[HN Gopher] The Death of Daydreaming
___________________________________________________________________
The Death of Daydreaming
Author : isolli
Score : 502 points
Date : 2025-05-05 12:22 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.afterbabel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.afterbabel.com)
| tines wrote:
| This is the most important and impactful decision that an average
| person (i.e. all of us here) will make regarding the quality of
| his mental life.
|
| This week I ordered a SIM card compatible with my Nokia dumb
| phone. I have a smartphone for work, and I intend for it to be
| off and in a drawer when I get home in the evenings.
|
| I've realized also that having a dedicated space to do computing
| activities, the kind encouraged by having an immobile desktop
| computer rather than a phone, tablet or laptop, is immensely
| important for my mental integrity. I'm bringing that back too.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| I've been almost completely off social media (and candy -
| potentially a larger problem in the past for me) for a month
| other than to check once or twice a day to see if somebody has
| messaged me (rarely) and it really has been rather profound to
| experience life with the lack of regular hits of dopamine. It is
| such a subtle "drug". I've still been on a computer and surfing
| the web but not nearly the same amount of time as I was spending
| on my phone and social. I sat a ten day Vipassana course in 2016
| - a profound experience that was at least an order of magnitude
| more impactful with regard to being off of "screens". There's
| definitely a cost that accompanies any perceived benefits of
| social media interaction. As in all things - balance!
| amelius wrote:
| Did anyone ever research the dopamine-level fluctuations in HN-
| reading subjects?
| bee_rider wrote:
| If it were somehow formalized, I'd be 0% surprised to see
| that HN is particularly bad from a distraction point of view.
| Other sites, I know with perfect certainty that I am going
| there to waste time. Here, there is a chance that I'll
| actually come across something legitimately useful.
|
| It is like Pavlov's bell--the important part being the
| randomness, of course.
|
| I always find it funny to see, on any social media site,
| "I've quit almost all social media sites, except this one."
| Well, we have successfully identified which one was most
| addictive I guess.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| > _moments used to be given over to silent reflection or
| conversation with whoever is around_
|
| Noticeable on pubic transit particularly
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I used to ride busses before cell phones and smartphones and no
| one was exactly striking up conversations back then either
|
| I'm sure it happens, but it seemed rare to me. People read
| books or magazines, or were just too cramped and crowded to
| bother trying to interact
| bee_rider wrote:
| The population of bus riders skews younger--even excluding
| the school bus, I think, lots of folks public transit are
| young professionals and college student. The nostalgia for a
| time that didn't actually happen hits this crew early.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Yes
|
| For college students they likely almost always find
| themselves surrounded by familiar faces, even classmates,
| because they are all going to class at the same time on the
| same transit
|
| So yeah, it would be easier to strike up a random
| conversation with people you recognize from campus or just
| people who are all part of your similar demographic
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I used to ride the train to and from work, I'd usually read
| the paper (cheap if you bought it in the afternoon) or sleep
| (most mornings).
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I am riding public transit to my uni for 5 years by now and
| the number of times I was approached for a casual
| conversation is 0 for today :D
|
| I never saw anything like that happen.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| It's been over 40 years since I last stepped onto a school bus,
| but it was always a raucous place, requiring bus drivers to be
| fairly strong authority figures to keep the kids in their
| seats. I wonder if it's like a tomb now, with all heads bowed
| over their phones.
| mjevans wrote:
| I can't even begin to imagine the hell that telepathic like
| electronic message services provide children in these
| environments. It was bad enough when there was at least the
| possibility of moderation by adults.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| As someone who was once a child who liked to read on the bus
| the new world sounds nice.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Presented without comment:
| https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fn...
|
| Neither here nor there, but the photographer was Stanley
| Kubrick
| snozolli wrote:
| Before smartphones and the Internet, I almost always had a
| paperback book to read. Bus rides were either me talking to
| friends (rare, since our schedule didn't match often), reading a
| book, or uncomfortably fighting the urge to doze off.
|
| While, yes, social media gives us a more pronounced dopamine hit-
| and-crave cycle, we've always had means of escape at our
| fingertips.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It's worth comparing and contrasting. What changed and what
| stayed the same?
| snozolli wrote:
| Changed: the ease of switching when restlessness kicks in. I
| have the Kindle app on my phone with several partially-read
| books in it. I can also pull up a browser tab at any moment.
| It takes some degree of effort to stay on-task in a single
| book, and it's probably analogous to meditation.
|
| Same: escapism.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| With digital pursuits it's easy to fall into FOMO anxiety
| cycles. The classic "stuck on the Netflix menu" conundrum.
| When you pay attention to it, you realize you're just kind
| of trying to minmax the ratio of enjoyment to boredom in
| one's escapism, which can't be a healthy way to treat
| leisure.
| jjulius wrote:
| A smartphone and a book are, by and large, different modes of
| escape with different impacts on the escapee. Scrolling through
| social media is a far cry from focusing on a single subject for
| an extended period of time, which is what reading a book does.
| snozolli wrote:
| Both are forms of escape. That can be escaping common boredom
| to pass the time, or it can be escaping bad feelings or a bad
| life situation. Also, I'm not convinced that a compelling
| fiction book that's struck a chord is actually a meaningfully
| different dopamine drip than scrolling Instagram.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| You could always read a book on your phone.
| jjulius wrote:
| Totally! But then you've got to make sure all notifications
| are turned off from every app that might hit you up - not
| just silenced, but so that they don't even appear over top
| of the book. And then, of course, there's the temptation to
| swipe over to a different app that's _right there_.
|
| A book, however, is just a book.
| submeta wrote:
| I have my daydreaming while taking a shower. And I have my best
| ideas when I take a shower. So yes, disconnecting from digital
| devices has its value.
| graemep wrote:
| "What is life is full of care, we have no time to stand and
| stare" - William Henry Davies
|
| ON Saturday was waiting to meet people on a road that had just
| been reopened after a May Day (traditional British style with May
| Queen etc.) parade. Other people were doing the same.
|
| I looked around and noticed people (some still in costume etc. so
| interesting crowd) and looked at buildings (its a pretty street,
| even though I know it well) and was quite happy.
|
| One thing I noticed was the everyone else who was waiting for
| people was on their phones, almost all the time they were there.
|
| Obsessive business is the opposite of mindfulness.
|
| It also kills casual social interaction. Talking to someone who
| is standing next to you.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| Boredom is highly overrated.
| walleeee wrote:
| The point is not that boredom is good but that the fidget
| spinner in your pocket conditions you to experience boredom in
| an absence of stimuli. To sit and contentedly daydream or watch
| the world go by is very different from the anxious ennui a
| screen addiction engenders.
| mjevans wrote:
| In small doses, in the correct circumstances, Boredom can be
| the Necessity that drives new ideas.
|
| Put another way, think of it as an opportunity for more
| conscious reflection and exploration. Like sleep, but not just
| 'run the garbage collector and predictive simulation pre-cache'
| routines, instead time to consciously consider and critically
| cultivate new perspectives on issues that might have been
| vexing the individual.
| kzrdude wrote:
| I have no good story and also no excuse: I'm too online, like
| most people. I feel like my mind is usually "on rails". That's
| what it feels like, always staring into a computer or a phone.
| bhouston wrote:
| I find that daydreaming is absolutely critical for coming up with
| good strategies. Otherwise I can default to just do the next
| obvious thing, which isn't always the most strategic if you can
| take in the full picture, or at least consider alternatives well.
|
| The two ways I get to strategic reflection are really:
|
| - Doing lego. I find thhat doing lego is actually really good at
| helping me consolidate thoughts and ideas. It takes up just
| enough mental energy to not get bored, but it lets me think about
| things with an unstressed mind.
|
| - Walks. The other way to generate new perspectives is to take a
| walk at lunch though non-interesting territory. I really do not
| find walks in a busy downtown to be relaxing, too much activity
| intruding on me to actually be low stress, but if it is in a
| forest or even just a long parkway that works for me.
|
| The absolute worst way to come up with new ideas is in front of
| my computer trying to work. Good for doing the next obvious
| thing, but really hard to think outside of the box.
|
| You really do need a mix of the two, otherwise you are either
| doing the obvious or never actually doing anything.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Sitting on public transport looking out of the window not your
| phone and listening to music is ok but probably not podcasts.
|
| Also showers are very good for the right state of mind.
| stavros wrote:
| All my good writing ideas come to me in the shower. I don't
| know why, but at least I don't smell.
| SirFatty wrote:
| The shower, every time. No idea what the difference is if I
| stand in the shower or sit on the couch in my living room.
| Sometimes I end up looking like a prune.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I suspect the shower is more relaxing than the couch. When
| I sit on the couch I'm just anxious... I know there are
| things I should be doing other than being lazy sitting on
| the couch. When I'm in the shower, I know that I am doing
| what I'm supposed to be doing. And it just happens to be
| something pleasant.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| don't discount sitting vs. standing, even if it is under
| a stream of deliciously hot water for longer than you
| probably should.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Not very many of our ancestors were eaten in hot springs, I
| guess? It's hard to hunt when the ground is so slippery.
