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Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

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Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#191

Post by cyber_kinetist »

moffkalast wrote: post #177
mFixman wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual data points at millenials and zoomers actually reading more books than other generations [1]. This seemed weird to me until I figured out how few books my parents actually read. This thread is full of social media as a generation-destroying boogieman, but nobody seems to consider how much more common youth alcoholism was 20+ years ago or how much of our parents' lives was spent in front of the TV. [1] https://…

When you think about it, the internet is very interactive and most of it is reading (youtube aside), compared to TV which is 100% preset video content.

Exactly, because of the Internet we (as a collective) are probably reading and writing the most amount of text in history.

The difference between the past and the present is not that we're on the direction of illiteracy, but that the structure of text is becoming much more non-linear than before (distributed, discretized, highly referential, algorithmically sorted and processed text rather than continual, serial, and isolated text) which has consequences (both positively and negatively) in shaping our way of thinking about reality.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#192

Post by noisy_boy »

kqr wrote: post #83
wincy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, whi…

> 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 used to be this way too. Then I just started reading again and now I ca…

> I used to be this way too. Then I just started reading again and now I can't stop. The trick for me -- which might be circumstantial and not related at all -- is an e-reader I always carry on my person, and an unlimited free books policy from my employer.

I was facing similar challenges and I'm doing something similar and I can see my interest in reading gradually going back up (I bought an Onyx Note 3 e-reader and the fact that I can checkout books from the local library is doing wonders for me and my daughter). I'm hoping this sticks and would recommend trying out this approach.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#193

Post by Mezzie »

najqh wrote: post #137
klohto wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience but my problem was from the sheer amount of games being released. I couldn’t pick one, became overwhelmed and then lost the drive to try something. So I stopped worrying about the reviews, about length about all the details behind a game. I check out Steam 250 or SteamDB charts, pick one out and just try it. I have no expectations going in, and I’m happy to drop it if I don’t find it enjoyab…

Nah, doesn't work for me. I know the games I like; they are all old and I know I love them. I don't follow the news on new games at all. I simply can't concentrate on the games I like for more than 15 minutes. I get distracted, I alt-tab out all the time, and eventually I close them. It's the same with movies or books. It takes a superhuman effort for me to sit still and watch a movie. If anybody has any recommendati…

Meditation. Unironically. I haven't kept up with it because I'm a lazy person who's been too busy having a mental breakdown, but I find I often end up pulling something up when my attention wavers or I have a stray thought that pulls me out of the moment. When I meditate, I'm more aware of my thought patterns and can notice stray thoughts as stray thoughts (as opposed to boredom or disinterest; they're surprisingly hard to differentiate sometimes, at least for me.)

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#194

Post by subpixel »

sul_tasto wrote: post #161
bee_rider wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda feel like we were trained to be maximally receptive in an era when information was just recently proven to be the most valuable thing, but also was still kinda rare. And then they just fucking dropped the information hose into our livingrooms and... now I'm blinded.

I think information is no longer the most valuable thing. Attention is. That said, I too am struggling. The dopamine response to new content is addictive, and I rarely keep the promise to myself to go back and extract the substance from the resources I discover.

YouTube and Instagram search (each of which make a concerted effort to derail your search with dozens of shiny examples of viral content) is a good example of how difficult it is to maintain focus against tools optimized for their own benefit (engagement).

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#195

Post by noisy_boy »

zero_ wrote: post #130
kqr wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 used to be this way too. Then I just started reading again and now I ca…

Usually this kind of literature are however more similar to university textbooks for which I prefer to read them as PDFs on the iPad as my Kindle tends to mess up the formulas and figures if you get them in an Amazon Ebook format. Sometimes you get a PDF from Amazon to begin with, for which I find the the Kindle a subpar experience.

I have started to dislike pdfs a lot more since I bought an e-reader. A lot of them are basically scans of pages and basically there is no reflow; I just have to constantly zoom and scroll which is a major put-down.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#196

Post by Mezzie »

keyle wrote: post #162
najqh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, doesn't work for me. I know the games I like; they are all old and I know I love them. I don't follow the news on new games at all. I simply can't concentrate on the games I like for more than 15 minutes. I get distracted, I alt-tab out all the time, and eventually I close them. It's the same with movies or books. It takes a superhuman effort for me to sit still and watch a movie. If anybody has any recommendati…

I feel related to this. I wish I had a way out to tell you but I can only provide comfort in the thought that someone else feels the same. I think a big part is the constant dissatisfaction, that time is wasted, and I should be doing something more productive. I start a movie, I see where this is going, this is not even that great -> I should be doing something else... I play a game, I understand the mechanics, I see…

I find it helps a little to remember that learning and observation are skills and humans, like other animals, 'play' for a reason. Even if you didn't 'produce' anything, you practiced your skills of observation and deduction, which are survival skills.

I'm also someone who has to have a real 'reason' to do things. The best short-circuit I've found is finding the value in my own desires.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#197

Post by christophilus »

viceroyalbean wrote: post #153
jimmygrapes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that seems to have helped some of my friends who have experienced the same issue of not wanting to read anymore is to find one particular book or style they liked before and go deep into that author's backlog or similar styles. And to add to that, don't be afraid of reading pulpy fiction; you're not trying to impress anybody with what you're reading, you're doing it for yourself. Enjoy it. Read young adult…

I started reading Brandon Sanderson with this mindset and I'm loving it. Before I would only really read nonfiction but I would easily get distracted and didn't read much in practice. Now I'm reading like 100 pages a day and hopefully it improves my concentration. Even if it doesn't I'm really enjoying the books

Which books? I’ve only read his Wheel of Time books (the last 3 of the series). They were great, but I never picked up any of his other works.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#198

Post by smugglerFlynn »

mountainb wrote: post #149

The way to cure this is to develop a habit that severely limits undirected online browsing and socializing. Part of it is just an education of your own aesthetic sentiments. I read James Clear's "Atomic Habits" (not that this is a special book, I was just on another kick in which I really needed to improve my productivity and picked up a suggestion to use a physical counter of some kind to make a habit stick. I bough…

Atomic Habits is an excellent book, highly recommend it to anyone struggling to fix patterns of behavior.

I’ve started to curate any environment I use to avoid unintentional triggers. For example, when you reach for your iPhone to open up Medium or Kindle, you are forced to see all the different notifications and home screen icons. If there is a social media app or Safari icon happen to be there, your craving to open it and check the feed will get triggered unconsciously. There will be no “decision to check news” — you’ll just find yourself scrolling through the feed. So what I have now is a clean setup which makes sure screen pages with valuable apps are not arranged together with distractions. I also try to keep my phone away on the other end of the room, so that reaching for it would require more efforts, breaking down old habits of mindless browsing.

I find ideas from Atomic Habits interesting as they suggest improving your life through pre-defined policies and good habit design, not through conscious decisions made in the moment. Made me look at many other things (e.g. management, teamwork environment) in a different way.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#199

Post by bananamerica »

dougmwne wrote: post #17

An 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.

We surrendered.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#200

Post by throwyuno »

christophilus wrote: post #197
viceroyalbean wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started reading Brandon Sanderson with this mindset and I'm loving it. Before I would only really read nonfiction but I would easily get distracted and didn't read much in practice. Now I'm reading like 100 pages a day and hopefully it improves my concentration. Even if it doesn't I'm really enjoying the books

Which books? I’ve only read his Wheel of Time books (the last 3 of the series). They were great, but I never picked up any of his other works.

His Mistborn series is a good place to start. Helped get me back into fantasy/sci-fi after a 15 year hiatus.
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