of business would be
| terrible for democracy.) The Paris Hilton obsession?
|
| Innane instagrammers and the pyramid scheme of posers selling
| guides to being posers are the same societal sickness more or
| less, manifesting its symptoms differently with the era. There
| will always be some innanity that is with us long before. From
| their obsessive focus from the dress at the court to the beads
| in Ugg's hair and bones spiked through his club!
| jat850 wrote:
| Do they have higher rates, or better access to information,
| introspection, tools, awareness, and common understanding of
| these things? I am curious about that.
| moffkalast wrote:
| And a war torn climate hell future to look forward to, while
| not being able to afford a house to live in.
| xvilka wrote:
| A bit of both, I guess.
| mFixman wrote:
| Why could social media be a factor and not video games or movie
| streaming?
|
| You are believing things without evidence and falling at the
| same old-person moral panic as "video games cause violence" or
| "D&D causes suicide".
| Mezzie wrote:
| Or, you know, any of the 50 billion other things that have
| changed in the past 20 years.
|
| Plus it's questionable how much the issue is social media
| versus just that some things suck and we don't have the
| option to put our fingers in our ears and go 'la la la
| everything is fine' anymore. I used to be deeply depressed
| and angry over climate change; is social media to blame since
| that's part of what kept it in my head for so long, or maybe
| it's just a normal response to be depressed and mourn when
| you learn a bunch of things are dying?
|
| Likewise, 20 years ago I would have been SURPRISED to wake up
| to news about a school shooting in my state, but now it was
| just 'yup, we were due.'
|
| Tech and social media are definitely entwined with these
| changes, but I side eye the recent attempts to put all the
| responsibility on tech. It's shared responsibility in my
| opinion: Tech and its incentives are a problem, but there's
| also a lot of social rot that we can't ignore and that does
| tend to make people unhappy.
| lurquer wrote:
| TL;DR
| tomerbd wrote:
| Wait until you get a smartphone and install Whatsapp then the
| real fun begins
| bulochka wrote:
| I dont understand this anti-digital-books attitude honestly. The
| books themselves are just paper. What really matters is their
| content. And everyone can read the same content on their phone.
|
| Having this in mind, how is reading an EPUB any worse than
| reading a hardcover (besides personal preference)?
| pm90 wrote:
| It isn't. And it's pretty amazing: I can read a little bit on
| my phone when commuting, then continue reading on my iPad
| before bed (I use Apple Books).
| aw9f70gae wrote:
| I was never a reader. I've played video games since I was a
| child, for over twenty years, and social media for almost as
| long.
|
| I wonder how much harder it will be to develop mental patience
| and critical reasoning as someone who has never known what it's
| like to slow down and enjoy the thought process of reading a
| book.
|
| I have never not felt like my mind's going 100mph
| jmfldn wrote:
| It will be hard but by no means impossible. Your brain is
| trainable in the same way, that your body is when you exercise.
| I'm by no means unaffected by all this, but being 40+, I
| experienced my entire pre-adult life without the Web or with a
| very different form of it at least.
|
| I highly recommend making the effort to slow your mind. My
| brain works best when relaxed, not multitasking / not too many
| "tabs" open. I find that the best ideas come to me when I'm not
| even thinking and grinding the cogs of my conscious mind at
| least. I'm not sure what's going on but when the mind gets
| quiet, ideas and insights bubble to the surface. I guess the
| background processing (of which most of the brain is I guess)
| somehow has a chance to emerge.
|
| Apart from this, I find it a much more satisfying state of mind
| to inhabit. It feels like relaxed contentment, not anxious and
| dissatisifed grasping at a million things underpinned by FOMO
| that I need the next bit of info / distraction. Don't get me
| wrong though, I get days when I fall down the hole of
| distraction too. I'm just really trying to hang on to what I
| developed many years ago. These days you have to actively
| cultivate this, whereas it came more naturally in the past.
| pm90 wrote:
| Honestly reading is just a skill; like any others you get
| better at it with time.
|
| My intro to reading for fun was via comic books: I got bored
| really easily reading regular books. The next step was reading
| Harry Potter series, which I found incredibly immersive and
| enjoyable.
|
| I guess my advice would be to try things you might like rather
| than what are considered to be important or classics. If
| there's something that piques your interest, reading is almost
| like an adventure, trying to get to the end to know the full
| story.
| wazoox wrote:
| I spend way too much time on the internet, listening to a deluge
| of podcasts and videos at high speed, reading gobs of articles,
| but I still manage to read 30 books a year.
|
| However this overconsumption of information indisputably harms my
| ability to create in general; I write less content, less code,
| less drawings, less music than I used to.
| stinos wrote:
| Similar story here. Yes I'm addicted to internet, but no that
| didn't have any effect on how much I read. Probably because of
| the habit (did this when I was a kid already): I read about an
| hour, in bed, right before going to sleep, about 8 out of 10
| days. Convenient thing is that my SO does the same. Indeed what
| I spend on internet time is mostly time taken from creative
| hobbies. On the other hand I was also not super good at those
| and it bacame boring after a while.
| synergy20 wrote:
| The answer is yes, we're reading much less and the trend will
| stay.
|
| Our brain will adapt and evolve, eventually, our brain is more of
| a browser to search info quickly, it will offload the deep
| thinking or memorization gradually to the internet/searchc-
| engine/metaverse/whatever collectively.
| dabedee wrote:
| The author argues that focused, deep, and uninterrupted reading
| is harder to achieve when our brains become addicted to the
| effects of rewarding stimuli, such as those offered on the
| internet. My personal experience has been just that. When I want
| to truly understand & reflect on what I read, I need to actually
| remove all the distractions (phone, laptop) and force myself to
| not use those for a while. If I don't pick up a book for a month,
| the effort required to avoid the temptations becomes higher.
| asn1parse wrote:
| what if i have a book addiction? should i then use the internet?
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