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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

#311

Post by forlorn_mammoth »

Otterly99 wrote: post #164
forlorn_mammoth wrote: post #78

dopamine fracking. https://igerman.cc/blog/dopamine-fracking/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48440792

I completely disagree with the author. Is the goal of the "dopamine fracking" metaphor is to represent a "pure concentrated dopamine hit", I would argue it is a more apt representation of what hard stimulants do to your brain (i.e. a shortcut to massive amount of dopamine release). The perverse effect of social media addiction is more akin to a slow I.V. drip where you are always in a slightly aroused state, which th…

I read the metaphor differently. Doesn't invalidate your view, and I see that your view better captures the day to day experience.

I read the author as saying that his mind is being fracked, with all the implicit destruction that operation can cause, so that others can extract something from him. Yeah, I see that the analogy breaks down, because the extractors are after attention not dopamine (we're the ones who get the dopamine).

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#312

Post by eks391 »

lanstin wrote: post #183
aktau wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respect. I hope to find the strength to be more like that. Also to give a better example to others. I notice making the screen go grayscale (can configure volume up+down to do this in android) already makes doom-anything much less long-lived. The next step, since apparently I can't go cold turkey, is to try one of these alternative minimalist launchers to see if it helps. And to teach people that if they want somethi…

Grey scale is amazingly less compelling experience. I have it on for a while but then give in an turn color back on just for the thrill.

If you have an iPhone, you can put the greyscale as only a percentage greyscale if desired. I got an iPhone to get rid of the constant bothering from the apple devotees and quickly found myself spending an unhealthy amount of time on it. I started with a small percent greyscale so I didn't notice and would forget that the colors were dulled. Before I even got to 50% greyscale, my habit had died and I only use it when I need to (literally only for communicating with the folks who can't tolerate green bubbles)

My daily driver is GrapheneOS. I don't know if android has a similar feature, but I assume not because my GrapheneOS phone only supports fully greyscale, and the difference is so stark that I can't keep it on. The most addictive apps I have on it are my Hacker News client and NewPipe (the nonaddictive YouTube), so I am not too concerned though

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#313

Post by kerbs »

dzink wrote: post #88

I’ve started evaluating what seem like brain “modes”. 1. Constant flow of information with disjointed context (social media, brain fracking, moving in a crowd) triggers hunter-gatherer instinct that is hard to stop. The dopamine seek in a way. Even if you stop your brain seeks it, so unless you really need this mode for work, it helps to postpone or time box these to the end of the day (kind of like some would do wit…

There are non-stimulant ADHD meds. Strattera being a big one.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#314

Post by projektfu »

amelius wrote: post #162
projektfu wrote: post #157

Hallowell and Ratey, who write about ADHD, suggested a new entity for the current world: VAST, the variable attention stimulus trait. It is like ADHD but it is culturally induced and not presumed to be due to an innate deficiency in executive function. "Beyond the sources of biologically based ADHD, there are a lot of people who act as if they have ADHD but on close inspection turn out not to have the diagnosable con…

If somebody told me 25 years ago that in the future we all would have a TV on our office desk with 100 channels I would not have believed them. Yet ... the current situation is worse! Thinking of it in terms of mental disorders, I don't think that is going to help much.

Yes, VAST is specifically not ADHD, although a disorder is really defined by how it affects you. For example, some people worry too much, other people have generalized anxiety disorder, and the effect it has on your life is what separates normal from disordered.

"The person finds it difficult to control the worry.... The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." DSM-IV/V

Some of the strategies used to help people with ADHD are used to help with VAST-related loss of focus and procrastination, but medication is probably not recommended for those diagnosed as not having ADHD but likely having VAST.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#315

Post by StevenNunez »

This is me. I hate it. I'm working though (ever so slowly) The Global Village by Marshall McLuhan and I really like the metaphor technology going from Visual to Acoustic. Put another way the past had a serial enforcement we don't have today with always-on connections and easy access to distractions.

I've been trying to introduce more friction into my life to make doing harder things the right thing. 1. I have a rooted Orchid F1 flip phone with Telegram and Firefox focus. Telegram lets me TTS to an openclaw instance if I need to get something "out" but long interactions are awful with the small screen and latency. Firefox focus is also terrible in all the right ways. If I'm out and HAVE to search for something this is enough of a break glass solution but for the most part it's just calls and texts. 2. I carry an xteink x3 for books. I'm trying to read more so this being the only thing available has me reaching for it more than I'd normally do.

I don't have a good solution for things at work yet. Maybe I'll start blocking all websites or doing strict pomodoros.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#316

Post by inigyou »

afavour wrote: post #244
skinfaxi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't is well-known that higher education correlates with lower birthrates? At the very least college years are prime child-rearing years. > Educated women delay the onset of childbearing and have fewer children overall compared with less-educated women https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3449224/

Yeah, Idiocracy isn't wrong on the facts about our current day scenario. The issue is where it takes that: poor, lower educated people will inevitably have poor, lowered educated children who will in fact get less and less educated as time goes on, and they will take over, leading to... idiocracy. There's a whole conversation to have about the assumptions in that. Is the implication it's genetic? The children of lowe…

If it's even a little bit genetic, the idiocracy effect still holds up

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#317

Post by inigyou »

tetha wrote: post #83
ssl-3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one important thing that I miss about smoking: A smoke break was an excuse that was tolerated by others, wherein I could go outside and just let my mind wander (daydream) with no particular goal for a short period of time. Daydreaming should be perfectly acceptable either way, but people seem to think it's weird (concerning, even) when someone spends a bit of time to stand (or sit) around while appearing…

Some of my deepest architectural work honestly happened... in a hammock on the balcony, while alternating between staring at a cloud, the sun, and two magpies building a nest in the birch tree while yelling at me occasionally. Then I came back to my desk, saw that I had missed a call or two from my boss and he had a concerned message of where I was. I ignored that and sent him an architecture document an hour later.…

Update: this person has been fired for "slacking off". The manager only saw the absence, not the work output.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#318

Post by inigyou »

6031769 wrote: post #50
roncesvalles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when cable TV used to be "addictive". Now I can't watch even 10 minutes of it without getting bored and pulling out my phone. Also something I learned recently: checking your phone at the movies is no longer the faux pas that it used to be. There's definitely some hedonic treadmill type thing going on with attention and stimuli.

Using your phone in a cinema was, is and ever will be a massive faux pas. I have no idea at all why you think it might be otherwise.

Using your phone used to mean talking. Now it means silently browsing and that's not so bad.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#319

Post by inigyou »

safety1st wrote: post #68
kuerbel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I have the willpower to follow your example but at least I managed to turn of notifications on my watch after reading your post.

Willpower's not the solution. When we isolated cocaine from the coca leaf for the first time, the world pretty much went insane. In those first years people were injecting it into their eyeballs and spines. The most popular beverage on earth in 2026 STILL contains extract of the coca leaf as a holdover from the days when it was laced with its namesake, Coke. People were smoking cocaine, ingesting cocaine, giving it t…

Willpower is a great solution if the problem is to let the companies off the hook, though.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#320

Post by inigyou »

blurredabstract wrote: post #140
imp0cat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even a smartwatch? What's your opinion on fitness trackers (the passive ones, without display)?

To stick with the analogy: to me, your question reads as "What's your opinion on Speed?".

More like "Not even weed? What's your opinion on psychedelics (the mushrooms, they aren't addictive)?"
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