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The Acceleration of Addictiveness

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#41

Post by geebee »

While everyone talks about the wired generation, I think that the ability to focus on one thing for an extended period of time may become the killer mental app of the future.

The long hikes that PG mentioned are a good idea. I've started to do things that exercise my ability to focus. Reading challenging novels and writing are good drills.

I've also started trying to recognize when I try to do two things at once and look for opportunities to focus on only one thing. This can be trivial. I'll fold laundry while watching a tennis match, but I avoid browsing the web. I've noticed that if I do this while watching sports, I quickly lose track of what's going on in the game.

Lastly, I'm more certain than ever that you really need to be engaged (maybe even passionate) with your work to stand a chance against distraction. About 6 months ago, I was really enjoying my programming project, and focus came easily. It took no motivation to get started. I did check HN, but I wasn't killing time on it.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#42

Post by wmf »

jimbokun wrote: post #20
sharpn wrote: post #12

I agree with the main thrust of this essay, but there are nuances & counter-examples that make me more optimistic: For example, a nuance: More people are giving up television, magazines & newspapers than ever before - perhaps we (as humans) have a finite need of/tolerance for distractions, and are satisfying this need/reaching this tolerance more efficiently via the internet now? A counter-example (on the increase in…

"More people are giving up television, magazines & newspapers than ever before" In many of the discussions about people giving up "TV," it turned out that many just turned off their cable and consumed video through Hulu, Netflix and other online sources. So, put another way, do you think even people who have given up TV, etc. have, on average, actually reduced their total amount of time consuming content of one form…

On one hand, TiVo, Hulu, and Netflix have replaced casual channel-surfing (which can consume unlimited time) with purposeful TV watching where you only watch the shows that you want to watch. OTOH, the amount of TV available these days is enormous (cable now has four-digit channel numbers) and there are recommendation engines that can always find more for you to watch.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#43

Post by fmora »

natrius wrote: post #37
fmora wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably think you are weird because consciously or sub-consciously you are acting smug.

Why do you think that explanation is particularly probable out of all of the other possibilities? It seems more likely that society would consider actions strange if the actions have justifications that most people don't understand or agree with, and they don't succeed in masking their judgement.

I think this because there are plenty of vegetarians and non-smokers, and non-drinkers around that people overall don't really find it weird. I myself do eat meat and drink alcohol but it is so little overall in a year that you could almost count me as a vegetarian and as a non-alcohol drinker. I do not smoke at all. Also, I've noticed that people that claim to be vegetarians do it in such a way that they come off smug.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#44

Post by patrickk »

Tycho wrote: post #34

Internet addiction seems to be the elephant in the room of modern culture. Whole families are addicted, but it's not talked about. Not to mention the more, shall we say, illicit side of the 'net. That said, TV and newspapers are arguably just as bad (or worse) and they've been around for ages. So that's... reassuring. However I think the iPad an iPhone are good in the sense that they remove the social isolation invol…

"That said, TV and newspapers are arguably just as bad (or worse)....."

How are newspapers as bad or worse than internet addiction? You don't have most of the members of a family going off to read newspapers in different parts of the house.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#46

Post by cageface »

It's hard to escape the irony of the situation of the typical programmer. Programming requires extended periods of focus and deep concentration but the very medium in which most of us work is a firestorm of distractions. How can you be an effective mobile app developer if you don't immerse yourself in the experience of mobile media? We're like the crack dealer that has to constantly sample his wares.

Like PG and others in this thread I've tried to combat these distractions by limiting email and internet time, leaving the mobile phone off, and deliberately spending free time doing things like reading books and going on long hikes out in the woods. It's hard not to feel a bit at odds with my profession though.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#47

Post by sharpn »

jimbokun wrote: post #20
sharpn wrote: post #12

I agree with the main thrust of this essay, but there are nuances & counter-examples that make me more optimistic: For example, a nuance: More people are giving up television, magazines & newspapers than ever before - perhaps we (as humans) have a finite need of/tolerance for distractions, and are satisfying this need/reaching this tolerance more efficiently via the internet now? A counter-example (on the increase in…

"More people are giving up television, magazines & newspapers than ever before" In many of the discussions about people giving up "TV," it turned out that many just turned off their cable and consumed video through Hulu, Netflix and other online sources. So, put another way, do you think even people who have given up TV, etc. have, on average, actually reduced their total amount of time consuming content of one form…

In answer to your question, possibly not, but it boils down to a shift from passively absorbing a primetime broadcast & actively consuming either:

i) The same thing, but at a time of your own choosing, or:

ii) Only niche programmes of interest to you.

Or some combination of the two. Either way, mediocre programmes are less likely to occupy your time.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#48

Post by drewcrawford »

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Why is this "new" addiction wrong? What does it mean to say it is bad?

pg is taking great pains to distance himself from real addiction, like crystal meth. Yet he never explicitly explains anywhere why the new "addiction" is actually bad, other than trying to loosely associate it with alcohol. I don't think that the "addictiveness" of a thing alone is enough to call it bad. I'm way more addicted to air than a meth addict is addicted to his fix, and I don't consider air addiction a disability.

Now perhaps he's right and it really is bad--but I think this is a fundamental assumption that needs to be discussed and argued, not swallowed whole.

* Is it morally bad?

* Is it dangerous?

* Can the claims of loss of productivity be scientifically substantiated? To what extent?

* To what extent is the comparison to alcohol valid? Is it mood-altering? Does it significantly affect decisionmaking?

I think these are important questions that we have somehow skipped in this discussion.

My personal take is that we simply have a lot more free time now than we did 50 or 100 years ago, where we needed to spend more time feeding and clothing ourselves, and so Farmville arises to fill the empty space. Could this be redirected into something productive? Maybe? But people also burn out and have inefficiencies, so I'm not sure you could extract much more productivity unless we returned to hand-to-mouth.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#49

Post by bokonist »

NickPollard wrote: post #19
bokonist wrote: post #5

I worry we may be heading for a future in which only a few people plot their own itinerary through no-land, while everyone else books a package tour. That's been the case for the majority of human history. It's mostly the case now. Most non-religious, progressive thinking people, don't actually think through most issues for themselves. They believe in institutions - academia, NPR, etc. Most people believe what they d…

I'm not sure whether you're particularly referring to media bias and dumbed-down science journalism, which is certainly an issue, but the general practice of 'trusting an expert' seems sound to me - the effort required to become an expert yourself in every field that affects you would be incredible, whilst trusting someone else who has that expert knowledge to translate into layman's terms for you is more efficient.…

I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it's the case now.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#50

Post by dman »

drewcrawford wrote: post #48

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Why is this "new" addiction wrong ? What does it mean to say it is bad ? pg is taking great pains to distance himself from real addiction, like crystal meth. Yet he never explicitly explains anywhere why the new "addiction" is actually bad , other than trying to loosely associate it with alcohol. I don't think that the "addictiveness" of a thing alone is enough to call it ba…

I disagree with the fact that people currently have more free time as compared to 50-100 years ago.
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