This sort of thing worries me for a bunch of reasons, but the biggest one is that it seems like most kinds of successful endeavors require three things:
1. Persistence
2. The means to set aside time for that persistence.
3. Luck
Number 2 is what most people tend to lack. Especially in our current climate, most people are mentally, physically, and financially exhausted by the ostensibly simple act of getting through a day and making sure that their existence is stable for the next month or so.
But let's say that we get to a point where your average person can have 1-3 hours every day to comfortably spend on their dreams. How much of that time would be spent right now on social media or idly flipping through some other form of cheap but nicely-diced and easy-to-digest content?
Probably most of it. But isn't that exactly what people already said about television and video games and stuff? Isn't it possible that that 'wasted' downtime is actually important to peoples' mental health? Maybe, but personally I think that social media has the comparative drawback that instead of relaxing you like other forms of entertainment, it probably makes you more stressed out. The article sure thinks that 'it's different this time.' And that makes for a vicious cycle of uselessness.
But at the same time, I also think that smart devices can be extremely useful - speaking of attention, how great is it to not have to remember things like 'what is the density of steel' or 'what sort of communication protocol does this chip use' while still being able to access that information in under a few seconds? That should be something that anyone can access cheaply and without artificial barriers.
So I guess attention is probably just going to be another commodity with staggering inequality of access. When you think about it, that's really fucked up; a person's mind and body should be the alpha and omega of their unalienable possessions, don't we hold anything sacred? How long until we're paying to turn off Harrison-Bergeron-style rigs?
I think the reason that the current status quo of content consumption is worse than previous generations is that in the past, even if you watched TV for six hours a day, there was a much higher chance that when you were waiting in line, when you were going to the bathroom, when you were sitting in a car or on a subway, when you were walking to work, there was a greater chance that you were bored and just...letting your thoughts wander and thinking. Today we have instant on demand entertainment in our pockets at all times. Bathroom? Let's read an article. Subway? Let's listen to a podcast. Waiting room at the doctor? I have my favorite e-book saved to my iPad. Standing in line to get a taco? Play a game.
Boredom leads to creative and introspective thought and rumination. Boredom is necessary.
Constant work or play with no time for _just thinking_ is a cancer on society.
That's the biggest danger here. People aren't thinking anymore.
I have cell phone and internet addiction and my thought has been that when my current smartphone dies I will replace it with something that can only run Google Maps, a music player, and SMS.
I think those apps are non-optional and non-addictive. Everything else I want to get rid of so that at the very least, the space when I'm in the bathroom, when I'm eating at Chipotle, when I'm on the subway, when I'm walking to work - will be a time my brain actually just thinks.
>Boredom leads to creative and introspective thought and rumination. Boredom is necessary.
That is a great point and takeaway - maybe even a great summary of the point that these articles and books are trying to make. Your favorite TV show or book or video game wouldn't exist without someone who couldn't come up with anything better to do with their time.
It's like we're going out of our way to fill all the bright and sparkly corners of our minds with gruel.
I always took books with me to the bathroom/out on chores; bank line - oh good, I can finish the chapter. Is reading substantively more beneficial than internet? Hard to say. I wasn't only reading calculus books or histories of ancient times, I had a lot of pulpy genre fiction as well. I'll read the ingredients on cereal boxes if that's all. While I can spend some time on social networks that seems pretty useless, reading about the low-level details of Spectre has felt fairly educational. Taking Facebook off of my phones has been useful, but I'd be so sad without Wiki access. I think it's an unknown experiment, but we shouldn't idolize the boring past too much.
This is interesting. The situations you describe as boring, I find interesting and curious.
For example, while walking to work, I usually pass one of our homeless guys down the road and give him a nod. It's worrying if he isn't there. Then there is the like 200 years old guy in his plant shop, who usually has some interesting stuff going on. Then there is a cooking school with courses in tasty stuff. Then there is the school with a dangerous crossing there, kinda want to watch out for the kids there.
Subway. If you look around, there's so many interesting people there. People are telling so much about their day by just being in the subway the way they are, and with their stuff. And be careful - some people even speak with attentive dudes.
I constructed my argument poorly - I should have said not that those situations are boring - but that the addictiveness of devices and instant infinite content is so great that those of us who are addicted do literally nothing else but consume digital content in situations where we'd normally be observing the world around us or thinking.
So I wouldn't say that the world is boring, but for many of us it's more boring than the shiny thing on our phones.
Well I made my point poorly, too. It takes some effort, some cognitive effort and some curiosity to look at the world this way. I would say, on an everyday personal level, every choice makes sense if you listen. And listening to those choices can enrich your own live.
However, looking, thinking and listening takes effort. Not much, but it does. And I guess thats where social media wins. Social media takes no effort. It's pre-made, pre-processed choices and satisfaction right there.
