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Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
31–40 of 383 posts
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#32An aside, I find it a bit interesting that at some point we stopped talking about internet and game addiction. It used to be a hot topic, but I guess now that we are all completely addicted after decade of intense behavioral experimentation, none of us are interested in reading about it anymore.
It's like saying we have a driving addiction or a going to work addiction. Not everything can or should be couched in that kind of language. I've always found articles about internet and game addiction to be incredibly myopic, assuming that the "normal" of the 60's or 70's or 80's is somehow universal or worthy of being preserved, and that any deviation from it is an illness.
I understand what you're saying. Still though, you drive to get places or for fun sometimes, some people do it for sport for a living, but you don't find yourself just compulsively driving 8 hours a day. There are people that do find themselves staring at a phone 8 hours a day. The word addiction might be thrown around a little too loosely than it should be, but there's definitely widespread addiction to social media. I find it comparable to couch potatoes that sit down and watch TV all day.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#33Counterpoint: With the right perspective the internet is the ultimate medium for books (ebooks and audiobooks) and it's easier to read hundreds or thousands of books than it has ever been in history.
In terms of accessibility and ease of finding your next read,yes I would agree with that. But, the culture of Goodreads et al. would make you do you reading like people do everything else nowadays to "show off" (i.e. share it) with your "friends" so they too know how many book you can handle per year. That's why I hate Goodreads for instance.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you somewhat, but there's something unique about the internet I think is dangerous: there's no clear boundaries of when to stop. Radio stations would stop broadcasting, you reach the end of a book, and tv shows end. But, the internet just keeps going. You can just keep scrolling and clicking through website after website until you die, with very little prompt that it's time to stop.
You go to the next book to read in the same way you click on the next link on the web.
Or even more obviously, keep clicking and scrolling to the next channel on TV. Not that much these days, because everyone switched away from cable onto the streaming services, but it should still be an easy comparison that is understood by most here.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#35What does the author think people are doing on the internet? At least some are reading.
Yeah... but if I want to actually read a book, I need to put my phone in another room. It's honestly embarrassing.
I'm the opposite, if I'm staring at my phone for hours on end I'm probably reading a book. I have a respectable library right here in my hands right now.
But I do get what you're saying, I've had a problem with dicking around on Reddit before, for a couple of years I spent beyond productive amounts of time on that site.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#36HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web. And I don't think I'm alone in al…
I used to read books all the time. I spent most of my waking hours as a teenager reading books. I’m 35 now and can barely hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a year if I’m lucky. Even on Hacker News I almost exclusively read and comment on the comments, not the actual article unless I see someone says “have you read the article?”
I don’t really know why. I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my iPhone, which isn’t even including my Mac and work laptop which I might browse HN on. I feel sort of lobotomized but most people I know are still way dumber, I’m muddling through my career and not getting negative attention. I’m not even busy. I’m just lost and exist mostly moment to moment, and am lucky enough to have developed enough skill to write code before all this happened to me.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#37HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web. And I don't think I'm alone in al…
If you search with the term "book" here and sort by date it's pretty impressive how often books come up. But also, Wikipedia.org is reading too, and I personally find that search term way more interesting.
Broad and shallow knowledge can be really helpful for building connections, creating new knowledge with overlaid metaphor, and priming the intuition.
Plus a lot of people here are very deep workers during hours 9-5, and break time is just going to have to be the opposite in most cases...
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#38I mean, yes, I mostly read things online nowadays, but... I'm still reading, it's just on the computer now.
Long form things? The longest things I read on the Internet are articles, blog posts, and papers, which are all at most 30 pages.
I'm reading webnovels, including some incredibly long ones that span thousands of chapters, so it's not just listicles or whatever.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#39The author argues that focused, deep, and uninterrupted reading is harder to achieve when our brains become addicted to the effects of rewarding stimuli, such as those offered on the internet. My personal experience has been just that. When I want to truly understand & reflect on what I read, I need to actually remove all the distractions (phone, laptop) and force myself to not use those for a while. If I don't pick up a book for a month, the effort required to avoid the temptations becomes higher.
Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading
#40An aside, I find it a bit interesting that at some point we stopped talking about internet and game addiction. It used to be a hot topic, but I guess now that we are all completely addicted after decade of intense behavioral experimentation, none of us are interested in reading about it anymore.
Breaking it feels hopeless.
If I wanted to quit a drug addiction, I could probably find a sober community to try to bond with, and you can do stuff that doesn't involve drugs.
But it doesn't feel like there is a real-life world left for me to return to. If I turned off the Internet, I'd be even more alone than I am being on the Internet talking to people all day.
I can't imagine what withdrawal would be cause I can barely conceive of not immediately lighting up again every couple minutes