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Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

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Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#1

Post by ryeguy_24 »

I love HN. It's my only news source. But I'm finding that more often than not, I'm not taking the time to `fully` read articles. I spend most of my time identifying interesting posts, reading the intro, skimming a bit, looking for the bold section headers, getting some quick brain stimulation and the moving on to the next article. I want to focus and read the whole article but I feel like I'm using HN as a brain stimulating dopamine hit instead.

I find myself overwhelmed the sheer number of interesting concepts. Most of these articles are written by sheer experts in their fields. How does one spend the time to learn it all? I wish I could get a PhD in everything. Anyone else have this feeling/problem? How do you deal with it?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#2

Post by FroshKiller »

You need to diversify your news diet. Buy one of each of your local & regional newspapers (if you have any) and pick one to read as regularly as you can. Watch a local news broadcast or at least read their website every few days.

Do the same with national papers. Avoid cable news, in my opinion.

Pay attention to the sources of the material you find most useful or entertaining from here and other aggregation sites. You will wind up drilling through multiple aggregators. Find the sites and people, and keep up with them directly.

You're definitely just using Hacker News as a dopamine hit, and you're probably not really learning anything from it. You know what will help you break the habit? Create something, and make posting here about what you create your goal instead. It might blow up, or it might fizzle, but it's a better use of your time in either case.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#4

Post by paulcole »

FroshKiller wrote: post #2

You need to diversify your news diet. Buy one of each of your local & regional newspapers (if you have any) and pick one to read as regularly as you can. Watch a local news broadcast or at least read their website every few days. Do the same with national papers. Avoid cable news, in my opinion. Pay attention to the sources of the material you find most useful or entertaining from here and other aggregation sites. Yo…

> You need to diversify your news diet.

Why exactly? If somebody doesn't like reading/watching local news what's the big deal?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#5

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

In your real life group of friends, make sure you don’t engage with people who emphasize a spirit of one-upsmanship in regards to who is the most “informed” about every esoteric, up-to-the-minute or bleeding edge development in every topic.

Usually these folks have a shallow understanding of most of the stuff they go on about. Enough to sound smart in an isolated sound byte at a party, to make other shallow people go, “wow, how do they stay so informed?” but which completely falls apart with even just a few cursory depth questions.

I think scanning Hacker News links begets this shallow way of thinking and emphasizes name dropping new topics as if it makes you seem like a zeitgeist genius.

Read just a few things that interest you, and try to read them a little more deeply. For all the other stuff, just ignore it. If it’s really that important, it’ll come up again and again. You’ll read it eventually. Anybody giving you a hard time about not having already seen it is probably a shallow time waster who only “knows more” about it in the most superficial sense.

Social media is like a petri dish for these people too. So, as should be immediately obvious by this point in history, just stay away from social media.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#6

Post by FroshKiller »

paulcole wrote: post #4
FroshKiller wrote: post #2

You need to diversify your news diet. Buy one of each of your local & regional newspapers (if you have any) and pick one to read as regularly as you can. Watch a local news broadcast or at least read their website every few days. Do the same with national papers. Avoid cable news, in my opinion. Pay attention to the sources of the material you find most useful or entertaining from here and other aggregation sites. Yo…

> You need to diversify your news diet. Why exactly? If somebody doesn't like reading/watching local news what's the big deal?

> I love HN. It's my only news source.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#7

Post by FLUX-YOU »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #5

In your real life group of friends, make sure you don’t engage with people who emphasize a spirit of one-upsmanship in regards to who is the most “informed” about every esoteric, up-to-the-minute or bleeding edge development in every topic. Usually these folks have a shallow understanding of most of the stuff they go on about. Enough to sound smart in an isolated sound byte at a party, to make other shallow people go…

>Enough to sound smart in an isolated sound byte at a party, to make other shallow people go, “wow, how do they stay so informed?” but which completely falls apart with even just a few cursory depth questions.

People can get into that habit because the industry has been branded as a fast moving one in which we all must stay up-to-date.

I'm all for calling out shallow people, but let's not pretend there isn't also a bigger force at work as far as that kind of signalling goes.

And naturally people that do these things tend to herd together where no one is going to rock the boat.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#9

Post by slenk »

paulcole wrote: post #4
FroshKiller wrote: post #2

You need to diversify your news diet. Buy one of each of your local & regional newspapers (if you have any) and pick one to read as regularly as you can. Watch a local news broadcast or at least read their website every few days. Do the same with national papers. Avoid cable news, in my opinion. Pay attention to the sources of the material you find most useful or entertaining from here and other aggregation sites. Yo…

> You need to diversify your news diet. Why exactly? If somebody doesn't like reading/watching local news what's the big deal?

Diversity. Local news. Non-tech news.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else using Hacker News as a `dopamine hit`?

#10

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #7
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #5

In your real life group of friends, make sure you don’t engage with people who emphasize a spirit of one-upsmanship in regards to who is the most “informed” about every esoteric, up-to-the-minute or bleeding edge development in every topic. Usually these folks have a shallow understanding of most of the stuff they go on about. Enough to sound smart in an isolated sound byte at a party, to make other shallow people go…

>Enough to sound smart in an isolated sound byte at a party, to make other shallow people go, “wow, how do they stay so informed?” but which completely falls apart with even just a few cursory depth questions. People can get into that habit because the industry has been branded as a fast moving one in which we all must stay up-to-date. I'm all for calling out shallow people, but let's not pretend there isn't also a b…

I don’t know. It’s usually a hallmark of a worthwhile business partner / team member / friend / network connection when someone is willing to just admit candidly that they don’t know something, that they aren’t an expert at XYZ and so their political opinion or design opinion, etc., should be discounted and they don’t have (and don’t need to have) something constantly poignant to say.

Networking with a bunch of people who just constantly regurgitate the same constantly poignant pseudo-intellectualism to each other doesn’t really pay off. You get a big network on LinkedIn and you show up at events and in the end you don’t get any actual job opportunities / leads / VC intros, etc. etc., because the self-reinforcing circular facade doesn’t have any substance with which it can possibly turn out as a payoff to you.

I think even from an expected returns point of view, just simplifying your life, minimizing the shallow chatter, networking sparsely but judiciously, is just way healthier and offers better payoffs.

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