| Then our body feels safe and allows attentional resources
| to be diverted away from safety and towards ideation?
|
| Same thing happens for me, and that's my working theory.
| Etheryte wrote:
| These kind of evolutionary theories often make for
| captivating and plausible stories, they are also pretty
| much universally false. Similar trains of thought were
| used in the middle ages for example to rationalize male
| and female roles in society, all of which have been
| debunked many times over at this point.
| oasisaimlessly wrote:
| > Similar trains of thought were used in the middle ages
| [...]
|
| The theory of evolution was conceived way after the
| middle ages, so that seems beside the point.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Similar does not mean the same. A good example is the
| story of prudism and genitals, where women were expected
| to be prudent with the rationale that god hid their
| genitals away.
| bhouston wrote:
| It is unlikely hot springs were omnipresent enough across
| the environment to have an impact on overall human
| evolution.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| The safety instinct complex likely has components shaped
| in pre-human and even pre-ape and perhaps even pre-mammal
| ancestors.
|
| Pressure comes from duration as well as frequency of
| encounter. A feature encountered infrequently but
| consistently across many millions of years can exert a
| pressure equivalent to a feature encountered more
| consistently for a shorter period.
|
| Also note that the effect size to be explained here is
| not that large - just a nudge towards relaxation in what
| seems to be a subpopulation of humans.
|
| What do you think about that?
| bhouston wrote:
| Sure, but this reasoning you are using could justifying
| saying just about anything we have encountered in human
| history, no matter how infrequent or minor, could have
| influence our evolution. It is incredibly hard to falsify
| such claims and easy to make them. I don't really know
| how to respond.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Yeah I personally don't think such speculation should be
| treated as "science", per se.
|
| But, if the science minded shy away from such areas
| completely, they will be (and are) filled with
| explanations from people with completely unscientific
| worldviews and values.
|
| The Dawkinsian selfish gene framing is unfalsifiable.
| Even Darwin is practically unfasifiable. It kind of comes
| with the territory.
|
| I think the degree to which such an explanation is a just
| so story depends on how many aligning aspects we can
| observe in reality. An example in this case - the more a
| shower shifts from utilitarian to luxurious, the more it
| happens to resemble a hot spring. What would be the most
| luxurious shower? To me, natural stone walls in a natural
| looking pattern (impractical to clean), no obvious drain,
| instead the water drains into crevasses in rock (which is
| mimicked even in run of the mill shower designs), some
| natural light but not too much, etc.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| The problem with the Middle Ages explanations though is
| that the framework they used to explain things was false.
|
| A false framework producing false explanations does not
| falsify frameworks in general.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| But it is an example where applying a framework doesn't
| make something more accurate. We can't just rationalize
| whatever we want because it seems to make sense from an
| evolutionary standpoint. I also don't know that we should
| believe that our framework is true. I'm not arguing the
| truth of evolution, but rather how we apply the fact that
| it occurred to possibly irrelevant aspects of our life.
| parasti wrote:
| That's very funny. My first guess would have been the
| womb. Probably the safest environment most of us have
| ever been in.
| munificent wrote:
| In the shower, you _can 't_ be doing anything else, so it
| quiets the inner critic in your mind that says "You should
| do something productive right now instead of daydreaming."
| lukan wrote:
| Water is a vitalizing factor as well. Gets the blood
| flowing, more oxygen to the brain ..
| an_aparallel wrote:
| Swimming. And showers (water touching/passing skin) is
| essensially lymphatic drainage.
| immibis wrote:
| You can listen to podcasts in the shower easily enough by
| putting your device outside of the shower, or having a
| waterproof Bluetooth speaker. It's not true that you
| can't do anything in the shower besides showering.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| I think it was more that you CAN do nothing else, guilt
| free. If you are down are yourself because you're not
| efficiently multi-tasking during your shower, that might
| be a deeper issue.
| munificent wrote:
| Listening to podcasts isn't really doing something.
|
| The part of your brain that's like "you should be fixing
| the leaky faucet right now" will be quelled when you're
| in the shower because, I guess aside from consuming audio
| media, there really isn't much else you can do.
| thijson wrote:
| I was going to say shower too. Also walking the dog.
| koolba wrote:
| I think being naked is a factor as well. Have not been able
| to A/B test that part of it in an office environment yet
| though.
| echelon wrote:
| This has been my experience for optimal creativity tasks:
|
| - Best: walks, running, walking in circles, walking in
| circles talking over the phone (1:1 planning), walking in
| circles talking out loud to myself
|
| - Good: showers, daydreaming in place, daydreaming on trips
| where I'm not driving, "pair program" white boarding with
| one other (exceptional) person
|
| - Okay: white boarding by myself, trying to put ideas to
| pen and paper by myself, meetings with the right people in
| a physical space
|
| - Bad: at the computer, on the phone, walking or running to
| podcasts, walking or running to the wrong type of music,
| video conference meetings, and generally all other meetings
|
| - What are you even doing: YouTube, Netflix, or podcasts on
| in the background at any level
| klabb3 wrote:
| I agree but what is the root cause? Which things are
| generally bad for the brain? Because if it was social,
| meetings would be good. And if it's reality escape, going
| to the movies would be bad.
| echelon wrote:
| Perhaps it's in putting the brain in a place where the
| body is on autopilot and the verbal / spatial centers of
| the brain can be free to wander in and out of focus.
|
| Podcasts kill this mode for me, so you can't have the
| brain thinking about other people's thoughts or words.
|
| Playing a video game doesn't work, so I think your
| spatial thinking has to be free too.
|
| It's as if distracting the brain's non-verbal/spatial
| modes or burning some amount of calories from those
| centers gives the "thinking" parts of the brain some
| "alone time". That's an incredibly non-scientific and
| unserious hypothesis though.
| harrison_clarke wrote:
| IP67+ on your phone is bad for mental health
| xp84 wrote:
| Yeah my lifehack in that department is assuming that the
| seals might not be perfect anymore. Plus a brief brush with
| seawater splashes made my iPhone speaker sound like crap
| for a few days a few years ago so I've decided it's not
| worth the risk!
| Etheryte wrote:
| Seawater destroys everything you ever loved and cared
| for, no IP rating will defend against that for long.
| smileysteve wrote:
| If my phone gets dirty watered, i ensure I rinse it with
| fresh water; really confuses the onlooker.
| jajko wrote:
| That's how I pass my (2x a week) trips from work in the
| office. I just put away my phone and look out of the train at
| one of most beautiful sights I've ever seen in my life - huge
| (by my standards) clear Geneva lake with boats and Swiss &
| French alps in the background, and if weather is clear also
| Mont Blanc and surrounding peaks towering above it all. I've
| proposed to my wife on top of it some time ago during a
| grueling and dangerous ski tour - one way to forever change a
| look at some sight.
|
| Walking in some easy nature is great too, somehow relaxes
| subconsciousness so I end up with few todos marked in my
| phone after each such walk. When I occasionally smoke weed at
| such walks somehow this feed becomes a firehose and sometimes
| struggle to note it all. Nature is amazing in any form,
| recharging, healing and somehow at lowest level that
| connection just feels right.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I used to get this from smoking cigarettes. I'm convinced
| that half of the relaxation was being forced to take a break
| and concentrate on your breathing.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| Combined with the social aspects (though these days it's
| single smokers getting their fix asap) I think there
| probably IS a benefit here, just not outweighed by the
| smoking part.
| mmustapic wrote:
| Long runs do it for me
| runamuck wrote:
| Perfect! I found shooting baskets alone really gets the
| creativity going. Perhaps active movement tells the brain to
| "wake up?"
| scandox wrote:
| Swinging in a swing works well also
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| This used to work for me, but inner-ear aging has made swings
| no phone for me. Though I'd probably take the chance on a
| trapeze or big enough rope swing at the beach!
| jmathai wrote:
| My most novel ideas have come when my mind isn't distracted.
| It's really overlooked and is such a frequent source of
| inspiration that I tried to capture how I experience it in my
| own work life.
|
| https://jaisenmathai.com/articles/latent-product-development...
| accrual wrote:
| Nice blog and article, thanks for sharing. I agree - some of
| my best ideas come naturally when not doing much else.
| munificent wrote:
| _> It takes up just enough mental energy to not get bored, but
| it lets me think about things with an unstressed mind._
|
| This is a really good observation.
|
| Lately, knitting has been scratching this itch for me.
| ryanchants wrote:
| Weaving for me. I've even picked up a small "pocket" loom,
| that's about A5 paper size that allows me to practice
| tapestry techniques on the move. This summer I plan on taking
| it to parks, brewery patios, etc.
| munificent wrote:
| Weaving looks like fun!
|
| One of the things I appreciate about knitting is how
| accommodating it is as a hobby. If I want to really focus
| on knitting, I can choose a project that uses a lot of
| complex stitches, cables, etc. If I just want to zone out
| and feel like I'm making progress, I can choose a simpler
| pattern that just does the same stitches over and over.
