During COVID I threw my phone out as a potential infection risk, and my life has been all the better for it. I'm happier, less sick, and I feel more intelligent. Win win! :).
The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
311–320 of 379 posts
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#312Getting rid of my smartphone was without a doubt the most positive thing I ever did for myself. I'm sure some people have the self-control to use it sparingly. But for me, not having to constantly fight the urge to check my always-connected magic pocket internet portal has freed up a huge amount of my mental willpower, which I can now redirect to other more important things. Now that everything is closed, I don't eve…
I have two things which stop me, and it's not "muh gps"! I'd be interested in how people dealt with a situation like mine: 1. I have a Mac, and carefully organised contacts. How do I sync them to a Nokia that has 4G tethering (so I can work on my train-based commute) without going through Google? 2. How do you deal with music? I have AirPods and Spotify, which I absolutely love to have with me while walking around. (…
Check out the mighty music player. It can download a certain amount of Spotify song/podcasts offline. It’s like 70-80 bucks. Battery life is alright, around 5 hours now I think. It does Bluetooth connection to headphones too, though that hurts battery life I think
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much benefit people would get by just putting their phone in airplane mode for long chunks of time.
My favorite part of going camping is unplugging for a couple of days at a time.
Then you return and there's an underwhelming number of notifications. You're caught up in about the same amount of time as if you left for an hour.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like that instead of WSL2, you'd be a candidate for a power Linux distro (not Ubuntu) alone where you have rolling updates.
What is not available in Ubuntu that precludes it from "power" usage in your opinion?
Given the mention of rolling updates, I am assuming it is a reference to how up-to-date the packages are or the availability of packages for some software. While distros like Ubuntu will keep some packages on the bleeding edge (e.g. Firefox), most will be months behind. That presents periodic problems with software that uses its own addons mechanism or that is simply too recent to be incorporated into the package collections. I have run into problems with outdate extensions for Emacs and even expired signatures under Debian, but searching for fixes revealed similar problems under Ubuntu. Ever since switching to Arch, I have been a much happier cookie.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've met a lot of people over the years who have computing of some kind as their job and had hobbies which are a complete contrast - blacksmithing, gardening, cabinet making. Anecdotally I do see fewer and fewer of these kinds of mixes. In general it feels healthier to have a hobby that drags your attention back into the physical world, but having said that there's something so wonderful about exploring all the knowl…
I’m stuck in a big city where those real world hobbies you mentioned are prohibitively expensive. I remember it was about 5 years ago when I realized activities I did offline started to feel like like self indulgent frivolity and anything that mattered long term mostly happened or started in front of a computer (or phone/computer combo). This is an insane shift to me from even 10-15 years ago where the physical world…
Hobbies behind the keyboard are just as real world. The problem is that there are far more distractions to contend with, such as reading or commenting on Hacker News! Of course, there are also distractions internal to the hobby itself. I have found that anything related to software development has all sorts of rabbit holes because of conflicting opinions and tools with marginal benefits. The trick is to avoid those, and focus on the concrete.
I wish that I had a solution to that. There are various things that I have tried with varying degrees of success though. A variation on separate computers, as mentioned by others, is having separate accounts on the same computer: one for "entertainment" (what I'm doing now), one for personal use (hobbies, day-to-day tasks), and one for work. Another is to focus upon particular tools and avoid trying or debating the latest stuff. It works to a degree. Alas, the distractions are still a hands reach away.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#316Please could you provide the same study type for each social network, thanks!
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#317I'm the same as many here for whom the computer is the problem rather than the cell phone. What's interesting is that the computer is simultaneously a bicycle for the mind and a handicap.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#318Does Calculators reduce Arithmetic capabilities ?
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#319Getting rid of my smartphone was without a doubt the most positive thing I ever did for myself. I'm sure some people have the self-control to use it sparingly. But for me, not having to constantly fight the urge to check my always-connected magic pocket internet portal has freed up a huge amount of my mental willpower, which I can now redirect to other more important things. Now that everything is closed, I don't eve…
I recently realized that I slowly lost my ability to do simple calculations that was used to be easy, eg total bill of grocery shopping before going to the cashier. I put the blame to the calculator app on my phone
I could never do math in my head like this (with reasonable speed and accuracy), so I didn't lose anything.
I put an estimated cost by each item on the grocery list, total it at the bottom, and note whether the real prices are higher or lower than the estimate as I get things. It's never happened, but I can at least know if the register total is at odds with expectations.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
#320Just sharing my approach. Phone is for calls and short messages, banking apps. After 6pm I reply only for close friends/family. No gaming. No movies. No tv. Old Ipad Air for casual browsing/rss. Work computer is only for work. Different machine is research and learning. Book reading on e-reader and paper. Drinking lot of water, active breaks every 30 minutes. When I feel that I have reached my cognitive daily peak -…
I mostly doing the same except my rss in emacs and ipad for reading.
Would you mind elaborate about relaxation because I feel it's so easy to start browsing HN instead of getting proper rest.