What excessive screen time does to the adult brain • Hacker News Board

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#181

Post by Terr_ » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

heckelson wrote: post #142

Terr_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sometimes I put a morning banana by my bed, and I'm pretty sure my body doesn't treat it is a threat . Seeking a charitable explanation, "near things are a threat" is a garbled form of "near things cause physiological arousal"? That more-inclusive version would then cover cases like "delicious fruit" and "scary spider" and "the thing I put down next to me as a reminder to do something with it as soon as I got u…

> morning banana by my bed this person is living in the year 3200 with moves as smart as this one

Heh, I wish I could say it was because of time-optimized hustle grindset [0], but really I'm just trying to make myself actually eat in the mornings in case it helps me stop with the crazy late nights. [1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U

[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/delayed-sleep...

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#182

Post by pcthrowaway » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 6:12 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #21

MrJagil wrote: post #11

“One of the biggest issues with picking up the phone right away in the morning is that when you have an object close to your face, it’s registered as a threat,” says Loeffler. “You wouldn’t want to wake up and look a bear in the face every morning. On a physiological level, it’s the same thing.” This is interesting to me. It does make some evolutionary sense but at the same time, i wake up every morning and look at m…

This sounds like hocus pocus to me, along the lines of the claim that phone alert tones activate the "love centre" of the brain. Just so happens that the "love centre" is also the "vomiting centre" along with a load of other stuff. I'd treat this hand-wavy claim with the same kind of skepticism - your counter-example is an excellent one. I agree that looking at a phone first thing in the morning is a bad idea, but fo…

To me it completely explained why we wake up every morning with our hearts racing, thinking our pillow is attacking us.

Or why people who fall asleep cuddling their partners wake up in terror.

/s because Poe's law.

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#183

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

RamRodification wrote: post #47

NamTaf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so strange about that as a concept? As someone who grew up in the 90s, the idea of doing so is totally normal for me. I mean, I don't do it, but I wouldn't blink at someone else saying they did. How do you think people achieve the goal of 50 books in a year, for example?

I read but 50 books in a year? No way.

That's only ~1 book a week, which seems perfectly doable? Definitely if we're talking about spending 1-2h/d on it.

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#184

Post by Cheetah26 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 7:14 PM UTC

MrJagil wrote: post #11

“One of the biggest issues with picking up the phone right away in the morning is that when you have an object close to your face, it’s registered as a threat,” says Loeffler. “You wouldn’t want to wake up and look a bear in the face every morning. On a physiological level, it’s the same thing.” This is interesting to me. It does make some evolutionary sense but at the same time, i wake up every morning and look at m…

As someone who has woken up to looking a bear in the face while camping, I can say with 100% confidence that on a physiological level these are not the same thing.

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#185

Post by sebst » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 8:51 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #25

sebst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there are two main effects of “screentime”: consumption only (doomscrolling or binge watching) and the light effect. A book would not tick any of those marks An ereader would account for looking into a light source only if you use background illumination. And even then, it can be set to emit significantly less light than a smartphone screen, especially in the blue frequencies

If you want to read a book then you need some source of light.

Obviously true. The difference is that the you usually don’t look directly into the light source when reading a book

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#186

Post by Kailhus » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #21

MrJagil wrote: post #11

“One of the biggest issues with picking up the phone right away in the morning is that when you have an object close to your face, it’s registered as a threat,” says Loeffler. “You wouldn’t want to wake up and look a bear in the face every morning. On a physiological level, it’s the same thing.” This is interesting to me. It does make some evolutionary sense but at the same time, i wake up every morning and look at m…

This sounds like hocus pocus to me, along the lines of the claim that phone alert tones activate the "love centre" of the brain. Just so happens that the "love centre" is also the "vomiting centre" along with a load of other stuff. I'd treat this hand-wavy claim with the same kind of skepticism - your counter-example is an excellent one. I agree that looking at a phone first thing in the morning is a bad idea, but fo…

Best thing I’ve done is configure my iphone to not ring but just softly vibrate for calls/texts with “custom taps” and removed any “pending notifications” app badges to avoid this sense ouf urgency. Only thing left is silent breaking news from the Guardian and app notifications on the Lock Screen I can quickly glance at and discard in a tap.

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#187

Post by medvezhenok » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 2:37 AM UTC

nicolas_t wrote: post #124

latexr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whenever my partner and I go out for a nice dinner we're unable to comprehend how literally every other couple spends basically the entire meal on their phones. I used to play a game when out to dinner: If there’s another table with two people and you notice one of them getting up (likely to go to the bathroom), see how long it takes the other person to take out their phone. It stopped being fun pretty fast because…

My wife complains that I take my kindle to the bathroom and will read on the way and back. I'm nowhere near as addicted to my phone though.

To be fair, pre-kindle we used to have a stack of magazines in the bathroom for toilet reading. And my chess instructor used to assign what he called "toilet puzzles", or chess puzzles that were thoughtless enough to be done on the can (as compared to the "actual" homework puzzles which were more cognitively demanding and required dedicated work)

So it was definitely a thing pre-modern-tech too. Plenty of people used to read the newspaper on the can (and in the Soviet Union you would then use it to wipe afterwards - extra efficiency!)

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#188

Post by NamTaf » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:12 AM UTC

RamRodification wrote: post #47

NamTaf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so strange about that as a concept? As someone who grew up in the 90s, the idea of doing so is totally normal for me. I mean, I don't do it, but I wouldn't blink at someone else saying they did. How do you think people achieve the goal of 50 books in a year, for example?

I read but 50 books in a year? No way.

It's literally a thing people do, sometimes specifically because it forces them to disconnect in their down time outside of work.

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#189

Post by A_Venom_Roll » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 11:26 AM UTC

greg_V wrote: post #88

Helmut10001 wrote: post #2

Regarding the recommendation to not spend the first hour of the day in front of the screen. I found the other way around more helpful: Not spending the last 1-2 hours in front of screens. This helps me to get better sleep. In the morning, I find it not so difficult and screen time (+coffee) helps me to wake up slowly.

No screen before bedtime/no screens in bed is like the easiest health improvement hack that anyone can implement. With that said, anecdotally I can vouch for the "no screen in the first hour" suggestion the article is making. I've been working for home for the past few years, and I feel more sluggish since I just move to my laptop first thing in the morning, instead of having that preparation-breakfast-commute routin…

When the pandemic forced me to work from home, incorporating a 20 minute morning walk in the neighborhood before work was one of the first things I added to my routine. It's great to make the 'transition' and also starts up the body faster.

Re: What excessive screen time does to the adult brain

#190

Post by hammyhavoc » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 5:26 PM UTC

RamRodification wrote: post #47

NamTaf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so strange about that as a concept? As someone who grew up in the 90s, the idea of doing so is totally normal for me. I mean, I don't do it, but I wouldn't blink at someone else saying they did. How do you think people achieve the goal of 50 books in a year, for example?

I read but 50 books in a year? No way.

I could do 1-2 books in a day if I made time for it like I used to.