Interesting until "we still have our phones." From what I observe while commuting current smart phones are very amenable to wasting time on the internet.
No More Internet
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: No More Internet
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay. Then by the same token, getting rid of the home internet connection is “self control”. So then what is he complaining about?
The proper analogy to getting rid of the internet connection would be throwing out the refrigerator, the cabinets and every piece of food or food holding device you have. Of course, you'd be risking dying of hunger to do so, just as you'd be risking intellectual death by cutting off the internet.
> risking intellectual death by cutting off the internet
Give me a fucking break. I know many people (even several programmers) without an internet connection at home, and none of them are at any sort of risk of “intellectual death”.
Re: No More Internet
#23"it allows us to get really comfortable wasting a lot of time." And then the article fell completely to pieces. If you view your time searching for new information as a "waste", then you're going to end up in a world of self inflicted ignorance. We have the capabilities of sifting through bleeding edge information that shapes our lives on a daily basis with the internet. The act of ignoring this blatant fact is to ef…
"We have the capabilities of sifting through bleeding edge information that shapes our lives on a daily basis with the internet."
What exactly are you talking about here? Of the top of my head I can't thank of anything on the internet that isn't a total waste of time, with two exceptions: - looking up specific information (programming docs, the first 10 minutes on wikipedia, etc) - browsing the arXiv
Re: No More Internet
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay. Then by the same token, getting rid of the home internet connection is “self control”. So then what is he complaining about?
The proper analogy to getting rid of the internet connection would be throwing out the refrigerator, the cabinets and every piece of food or food holding device you have. Of course, you'd be risking dying of hunger to do so, just as you'd be risking intellectual death by cutting off the internet.
"intellectual death" is a little hyperbolic, I think. I too know people who spend little to no time on the internet and seem to be quite intellectual, informed, functional, and happy.
It's the people that get their "information" from daily doses of "I saw it on the internet" that worry me, to be honest. Some people I know that spend the most time on the internet seem able to tell you a lot of stuff they read and saw, but are not able to apply much intellect to it.
Re: No More Internet
#25I think the internet is more boring than any outside activity. Sure, it's an easy and comfortable way to get information and communicate with each other, but I see it mostly as a tool. I think the internet gets overused by the most people. A lot of people, even here at work, are online on Facebook, because they don't want to miss anything. But what would you miss if you doesn't read thats a boring day for someone, someone liked your newest image upload or something else? I don't understand this weird behaviour, but maybe it's just me doing sth. wrong.
Re: No More Internet
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, let's see here. You read this post on HN, so that means you have been spending time reading posts and responding to comments like this. That to me is wasting time. Is there nothing else that you need to do right now? You wasted that time. This is his point, and it's a good one. But every single person responding to his post on this page, even those like me who defend him just don't get it . We have to unplug. We…
Taking a 5 minute break from writing a php tutorial sounds pretty therapeutic to me. I have a degree in computer science with a wonderful salaried 8-5 job (doing what I love) with benefits, a wonderful girlfriend of 5 years, and 3 excellent cats. We take walks and go out to our downtown area to socialize in the many available bars on the weekends, and take vacations whenever she can get time off from work. I also gre…
Apologize for my tone, but the point is that the time we spend reading and replying to each other's comments and shared links don't produce anything. It really bothers me to think about all of the time humanity is wasting entertaining itself in the guise of learning. I do learn some things from HN and news sites that is of use at work, but that happens only every once in a while, not enough to justify the time spent.
The Roman civilization brought roads, civilization, language, and technology to the world. However it died because its people got too fat and happy and were doing what we are now- living just to consume and be entertained. Despite all of the production initially, the purpose in the end was lost.
I think the people of many first-world countries have lost our way like this. I think of the U.S. being the place of business and innovation through the 50s into the 60s even, then fell on its sword slowly first with the free love and liberties of the late 60s, followed by the microcomputer revolution and cable television which along with electronic gaming basically started killing time and productivity. The rise of the internet leads to what, peace? No, actually it leads to everyone sharing every detail of their life and thought on their mind. But there is nothing to work for or aspire to be other than being right and popular and accepted to a bunch of people we didn't even care about before, and in the end, it is for nothing.
We should be working to make our people better and produce new technology and solve hunger, crime, promote peace. Instead we just consume and stare at screens.
So, what should we do? We need to unplug. We need to live for purpose. We need to stop typing statuses and responses and start being productive. Live a life you would be proud of and raise a good family.
Re: No More Internet
#27Every time I see a post like this (including Paul Miller over at the Verge), it reminds me of an obese person suddenly deciding to go anorexic. You know what the problem is? It's not the food. It's self-control, plain and simple.
There's something to be said about forcing yourself to develop new habits. Take away the distractions for a while, and you'll find that when you add them back, it's harder to break these new habits. Just focusing on self-control is very hard. Take smoking, for instance -- it's hard to just "cut down" when that temptation is always there.
You have to force or trick yourself into changing habits, the problem with habits is that they become automatic responses to some stimuli; enter "habit change Wood" into Google Scholar for some interesting reading, especially a pdf of http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/15/4/198.short , which is the single best article I have found.