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Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

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Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#181

Post by SamBam »

grvdrm wrote: post #151
Apreche wrote: post #17

Just 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…

Are there entire feeds that you've deemed too wasteful? I get that you can slash much of what you look at on Twitter and still get what you want. But what about things like Instagram, TikTok, etc. - did you delete those apps altogether or also aggressively trim (if you use them)?

I cut out Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Facebook I left a decade ago, for its ethical issues. Instagram I left because I felt the performance aspect was unhealthy: even in my only-friends-and-family circle, I'd still care too much about picking out the perfect photo of my kid or wherever.

For Twitter I realized it was way too easy to get sucked down political/angry feeds. One day Twitter said my account has suspicious activity (maybe a bot tried to log in) and I needed to reply to an email to re-enable it. I never replied to the email. Somehow this meant that every time I followed a Twitter link, I'd get that alert, so I could never see content. I felt so much happier.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#182

Post by kataklasm »

bloaf wrote: post #25

Why do you feel like not being productive all the time is a moral failing?

For me at least I feel like there's a difference between being unproductive due to doomscrolling $socialMedia and being unproductive due to a more 'traditional' way of "wasting" (as in not being productive) time. Spending time on a grassfield in the sun is just as unproductive as doomscrolling, yet it feels a whole lot different. One feels abusive and abrasive to the soul; the other is relaxing and soothing. All while being unproductive. There may be a lot more layers to this productivity conundrum than being just a productivity boolean.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#183

Post by higgins »

kixiQu wrote: post #104
Apreche wrote: post #17

Just 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…

https://tokimeki-unfollow.glitch.me/ Presents the Twitter accounts you're following so you can decide whether they "spark joy"... pairs well with https://opml.glitch.me/ Which looks at the accounts you're following, looks at the links in their bios, sees if there's an RSS feed indicated at that link, and puts the whole thing together into an OPML feed (the standard XML-of-RSS-feeds format used for RSS reader import/e…

this tool is great, thank you!

i would love if a tool like this were made based on interactions I've had with authors. generally, i like comment or retweet content that "sparks joy".

would be a good first pass filter

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#184

Post by baby »

Apreche wrote: post #17

Just 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…

On the other hand I started following only “teaching chinese” accounts on instagram. Whenever I go on instagram I just watch stuff to learn chinese because it’s in my feed.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#186

Post by Havoc »

I've personally focused on improving the quality rather than trying to push down the time.

i.e. browse more /r/selfhosted and less /r/ukpolitics

Leaves me in a slightly better mental state - less continuous outrage vibes.

And same for twitter - I never post, and follow a handful of the hn gang basically.

Not perfect but adjusting reddit subs and follows is a mechanical actionable action you can take and get done today where "spend less time" is a vague aspiration for the future that requires continuous motivation

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#187

Post by zackmorris »

For me it's because I come up with roughly 10-100 ideas per day that I'd like to do, but there is (and will never be) enough time to do them all.

So I live vicariously through all of the other people doing the tiny handful of things that they manage to do in their entire lives.

This brings me down periodically, but then I remember that time is an illusion, and our perception that we're wasting time on the internet would seem comical to people who had never seen it (as recently as 1995) and will be remembered with fondness when we near the singularity (as soon as 2035).

Practicing non-attachment and understanding that this is not forever has really helped me rise above the downward spiral of depression, back to the upward spiral of gratitude for being here as part of the human experience.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#188

Post by gcheong »

" I even made a stratergy to stop this, but no matter what I do, it just...doesn't work. I will follow that thing for 2-3 days then back to that unproductive and mindless pithole. "

You could view it as a failure or you could view it as something that worked for 2-3 days and go from there.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#189

Post by AnonC »

dcchambers wrote: post #21

My 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’d also recommend Nicholas Carr’s 2011 book “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains”. I read it a long time ago and was impressed with its insights on attention (or the lack of it) and the usage of the Internet.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#190

Post by daenz »

I waste time on the internet when I am "compiling" My thoughts. Being in knowledge work, like many others here, means that most of the work is performed by thinking about a problem. After the problem has a good solution or set of solutions, there's only so much active thinking you can continue to do about it. I like to take a break and screw around while the solutions percolate some more. I usually see something I didn't afterwards.
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