|
| If I want to make something large and intricate, I can pick
| a pattern that uses multiple colors. But if I want
| something portable, I can pick a pattern that just needs a
| single ball of yarn and a single circular needle.
| horsellama wrote:
| +1 for legos
|
| those bricks helped me out of burnout towards the end of my
| studies (14 exams in 3 months...yes, you can do that in Italy)
|
| now I keep new unopened boxes (+ my childhood stash) ready for
| future dark days
| Cerpicio wrote:
| Just curious, when you say you do LEGOs, you mean buy a set and
| follow the instructions (which is fine and what I assume people
| mean when they talk about LEGOs)? Or do you mean sit with a
| pile of LEGOs and come up with your own ships/cars/toys? When I
| was a kid (70's/80's) we would just get boxes of bricks and
| make our own things, but it seems like pre-built sets are the
| most popular thing now. And yes we have plenty of pre-build
| sets in our house, but I feel like kids are missing out on the
| free-style aspect.
| bhouston wrote:
| If I want to daydream/meditate/relax I have to be following
| instructions. Building my own creations (e.g. last year I
| participated in a Lego robotics competition for adults)
| requires my whole brain unfortunately.
|
| I do highly recommend getting the kids involved in the
| various Lego competitions, it forces problem solving and
| creativity.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I guess you need to follow the instructions. I do LEGO
| treating it like a 3d puzzle and not looking at instruction
| but only the photos on the box. And I don't get any
| daydreaming from that. I'm to immersed in the puzzle. Going
| by the instructions is kind of painfully boring though. But I
| guess that's what you need to make you start daydreaming.
|
| I can second that long walks work great for daydreaming but
| they too feel painfully boring before the daydreaming kicks
| in.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| Totally agree! I started with the GIANT Legos in the mid 70's
| then we got the smaller ones. I used to spend hours with
| about eight different shapes trying to make something
| interesting. Sort of like the modern Froebel blocks.
| mcphage wrote:
| > but I feel like kids are missing out on the free-style
| aspect.
|
| Lego still sells products which are just big boxes of parts,
| as well as things between (the 3-in-1 sets that have several
| different models). I'm not sure why kids are missing out on
| this--some kids do enjoy it, and some kids don't. But Lego
| caters actively to both.
| tetha wrote:
| As I joke, some of my deepest architecture work has been done
| by reading up on the concrete topics and then flopping into a
| hammock to look at a cloud and watch a pair of magpies build a
| nest, with some coffee with ice cream and some calm tunes. Cup
| not entirely filled to the brim naturally, as that would be a
| cause for disaster very quickly.
|
| And sure, I booked like 6 hours that day with no concrete
| immediate result, but 2-3 days like that a year or two ago
| shaped how applications function in the company today and it
| does so effectively.
|
| Another thought the article provokes is the idea of mindfullnes
| and living in the moment. Sometimes it is easy to open up the
| phone and just escape. But in those situations, it can be quite
| interesting to just be in the moment, meet people and see where
| it goes. If you're in a shitty situation -- like a train
| stopping in the middle of nothing and dropping all passengers
| at a train station too short for the train -- it can be
| interesting to interact with and observe people. It can teach
| how all of us have very similar basic problems, no matter how
| we look or who we are. And I'm saying that as an introvert --
| sometimes the anonymity of never meeting people again is a good
| thing.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| I use bike rides for your walks approach, though sometimes (say
| commuting) I get to my destination without remembering how I
| actually got there; the day dreaming is perhaps a little too
| immersive (some of this might be pretty busy city riding!) but
| in less attention-critical scenarios (like a ride outside the
| city, on the pathway or the grind up to a DH track) I have my
| absolute BEST periods of thought. Doing something you like (or
| in my case love), not using your phone, and getting exercise -
| especially in nice weather! - is a super-power. I know that if
| I get to a conclusion in this setting it is likely one of my
| better ones.
| borski wrote:
| For me the trick is those Metal Earth puzzles. Lego is amazing
| (I have a tattoo of a Lego brick, heh) but it's almost too
| freeform. Even with the kits, I find myself wanting to do more,
| add on, change, etc. The Metal Earth models make that a lot
| harder, so I can just have my hands busy and focused while my
| mind wanders.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I love walking too. My other strategy is to go to the sauna. I
| just go to the gym where I have a membership and head straight
| into the sauna room. No one in their right mind would bring a
| phone into the sauna so you get a bunch of people who are all
| just quietly daydreaming. It's beautiful and relaxing.
| frereubu wrote:
| > Can you remember the last time you daydreamed? Or coped with
| boredom without reaching for your phone? Before the era of mobile
| technology, most of us had no choice but to wait without
| stimulation, and often, that meant being bored.
|
| This line never hits right to me. I used to religiously carry
| around the New Yorker and / or NYRB and / or London Review of
| Books etc, often with a book too, so that I could read while
| waiting for friends, appointments, public transport etc, so I was
| never bored or daydreaming when I didn't want to be. I think this
| needs to be rephrased to account for the difference in quality
| between printed material and the infinite, deliberately-addictive
| makeup of the modern internet, which is the real issue.
| harrison_clarke wrote:
| i often carry a book. yes. it's much easier to let my eyes and
| mind drift from the page than from my phone, even if the book
| is good
|
| edit: even a steam deck is somehow less distracting than a
| phone, despite distraction being one of its main purposes
| susam wrote:
| Lucky for me, I could never get used to the small screens of
| mobile phones as a serious computing or web browsing device.
| While I still rely on my mobile phone for basic tasks like making
| calls, sending messages, and on the rare occasion, reluctantly
| typing emails when I don't have a laptop handy, my primary
| computing and web browsing device remains my laptop, with Emacs
| and Firefox as my main tools.
|
| Surprisingly, the one thing that occasionally manages to distract
| me is this very forum - Hacker News! :) If I observe myself
| spending too much time on Hacker News, I block it at the
| /etc/hosts level. I have a little shell script to point
| news.ycombinator.com to 127.0.0.1 when I don't want to be
| browsing HN. HN provides a nifty solution of its own too in the
| form of the "noprocrast" setting in your HN profile page. If you
| haven't checked it out yet, it is definitely worth considering.
|
| Apart from that, I think I've been able to escape the traps of
| modern social media. Also, I still depend quite a bit on physical
| textbooks, a rollerball pen, and a stack of plain A4 paper for
| most of my learning, thinking, and exploration activities. This
| routine has helped me to stay away from modern social media too.
| So, fortunately, I still have the luxury of boredom in my life
| which I find to be an essential ingredient for digesting new
| knowledge as well as finding creative solutions to difficult
| problems. I've found that letting my mind wander aimlessly
| sometimes leads to new insights when I least expect them. I think
| it also helps with creativity and reflection, in general, which
| is likely a nice bonus too.
| Etheryte wrote:
| `noprocrast` has one upside over /etc/hosts though, which is
| that when you've hit the limit you can not just go and disable
| it, you have to wait for the timeout. Definitely one of the
| features I'm very grateful for on HN.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| You can just open a private tab though.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Yes, but I prefer being an active participant, so that
| doesn't cut it for me. I want to comment, reply, vote and
| flag, passive consuming alone does not scratch my itch.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I do not know about this. As in, I do not doubt that necessity of
| daydreaming, and I do not doubt something is being lost. However,
| I think daydreaming can also be dangerous in of itself. There is
| even a term for it called, "maladaptive daydreaming."
|
| Obviously, that is the extreme on the opposite side of the
| spectrum. But from what I recall reading, daydreaming, evenly
| moderately, can be somewhat unproductive. I mean that in the
| sense that daydreaming can provide the brain with a shortcut to a
| feeling that would be better served if an action provided it.
|
| For example, one can daydream about going to the gym and becoming
| more healthy. One can follow the daydream all the way through.
| However, at least in my case, I have caught myself enjoying the
| pleasurable feelings and the "one day, I will..." too much to the
| point that I never go to the gym.
|
| I think my brain has learned that I can quell whatever feeling I
| am having in the moment by daydreaming. It's my brain's shortcut.
| It's as if my mind say, "Why spend the effort to do something
| when we can just imagine how it feels and enjoy the reward now?"
|
| Like anything in life, the key is balance. However, creating that
| balance is not easy in my experience.
| jjulius wrote:
| >It's my brain's shortcut. It's as if my mind say, "Why spend
| the effort to do something when we can just imagine how it
| feels and enjoy the reward now?"
|
| But I'd wager that, deep down, you know that the feeling you
| get thinking about it is far different from the actual feelings
| (both physical and mental) you'd get if you'd actually done it,
| no? I know that's been the case in the past for myself with
| regards to some thoughts - I know what I'm doing and I know
| that nothing will improve until I _do_ it, and then I 'm
| thrilled in ways beyond just what the thought provided when I
| actually execute.
|
| This also kinda misses the forest for the trees. Not acting on
| a desire you think of is separate from the idea that people
| don't give their brains a break.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > But I'd wager that, deep down, you know that the feeling
| you get thinking about it is far different from the actual
| feelings (both physical and mental) you'd get if you'd
| actually done it, no?
