181–190 of 230 posts
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I've been saying this for years. You open Twitter and you may or may not get something cool. Same thing for Facebook or mail or whatever. It's inherently addictive.
I must be defective, I get really annoyed with the inconsistency and just give up on things in that case in general.
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But with your junk food analogy, there are still alternatives and it's up to you to decide how you live your life.
Apologies if I'm using the wrong terms, but this comes off as a kind of myopic, libertarian view. Do you have children? I have 4. A lot of this is easier to understand by watching them. Yes, I know it's my job to teach them how to make good choices. But why do devices suck them in so easily if I don't direct or enforce their behavior? Of course there are alternatives to junk food. But am I completely, 100% in control…
Advertising had nothing to do with my addiction to gaming.
When I was a kid I played games nonstop on atari before I got an apple ][. Then I played games on that until I got a nintendo, then a PC clone, then a sega genesis, then PS2, and then at some point I had to cut myself off. Cold turkey. I would honestly play the dumbest simple game for hours and hours. I'd beat the same game over and over sometimes.
Young children don't understand moderation. They will eat a bag of cookies or play on a tablet for hours at a time without guidance.
You must direct them and always have an activity at the ready. Set an old school egg timer for say 60 minutes and when it goes off, go shut off the game, take away the tablet/phone, and suggest their next task. Don't wait for them to save the game or fall for the "I'm almost done with the level" nonsense.
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How do you mean G+ has emptied out? Honestly curious as I've been keeping tabs on the whole dynamic of the site -- from initial high hopes to present near-complete disillusionment.
What I mean is that the public communities seem to have lost whatever participants they had originally had. Now it's a lot like reading the comments section on the local paper's website, only with names which are more difficult to pronounce. Lots of trolling, lots of spamming, lots of Pe0PLe Wh0 ++don't__ knoW h0w to Wr1te!!!1!11!eleven!! I still have some affection for G+, but … it's kinda like the affection one has…
I'm inclined to agree.
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Apologies if I'm using the wrong terms, but this comes off as a kind of myopic, libertarian view. Do you have children? I have 4. A lot of this is easier to understand by watching them. Yes, I know it's my job to teach them how to make good choices. But why do devices suck them in so easily if I don't direct or enforce their behavior? Of course there are alternatives to junk food. But am I completely, 100% in control…
> But why do devices suck them in so easily if I don't direct or enforce their behavior? Advertising had nothing to do with my addiction to gaming. When I was a kid I played games nonstop on atari before I got an apple ][. Then I played games on that until I got a nintendo, then a PC clone, then a sega genesis, then PS2, and then at some point I had to cut myself off. Cold turkey. I would honestly play the dumbest si…
Yeah... this was/still is my problem. haha
What's clicked for me is: https://selfcontrolapp.com/ It's an open source project either: https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol/ What I do is, essentially, the following: every day at around 0-1 am (before I go to sleep) I set a timer so that it would fire at 7-8 pm (that's when I would get home). This allows me to force myself from browsing unnecessary sites (facebook, twitter, HN, reddit etc.) that would ot…
Not my problem you have shit kids.
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This is the daily reminder that technology is not politically or socially "neutral".
Technology is neutral, though. It's the people using the technology that are not neutral or am I missing something?
The abstract concept of "Technology" is neutral, along with the majority of embodiments of such concept.
It is the particular technologies the OP is talking about, - smartphones, social media, etc - which are not neutral. Those have been specifically engineered by their creators to further the creator's goals indetriment of the consumers they supposedly server.
It is one thing to say "guns don't kill people, people do". But if a manufacturer started making guns that fired themselves at random so the gun owner had to purchase extra ammo, the NRA would be the first ones to go all ballistic over it. But somehow our customers think that's normal business practice.
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If we're going with the alcoholic analogy, alcoholism very clearly has a genetic component, so some people are predisposed to it. I don't think it's far fetched to hypothesize that technology addiction might be genetic as well, with the key difference being that using technology is basically compulsory while using alcohol is not. Sounds like you're just saying "deal with it" because you don't personally struggle with…
> Sounds like you're just saying "deal with it" because you don't personally struggle with it. Sorry if it came off that way. Like I said, I don't doubt that some people might be addicted to it. I absolutely think they should pursue the remedies they need for themselves, whether that's quitting social media or pursuing a meditation practice. I have friends who quit Facebook and I don't hold it against them (though I…
alcoholic ranting [...] hyperbolic luddites.
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> But why do devices suck them in so easily if I don't direct or enforce their behavior? Advertising had nothing to do with my addiction to gaming. When I was a kid I played games nonstop on atari before I got an apple ][. Then I played games on that until I got a nintendo, then a PC clone, then a sega genesis, then PS2, and then at some point I had to cut myself off. Cold turkey. I would honestly play the dumbest si…
> Young children don't understand moderation. They will eat a bag of cookies or play on a tablet for hours at a time without guidance. Yeah... this was/still is my problem. haha