Why do you feel like not being productive all the time is a moral failing?
Do you not feel bad when wasting time?
Especially if you're just refreshing youtube and instagram, as the blog states.
Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
41–50 of 685 posts
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#42I wonder if this is because we're lonely..? Just wondering out loud here.
E.g. Twitter - feels like many of the "thought leaders" I follow, their "friends" are also on Twitter. And they tweet/respond so much I often wonder if they're really ever "building a business". And are they ever interacting with their real-world friends or family?
Or if their lives just consist of a constant refresh of their feed. Even at dinner, I wonder if they're even present?
And I wonder if that's why podcasts have become so popular - it's someone talking to you. Someone having a conversation, albeit one-sided, but usually it's pretty interesting.
For the same lonely reasons, I wonder if this is why public radio has been so popular with long haul truck drivers. Everyone wants to hear a human voice once in a while.
The constant reading, listening and entertaining videos... The voice in your head generates a discussion, with itself. At least it's something.
We work from home. It's quiet. With no one around. We're looking for a preoccupation.
We're just desperate for any type of human interaction.
"Likes", hearts, thumbs-up, upvotes, +1, PR merge, etc. - are we just clinging to anything that acknowledges our existence and humanity.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#43I’ve been thinking about this for some time, since so many people (including me) seem to struggle with this, even while being completely aware of our behavior. I think legislation should force social networks to: - have a reverse chronological timeline for your network - optionally disable any algorithmic recommendations Social Media companies are mostly unrestricted in the current legislation system while they are t…
I find myself wasting too much time on the internet and I don't spend any of it on social media. I waste most of it on HN.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#44No post body was provided.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#45Just speaking for myself, I've noticed that my habit is to eat what is in front of me, and clean my plate. I mean this both literally and figuratively. If I have dessert in the house, like a bag of chocolate, then I eat one after dinner. If I don't have it in the house, then I just don't eat dessert. If I have a social media feed full of content, then I'll scroll through all of it until there's nothing else that's ne…
Doing the same, but this does not really apply for algorithmic feeds. When you open YouTube the recommendations are always the first thing you see, same for TikTok and Twitter (although at least you can configure it there). Sure you can say “just don’t use recommendation systems” just as you can say “just don’t go on YouTube”.
I use the following user stylesheet to hide YouTube recommendations for exactly the reason you mention:
/* hide main page */
ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] {
display: none;
}Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#46Just speaking for myself, I've noticed that my habit is to eat what is in front of me, and clean my plate. I mean this both literally and figuratively. If I have dessert in the house, like a bag of chocolate, then I eat one after dinner. If I don't have it in the house, then I just don't eat dessert. If I have a social media feed full of content, then I'll scroll through all of it until there's nothing else that's ne…
Doing the same, but this does not really apply for algorithmic feeds. When you open YouTube the recommendations are always the first thing you see, same for TikTok and Twitter (although at least you can configure it there). Sure you can say “just don’t use recommendation systems” just as you can say “just don’t go on YouTube”.
I find it relatively easy to use YouTube without exposing myself to their recommendations (not that they're ever particularly good, in my experience).
My bookmark for YouTube is directly to my subscriptions, and it's also possible to create a android shortcut link directly to subscriptions. Occasionally, a flow will direct me to the homepage, but that's rare and I usually organically bounce back to my subs without even thinking about it.
There's always recs below a video, but again, those are rarely very interesting to me or they're things I've subscribed to anyway.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#47My completely unprofessional opinion is that almost everyone that uses the internet throughout the day has developed some form of undiagnosed ADD/ADHD. The modern internet has broken our slowly evolved brains. We are not built to cope with these types of attention destroying activities and media. At least 20 years ago you had to sit down at a specific place and use a chunky computer. Smartphones have made it 1000x wo…
I would not be surprised if we have permanently damaged our brain’s reward centers.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doing the same, but this does not really apply for algorithmic feeds. When you open YouTube the recommendations are always the first thing you see, same for TikTok and Twitter (although at least you can configure it there). Sure you can say “just don’t use recommendation systems” just as you can say “just don’t go on YouTube”.
You can follow Youtube channels via RSS feeds, though, which removes the issue with recommendations.
This is the way.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#49I'm taking intermittent internet & phone fasts.
Could you expand on that? Does it mean you don’t use your phone till 10AM or not after 9PM or something like that?
I'm still experimenting; so far, it includes:
1. Turning off my phone at night. This removes the risk of looking at my phone in the middle of the night after going to the bathroom.
2. Consciously waiting to turn on my phone until I'm ready, which usually means after breakfast. I want to lead my phone, not the other way around.
3. Intermittent fasts of addictive computer behavior; in particular, I found I was checking news sites and HN addictively throughout the day, so I take some days off from that, completely.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#50Where to spend my time else?