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

Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 72 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#21

Post by NoBSWebDesign »

gruseom wrote: post #9
bayareaguy wrote: post #6

It doesn't necessarily start out as a waste of time but it can become one if you spend too much time on it. I try to restrict myself to reading YC when recompiling stuff on my powerbook. At the beginning of the build I use open -a Opera http://news.ycombinator.com and at the end I have open -a Opera make.out That way the browser automatically takes me to the build output when it's time to get back to coding.

That is brilliant. But you're still replacing one waste of time with another!

Is it really a waste of time if it entertains you and stimulates your thoughts, when used judiciously?

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#22

Post by TomOfTTB »

Information is as useful as you make it. It’s really a questions of "are you just reading to entertain yourself?" vs "are you reading to learn and allowing your worldview to be shaped based on what you are reading?" Almost every piece of information is useful if you pick it apart and actively seek out the lessons to be learned from it.

I mean, Henry David Thoreau spent his time wandering around the wilderness, an activity that most would call a waste of time, and yet the lessons he learned about simplicity and its impact on life are still being quoted nearly 150 years after his death.

Wisdom is everywhere the trick is to hang around places where you can find it while enjoying yourself. If HN provides that for you than it’s far from a waste of time.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#23

Post by siong1987 »

noprocrast: maxvisit: minaway:

No one actually uses the above features??? It really helps me to reduce my visits to YC less than 3 times everyday. My maxvisit is 60 and minaway is 180. This means that I can only visit HN for a maximum of 60 mins for every 180 mins interval.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#24

Post by gruseom »

NoBSWebDesign wrote: post #21
gruseom wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is brilliant. But you're still replacing one waste of time with another!

Is it really a waste of time if it entertains you and stimulates your thoughts, when used judiciously?

I don't know. You could post the question to HN :)

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#25

Post by pg »

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas?

I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593

but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#27

Post by ChaitanyaSai »

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

1) Limit the number of submission (posts and/or comments) people can make in say an hour. This might limit the number of new things people can see.

2)Show fewer stories per page. Or perhaps, show far more. The larger number of stories may seem daunting and remind the person of the sheer number of many interesting things out there, and consequently, the diluted interest of any one.

3) Make the time spent more explicit^. I understand that RescueTime and their ilk do this, but it would be far more salient if you had showed the net amount of time spent on HN on a day; to make in even more salient have the font increase in relation to time spent, with color coding to indicate dangerous levels of time spent.

^-Where HN is dangerous is that you often click your way here thinking you can get back to work after a minute's worth of a scan, but these breaks add up.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#28

Post by carterschonwald »

I think its a waste of time only in the trivial sense of time spent at HN doesnt' translate into work done. On the other hand, hard work requires making the brain work well, and the brain works best when its you cycle between doing different activities. So I think in fact having a source of novelty of consistent quality as HN, is ultimately not a waste of time at all if you are infact working on something intellectually nontrivial.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#29

Post by johnrob »

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

This is as good a place as any to toss out my lingering idea:

I feel guilty when I go more than a day w/o checking ycnews (I know, this is bad!). However, I think I've figured out why - I don't want to miss posts that will make me a better hacker. For example, last week there was a "Top 10 tips for linux admins" post where I actually learned something useful (I didn't know about the reset command, when you corrupt a shell by more-ing a binary file).

Is there a way, via some combination of features and/or "Ask HN" style tags, to mark posts as useful? I have nothing against posts that are not useful (but nonetheless interesting). However, if I could filter the posts by utility, it would make it easier to stay off the site for a while, and also make the time here more "justifiable".

There certainly could be downsides to such a system, that I haven't considered.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#30

Post by froo »

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Hey PG, what about enforcing procrastination filters? EG just removing the override link?
Post reply on HN