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Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#141

Post by 50 »

labrador wrote: post #130
50 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite pastimes (which allowed me to have a more fruitful relationship with my computer): Living in the Santa Cruz mountains, sauntering in the woods, swimming in a creek, basking in a meadow, biking down into town for coffee and bookstore scouring, and taking the city bus back up. It's just not the same in the Los Angeles greater area.

The bookstore scouring has sadly gone way downhill in Santa Cruz since the closure of Logo's used books.

I experienced the closure of The Literary Guillotine, the small, academic bookstore, in the fall of 2019. But on the other side of the same block, there's Bad Animal[1], a small bookstore/restaurant: they have an incredibly impressive used selection - it was my go-to spot.

There's wishing the town returns to being affordable because high costs only rids places of their proper energy. Despite being in my mid-twenties, these days I, maybe foolishly/naively, dream of living in Bonny Doon.

1. https://www.badanimalbooks.com/

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#142

Post by throwayyy479087 »

Everyone here has great advice, but for the rest of us: I don't. It's fine. I try to use a laptop instead of scrolling TikTok on my phone endlessly, which is a TRUE time suck. Laptops mean I dick around with programming instead of just going on social media.

I'm not David Goggins on this one, and most people here aren't either.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#143

Post by whywhywouldyou »

labrador wrote: post #11

I handle it by collecting quotes that tell me to knock it off. I've since started to focus on just the things I really care about: The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge. ― Aristotle Knowledge isn't free. You have to pay attention ― Richard Feynman "Information is not truth" ― Yuval Noah Harari If I were the plaything of every thought, I would be a fool, not a wise man. ― Rumi Dhamma is in your mind, not i…

So the top comment/advice on HN about how to avoid information overload is to collect a list of information to remind you to stop addictively collecting information.

Sounds about right.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#144

Post by loveparade »

The following trick has worked for me: After listening to a podcast, reading an article or watching a video, I ask myself: What did I get out of this? Have I gained any insight or learned something applicable?

95% of the time, the answer is no. I didn't get anything out of the consumed information. As this keeps happening, I'm starting to feel much more comfortable ignoring informational content.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#145

Post by jvm___ »

labrador wrote: post #11

I handle it by collecting quotes that tell me to knock it off. I've since started to focus on just the things I really care about: The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge. ― Aristotle Knowledge isn't free. You have to pay attention ― Richard Feynman "Information is not truth" ― Yuval Noah Harari If I were the plaything of every thought, I would be a fool, not a wise man. ― Rumi Dhamma is in your mind, not i…

Don't listen to your brain, it doesn't even have arms, stop letting it push you into things or hold you back.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMY6dDMx7/

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#146

Post by yosito »

My main source of "internet addiction" (I don't completely agree with the term) was compulsively checking Instagram and Twitter. I allowed myself to do this during the pandemic because it was often my entire social life. But afterward, I found it interfering with my IRL social life. The Twitter habit was broken when Musk took over Twitter, since I was unhappy with the changes and took the opportunity to delete my accounts. For Instagram, I've found the iOS app "ScreenZen" to be great at breaking up my habit. It adds a timer before opening selected apps, giving you an opportunity to change your mind, and a timer after which the app will automatically lock again, preventing mindless scrolling. Just 60 seconds to bail out is enough to reduce 90% of my Instagram usage, and after two months of this, I find the impulse to check Instagram is almost gone.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#147

Post by goldfeld »

whywhywouldyou wrote: post #143
labrador wrote: post #11

I handle it by collecting quotes that tell me to knock it off. I've since started to focus on just the things I really care about: The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge. ― Aristotle Knowledge isn't free. You have to pay attention ― Richard Feynman "Information is not truth" ― Yuval Noah Harari If I were the plaything of every thought, I would be a fool, not a wise man. ― Rumi Dhamma is in your mind, not i…

So the top comment/advice on HN about how to avoid information overload is to collect a list of information to remind you to stop addictively collecting information. Sounds about right.

I know it's weird but here has been my ANALOG solution to HN information consumption and even to tab overload (a chronic incurable autoimmune disease I acquired when just leaving my teens, during college life, which may have impeded my growth).

I write much, sci-fi and always draft some articles (but never publish), so that keeping up with HN is a sort of reference material building activity, other than it I don't go on twitter, IG, reddit, slack, mastodon or whatever IRC channel, so I try to make the most of my constrained addiction, but it's always tough work to clean up a browser tab accumulation, as the Feynman quote quips, it's costly, you have to pay attention:

The method involves a paper notebook, which I use whenever I can in lieu of a PC for drafting, taking notes, planning etc. On a two-page spread I start sth like an index by arbitrary useful topics of my current researches. Each line is a one or two word topic, after the word I simply list the HN IDs separated by comma. It's nice to save individual comment threads or whole posts using the same interface. When useful I write a little two word note on top of the number. In this fashion I close dozens or hundreds of tabs and postpone/defer reading the interesting conversations to when I will take action upon it e.g. by writing a short story or poetry or articles. I also use the GTD golden 2-min rule: if I can read and/or take action on a useful discussion or link posted in a few minutes, I do it on the spot and close the HN post forever. Done.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#148

Post by 2devnull »

I suppose other than learning their physical activity, so you could go to a gym. There is social activity, if you have people that you could talk to you could do that. There’s creative pursuits, so you could make art or music, or code or cook. All of those things have some learning aspect to them, so you have to be careful not to slip back into learning mode. There are things that delight the senses, like listening to music or eating good food, watching movies. Personally, I tend to enjoy learning, but if I had people in my life, I’d prefer socializing. Balance is important.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#149

Post by naasking »

> This is all fun and interesting but I feel this makes me want to do things less and less. Instead of working on my own problems I distract myself by listening to ever more information. I get a lot of benefit from this information but somehow it feels shallow.

I feel this. The human brain is all too enticed by learning "secret" information that feels like it gives you some sort of edge or new perspective on the world.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with information and internet addiction?

#150

Post by whywhywouldyou »

goldfeld wrote: post #147
whywhywouldyou wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the top comment/advice on HN about how to avoid information overload is to collect a list of information to remind you to stop addictively collecting information. Sounds about right.

I know it's weird but here has been my ANALOG solution to HN information consumption and even to tab overload (a chronic incurable autoimmune disease I acquired when just leaving my teens, during college life, which may have impeded my growth). I write much, sci-fi and always draft some articles (but never publish), so that keeping up with HN is a sort of reference material building activity, other than it I don't go…

This sounds like a reasonable approach, with an explanation on how you personally execute it. The top comment is just a statement, and a very odd one at that, given the context of the original question.
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