90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#41

Post by curryst » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #15

I'd be overjoyed at the prospect of a life with meaningful activities and interactions that don't require a screen. I have yet to succeed in making much progress towards that goal. It bothers me that instead of adapting the tool to us we have adapted ourselves to the tool.

> It bothers me that instead of adapting the tool to us we have adapted ourselves to the tool.

Isn't that always the way it is? Society made obvious shifts with the invention of the car. With the invention of the printing press, we adapted by teaching people to read the things it produced.

Adapting to our tools seems like the reason we live anything like we currently do. Otherwise we'd still live in communities in the woods, with technology that has adapted to us (which is an interesting thing to think about).

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#42

Post by superkuh » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:13 AM UTC

cosmojg wrote: post #40

superkuh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not essential to your argument, but the whole "dopamine drip" thing is not helping. Using ancient disproven 1970s neuroscience tropes here in such a broadly incorrect way just makes me dismiss your potentially legit reasoning.

I took it as a metaphor. The argument makes perfect sense in that light. Engage with the argument rather than its presentation, and you might just move the conversation forward.

People who try to call things addictive without evidence do real damage. Governments then take up this "addictive" label and make things illegal. Screens are not addictive. That word has a real meaning. Op in this context tried to justify the use of addiction by some folktale neuroscience from ages past.

I agreed with him that maybe there's something to not always looking at screens. But I strongly disgree with you. I was attacking a dangerous part of the argument.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#43

Post by dannyw » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #15

I'd be overjoyed at the prospect of a life with meaningful activities and interactions that don't require a screen. I have yet to succeed in making much progress towards that goal. It bothers me that instead of adapting the tool to us we have adapted ourselves to the tool.

There are plenty, at least pre-pandemic.

• Explore a national park, go on a few hikes (guided by paper maps and a compass), and refine your photography skills with a DSLR/mirrorless. Budget ones can be had for a couple hundred dollars and they still beat phone cameras. • Cook something with your friends, or go out and eat dinner. • Play some board games, join a dungeon and dragons game. A great thing to do when the weather is bad. • If you have children, spend some screen free, activity free time with them. You could just chat, teach them spontaneous new skills, or explore together. • Have a maker itch but don’t want to look at a screen? Play around with physical hardware. Get a soldering iron, some components from Digikey, and make something yourself (and have fun). • Go to a party, festival, or rave. • Drive somewhere and just camp with good company and some drinks. • Meet a friend or colleague spontaneously for coffee and just catch up. • Draw. • Learn renovation and make your home better, just the way you want it (and increase its value). • Learn how to change oil on your car and start doing maintenance yourself. Fixing a car is kinda like fixing a computer. • Go for a swim. • Go to the gym, or workout with mates. • Read a book. • Go for a walk while listening to your favourite albums.

Life is filled with meaningful, screen-free alternatives. You just have to appreciate them.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#44

Post by raldi » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

jfim wrote: post #28

raldi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Did people clutch pearls over "paper time" when they would wake up and read a newspaper, stare at papers all day at work/school, a magazine during their lunch break, and read a book before falling asleep?

The difference between newspapers and internet news is that the newspaper for a given day is finite. Once one has read whatever articles they were interested in for that day, that's it. No refreshing multiple times per day, no reading long comment threads, no frustration about said comment threads ("how can people be so wrong on the internet, must reply"), no live updates on stories, and more time to think instead of…

Clearly you've never been a New Yorker subscriber.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#45

Post by raldi » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

zests wrote: post #37

raldi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Did people clutch pearls over "paper time" when they would wake up and read a newspaper, stare at papers all day at work/school, a magazine during their lunch break, and read a book before falling asleep?

Some people, I’d venture a guess at 1/100 people, can and do use printed text compulsively. Other people, I’d venture a guess at closer to at least 9/10 people, can and do use screens compulsively. This topic comes up a lot and I am always astounded at how people so candidly compare screens to books. Many people I meet in my day to day life do not have the concentration required to read a novel. Maybe its time to put…

It wasn't a novel for everyone. For others, it was Sports Illustrated or a comic book or the crossword or Reader's Digest.

Or, if they weren't reading, they'd flip on the TV and watch whatever was on for four hours, then brush their teeth, then Johnny Carson in bed. It's not like the average American was spending their evening sculpting before the internet.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#46

Post by whydoineedthis » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:35 AM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #21

wyclif wrote: post #7

I thought this was funny, but the serious point behind it is that we're only beginning to understand the negative effects that screen time has on humans.

Really? My friend wrote her dissertation in 1989 or 1990 on the affects of television on children. The affects were dire. We’ve known about this a long time, even before screens were interactive.

Really? (No pun or /s intended). I grew up in the 80's and 90's watching a significant amount of television. Myself and my like friends seem to be ok. Didn't go mad or become dumb. Matter of fact, we seem to excell in the digital age because of how familiar we are with the tech behind the television. I'm not saying there could not be some detrimental effect, but it seems the research stating as such was a bit overblown and was more driven by fear than by observed facts.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#47

Post by jfim » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:39 AM UTC

raldi wrote: post #44

jfim wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between newspapers and internet news is that the newspaper for a given day is finite. Once one has read whatever articles they were interested in for that day, that's it. No refreshing multiple times per day, no reading long comment threads, no frustration about said comment threads ("how can people be so wrong on the internet, must reply"), no live updates on stories, and more time to think instead of…

Clearly you've never been a New Yorker subscriber.

I'm not sure I follow you here, can you elaborate on what you mean?

The New Yorker has long form articles that take longer to read than the typical daily newspaper article, sure, but I'm not sure how that makes it non finite or more engaging than daily newspapers.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#48

Post by solarkraft » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

neilpanchal wrote: post #33

2009 rectangles were pretty cool. They had scroll bars that were visible at all times, minimal whitespace and generally better usability and functionality. No purple gradients and huge buttons, responsive mess that serve what I consider mobile-first-desktop-last rectangles. It's becoming harder to find pure rectangles even, they've become soft baby-like with rounded corners to sooth our senses! Here are some relics w…

The silk icons are fine visually, but way too complex to tell them apart quickly. [2] looks like an example of the headache badly mixed typography can cause.

Those are opinions, of course, but I don't think the basics (like soothed senses) are controversial, many of which can be objectively studied.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#49

Post by aeternum » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

zests wrote: post #37

raldi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Did people clutch pearls over "paper time" when they would wake up and read a newspaper, stare at papers all day at work/school, a magazine during their lunch break, and read a book before falling asleep?

Some people, I’d venture a guess at 1/100 people, can and do use printed text compulsively. Other people, I’d venture a guess at closer to at least 9/10 people, can and do use screens compulsively. This topic comes up a lot and I am always astounded at how people so candidly compare screens to books. Many people I meet in my day to day life do not have the concentration required to read a novel. Maybe its time to put…

Isn't this just because screens now do more?

Even before screens, some people talked on the phone compulsively, some played chess compulsively, some sat in their basement building things out of legos compulsively. Now it's possible to do all those things via a single screen. When looked at in this way, a screen is basically just a tool that takes on the form of many different physical objects rather than something nefarious.

Re: 90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)

#50

Post by raldi » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

jfim wrote: post #47

raldi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly you've never been a New Yorker subscriber.

I'm not sure I follow you here, can you elaborate on what you mean? The New Yorker has long form articles that take longer to read than the typical daily newspaper article, sure, but I'm not sure how that makes it non finite or more engaging than daily newspapers.

Every subscriber has an endless stack like this in one or more rooms of their home or apartment: https://www.google.com/search?q=stack+of+unread+new+yorkers&...

They don't throw them out because they really intend to finish them one day.