Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

alexanderell.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 459 posts

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#301

Post by inopinatus »

randomsearch wrote: post #270
inopinatus wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a fallacy to presume this is generational. Thirty years ago, the previous generation of grumpy old farts had basically the same class of remarks to make about us, and our preferences, since a great many of one's peers were practically glued to that TV screen. Social media is designed to weaponise our dopamine/reward pathways; if you're a holdout against that, fine, but so are a ton of twentysomethings. M…

That’s odd, because your own reply explains why this is different (the weaponisation / manipulation). The technology is qualitatively different or “generational.” Growing up with it has given this generation a different experience and different behaviours.

I never said it was different. Quite the opposite. I said that the behaviour is the same. The technology it attaches to is different, that’s all. Making a dispositional inference at all is the error.

Or more bluntly, every generation complains about the next one, but most old farts don’t realise they’ve sleepwalked into the cliché.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#302

Post by Terry_Roll »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #73
Terry_Roll wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is an addiction and you are addicted This is legal dopamine, and cocaine although a Selective Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor (SDRI) is illegal. You choose.

> cocaine although a Selective Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor (SDRI) is illegal I know you were discussing recreational cocaine, but fun fact: cocaine can be prescribed legally in most countries including the US. For relatively obvious reasons it's an uncommon prescriber choice, and it's generally applied topically (including to the nose) rather than snorted. Legal methamphetamine pills are also available by prescriptio…

Nothing would surprise me, but clues are given out like the cocaine & morphine mix given to one the British Royals on the throne at the time.

This is where education, schools are used to monitor behaviours because if someone later expresses an interest to become a GP or Dentist, their behaviour will be used as part of an evaluation to see if they can be trusted. The educational system is just part of the state's intelligence estate.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#303

Post by benhurmarcel »

dredmorbius wrote: post #295
gernb wrote: post #289

I feel like I could say the same about infinite news which I'd define as a site I can check several times a day and see new "top stories". This would include Reddit and HN. I find it super addicting to check too many times and then get sucked into spending too much time reading comments and sometimes articles. Rarely am I actually better off for it . Contrast to 20-30yrs ago where at best you got a newspaper once a d…

Browse HN on "Past": https://news.ycombinator.com/front 1. It's yesterday's news. You've probably got some contextualisation for the story as you've likely already caught wind of it from some other channel. Much of the compulsion of HN comes from the too-brief and decontextualised subject lines. They are, ultimately, a Dark Pattern. 2. The Machine Stops^W^WScroll Ends. Typically there are ~60--100 or so items. That's…

> Browse HN on "Past": https://news.ycombinator.com/front

Thank you, that's a good hidden feature.

I like this also for a similar purpose: https://hckrnews.com/

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#304

Post by irjustin »

weq wrote: post #229
irjustin wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> video games and social media are in the same class as drugs and alcohol. Disagreed - one key aspect of the latter is physical dependance where withdraws are potentially life threatening. It's similar sledge hammer approach to putting weed on class 1 or treating all wrong doings as 'sin'. They are not the same things, should not be thought as the same nor treated the same.

Are you kidding me? Have you not seen people die from selfies? Anyone can become addicted to anything and suffer the same consequences peddled by religion for "drugs". There is no argument against this, humans can programme themselves just as opiates, pathways are pathways. My ex-wife was a Doctor with PTSD from being raped (she was raped by a doctor who was drunk, then raped by a physcologist who treated her, got he…

That's absolutely terrible for everyone involved and sorry to hear what's happening to you. Finding out a divorce via FB unfriend is pretty nuts.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#305

Post by benhurmarcel »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #176
farmerstan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity survived without winter jackets until the Ice Age. Then all of humanity would have gone extinct without them.

Yeah but there is nothing on social media that you actually need to survive.

Smartphones aren't only for social media.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#306

Post by janmarsal »

Thankfully my monkey brain is stronger than my lizard brain when it comes to things like infinite scroll, modals and other horrible UI features that nobody in their right mind should add to any website. Even just a couple of minutes of twitter usage makes me rage quit the whole website. Why do you pause my video when I scroll down it's just a politician speaking I don't need to see it only listen WHY YOU DO THIS?

I'm also one of those people who randomly clicks and "paints" the text on every website I use. On Reddit this means that I manage to close the thread by accident all the time because someone thought it would be a good idea to open the threads in a modal that closes when you click outside of it. Oh and once I tried to use Quora. It asked me to log in before I even knew what kind of a website it is. Now I hate Quora with a passion even though I'm not even sure what kind of a website it is exactly. I can only imagine it's full of modals, infinite scroll and other features that makes my skin go green and pants purple.

So I only end up getting addicted to websites that are simple and old fashioned enough like HN and wikipedia (as long as I don't click a cursed en.m.wikipedia link by accident). Btw, on youtube each time I click subscriptions it defaults back to the grid view. I want a list. Monkey wants list! YOUTUBE AAAAAAARHGFHGHGHFFG-

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#307

Post by pjerem »

shinycode wrote: post #286
pjerem wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this works for you ? (Blocking) I’ve tried it and even closed all my social media accounts. It sort of worked. For social medias… But it changed nothing, I found other addictions on the internet. It’s just … the smartphone. I blocked a little portion of the infinity that is the internet, but my lizard brain is smart enough to know that infinite content is still there, more easily accessible than letting my mind…

Infinite scrolling feels just like eating only pure sugar. It’s not quality food but really addictive. To fight this addiction physical blocking is one part of the solution. The other part is psychological and thus personal. What works for me and make me change might not me the same for you. That is why reading a book like Atomic Habits might help, but maybe you’ll need a few others to understand what needs to be cha…

> The answer was nothing. I learned nothing and got nothing from it.

I actually now have the inverse issue : now that I blocked "pure sugar content", I consume a lot of more interesting content. Like, HN is interesting to read, I have only subscriptions I like on YT and I feel like they make me learn. I still watch/read a lot of shit but I've also found a lot of gems I'm glad I found.

I'll read Atomics Habits since a lot of people recommended it to me.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#308

Post by zelos »

gernb wrote: post #289

I feel like I could say the same about infinite news which I'd define as a site I can check several times a day and see new "top stories". This would include Reddit and HN. I find it super addicting to check too many times and then get sucked into spending too much time reading comments and sometimes articles. Rarely am I actually better off for it . Contrast to 20-30yrs ago where at best you got a newspaper once a d…

20 years ago I was doing the same thing, except on Slashdot instead of HN.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#309

Post by benhurmarcel »

vedtopkar wrote: post #3

It’s honestly so bad. No matter how hard I try, I find myself re-downloading TikTok or Reddit (Apollo) every month and then wasting away all my free time for a week or two before re-deleting them out of disgust. I truly don’t know what the solution is. I would just get rid of my smartphone if life wasn’t quite inconvenient without it.

> Reddit (Apollo)

Apollo for Reddit has a feature to disable infinite scroll.

Re: My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

#310

Post by MandieD »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #300
ILMostro7 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe sticking to a newspaper, print or digital version, or a single news program on tv is what everyone should be doing. It might even cut down on consuming fake news.

That's what many elder people are actually doing for years and decades. It definitely doesn't help to cut down fake news.

There's a big difference between watching the national news on ABC/NBC/CBS before dinner and then the local 10/11pm news, and keeping Fox News (or MSNBC or even CNN) on all day long, even as "background noise".
Post reply on HN