|
| I suppose there is probably some ratio for any given task
| that is amount of effort:reward. So, for some tasks, I would
| gladly take a quarter of the reward to avoid spending ten
| times the effort to acquire it.
|
| > Not acting on a desire you think of is separate from the
| idea that people don't give their brains a break.
|
| I agree and disagree. While there are obvious differences, I
| do believe not giving one's brain a break is partly causative
| in depleting one's desire/ability to act.
|
| We all have different experiences, but I do not think
| daydreaming is really giving my mind a break. I find my mind
| to be quite active while daydreaming. But everyone is
| different, I suppose.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... I do believe not giving one's brain a break is partly
| causative in depleting one's desire/ability to act.
|
| The response I am flippantly tempted to argue is that it's
| good for people to not be acting/doing all the time and
| that downtime is essential, but, as we've both
| acknowledged, there's nuance there, and it all boils down
| to what the desire is and what the consequence(s) is/are
| should we not act.
|
| >I find my mind to be quite active while daydreaming. But
| everyone is different, I suppose.
|
| Totally! I mentioned elsewhere in this thread that I love
| backpacking in silence and without using my phone. These
| are 3-4 day trips deep in the wilderness, completely
| disconnected from the rest of the world and entirely in my
| own headspace. I _love_ those moments, but I know plenty of
| people in meatspace who 've expressed to me that they don't
| know how I can do that because of the way their own trains
| of thought run/work.
| gessha wrote:
| There was a study mentioned in one of Dr. K(YouTube)'s
| videos which cited that daydreaming or unstructured time is
| used for subconscious processing of thoughts and emotions
| and not giving your mind time for that causes negative
| consequences like like of sleep.
|
| Of course, when I looked up citations on this I found some
| links on maladaptive daydreaming as well ._."
| gessha wrote:
| I experience something similar. How do you avoid the pitfalls
| of daydreaming? Regular productivity aids like todos and
| pomodoro help to a degree but I wonder if there's something
| else out there.
| somic wrote:
| The article would be better if the author replaced "smartphone"
| with "smartphone screen". A ton of activities are made better by
| smartphones - a walk or a run with podcast or music, a drive or a
| bike ride with navigation, etc. It's specifically the screen that
| takes 100% of your attention and prevents you from daydreaming.
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| Some audio is poor for daydreaming though. Audiobooks and
| podcasts often require attention (some music too).
| jjulius wrote:
| To each their own, IMO. As the other commenter says, some folk
| might find that distracting.
|
| When I go hiking/backpacking, I don't listen to music at all,
| as I enjoy the peacefulness of the forest and the break that my
| mind gets from the noise of life. I also typically default to
| paper maps after having done a lot of research via guidebooks,
| old and new, about where I'm heading. I'll reach for my phone
| if I really _need_ it, but usually I don 't, and I don't roll
| with a GPS track I downloaded from someone's past trip. I'm
| there to enjoy the environment around me, and that means
| hearing it, too.
|
| Same for driving. Maybe I'll use Waze if it's somewhere I've
| never really been before, but typically I'll just look it up
| beforehand and find my way there on my own.
|
| When it comes to those navigation choices, wrt both driving and
| hiking, it gives me a better understanding of the area, and a
| stronger sense of route options, and therefore a stronger sense
| of myself being able to find my own way, than if I were to rely
| on a screen (or Google Maps/Waze audio telling me where/when to
| turn and me following blindly).
| fads_go wrote:
| pushback:
|
| if you are listening to a podcast or music, your mind is
| following those rhythms and thoughts. Not clear this is better
| when running that listening to the rhythms of your own body;
| breath, heart, footfall, and the sounds of the world around
| you.
|
| If you are driving using a GPS for navigating, how much of your
| mind are you using to track where you are, spotting landmarks,
| etc. This is a FUNDAMENTAL aspect of almost all motive forms of
| live, the circuitry is deep in the brain, and if you are not
| activating it, you don't even know what you are missing.
| Eavolution wrote:
| I think cycling is a particularly good example of this. Using
| the phone on a mount for navigation can help you go more
| interesting places you're less familiar with, but you have to
| look at your surroundings to be vaguely safe. I don't cycle
| with music or anything, I don't think I'd feel safe doing that
| but I really enjoy a long cycle with the phone on a mount for
| directions.
|
| A garmin or something would likely be better for this, but I
| don't particularly want to buy one and the phone does a fine
| job.
| entropie wrote:
| I was one of the first persons with mobile devices on me (dell
| axim s51 (or something like that)) before mobile phones were a
| thing, but since then, which was like over 20 years ago I do
| daily walks - 60 minutes+ through the local woods - with my dogs
| where I forbid myself in using my phone.
|
| I do active thinking about projects I have, I recapitulate human
| interactions and reweight my decisions, I decide stuff that is
| going to happen. Someimes I do nothing, its not like I plan this
| stuff. I just plan not using any devices. (I also dont listen to
| music).
|
| A friend and me worked for like a year back to back on a project
| and I like forced him to split work-time and come with me with
| the dogs. He absolutely loved it and said recently that he still
| forces himself to take a longer break for walks because that just
| makes him more productive.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >before mobile phones were a thing, but since then, which was
| like over 20 years ago
|
| 20 years ago was the mid 2000s, and I had a cell phone for 7 or
| 8 years at that point. Also, the Palm Pilot (1997) had been
| around for about 5 years before the Axim (2002).
| dingaling wrote:
| Re: dog walks
|
| The rule I apply is that I can only use my phone if I'm walking
| on hard surfaces.
|
| Once I'm on a beach, a country path or rolling fields then it
| gets turned to flight mode and put away.
| kellengreen wrote:
| The Shower Principle
| dbish wrote:
| One reason I like commuting by subway in new york is that there
| is a similar forcing function where you lose internet
| connection. Not quite as severe as the shower, but a good set
| "location" and not completely engaged.
| gaoshan wrote:
| Only recently, like in the last year, have I found my phone just
| sucking me in. I am mindlessly browsing whatever (TikTok, Xiao
| Hong Shu, Reddit) and then suddenly my time has slipped away. The
| thing is, I'm not young by any means. I figured I was aged out of
| the risk that the phone could devour my time but I was so
| mistaken in thinking that way. Compared to how I felt my time
| went and was spent when I was younger (pre-internet days) this
| feels awful and draining and so damn easy to slip into. Feels
| like life is on pause yet time is still slipping away as fast as
| ever.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| My phone is decent enough to read books... the large iPhone is
| not so far different in size than the paperbacks I used to
| enjoy reading when I was younger. And, in a pinch, I can use it
| for important things. To send a message to someone I care to
| communicate with or to look up something urgently, or maybe the
| maps app if I need to go somewhere. But for all other purposes
| it is worthless to me. 6 months ago I was debugging my furnace
| and I had a Youtube video to help with that... and it's just
| unwatchable on the tiny screen. I found myself going back to my
| desk to watch it on the big screen. Though, even on that,
| Youube is very unappealing unless I'm looking for something
| specific.
|
| On the computer monitor(s), I could lose the entire day here on
| HN or (less often now days) reddit. I still can't understand
| the appeal of gluing my eyeballs to a phone screen.
| bityard wrote:
| Doom-scrolling and short-form videos seem to not discriminate
| by age. I know lots of middle-aged to elderly people who can
| sit on their phones and scroll for hours on end every day.
| switchbak wrote:
| My boomer relatives seem especially susceptible to this. As
| our local community ties atrophy, I find many old folks with
| less social contact tend to turn to social media to
| compensate.
|
| I also wonder if the aging brain is particularly vulnerable
| to some of the darker patterns these platforms employ? It
| certainly seems like it from the small number of data points
| I've seen.
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| yep. in my parents case, it might be that they've always
| thought I was the young, addicted zoomer, and it could
| never happen to them. it happened to them and now there's
| no self awareness.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Distractions aren't new; but they are more 24/7
|
| 24 hour "news" is a great example; we leave it on in the
| background, as Radio or TV, but we're not listening to gain
| information, we're listening to be entertained - amygdala
| activated.
|
| With AM radio and broadcast TV, low efforts were mostly
| limited to 2 hour segments from the 80s-90s; then in the
| late 90s, cable tv became standard, then in the 2000s the
| internet (chats, reddit, hacker news), and then the
| smartphone...
