Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 387 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#131

Post by jaxn »

andrepd wrote: post #130
vharuck wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my college days, I played World of Warcraft too much. It got in the way of attending classes. Then my graphics card broke. So I started reading psychology textbooks totally unrelated to my classes. Procrastinators gonna procrastinate. And time-wasters gonna waste time.

Your story is actually probably what the parent was trying to illustrate. Instead of wasting time with WoW, you "wasted" time with something more meaningful (all this being relative of course).

I'm not as quick to assume reading a textbook is inherantly more meaningful than playing WoW.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#132

Post by shantly »

mherdeg wrote: post #114
nperez wrote: post #106

For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it. I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I…

Yishan Wong's response to that worry starts out: > The pre-internet era was boring. Some may say that it was just as stimulating but in different, more "vibrant, outdoorsy" ways, but they are wrong. I have lived in both and the internet definitely makes life more interesting. In fact, combining the outdoors with the internet is one of life's greatest pleasures. https://www.quora.com/How-did-people-waste-their-time-in…

I feel really relaxed and not bored at all when I go on vacation somewhere my phone gets little or no reception. It's amazing. There's so much to do without the Internet! Books are a thing, and there's more than enough top-notch fiction to last a lifetime, without re-reading. Writing is a thing. Sketching. Hell offline video games are a thing, for that matter, and you can mine the back catalogs of older consoles for (mostly) less money than something new, and have about the same amount of fun. You can keep yourself in more excellent video material than you can reasonably watch with a Netflix DVD subscription and a trip to the library every week, no Internet required (aside from managing your Netflix queue, I guess—do that on your library trips, when you pay your bills). Board games & tabletop games & card games rule. Inventing any of those is fun. Lawn games. Sports. Playing music. Listening to music. Building stuff in the garage. Programming in any language/ecosystem with decent offline documentation. Hardware stuff.

I only, only have Internet service because it lets me work from home and keeps my wife from having to stay at school until 7:00 4 nights a week for 9ish months a year (teacher) since friggin' everything they do is online now (Google, mostly). I mean I have a couple streaming services and such since we have to pay for Internet service anyway, but aside from those two (admittedly great) things that require it I wouldn't bother to pay for it.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#133

Post by shantly »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #111
JDiculous wrote: post #98

Depression. People are spending the majority of their lives staring at a screen, and then wondering why they're depressed. In the moment it might not feel lonely. Exchanging DMs and posting on Reddit / HN / social media might feel like real communication. But ultimately there's a sense of emptiness to it, and it can't substitute real flesh-to-flesh human connection. But it feels like we're always expected to be on ou…

This is the exact position i am in right now. I crave the outside world and human contact like a drug. I am not clinically depressed, just in a state of constant longing for social interaction. I keep telling myself my work will allow me to one day enjoy the outside, ironic really.

If you don't have to have home Internet service and an Internet-connected phone for work... shut off those services.

It's fine. There's more stuff to do without the Internet than a person can reasonably do, anyway, even if you're pretty picky.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#134

Post by shantly »

djokkataja wrote: post #65
Charlie_26 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an example of where books are powerful. A (good) book on a subject is far superior than pages of different articles that anyone could write. With a book you know that time and effort has gone into it. If you want to learn about something, invest in the right book.

So how do you find "the right book" these days?

Spend a few dozen hours finding and vetting "best" lists, deeply evaluating their quality. Read Web forums. Construct spreadsheets with meta-rankings derived from the lists and posts you've found. Form strong opinions about the correct ranking of the books. Argue on Web forums about the books. Post your own best list. Argue about it with people who are clearly idiots if they can't see your list is correct.

... uh, what was I doing again?

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#135

Post by shantly »

danschumann wrote: post #44
abtinf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So life was better before google—when there was still the risk of wasting time and money, and only limited means of research?

And people around you had relevance. Your librarian was relevant as a gatekeeper of information. Now we are isolated and even if we do get the best information, we are somehow not satisfied. People are becoming dumber as information is becoming more available, a paradox. Meanwhile, we are centralizing these institutions and therefore power brokers are being more disparate from the powerless, using the technologies th…

Vonnegut wrote about how various technologies have removed the community value of moderate talents by enabling the best of the best to reach everyone with ease, all the time, any time. Being an OK musician, for instance, has gone from having pretty good social value and maybe even non-negligible economic value, to very little.

That effect has broadened to new areas and increased in degree, with the rise of ubiquitous mobile Internet.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#136

Post by sjg007 »

mherdeg wrote: post #114
nperez wrote: post #106

For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it. I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I…

Yishan Wong's response to that worry starts out: > The pre-internet era was boring. Some may say that it was just as stimulating but in different, more "vibrant, outdoorsy" ways, but they are wrong. I have lived in both and the internet definitely makes life more interesting. In fact, combining the outdoors with the internet is one of life's greatest pleasures. https://www.quora.com/How-did-people-waste-their-time-in…

It was boring. A lot of TV was watched. There were some video games too. You could program too. The only thing you could do outside of that would be to read or socialize. You could read a gauntlet of things that you can do today as well. But YouTube, podcasts, blogs are great.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#137

Post by newnewpdro »

8ytecoder wrote: post #97
kylecazar wrote: post #27

The world's tourist must-see spots are seeing an unmanagable spike in foot traffic.

Cheaper air travel and the Airbnb effect. Without Airbnb especially there would have been a cap as set by the city using the total number of hotel rooms.

Social media plays a huge role in compelling more people to travel, since advertising done by your peers has a much higher success rate.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#138

Post by 40four »

I've heard this topic come up before. I belive it is interesting and valuable to think about.

I don't have much to contribite of the top of my head, but I did stumble across this blog a while back (it might have actually been from here on HN, don't remember) that explores this very topic.

It's even named after it :) maybe other will enjoy it. I like the author's writing style, usually a pleasure to read.

https://unintendedconsequenc.es

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#139

Post by wyldfire »

jaxn wrote: post #131
andrepd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your story is actually probably what the parent was trying to illustrate. Instead of wasting time with WoW, you "wasted" time with something more meaningful (all this being relative of course).

I'm not as quick to assume reading a textbook is inherantly more meaningful than playing WoW.

I suspect WoW might be like several other games in that the marginal benefit of continued play after an initial phase is small.

But if it's social/multiplayer and your group feels a personal connection while playing (maybe w/people you know IRL), you might get a greater benefit from the game.

Post reply on HN