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

Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

bath.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 161 posts

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#51

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

quaintdev wrote: post #14

The whole problem with social media is the feed. Remove that feed and replace it with something that is not the mechanism to keep users captive and most of the issues with social media are solved. One of the ways to achieve that is to make people at the center of app. The user chooses avatar from multiple avatars on main screen and view their updates. Once they have viewed someone's update they can go back do it for…

Correct. Infinite scroll and adaptive algorithms are the curse of social media.

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#52

Post by yucky »

411111111111111 wrote: post #32
highspeedbus wrote: post #27

There's a brazillian song called Tédio (Boredom) that was popular in the 80's. It talks about not withstanding boredom inside home, while life goes on out there. It's curious how the depicted feeling is so unrelatable today. I think boredom is a real force that pushes ourselves to the edge, to hopefully make a change in life, like going out to see real people. Social media creates this cozy, safe place to keep your m…

But why do people blame social media for that? Every entertainment is equally at fault, wherever it's fictions, movies, tv series, comics/webtoons, games etc

    > Every entertainment is equally at fault
Clearly not. That would be like dismissing Siberian tigers as just cats, and pretending they're no more dangerous than the average housecat. The taxonomy is the same, but the similarities end there.

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#53

Post by yazboo »

411111111111111 wrote: post #32
highspeedbus wrote: post #27

There's a brazillian song called Tédio (Boredom) that was popular in the 80's. It talks about not withstanding boredom inside home, while life goes on out there. It's curious how the depicted feeling is so unrelatable today. I think boredom is a real force that pushes ourselves to the edge, to hopefully make a change in life, like going out to see real people. Social media creates this cozy, safe place to keep your m…

But why do people blame social media for that? Every entertainment is equally at fault, wherever it's fictions, movies, tv series, comics/webtoons, games etc

It’s a difference of degree not kind. The constant audiovisual stimulus running through the internet is much more powerful than any of those things, and more widely available. Cable TV was close. It was always on in the room, but you had to be in the room, and you had to negotiate with your cohabitants over what to have on, or else you could go somewhere and be bored. There are no constraints anymore, with exceptions for the most impoverished among us - there’s always something close at hand to tickle your particular reptile brain until you fall asleep.

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#54

Post by p0pcult »

411111111111111 wrote: post #32
highspeedbus wrote: post #27

There's a brazillian song called Tédio (Boredom) that was popular in the 80's. It talks about not withstanding boredom inside home, while life goes on out there. It's curious how the depicted feeling is so unrelatable today. I think boredom is a real force that pushes ourselves to the edge, to hopefully make a change in life, like going out to see real people. Social media creates this cozy, safe place to keep your m…

But why do people blame social media for that? Every entertainment is equally at fault, wherever it's fictions, movies, tv series, comics/webtoons, games etc

Social media has feedback loops that can adjust themselves orders of magnitude faster than legacy media, to keep you addicted (er, "engaged") with near zero friction.

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#55

Post by Sakos »

johnfn wrote: post #49
Sakos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll put it bluntly. I don't care about people who read a single study and take it as gospel. Science would be nothing without all the studies that are published about every single topic. Even the most important findings are built on studies done before them. > basically anything can be proven at n=15 Nothing was proven. The paper is literally a philosophical discussion about Heidegger leaning on a survey. If you thi…

You may not care, but science as a whole has a responsibility to do more help than harm. Anyways I feel like we’re kind of arguing past each other. I agree studies should be done; I just don’t think people should be getting news articles written up at n=15; that seems deceptive.

I'm ambivalent about the news article. It can be misleading, but I also wouldn't have found the paper and read through the whole thing without it, which I felt was a really interesting and valuable read.

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#56

Post by johnny22 »

mrbombastic wrote: post #46
themitigating wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV and video games are also an option but as you implied you may not always have access to them. However in what situation prior to the internet would a person be forced to be bored. Waiting at the DMV? I guess what I'm saying is it's pretty rare that someone wouldn't have an escape from bordem, even before phones.

road trips, standing in line anywhere (toll booth, amusement park, gas station, grocery store etc), riding the subway, waiting room at a doctor’s office, riding in a cab, waiting between customers at your retail job, power outages, camping trips, I am sure I could think of many more.

i always brought a book for that :)

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#58

Post by drstewart »

baeaz wrote: post #21
mdorazio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking this question on a social media site...

I disagree that this is a social media, I don't even look at the names of those who leave comments or those I reply to. It's like I'm reading and talking to the hivemind.

I don't look at the names of commenters on Twitter or Instagram, so those aren't social media either?

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#59

Post by mr_mitm »

baeaz wrote: post #21
mdorazio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking this question on a social media site...

I disagree that this is a social media, I don't even look at the names of those who leave comments or those I reply to. It's like I'm reading and talking to the hivemind.

HN still serves as a source of distraction for time periods of arbitrary length. TikTok may also not be a social network, but it's distracting and addicting. The content on HN is just a bit more geared towards the intellectual (and The Algorithm is less powerful).

Re: Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom

#60

Post by bakugo »

> may

I thought this was a well known observable fact. There are certain creative thought processes that only occur to me when I really have absolutely nothing else to think about, but that basically never happens anymore thanks to the internet. The only reason I'm even aware that I'm missing out on this is because it still happens when I take long showers, so basically the only time I don't have a phone or computer with me.

Post reply on HN