cause you are drawn away from the hard reality of yourr shity life
Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
151–160 of 222 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#152"News" is about manipulating your emotions to keep you watching, which sells advertising revenue. As long as you are upset about something, the profiteering ensures.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bit unrelated to HN, but in the terms of "memeculture." What you've discovered and described is called "NPC" by meme culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPC_(meme)
It's kind of weird that this is attributed to 'memeculture', given that I can recall people referring to others (in a denigrating fashion) as NPCs back in the 90s, before 'meme' was part of our lexicon.
The article is Start-Class.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Internet...
>> "A very basic description of the topic. Can be well-written, but may also have significant content issues."
That means someone wrote it up on a whim and no one's come to address prior art in a way that suits the standards of Wikipedia.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#154Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB. "I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expect…
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothi…
The post reminds me of this: https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
I don't agree in your main argument, which seems to be based on the idea that whatever makes you feel better is good. I, for one, prefer to read the news and watch the occasional clip online. It makes you better informed, which is essential for many things, including business and informed voting.
Trying to be happy all the time is overrated.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#155Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB. "I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expect…
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothi…
> “Who decided that this was important to you, and why did you let them decide that?”
Thank you for that comment... I'm now going to turn on my news blackhole hosts file, which I disabled long ago. I remember being far more content back then so I'm not sure why I reverted back.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothi…
> I completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. ... I seem to be better-informed. How do these square? How is it that you become informed?
Books
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#157Evolution. Information == survival. There’s a good scientific overview of how our hunter-gatherer brains evolved to put a huge value on novel bits of information in the book, “The Distracted Mind”.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothi…
Does being on HN not count? Feel like I see lots of news on HN. It's in the name after all.
I would say that an important distinction is that there are enough interesting articles posted in here which are not news related that make it worth while. But obviously I am biased here.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothi…
> “Who decided that this was important to you, and why did you let them decide that?” Thank you for that comment... I'm now going to turn on my news blackhole hosts file, which I disabled long ago. I remember being far more content back then so I'm not sure why I reverted back.
I use the leechblock plugin and have it redirect any site like twitter/reddit/hn to my todo list instead. I also have it setup so I can only view hackernews on Fridays so I'm not constantly loading it.
I also subscribe to https://hackernewsletter.com/ which is a list of all the interesting articles from hacker news from that week. (it comes out on Friday, thus I unblock on the site on my computer on Fridays)
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?
#160Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB. "I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expect…
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothi…
I'm a little confused. I agree with some of your sentiment, but are developments w/r/t COVID not important?