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| Young people may even have some level of resistance from
| exposure. It's effective on all ages.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| A few years ago I was having dinner with a 70y old pastor and
| his wife. Obviously both extremely engaged with the community
| etc. Totally tripped me up to realize the wife had become
| addicted to YouTube. She almost started playing a video at the
| table as we were having desert.
| codyb wrote:
| Even short day dreams can be incredibly productive which is why I
| keep my phones in the other room away from me.
|
| This forces me to get up and walk into the other room every time
| I have to do 2FA at work which has a ton of benefits. I'll bring
| dishes or cups to the kitchen on the way, very frequently have
| useful thoughts about whatever I'm working on, get up out of my
| chair more frequently, and look at things farther away than my
| screen which relaxes the eyes.
|
| In general, I advocate for avoiding any product with an infinite
| scroll as I find them detrimental to my own health, extremely
| addictive, barely rewarding, and frequently enriching to people I
| barely have any good impressions of.
| bombcar wrote:
| Phone costs about $30-50 a month or so.
|
| There are 4.5 weeks a month, which is 9 MegaMillions tickets. At
| $5 a pop, that's $45 a month.
|
| I suggest the MegaMillions tickets get you better daydreaming
| than the phone does ...
| rc_kas wrote:
| American parenting does not value boredom anywhere near enough.
| It's a valuable part of being a smart human. Society needs to
| value boredome more highly.
|
| As a parent I highly value boredom. At ages 6 and 8 electronics
| limited to 30 mins per day.
| jjulius wrote:
| Parent of 5 and 3 year-olds here - absolutely. We don't own a
| tablet and the most my kids really know how to do is turn the
| TV to a show or two they like (relax, everyone, I'll be
| teaching them how to use tech when their lives actually warrant
| the need). They're wonders at restaurants, can sit there for an
| hour plus without any screens and they're great - hell, I went
| to a pretty nice spot for my birthday recently that took 2.5
| hours and they _crushed it_ , we all had an absolute blast.
|
| Our phones stay in my wife's home office during the day, since
| we want to model not staring at them.
|
| They come to my work sometimes, and I've had a few people
| express how they're impressed when they watch them entertain
| themselves, and my response is always, "They have to learn how
| to be bored".
| alt227 wrote:
| Parent of a 5 year old here, and it sounds like we run a
| similar household. I am very proud of my daughter for being
| able to go an hour or 2 anywhere with little external
| stimulation. She engages in the adult conversation, and often
| makes interesting observations which we enjoy chatting about.
| She never asks for a screen when we are out anywhere.
|
| I am often surprised when we are out at restuarants and
| cafes, and other kids that age are staring into tablets with
| their headphones on. How are these kids going to develop
| adult social skills when they are oblivious to them going on
| around them?
|
| Also car journeys. We enjoy things like playing I-spy, and
| singing along to songs together. I would hate it so much if
| my kid was glued to a tablet watching stuff.
|
| Boredom is very very important for a childs development. I
| feel that the reduction in kids boredom time is a big reason
| we are experiencing epidemics of mental health revolving
| around concepts such as FOMO and personal image.
| jjulius wrote:
| Wonderful! At the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own
| horn, that 2.5-hour meal I referenced was bookended by a
| 2-hour drive each way. Just a bit of music in the car, but
| plenty of great conversation with our family and my parents
| - observing the world around them, asking questions,
| singing along, being silly together. It was a tremendously
| cup-filling afternoon/evening with nary a screen in sight.
|
| I love your point about social interactions, too - we'll
| tiptoe around certain subjects occasionally, but for the
| most part I love when they (especially my oldest, but only
| because my youngest is still coming out of the toddler
| phase) listen in and ask questions and try to understand
| what we're chatting about. It always reminds me of being a
| kid and thinking it was super cool to be able to hang with
| the grown-ups and learn about whatever they're chatting
| about.
| spudlyo wrote:
| While I generally appreciate this advice to allow yourself to be
| bored for all the creative benefits that come with it, I also
| resent it. When large portions of my life were outside of my
| control due the 8 hour workday, I felt like I don't want to
| squander what little time I had to myself while commuting
| daydreaming. I try not to judge people who are glued to their
| phones, they could be scrolling TikTok, or they could be reading
| great literature.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I felt like I don 't want to squander what little time I had
| to myself while commuting daydreaming_
|
| The whole point of this discussion is that daydreaming is not a
| worthless activity, therefore time spent daydreaming is not
| "squandered."
| spudlyo wrote:
| Fiber is also not a worthless foodstuff, but it's a hard sell
| to be told to eat a dry, gritty bran muffin when I'm starving
| at brunch.
| switchbak wrote:
| Fiber will help you feel full! Hey you started with the
| analogy :)
|
| I don't think anyone is forcing this on you, I think it's
| your choice on how you spend your time. Allowing for
| periods of boredom is just more choice available to you. If
| you're already saturated, I understand that you wouldn't
| want to embrace that.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I read parent's point as having a hierarchy of stuff they
| want to do, and daydreaming is not worthless, just not as
| important or rewarding as any other thing they were doing
| during their commute.
|
| For instance for people reading around a hundred books a
| year, would they want to spend more time daydreaming instead
| of reading ? Probably no.
| momojo wrote:
| I used to think this way. I used to think that, despite my
| busy schedule, I could squeeze good literature in. I *only*
| need to steal 30 minutes every day; it could be on the bus,
| right before bed, or during lunch. In aggregate, thats 2.5
| hours a week!
|
| In reality, one does not simply sit down on a whim and go
| into Book Reading mode. Maybe others are built for it, but I
| have to set aside time in advance, drive to a cafe, and
| really hunker down. And I don't always have the bandwidth or
| gas to do that.
|
| If you frame daydreaming as a mentally expensive activity
| with variable return (5% eureka moments, 95% tedium), and I'm
| starved for time already, you'll be much more tempted to
| reach for the mental junk-food. Low-mental expense,
| immediate, guaranteed reward.
|
| I'm learning I can't have my cake and eat it to. I can't fill
| my schedule yet also try to pursue these activities that ask
| me for sustained, long term attention. Something has to give.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >Low-mental expense, immediate, guaranteed reward.
|
| For me, it isn't rewarding. When I look back at my time
| doomscrolling, it doesn't feel restorative, rewarding,
| fulfilling. Resending I have been kind of forcing myself to
| do more things, instead of telling myself that I "need"
| that mindless downtime.
|
| And I have found that it actually gives me more energy to
| force myself to read a book instead of mindlessly scrolling
| around, to commit to one episode of quality programing
| instead of rewatching something easy while also playing
| around on the phone.
|
| Much like committing to physical exercise gives you more
| energy, stamina, etc. over time than just "resting around",
| training to lengthen my attention span gives me more
| bandwidth for things that take an attention span.
| Practicing reading 30 mins a day on the bus makes me better
| at reading on the bus and other places that aren't hunkered
| down in a very specific setting. It's not easy at first and
| some days are better than others, much like working out or
| eating healthy, my long term satisfaction is much higher
| than junk food, digital or otherwise.
| moffkalast wrote:
| "Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I daydream on
| company time."
| chairmansteve wrote:
| Nobody's picking on you dude. You didn't have to read TFA.
| ednite wrote:
| Insightful read and great discussion. If I may add, I believe
| this extends well beyond Gen Z. Many of us--balancing work,
| family, and the constant buzz of digital life--rarely take time
| to pause and reflect. In my case, it sadly took the death of my
| father to finally slow down. That quiet period brought a profound
| shift in how I see my future, especially around creativity and
| purpose. Sometimes, it's only in stillness that true clarity
| begins to take shape.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| You can still day dream when you drive. Long drives to work
| especially are good for this. Just make sure you don't kill
| anybody.
| mjevans wrote:
| I usually can't. Too much traffic. The rare times I have to
| drive between metro areas to visit family do offer such
| circumstances though.
| elbasti wrote:
| Last year I took a smartphone holiday for 4 months (switched to a
| dumbphone). It was a fantastic time and I regret "falling off the
| wagon" and getting a smartphone again.
|
| I noticed a huge number of benefits, but one of the most
| surprising was that it forced me to confront a number of
| difficult decisions.
|
| There were a few times in which I was bored (waiting at the
| passport office, sitting on a plane) in which I started to think
| about decisions I had to make that were very difficult in ways
| that caused me anxiety: firing a person I'm good friends with,
| shutting down a company, stuff like that.
|
| I realized that ordinarily I would simply refuse to engage with
| the decision: I'd get on my phone or "get busy" somehow and so
| simply postpone thinking about the issue indefinitely.
|
| But when you're stuck at the passport office for 2 hours with
| nothing to do, you can't but help think about the thing that is
| top of mind, anxiety be damned.
|
| For someone that is prone to anxiety around certain topics
| (conflict avoidance, "disappointing" people, etc) having times in
| which I was forced to engage with the topic had truly enormous
| benefits.
| npteljes wrote:
| I came to the very same conclusion - I need "empty time" to
| reflect, and prepare myself for my own life. For me, it was not
| smartphones, it started with books when I was a child, and
| continued with music players and alcohol later. Everything to
| keep the unwanted thoughts and feelings at bay. I am an
| excellent daydreamer as well, at times of stillness, I find
| something to "work on" in my mind.
|
| What I ended up with is literally a time of day where I "sit
| with myself" and just think about things. I just sit down for
| some minutes and try to get my bearings on where I am in life
| right now. Also, I eliminated a lot of background noise and
| music - I often do menial things without any other distractions
| for example. Good opportunities to think about something deep.
