Attention hijacking becomes micro-habbits that become a rourtine. After just a few days, it becomes very difficult to undo, even if being aware of what's going on. This is what I understood from Tristan Harris several years ago and it's still happening today.
Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
361–370 of 685 posts
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#362My habit of scrolling through my FB feed endlessly went away after I unsubscribed from every "friend"'s feed. I had random people in there, people I had met just once, or people I had dated just once, or even one-night stands and FWBs.
One day I scrolled through the feed and for every item in the list, I clicked "unfollow". Soon, my feed was practically empty, except for the feeds of a couple of cooking pages I follow, and friends who rarely post.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#363Just 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…
In the world of food it was a watershed moment for me in controlling my waistline when I stopped checking the unit price on items at the store.
The brain invents its own portion sizes that are more dependent on the size of the container than the total supply. I don't know how you introduce portion control to the Internet, but we definitely need it.
Some people have strategies for avoiding a shopping cart full of junk food. I wonder how far you can stretch that into media consumption before the analogy tears.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#364Unless you’re at work, on vacation or meant to be spending time with others at dinner or some social event it’s ok to waste time on the internet.
You were not going to do something useful anyway. Before the internet people watched too much tv, played video games, read the newspaper, watched the news on repeat, read crappy books, ate crap, drank, smoked. We need downtime stop the self-flagellation.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#365I 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 dinn…
I've read that the decline of religion also plays a role here. Aside from the religious aspect, the sense of community and regularity you get meeting the same people on a regular basis is lost. It's kind of the mix of a loss of "third place" (institutions, coffee shops, etc.) and the increase of social media bubbles that pushes us to be more polarized, I think.
The community of my church is probably keeping me there more than my faith is.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#366it's cheap - i could go for a walk - go to the gym - call my mother - clean the house - na - clicking the same 3 buttons in a different order on youtube - hoping for something new and amazing-- is "cheaper" - it's easy - & very occasionally - I win something amazing- think this has always been true tho - mum used to buy the sunday times then read the same pages multiple times throughout the week - not sure she though…
Feels kinda pathetic to lay it out like this, but the one thing I wish I could do is call my mom. But she's gone.
That's the last thing I wanna do, and she's alive (and calls me). D:
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#367Just 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…
There was a study with a soup bowl that would automatically refill, and found people ate a lot more than they would if just given a regular soup bowl. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15761167/ It strikes me the Internet is now a bottomless soup bowl of content, and we have know indicators to tell us when we should stop.
It's a good analogy, but that study was retracted: https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/1...
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#368The algorithm.
It can offer you a very decent local maximum. So you keep riding the wave of decent local maximum. If you stray from this path you might find a better value but you also may find (more often than not) no progress at all. For the bigger journeys "career" and what not I do not recommend to follow local maximum paths you will go very on the surface and true fun is in the depth.
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#369Just 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…
In the world of food it was a watershed moment for me in controlling my waistline when I stopped checking the unit price on items at the store. The brain invents its own portion sizes that are more dependent on the size of the container than the total supply. I don't know how you introduce portion control to the Internet, but we definitely need it. Some people have strategies for avoiding a shopping cart full of junk…
Interesting, I had the same thought about the size / price ratio recently. I want most bang for the buck but it kills my waistline
Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?
#370My 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…
See also Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention by Johann Hari.