Every few years my phone breaks, and I take my sweet time replacing it. Recently I went about a month without a phone at all. It's much more relaxing, and it's nice to spend 20 minutes on a train just looking out the window.
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
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Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#12There's a reason we get so many of our great ideas in the shower - our 'diffuse brain' is going to work, forging new paths and making connections. I think the biggest danger of these products is that they are optimized to co-opt our attention, reducing the time available for this genuinely deep thinking.
Agreed. See also: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wf2VxeIm1no
CGP Grey talking about water proof phones invading his shower times with podcasts
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#13I'm tree weeks into: git clone https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.git && cd hosts && pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt && python3 updateHostsFile.py --auto --replace --extensions social porn gambling and going strong. What I figured so far is that the trick is to stay away from the browser. So I've removed Safari on my iPhone (well, more like hidden), I've changed my rss client to newsboat - command line one,…
What also works quite well is moving away from the screen altogether. Grab your (paper) notebook, sit down in a park, take it out when you feel the urge to write things down.
This especially helped me with my programming. Sketching a program on paper forces you to more or less skip the concrete code, but think more about flow, structure and goals.
When you are at home with your multi monitor workstation, it can sometimes make sense to take your laptop and sit down at thw kitchen table to break habits and start a focused session (easier to have a youtube video open on a multi display setup).
In the end it all boils down to maintaining a perception about your own work processes and trying not to lie to yourself.
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#14Shouldn't we rather call it the Distraction Economy?
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#15Just make your default activity reading (and put zero pressure on what, as long as its on paper) or exersize. That worked for me.
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#16I'm tree weeks into: git clone https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.git && cd hosts && pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt && python3 updateHostsFile.py --auto --replace --extensions social porn gambling and going strong. What I figured so far is that the trick is to stay away from the browser. So I've removed Safari on my iPhone (well, more like hidden), I've changed my rss client to newsboat - command line one,…
I would appreciate if you could share that Youtube download script.
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#17Every few years my phone breaks, and I take my sweet time replacing it. Recently I went about a month without a phone at all. It's much more relaxing, and it's nice to spend 20 minutes on a train just looking out the window.
Although I carry a "smart" phone (originally acquired because I needed it to test stuff I'm working on), I have deliberately chosen not to receive email or other notifications on it, or even to connect it to a data plan. It just makes calls and sends texts when needed. If I'm away from my desk (which is not one specific location, as I often move my laptop around the house), I'm essentially away from the internet.
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#18I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time without Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. I think after long periods of relying on these services to fill pockets of time that are otherwise hard to capitalize on, we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored. Like any form of rehabilitation, it takes ti…
> we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored Yup.. personally I somehow feel it's "wrong" that I sit there and do nothing on the rare occasion I get the opportunity.
There are times when I just want to sit or lay down and do nothing but my wife wont let me. When asked about her problem with this, she says it’s lazy not to do anything. Somehow doing nothing is wrong and everyone is conditioned to judge you for it.
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#19Shouldn't we rather call it the Distraction Economy?
Could go either way; distraction is the result but attention is the unit of value (now the meaning behind Basic Attention Token is clearer to me).
Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
#20An office building nearby renovated their ground floor with a new food court. Great idea but they also added a semi-circle of TVs all tuned on CBC News that pretty much looks over most of the seating and the food stalls. It’s hard to avoid.
Easy enough to modify the environment on our phones and desktops but it’s more inconvenient to avoid IRL distractions.