| painted-now wrote:
| For me that's when I take a shower. I think I take showers
| way too long, but it's just a thing I enjoy and I think
| through many topics then. Sometimes I am sad that I cannot
| take notes during the shower, but if I could, maybe I would
| be back to square one.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| I find myself doing some of my most creative thinking in
| the middle of the night when I wake up and can't get back
| to sleep.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| I believe one of the side effects of the loss of "empty" time
| to reflect is that people tend to rush decisions even when
| there's time enough to think it through, as it were more
| important to take a quick decision rather than a good one.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I think it also encourages socialization. Chatting with someone
| instead of being engrossed in your phone.
|
| I did a screen time detox a few years back. After hearing a
| similar idea about needing to get to boredom sometimes and not
| just escaping to a device. Only used a computer for work and
| exclusively worked on it, then no screen time whatsoever. Maybe
| lasted 3 weeks or so and made me more interested in stuff like
| reading, drawing, etc.
| tmnvix wrote:
| Very similar to my experience.
|
| From time to time I follow a policy of 'no idle screen time'.
| Essentially this means if I am using a screen I must have a
| definite purpose in mind. It really cuts down on how much
| time I spend on my phone or computer in general, but
| ironically increases the amount of work I get done (I work
| almost exclusively on a computer).
|
| Some benefits I noticed after a short while include feeling
| much calmer (low level feeling of anxiety largely absent),
| actually actively listening to music again (instead of just
| using it for background noise), reading books again (even
| renewed my library card after 10+ years), keeping a more
| organised home, eating better, getting more exercise, and
| organising more time to spend with friends and family.
| snoopertrooper wrote:
| I'd like to inform you that I share your same anxieties. I read
| a book called "Difficult Conversations" (Patron, stone, heen).
| It didn't remove all the anxiety, but it gave me A framework to
| lean on to get started, which was half of the stress. I think
| it will always suck having to fire people you like.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > you can't but help think about the thing that is top of mind,
| anxiety be damned.
|
| This really captures what I think is the main problem with our
| state of being constantly distracted: it feels at first like a
| relief from anxiety, but ultimately results in even small
| anxieties never properly being dealt with. The end result is a
| vicious cycle (or I guess virtuous if you sell online ads) of
| becoming more and more anxious causing us to rely more and more
| on the screen to distract us, which in turn only increases that
| backlog of anxiety.
|
| I see this happen in a lot of younger people that are
| constantly on screens: they frequently mention their need to
| "chill for a bit" and yet spend most of their time doing
| nothing but staring at a screen. It's clear that they are
| living in a lukewarm vat of anxiety that they can't face while
| staring at a screen, but also one which causes them immediate
| stress when they _do_ look away.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| >"It's clear that they are living in a lukewarm vat of
| anxiety that they can't face while staring at a screen, but
| also one which causes them immediate stress when they do look
| away."
|
| which sounds a whole lot like a word that starts with "a" and
| ends with "ddiction"
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| it mimics drug addiction, that same cycle can often happen
| with cannabis.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| The anxiety does hit you back when in bed trying to sleep. I
| notice a vast difference in my ability to fall asleep if I've
| gone on a walk with a podcast in my ear vs just silently
| walking with my thoughts.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Wow, thank you for saying exactly this, this "deferred
| anxiety" probably does partly explain sleep issues I've had
| the last 3-4 years. I agreed with GP's comment and have
| more issues with screens, but didn't even notice this
| difference in how I take my walks now.
|
| Sometimes my inner thoughts can crowd aside the podcast and
| I'll get home and realize I didn't hear anything from the
| podcast, but more often it keeps me distracted the whole
| time. I think unplugging from podcasts on walks and in the
| car is definitely worth a try.
| Tade0 wrote:
| That is basically what psychiatrists have been saying about
| the topic.
|
| Humans need downtime to process emotions - in the olden days
| there was a lot of menial work which served this purpose, but
| we automated most of it since, freeing time for more
| productive, but stressful activities.
|
| Meanwhile looking at screens allows one to leave all that for
| later. Unfortunately unprocessed emotions don't go away -
| they pile up.
|
| I've been using this to gauge how well I'm doing mentally and
| address whatever issues there might be. My ideal state is
| that of a chimpanzee who was finally let outside after years
| in captivity which, upon leaving the building where it was
| kept, just stares at the sky.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > it feels at first like a relief from anxiety, [...] which
| in turn only increases that backlog of anxiety.
|
| That's exactly what's describe in a book [0] I finished last
| week about addiction to nicotine. That book made the quit
| process easy by making you believe there's _nothing_ good
| about smoking, even the social aspect. They circle through
| every supposed advantages and disassemble one by one. There's
| a few official rewrites for quitting "bad" sugars and taking
| good habits, not sure how they perform.
|
| 0
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Easy_Way_to_Stop_Smoking
| twic wrote:
| There is an SMBC more or less on this subject: https://smbc-
| comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2225
| kenjackson wrote:
| Is it good to have anxiety over things you have to do where
| there really aren't options. Unless you're saying you figured
| out better decisions due to the additional thinking. But if the
| end result was simply more anxiety -- mine being distracted on
| the phone.
| sspiff wrote:
| I've tried this a couple of times, and the only things I miss
| are:
|
| - Navigation (can be solved with a dedicated device, but it's a
| lot less convenient) - A good camera at all times (I used to
| not care about this, but it's become more important now I have
| kids) - Mobile payments (pretty essential in my country, not
| all places accept cards or cash)
|
| In every other aspect, it was a net positive in my life to get
| rid of my phone.
| redeux wrote:
| This is what's held me back as well, but I recently
| discovered the Minimal phone which is an android phone with
| all the things you mentioned, but with a less distracting
| e-ink display.
|
| https://minimalcompany.com/
|
| (I'm not affiliated with minimal company in any way, nor have
| I actually tried the phone)
| smileysteve wrote:
| Shoutout to Samsung Ultra Power Saving Mode (and other
| modes)
|
| You can get ~4 day battery life if you limit your apps to
| phone, text, music, email, wallet (with no lasting
| background activities*)
| timeinput wrote:
| I "pre-ordered" one, and it has not yet arrived. I have
| given up on ever receiving my phone, and just consider it a
| lesson learned. If I receive it, that will be a happy
| occurrence. It should have arrived 4 months ago (at least
| that's what they said when I ordered it). They tell me it
| will arrive in the next month (depending on customs
| clearance times). They have said it will arrive in the next
| month multiple times. Those statements have all been
| inaccurate so far. Maybe it will show up one day.
| elbasti wrote:
| I found the truly irreplaceable apps to be:
|
| - Uber
|
| - Banking
|
| - Google Maps
|
| For a camera, I suggest buying a real, standalone camera (I
| have a fuji x100). The photos it takes are VASTLY better than
| an iphone. For something smaller that fits in a pocket,
| people say great things about the Ricoh GR III.
|
| Unfortunately, I found that being out without a smartphone
| did cause certain anxieties for me: _What if I forgot about
| an appointment? What if I get an urgent email or whatsapp?_
|
| The answer would be having an actual assistant (ie, a
| secretary). Someone I could call to order me an uber or look
| up a restaurant, and someone who could call me to say "hey, X
| just sent you a whatsapp message that seems pretty urgent."
|
| I that an AI powered assistant that communicates via phone or
| text could be a great use for AI and something I hope to code
| up whenever I have some spare time.
| imhoguy wrote:
| This is cool. AI assistant which operates the real
| smartphone hidden somewhere in a drawer, and the only
| interface would be voice chat or text via dumbphone! I am
| in.
| jimbokun wrote:
| The big LLM companies should have employees using only a
| dumb phone connected only to their LLM as a way to
| accomplish tasks or get information. Would rapidly
| improve the UX of their chat programs I'm sure.
| jzawodn wrote:
| I don't know... I'm of the opinion that there's no such
| thing as an "urgent email" or similar. Urgent things should
| be handled via synchronous technology--like a phone call.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That reminds me of Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture,
| discussing how he handled his boss demanding a way to
| contact him in his honeymoon in case of a work emergency.
|
| Pausch gave his boss the number of his new mother in law.
| In case of an emergency, the boss could explain to the
| mother in law why it was worth interrupting her
| daughter's honeymoon, in which case the mother in law
| would relay the message.
|
| There mother in law was never called.
| s3graham wrote:
| I'm trying this strategy at the moment.
| https://www.shesabeast.co/the-diy-dumbphone-method/
|
| The main things I needed to remove are the web browser and
| email client to make it ~ a dumbphone. I don't find myself
| wasting time staring at maps, or a weather app, or a calorie
| tracker, or camera/photos so I don't feel there's any reason
| to forgo those. (YMMV of course!)
| nullc wrote:
| I have a smartphone that runs signal, the phone app, the
| camera app, and a mapping app. Why not do the same?
|
| I have never logged into anything except signal on a phone. I
| haven't removed the browser but I don't have any interest in
| using it and have only used it to look up wikipedia stuff
| while traveling and what not. If I did feel some temptation
| to web browse on it I could remove the browser.
|
| I find it surprising that anyone wants to browse on their
| phone, I find the tiny screen infuriating.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| I can sympathize, but you didn't mention the benefits at all,
| what would they be? What is benefit of anxiously thinking about
| past decisions?
