111–120 of 167 posts
These days I prefer to use social media as a form of dialogue, almost like forums, than anything else. The focus is on ideas and conversation.... which is why I actually really enjoy HN.
I totally quit television about a year ago, and it had a very noticeable positive impact on me. I also mostly quit Facebook with the end of last year. I say mostly, because I still use its event calendar, and occasionally check my stream. But I significantly reduced the amount of comments I leave on that platform. I feel like, while the criticism of FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit and co is pretty much warranted, we manage…
I stopped watching regular TV around 2005 due to the influx of "reality-tv" and other crappy formats. What I used to watch before was real documentaries on discovery and it's family of channels. Now I just watch Festival of Science or Royal Institution lectures on YouTube and some anime on wakanim :) There are also a lot of real in-class lectures filmed on various topic on YouTube that I find very nice. I don't miss…
And now I'm living the irony, driving a truck and hauling all that stuff that the TV is waving in front of us. Just as some of you are living the irony, spending your hard earned educations building the infrastructure that implements the waving.
"Now:" I'm pulling a trailer from Illinois to Ohio, filled with "cereal, dry," from a maker to a big box chain's distribution center. Eat up! Eat!
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I personally don’t find TV a time waster. If you enjoy it, as I do, then do it, guilt-free. However if you find yourself addicted ie you want to do other things but you keep getting “sucked in” then by all means stop - it will have a noticeably positive impact.
I don’t agree. Watching tv and browsing social media just temporarily heightens the mood, but then tampers of very quickly. That time could be spend doing something useful like following a hobby, because that increases overall happiness.
I’ve been off Facebook since 2009 or so. The only feature I miss is being notified about people’s birthdays.
Since in your case you didn’t save them before deleting it, I wonder if it would be an interesting opportunity to randomly message people you haven’t spoken with in a while, to put some birthdays in the calendar.
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> There are other ways to stay up to date. Right, that was the question. What do you use to stay informed?
I have my alarm set to a high quality radio station at the time their morning news show starts. This is a 5 minute news show that condenses the essential things of the day. If I feel like I need to know more about a specific event, I typically browse a news site with my phone while walking to work. That is enough to be able to follow the typical smalltalk once I hit the workplace.
I don't do that anymore.
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There is nothing to cold turkey about TV. I got cable to watch the olympics a few years ago and found nothing else worth watching for months. I used to watch various documentaries on the History channel, but now it’s full of ancient aliens crap. I think my demographic left and they just stopped producing content for US.
I feel the same way. Haven't had linear satellite/cable in years. Gave it up in my teens. Since then I've moved over to science videos and the like (NileRed, Nurdrage, RI Lectures) and metalworking/machining. Things you'd never in a million years see on cable TV. For all its faults - Youtube has a lot of factual content produced by people who want to share their cool hobbies with the world. The thing I really want to…
By "RI Lectures" do you mean the channel with the actual youtube name of "The Royal Institution"? If so, I think the across the pond competitor is "MIT OpenCourseWare" although I find it far easier to download MIT OCW videos from archive.org than trying to find and stream them and keep track of which I've seen.
I've had the interesting experience of learning Linear Algebra from Strang's textbooks a long time ago, then watching his lectures to refresh my memory. You can do something similar with Automata Theory and Ullman via a MOOC, or at least you could a couple years ago.
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time spent in a way that made you feel good isn't wasted. maybe it had no economic output but that isn't a waste. But the long term benefit of TV/Video isn't a diet that's good for you. Consider all the things you could do (not "achieve") if you'd use it for reading books, travel, learning a language or art. What this medium robs you of is boredom, which maybe feels great in the short run, but is hugely damaging to y…
I have never understood why people claim reading is a more worthy use of time than watching tv. Love island probably teaches people more about the human condition than fifty shades does, so pick your poison
It's the behavior, not the medium, that gives this uneasy feeling all of your time is going to a thing that you didn't mean to spend it on.
On the other hand, if you find yourself sucked into a book for a weekend, odds are it's because you can't put it down and will regret nothing. Nobody binge-reads bad books.
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I personally don’t find TV a time waster. If you enjoy it, as I do, then do it, guilt-free. However if you find yourself addicted ie you want to do other things but you keep getting “sucked in” then by all means stop - it will have a noticeably positive impact.
I don’t agree. Watching tv and browsing social media just temporarily heightens the mood, but then tampers of very quickly. That time could be spend doing something useful like following a hobby, because that increases overall happiness.
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Why not go do social hobbies? Photography or creative clubs, walking groups, dance classes, book reading clubs, volunteer work. There is lots to choose from.
I have job and kids. And I am already using my allocated "for me" time for sport. It gives some social contact, but not enough. Social hobbies require significant time spent hanging out, but are not child friendly so they are out. Besides that, walking groups or book reading clubs don't exist here. Photography or creative clubs exist only in form of structured classes, where you pay for two lessons a week. Adults/old…
I totally quit television about a year ago, and it had a very noticeable positive impact on me. I also mostly quit Facebook with the end of last year. I say mostly, because I still use its event calendar, and occasionally check my stream. But I significantly reduced the amount of comments I leave on that platform. I feel like, while the criticism of FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit and co is pretty much warranted, we manage…
I find that I mostly watch Youtube edu-tainment channels like EEVblog.
The big corporate channels like "Analog Devices Inc" have too many premade for facebook 90 second snaps, and not enough relax in the living room recliner long format content.
The more niche the content the better the odds of "big corporate" producing quality content. "Analog Devices Inc" is mostly 90 second commercials, but "Arm Mbed" and its office hours series, despite also being "big corporate", has lots of enjoyable long format content, assuming you're into embedded FOSS RTOS for ARM or STM32.