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We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

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Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#111

Post by saiya-jin »

coffeefirst wrote: post #69
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not. It's not about telling kids to unplug completely. It's about balance. There are so many endless digital distractions available today that people need to know how and where to draw the line on their consumption. Or they don't recognize that the short-term value they…

The food analogy is really good. Like food, hyper-distraction affects different people differently, I've watched really bad habits affect real peoples lives in bad ways, and many people who grow up in a culture where that's normal may never break those habits. Also like food, I'm spending way more time in front of screens in order to cope with the pandemic. Is it okay? Eh, not really, but I think it's okay to accept…

> it's okay to accept the necessity of overindulgence given the circumstances

Yes and no. To be honest I am not very happy with all the articles/folks advocating that people should en masse self-medicate during covid with gaming/hours on internet. Its like unless you sit in front of computer/phone there is literally nothing to do at home, just slowly go crazy. I wish governments did recognize this since early pandemics and actually encouraged people to do individual sports outdoors, not effectively banning like in France. That's much better way to keep one fit mentally, and as a bonus physically too which helps not only with covid.

The reason for my opinion is this behavior creates patterns that will be very hard to shed off for many people, once things go +-back to as they were (although I don't think we ever get there 100%). Unfortunately, humans are creatures of habits and wired to create many dependencies, ie on substances, but also activities that produce dopamine rush.

I hope I am wrong in this. Maybe it won't be as bad and the same people would end up with these 'addictions' regardless of covid, maybe a bit less pronounced.

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#112

Post by p0d »

warent wrote: post #17
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about…

> Bitcoin is especially distracting right now, as they’re all nervously watching the real-time changes of their $1000 portfolios to see if they need to be sad about losing money because it’s crashing or sad about not investing more money because it’s going up. Great way to articulate this! This very experience is relatable although in my case with normal stocks, and something very interesting happened. I sold some st…

I sold my $1000 in bitcoin as it was proving a distraction. I was constantly checking it's value. I also came to the conclusion I don't believe in bitcoin. I was just hoping to make money which doesn't resonate with my values. I am good for money. I am thinking of turning my attention to micro loans to get my mind off the topic of myself.

It took a long walk to break the bitcoin distraction and start to see sense. I think we should be wise about the technology we let into our heads. Especially when that technology is tied to money. I have 6 bank/share apps on my phone I check frequently. This may be my next area to tackle.

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#113

Post by haasted »

lrossi wrote: post #46

Sorry to say this, but HN is a problem as well. I’m looking for that 1% of the posts that interest me, and when I find them it’s fantastic, since it’s info I would not be able to find anywhere else. But going through the other 99% is a waste of time. These two combined have a harmful effect on me. I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but it’s the same as the one causing addiction in gambling/bets/games. Gathering e…

An alternative is to stop visiting the site and sign up for Hacker Newsletter instead: https://hackernewsletter.com/

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#114

Post by ArcMex »

Unpopular opinion but I've embraced it. I'm OK with doing everything in small chunks anyway. So yeah, in between three pages of a novel, I'll check my notifications. When my pomodoro counter hits during a coding session, I'll stand take a walk and stretch. Five minutes later, I'll check my phone. Then return to my desk. While relaxing and watching Netflix, when an episode finishes, I'll stop watching, close Netflix, check my phone. If it's bed time, bed. If it's something else, do it for a small amount of time with notable progress. Small chunks, always. A hacker news post or a Reddit meme. Never hours of /g/. But my phone is my companion, not my enemy.

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#115

Post by Barrin92 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about…

I am going to make a counter point, albeit one that I don't like: Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not. What I mean is that to exist and live in the modern world increasingly requires adept skills at managing bespoke technological platforms. To be a social being in the 21st century is largely about navig…

>To be a social being in the 21st century is largely about navigating these platforms

No, you aren't navigating the platforms, the platforms are configuring you so to speak as to work as just another input/output or relay, which is obvious in the language you're using here: 'connectivy'. (that's how we talk about switches and routers). As Baudrillard pointed out in his piece 'The Ecstasy of Communication', being a sort of input at some terminal and endless exchange of meaningless symbols isn't socialisation, it's the opposite. It's the destruction of the social through mass communication. It's like some sort of morbid dance that has no actual meaning at all, people mechanically switching tinder results back and forth to optimise an algorithm that makes that process easier in an endless feedback loop.

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#116

Post by lm28469 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about…

I am going to make a counter point, albeit one that I don't like: Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not. What I mean is that to exist and live in the modern world increasingly requires adept skills at managing bespoke technological platforms. To be a social being in the 21st century is largely about navig…

> Of course this ideological view of society is long gone so there's just no sense trying to push back

It's only gone in ultra dense cities, as soon as we leave our techno bubbles the old world comes back real fast.

> Accept that today's child is a highly connected, distracted, techno-proficient being and let that be that.

I don't think you have to be that fatalist to be honest. When I see two years old kids already holding phones in their stroller, while the mom/dad is pushing the stroller with one hand and looking at the phone they hold in their other hand I feel like we went too far.

You can teach kid to use tech as a tool to navigate the world, but the vast majority of gadgets and services are pure distraction that are designed to trigger addiction mechanisms and milk your attention/time/money. I'd rather teach my kids how to become a master of google maps or how to use an app that let you navigate the night sky and its stars/galaxies than put them on fortnite and tiktok, I don't think these things exist on the same plane. I don't think people fully grasp how important the first decade of a child's brain formation is.

Self reported loneliness and teenager suicides have never been so high so I kinda cringe when I hear people saying restricting kids access to internet/tech will make them more disconnected and anti-social. A very large part of internet interactions are shallow and fabricated, they can't replace real world relationships in any way, shape or form.

I agree in some capacity that cutting out all these things would be very hard and probably damaging in some way, but embracing them completely without any restrictions is, imho, much worse

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#117

Post by lm28469 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about…

> It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy.

This is the most interesting part to me, people managed to monetize these things. After vacations, entertainment, now they monetize idleness, I really don't know what to think of it. The funny thing is that they're really two sides of the same coin, they both compete for your time and money

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#118

Post by lm28469 »

keiferski wrote: post #18
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about…

The blank page is unpopular these days. People have lost the ability to be creative, as in “create from scratch.” Everything must be appified and scheduled, offered with multiple preplanned choices and not with anything open-ended. This is easy to see with an example like kids toys or Legos: most of their new (and lucrative, I imagine) products are branded franchise ones, which is a far cry from the freeform building…

> Everything must be appified and scheduled

You see it very often on HN with all the articles about tweaking your productivity, scheduling everything, writing what you're doing every 15 minutes in a logbook as to not lose a single second of your life to "unproductivity", &c.

We're applying machine concepts to human life as if all that mattered was how much "things" you can produce and how much other things it allows you to consume

Re: We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

#120

Post by burntoutfire »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37
rubicon33 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to make a counter point, albeit one that I don't like: Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not. What I mean is that to exist and live in the modern world increasingly requires adept skills at managing bespoke technological platforms. To be a social being in the 21st century is largely about navig…

> Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not. It's not about telling kids to unplug completely. It's about balance. There are so many endless digital distractions available today that people need to know how and where to draw the line on their consumption. Or they don't recognize that the short-term value they…

> It's exhausting to listen to mentees complain that they don't have enough time in the day to work out, or read a book they want to read, or cook the healthy meals they want to eat, but then they go on to discuss things like Bitcoin and Dogecoin for 4 hours straight in Slack or recruit their friends into another Twitter argument.

It's practically never about time, but rather about energy. People need some downtime from work and chores and "improving themselves", and BS arguments on Slack or Twitter is a way to unwind for some.

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