| elbasti wrote:
| Ah. Well I didn't mention all the benefits, but what I was
| referring to here were _future_ decisions, not past ones.
| Decisions I had put off taking because they caused me great
| anxiety but that nonetheless had to be done, and the sooner
| the better.
|
| Other benefits:
|
| - Vastly improved mood
|
| - Renewed interest in creative endeavors, specifically
| writing
|
| - A sense of well-being
|
| - A "the scales have fallen from my eyes"
| realization/epiphany/gnosis around the nature of reality and
| the effect "weaponized language delivery mechanisms" (ie,
| social media) have on our perception of it.
|
| Pretty fucking worth it, if you asked me. And yet I fell off
| the wagon and have a smartphone again.
| elevatortrim wrote:
| What made you pick up again? Why not drop now?
| elbasti wrote:
| Imagine how addicted I am that I use my smartphone even
| after writing the past comment!
| Nevermark wrote:
| You are clearly better for your temporary retreat. It is
| still with you. Reducing contact with the world is not the
| only way to deal with its less helpful siren calls.
|
| Distraction free can also mean, "free despite distraction".
|
| You created some very positive grooves in your thought
| patterns, that you can keep using, to recall and reset
| awareness of what matters at any moment.
|
| 10 seconds meditating on what you experienced and learned
| can reset a day.
|
| Knowing and remembering the contrast is a great way to wade
| through the complications of life, but avoid drowning
| again.
|
| A another superpower is to have clearly defined personal
| missions. Then continually asking "is this helping?"
| quickly exposes and resolves both mundane and profound
| derailments. Vast time can be wasted by things that are
| healthy, but just not the optimal path, too!
|
| For me, the only extreme measures I take are to avoid any
| exposure or giving attention to advertising. And zero
| exposure to opinion media (whether views "lean" in a way I
| sympathize with or not). That stuff just constantly models
| a norm of sleepwalking into a flattened reality.
|
| After that, I just pay attention unintended wasted time and
| course correct whenever healthy exposure to novelty flips
| to low quality or extended hit seeking. We do benefit from
| some of the former.
|
| I was lucky to grow up without television. Nobody had to
| teach me the difference between influence and inspiration
| and I won't ever let that get watered down.
|
| It scares me how most people's world views get smashed into
| low artificially discrete dimensions, down selected empathy
| and synthetically narrowed concerns, when the if, buts,
| mostly, sometimes, in general but often not in particular,
| ..., nature of reality and people seems to become invisible
| to so many even though it isn't hidden at all.
|
| And I am talking about the smart high intentioned people!
|
| It is important to remind each other to think, each for
| ourselves. Don't ever categorize one's world view as an
| allegiance to any school of thought, or take any of the
| other common steps that subtly channel our awareness away
| from unfiltered reality, hand us menus of default views, or
| numb our ability to spy the omnipresent gems of value in
| the most alternate views.
|
| So thanks for posting your experience!
|
| We can live a high contact life and benefit from the
| roughness and stickiness of untamed social reality, instead
| of being sanded down by it.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I just had a day "off" because of some work on the 5G tower
| nearby. I can feel my brain chemistry change when the line is
| off. I don't feel the need to constantly check. There was a
| limited service bandwidth but it was too unreliable for my
| brain to want to wait for its dose of webpage refreshing. It
| sucks the long term / in-depth brain states .. it's so weird.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40802066
| (I Add 3-25 Seconds of Latency to Every Page I Visit, 2020)
| agumonkey wrote:
| Some interesting ideas in there. Trying some.
| robocat wrote:
| A couple of times recently when I've not pulled out the phone,
| I've ended up having an interesting chat with somebody nearby.
|
| Be open to having others talk with you by having an inviting
| look. And perhaps recognize when others are being inviting and
| feel out if they seem keen on yakking.
|
| Imagine a subculture developing where some people just
| recognize other sociables. Maybe we need masonic-like rings or
| something else to identify us as welcoming random conversion.
|
| Concentrating on your phone is as much of a conversation
| stopper as headphones.
| timeinput wrote:
| Do you ever have trouble falling into past decisions, and over
| analyzing them, and doubling down on your anxiety?
|
| I would love to get rid of my smart phone, but the problems I
| dwell on are very rarely present or future decisions, and
| realistically what is top of my mind anxiety be damned is
| useless energy, it's like running a wind turbine off the grid,
| and forcing it to spin as if it were a big fan instead of
| running the grid off wind turbines. The thoughts are more like
| did I disappoint that friend last weekend, or did I dissapoint
| that coworker at the Christmas party 6 months ago, or did I do
| <x> that definitely didn't create <y>, but did I do <x> that
| made <y> happen?
|
| I use chess apps on my phone to at least put my brain off those
| thoughts entirely because I have a different problem to solve,
| and that is magnificent, and if If I didn't have that I don't
| know what I would do. I know there's something probably not
| quite right, but I'm wondering how much time you end up
| spending on problems that "can't be solved," and how much is
| time spent actually solving problems in your life. If that
| makes any sense.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Why didn't you list the downsides, what you missed from not
| having a smart phone? Was it because there weren't any or
| because you thought they were obvious?
|
| Having a mobile, networked computer with us at all times has
| become a huge benefit in many ways and I find it hard to
| believe people would chuck it all due forming habits they don't
| like. Habits can be molded pretty easily if approached in a
| conscious way.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Easy fix is just go for 2 hour walk. You can really walk properly
| with eyes in your phone so you'd be forced to daydream.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Had a kid recently and didn't like how often I was on my phone
| around her. I bought one of those phones that looks like a
| 90's/early aughts 5GHZ phone, but rather than being attached to a
| lan line, it's BT paired to my smartphone. So I leave it charging
| in a drawer and if someone really needs to get a hold of me, they
| call and the BT phone rings. There might be a way to configure
| text messages to make it ding too, haven't looked into it.
| bix6 wrote:
| I really want to get rid of my smartphone but I worry about the
| functionality I will lose. Maps in particular when I travel,
| having to carry a laptop always. I guess those are really it...
| not too bad now that I think about it but am I going to carry a
| paper map?
| qoez wrote:
| Feels like this is also connected to the general move from
| individualism to collectivism. Most of our days are spent hearing
| other peoples ideas (podcasts, videos etc). Almost none is spent
| developing our own ideas and an actual personality based on
| personal experience etc.
| allenu wrote:
| To me, it feels more like a move to even more individualism.
| Previously, a lot of information was learned through your
| community, but now you can bypass all of that and get
| information directly by searching for it on your own online or
| hearing about it in a podcast or a video that you sought out.
| You don't need a local community to learn about the world.
|
| The fact that we can each curate our own choice of media or
| news means we can also create our own echo chambers, so our
| chosen "realities" aren't as similar to our neighbors as they
| were when people all watched the same few channels on TV.
|
| I agree though that it can also mean we're experiencing more of
| the world through other people, strangers, instead of
| experiencing it for ourselves. I think our exposure to so many
| different experiences (but not direct experiences) also has an
| effect on our perception of what's normal or ideal, i.e.
| sitting being idle feels even worse when you see other people
| online doing amazing things.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Does anyone else find that there's something especially addictive
| about it being "your phone"? Like I can't get nearly as engaged
| on a laptop or even an iPad. It's like I'm connected to this one
| specific device.
| gaudystead wrote:
| I suspect it's a mixture of instant gratification combined with
| portability. We can carry a little dopamine dispenser around
| with us wherever we go, which (assumedly) causes us to build
| dependency on it.
| dherikb wrote:
| I know that this can sound counterintuitive, but the best
| strategy to keep the phone away from me is to be on my desktop
| computer.
|
| Different from when I'm on my smartphone, I do not feel any
| anxiety to check social networks using my computer. So I can
| focus more on learning some stuff, coding, organizing my personal
| data, checking my appointments, checking the tech news, or even
| playing some games (to have some fun).
| hoherd wrote:
| This is what I've been doing lately too. I've taken all apps
| off my phone that I spent significant amounts of time on. My
| phone is now something I use for a few minutes, and then stop
| using, with the exception of navigational apps and music. My
| goal was to return to pre-smartphone days where having a laptop
| or a desktop computer puts just enough friction in so that I
| don't habitually whip out my device and start scrolling or
| surfing when I feel bored.
|
| Another part of this for me is not going to sites that have
| infinite scroll. This means that even on my laptop, I will not
| go to sites where I cannot finish consuming whatever content
| was there.
|
| For sites like HN where there is a rotating front page, I have
| an RSS feed of the front page that refreshes infrequently so I
| can sample what was there without always needing to return to
| the front page to look for new content. Currently I have this
| set to 1 hour. This has been a decent mix between missing
| interesting content and having a feed that shows me way more
| articles than I can consume. My RSS reader is self-hosted at
| home, which means when I leave the house I am not tempted to
| use my phone to read that RSS content.
| lxe wrote:
| If you need a way to ease into mind clarity and distraction-free
| time, try taking an hour to an hour and a half of walking
| outside. You still need to maintain focus somewhat, but the mind
| quickly starts to wander.
| alganet wrote:
| Being around people blocks daydreaming as much as phones. It
| takes away the boredom.
