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It's getting harder to focus every day

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Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#21

Post by plastic-enjoyer »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #2

I think it's just information overload. There's so much information everywhere now clamoring at you for attention. Our brains aren't made for processing this much information. Going on a media diet helps. Going completely offline helps even more. Something I do when I struggle to focus is to add different stripped down user accounts to my computer. I wanted to dabble in rust so I added a user called ~rs that literall…

> I think it's just information overload. There's so much information everywhere now clamoring at you for attention. Our brains aren't made for processing this much information. Going on a media diet helps. Going completely offline helps even more.

I wonder how much is real information, i.e. information that truly is related to your life, interests and within your sphere of influence; and how much is just noise that camouflages as information.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#22

Post by plastic-enjoyer »

oggreen wrote: post #8
lardosaurusrex wrote: post #4

People often question me how I manage to focus for more than a few minutes and I'm always confused because back in the day I was constantly informed I didn't have any focus and needed to be treated (adhd). I'm not convinced attention spans themselves have changed; I think it has more to do with the fact that people's brains aren't defaulting to daydreaming anymore when bored. I think it's still an issue with people b…

That's a very interesting perspective but now that you mention it, I can't even think of the last time I daydreamed, even when I'm not on a device. Curious if phone usage or whatever doom-scrolling we do exhausts the same part of the brain that we use to daydream.

> That's a very interesting perspective but now that you mention it, I can't even think of the last time I daydreamed, even when I'm not on a device.

Sometimes I just turn my phone off and stare at a white wall for 15 minutes. People made fun of me when I told them how relaxing I find white walls, but it seems it turns out, that I'm not the only one doing this?

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#24

Post by wormpilled »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #2

I think it's just information overload. There's so much information everywhere now clamoring at you for attention. Our brains aren't made for processing this much information. Going on a media diet helps. Going completely offline helps even more. Something I do when I struggle to focus is to add different stripped down user accounts to my computer. I wanted to dabble in rust so I added a user called ~rs that literall…

That's a really cool technique.

> Yeah I can just log out and scroll HN, but there's a enough friction to that, that it doesn't really happen very often.

You can make sure the friction is high by having your password be something difficult to remember, written down on a note, and keeping that note somewhere "out of reach".

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#25

Post by polotics »

Advice that works: - Watch the Robert Sapolsky human behavior lectures.

- Learn about basic neuropsychology, to at least have a working understand of the triad Default-Mode-Network, Salience-Network, Executive-Network.

- Watch your ambient CO2, also at night.

- Sleep so that you always wake up with no alarm.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#26

Post by nusl »

franze wrote: post #14

Claude Code has made my computer as - or even more - addicting as social media. I created this for me https://rainbreak.franzai.com/ to force myself into a break. Into breaking out of the agent loop. 7 minutes for short, 21 for a long break.

This is really cute but also really funny.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#27

Post by tsss »

specproc wrote: post #9
beschizza wrote: post #3

The author doesn’t mention it, so it seems appropriate to suggest asking a doctor for attention deficit disorder screening. The cultural forces in play encouraging us to flit and switch constantly are a perfect distraction from the possibility one’s own brain is complicit.

FFS. The solution to our machines eating our brains should not be "just take amphetamine, bro".

Machines aren't going away. I need a solution that is available right now.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#29

Post by noir_lord »

oggreen wrote: post #8
lardosaurusrex wrote: post #4

People often question me how I manage to focus for more than a few minutes and I'm always confused because back in the day I was constantly informed I didn't have any focus and needed to be treated (adhd). I'm not convinced attention spans themselves have changed; I think it has more to do with the fact that people's brains aren't defaulting to daydreaming anymore when bored. I think it's still an issue with people b…

That's a very interesting perspective but now that you mention it, I can't even think of the last time I daydreamed, even when I'm not on a device. Curious if phone usage or whatever doom-scrolling we do exhausts the same part of the brain that we use to daydream.

> I can't even think of the last time I daydreamed

About 5 minutes ago for me, my missus says that I live with my head in the clouds (which is a nicer way of saying if I'm not actively doing something I just zone out and retreat into my own head), I've always been that way all the way back to school (with the inevitable consequences from teachers).

I've mentioned on here before though that I never got addicted to my phone, I don't even know where it is ~80% of the time.

My relationship with technology is (nearly) always intentional, I still access the internet 95% of the time on a desktop PC (which reduces doom scrolling since that just feels wrong on a desktop) so when I walk out my office I'm just "offline" in a very distinct way, if I go for a walk my phone stays at home, everyone who knows me knows I'll answer a text at some point but it could be a day or two.

To sum it up, I resent the passive intrusion of technology into my life.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#30

Post by piterrro »

This feels so familiar. Since more than a year or so Im witnessing more and more content being produced. One year ago or so it was enough to visit HN main page once a day and be up to day. These day, it needs a visit every few hours, the main page changes constantly. Not only that but also the amount of content received via newsletters.

Worst is with LLMs and coding agents, I give it a task to work on then go browsing the web, the LLM finishes in 2 minutes but I come back after 10…

At the end of the day, my mind feels super tired even though its the LLM that did the heavy lifting. I also barely remember what I was browsing 15 minutes ago. At this point I can honestly say - Im in trouble.

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