Saying it like that, it's like cooking. Ordering acceptable food is easy. Making your very own, really good burger takes like 2 or 3 tries. But afterwards, it's just amazing.
I think the difference between computer-based distractions (video games, smartphones) and those previous (television, newspapers, etc) is that the former is interactive, which leads one to feel as if they are doing something. Getting to the next level in a game or posting a comment or status that gets lots of likes and replies feels like work and reward, whereas one-way consumption doesn’t offer the same subconscious justification.
If I spend all day watching Netflix I feel like I’ve done nothing but vegetate, but if I play video games I’ve made progress. If I’m constantly scrolling through Facebook I’m keeping up with my friends. If I zigzag half a dozen news sites (I would never pay for or read enough to justify half a dozen newspaper subscriptions) I am being informed about the world.
In each of these cases I know that 90+% of what I experience is mostly garbage with no meaningful long term benefits to my life, but they’re so much more engaging than previous forms of distraction and so they are much harder to put down.
Engagement is a trap, it fools us into thinking we're doing something. Instead of evaluating what I'm doing in terms of vegetating vs. engagement, I find it helps to classify my activity into consuming vs. producing. Am I actually making or creating something, or am I passively consuming?
- Netflix: Consumption
- Video Game: Consumption
- Facebook: Consumption
- Web Browsing: Consumption
(I give up, how do you make a list in HN-text?)
There are holes in this classification. I'd say posting to Facebook/HN/blogs is probably garbage activity too, but it's not entirely consumption. But thinking this way is better than making ourselves think we're accomplishing something by beating the next boss in the game.
> If I spend all day watching Netflix I feel like I’ve done nothing but vegetate, but if I play video games I’ve made progress. If I’m constantly scrolling through Facebook I’m keeping up with my friends. If I zigzag half a dozen news sites (I would never pay for or read enough to justify half a dozen newspaper subscriptions) I am being informed about the world.
Even Netflix gives you progress—progress through a season, or through a series. It's guaranteed to come up in conversation when a new season comes out—oh, how far are you, how far did you get last night, when do you expect to finish it. It's not entirely new, but with once-a-week airings you couldn't binge anything, and even with home video releases of series there was a lot more friction, so you couldn't just start watching any ol' thing. You had to really want it.
That's an interesting way of putting things; y'know, sometimes it seems like a false sense of accomplishment lies at the core of lots of types of addictions. But I guess that's sort of the definition of an addiction, right? Behavior which hijacks the brain's feedback loops to sustain itself over anything else. Mental cancers.
It sort of makes you wonder at what point people started to unironically view their jobs as engineering addictions. Was it around the Myspace era? Earlier? Or was Facebook what really set the mold for that stated goal?
> But at the same time, I also think that smart devices can be extremely useful - speaking of attention, how great is it to not have to remember things like 'what is the density of steel'
I guess I'm growing old, but that's what I use my smart phone for and nothing more. It's a phone, it's a camera, it's a map, it got the three communication channels with my friends if we need to find each other in the city. And well it has a browser but I hate using the fucking keyboard on that thing. Oh and it has an app to look up which bus I should take.
From there, its extremely useful. Just a week ago I saved like an hour of commute because the bus app allowed me to circumvent a big traffic accident stopping a line. And maps with directions are great.
But on the other hand, my smartphone is 90% in my pocket easily, and that's different from a bunch of people I know. I use it when I need it or when someone with notification rights pages me. It's just an expensive thing otherwise.
1. Persistence
2. The means to set aside time for that persistence.
3. Luck
Number 2 is what most people tend to lack. Especially in our current climate, most people are mentally, physically, and financially exhausted by the ostensibly simple act of getting through a day and making sure that their existence is stable for the next month or so.
But let's say that we get to a point where your average person can have 1-3 hours every day to comfortably spend on their dreams. How much of that time would be spent right now on social media or idly flipping through some other form of cheap but nicely-diced and easy-to-digest content?
Probably most of it. But isn't that exactly what people already said about television and video games and stuff? Isn't it possible that that 'wasted' downtime is actually important to peoples' mental health? Maybe, but personally I think that social media has the comparative drawback that instead of relaxing you like other forms of entertainment, it probably makes you more stressed out. The article sure thinks that 'it's different this time.' And that makes for a vicious cycle of uselessness.
But at the same time, I also think that smart devices can be extremely useful - speaking of attention, how great is it to not have to remember things like 'what is the density of steel' or 'what sort of communication protocol does this chip use' while still being able to access that information in under a few seconds? That should be something that anyone can access cheaply and without artificial barriers.
So I guess attention is probably just going to be another commodity with staggering inequality of access. When you think about it, that's really fucked up; a person's mind and body should be the alpha and omega of their unalienable possessions, don't we hold anything sacred? How long until we're paying to turn off Harrison-Bergeron-style rigs?