| forcer wrote:
| >>>>When you are daydreaming (or mind-wandering, as it is
| referred to within scientific circles), memories that you thought
| were lost forever can come to the surface again." >>>
|
| I have been thinking about this lately. Not just in the context
| of smartphone use but being devoted to some mind consuming
| endeavour like building a startup.
|
| I have been building and operating company for over 15 years now
| (I am 43 now). During those years I had amazing quality of life
| due to success of the business. However, at the same time I spent
| most of my daydreaming hours on thinking how to grow my business.
| Now when business is about to be sold and I don't think about the
| growth that much I am starting to realise I don't remember as
| many things from my childhood as most of people around me. I keep
| wondering whether this is common to other people who have been
| obsessed about something for many years and forgot to daydream
| about their earlier years.
| theletterf wrote:
| Before smartphones existed, I used to carry a book with me
| everywhere. Or a comic. Or a notebook. Or a puzzle. When a
| situation got boring or unbearable, I'd pull out whatever I had
| in my bag and occupy myself with it. But it was cumbersome: a
| book is heavy, a puzzle breaks, pencils fall out, and so on. So
| sometimes I had no choice but to look at anything in my
| surroundings that was more interesting than what was currently
| happening.
|
| Because the world is interesting, yes, but only in spurts, and
| only for some people.
|
| It's been this way before and after the arrival of smartphones.
| Some of us have always felt the need to disconnect from what
| didn't interest us. But it's never been as easy and convenient as
| it is now. In a second, you can access all of human knowledge,
| record a memory, see where you are on a map, or simply entertain
| your brain with a game. Everything we used to carry in a bag now
| fits in the palm of your hand.
|
| Maybe I'm just rude, but if someone snatched a book from my hands
| just because I wasn't enjoying a sunset, I'd be mad. If they then
| called me a slave or a zombie, I'd throw the book at their face.
| Or the puzzle. Or the iPad. Well, maybe not the iPad, because
| it's really heavy and expensive, but you get the idea. Why?
| Because I decide what to dedicate my mental resources to at any
| given moment.
|
| I decide when to pay attention. There will be times when I want
| to share a look with the person I'm with, and others when I
| simply won't have anything to say or do. And still others when
| I'd prefer to be far, far away, somewhere else entirely. My mind
| is like that: it wanders and rebels. Perhaps others prefer to
| cling to the apparent certainties of what's in front of them; I
| don't dislike that, but I can't and don't want to do it
| constantly. Nobody can.
| conductr wrote:
| My screen-free parenting style is centered around my thought that
| boredom is a blessing, a luxury, and a life skill all wrapped in
| one. I've been encouraged that the world at large is somewhat
| beginning to rethink these things lately. Our peer group of
| parents has a bit of a no phone pact that I hope they keep up
| with for as long as possible (they're only 6 right now so we'll
| see)
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > These moments used to be given over to silent reflection or
| conversation with whoever is around. Now, for most of us, nearly
| all of them are grabbed by our phones.
|
| Maybe this is true for the author, but before smartphones I
| wasn't just chatting up strangers while I waited for the elevator
| or reflecting on my life. I was staring at the elevator light
| getting angry that it was taking too long.
|
| I spent a lot of time being bored and being angry that I was
| bored. Now I can consume information and learn new things ALL THE
| TIME. It's amazing!
| Fin_Code wrote:
| You can get all the day dreaming benefits through meditation as
| well. 30 minutes of a small background noise like rain or
| something and just sit with your thoughts. Does pretty much the
| same thing and you can still use a device during the day.
| smileysteve wrote:
| This reminds me of a recent power outage with children never
| who had experienced one before, and they have no idea what to
| do; we can read / game by lantern, go to sleep early.
| graypegg wrote:
| So one interesting thing I find myself doing if I'm not taking my
| ADHD meds on a given day, is day dreaming way more. I tend to
| lose focus and run around in my own mind even if I'm doing
| something that's __supposed__ to be stimulating! (ex, using my
| phone) I don't know if that's a good thing to be fair... it
| hasn't ever felt helpful. I've had to rewind 20minutes in a movie
| because I realized I had created my own separate-but-parallel
| story in my own head that is only now just clashing with whatever
| plot point that is currently happening.
|
| To me at least, it does feel like however optimized a thing is to
| take your attention, imagination is more attention-stealing.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| I'm listening to "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" and it's
| amazing how much of his stories are random hobbies and
| experiments. It really makes me reflect on how I spend my time
| the past 12 years since I got my smart phone. I can't imagine
| anyone being like him nowadays with the amount of screens there
| are.
| matsemann wrote:
| Best part of my day is commuting by bike. Fresh air, activity,
| and the brain can work or wander. Nice start to the day, and a
| nice way to wind down after work.
|
| Commuting by car doesn't hit the same nerves. Listening to the
| radio or something, angry at other drivers, stuck in a cage in
| traffic. But walking works as well.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Substack is the new Wired. Fn long articles about nothing. Author
| is seemingly hooked on ted level what the fuck I'm talking about.
| You are not bored, good, now you don't have enough time building
| things your brain connected together from ideas learned by
| reading books and browsing the net. This is much much worse imo.
|
| Btw phones worsen your eyesight if you use it often, like playing
| games.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| The premise seems to be that screentime = social media brain rot
| which is not always the case. In fact, over the past year,
| screentime increased my enjoyment from daydreaming massively. I
| love daydreaming about my own hard scifi setting and LLMs have
| been an amazing resource to enhance that.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| As much as I like the message and agree with a lot of what the
| article says; I feel the article itself is a tad long for how
| little it says.
| JRCharney wrote:
| As a young child with ADHD and Autism, one of my first memories
| was being called out for daydreaming by the teacher. The problem
| is that daydreaming has been ridiculed even before there were
| smart phones, from having kids needing to be on Ritalin to pay
| attention to smartphones occupying our time, to the chaos of
| politics "flooding the zone" by taking away all those things
| about the government that were likeable. (I know this isn't the
| forum for it, but trying to shutdown the National Weather Service
| is probably the biggest assault on all those ADHD/Autistic people
| who liked playing with all the computer stuff the NWS produced.
| It was like once I found out about that, who needed The Weather
| Channel anymore?!)
|
| The point is, we've been driven to be more "productive" than
| creative. After a while, that productivity creates burnout. Being
| prohibited from collecting your thoughts or wandering about other
| stuff has created more problems.
|
| Discouraging daydreaming then making it into a commodity to be
| exploited by capitalism is probably the most terrible thing we
| have ever done.
|
| We need to create a society that allows for daydreaming again,
| gratis. The phone is not the problem, only part of it. I can
| leave my phone on my desk or in the bedroom. We just need to stop
| being on-call for people who don't need--nay, deserve--our
| attention.
| morgengold wrote:
| I often wonder how much creative productivity is lost on a
| societal level because of the phone addiction.
|
| I often wonder if we would focus politically on different topics.
|
| I often wonder if I would procrastinate less in the real world
| and face important decisions much faster.
| lacoolj wrote:
| The irony of this article: the demographic in question likely
| won't have the attention span to read it through
|
| But I guess there's always chatgpt
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _To Do Nothing_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43596476
| llsf wrote:
| Made me think of Jean-Jacques Rousseau "Reveries d'un promeneur
| solitaire"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reveries_of_the_Solitary_Walke...
|
| When letting our mind wandering (and walking actually helps me to
| remove some distractions) can bring some peace and eventually
| some new perspective.
| lstodd wrote:
| I just don't pay my prepaid plan unless I need it. And I don't
| pick up phone calls unless from family. And there is no internet.
| (the plan provides one-way calls and texts, and in emegergency I
| can get half a day of connectivity by a #1-whatever.
|
| this is bliss.
| pulsarmx wrote:
| Is my brain broken somehow? I'm either at my desk or on my
| phone/tablet a good 75-80% of my waking hours, and have all this
| information and entertainment at my fingertips, and I'm _still_
| bored half of the time or find my mind wandering or thinking
| about all sorts of things happening around me when I least expect
| it.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| I believe phones and social media are why so many movies, media,
| fiction just seems generally worse now. Humans make lots of
| connections when their minds wander. Stanley Kubrick came up with
| the match cut in 2001 (the bone cutting to the satellite) playing
| around with a broom in between shots. When absent external
| stimuli, human brains explore the latent space around us, with
| constant external stimuli, we devote cognitive resources to
| managing and understanding the influx of information.
| 6510 wrote:
| There once was a monk, imprisoned over earthly matters, it was
| wonderful, finally he had time to meditate all day without
| distraction.
| sstock wrote:
| Calls to mind Edgar Allan Poe's Sonnet to Science. Written almost
| two centuries ago, it bemoans dreams lost to the unyielding
| reality of science. Poe doesn't resolve this concern in the
| sonnet, but his subsequent works indicate he did overcome it. How
| will we I wonder.
|
| Reference:
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25525/old/25525-h/files/2151...
| pnathan wrote:
| I would absolutely go landline if I had the option of doing so
| due to work.
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