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How I regained concentration and focus

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Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#291

Post by fleddr »

tootie wrote: post #227
Zanneth wrote: post #154

Aaron Swartz wrote a blog post about the news[1] and just how terrible it is for the brain. Reading his post had a major impact on me—since then I have always thought differently about the time I spend online. It’s interesting how people, including myself, try to justify various addictions. How am I supposed to stay informed about important topics without the news? How do I know how to help people in need without kno…

Man, I don't get it. News is bad for you so become deliberately ignorant? Don't get distracted by the world so you can work more? It's like saying traffic lights distract you from driving.

There's a lot of wiggle room between sane consumption and addiction. And addiction is becoming the norm. I'd add that even if you were to consume no news at all, you'd still get the summary of it one way or another.

I'll now continue with my hot take: being informed, even being an expert, on anything outside your field of work is overrated, if not useless.

Say you've been following the recent war in great depth. Or the pandemic. Or US politics. You've invested hundreds of hours reading about it and have developed an understanding far above average.

Now what? What are you going to do with it? Debate online, a lost cause? What is the tangible benefit of understanding without purpose?

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#292

Post by ben_w »

landemva wrote: post #286
tootie wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're getting at aside from asserting Russian propaganda. Ukraine has every right join NATO and if Russia thinks that's a provocation then they should take a look in the mirror. NATO isn't a mutual defense association, not an anti-Russia club. The only reason they think so is because they keep invading countries.

February 20 Zelensky in Munich started to talk back the 1994 no-nukes agreement. https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14001201000618/Ukraine-Threa... https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000... Donbas vote on self-autonomy has curiously not been allowed. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49903996 "Proposed in 2016 by Germany's then-foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the plan details free an…

Fun fact: the USSR asked to join NATO.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#293

Post by daniel_iversen »

kortex wrote: post #174

"Trivial inconveniences" are a big hurdle when trying to build a habit, but are a great tool for breaking bad ones. Anything you can do to break the dopamine loop helps, however small it may be. I've had success with: - setting long passwords to social media that aren't autofilled (saved in bitwarden) and logging out after each session - nerfing addicting parts of webapps (plugins which block the facebook news feed b…

A few other suggestions too:

- if you need an app, turn off notifications at least (and move it occasionally to another folder)

- turn on iOS Screen Time so you have that second to re-think if you want to use the app in the first place (pattern interruption)

- turn your phone colors to greyscale - I know it sounds odd but I had it like that for a couple of years or so and it made me reduce phone time, more productive and less stimulated by the phone (even for a good long while after turning it off)

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#294

Post by vinny2020 »

I'm proud of myself for reading the article to the end without distraction. I have been news free since the 2020 US election results were broadcast so I agree that a news diet is an immense boost for productivity. Why worry about things you can't really change. If it's important enough, trust me, you'll find out about it. I also use screen time to limit social media apps, but they are truly the crack cocaine of the the 21st century.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#295

Post by fleddr »

ben_w wrote: post #249
tootie wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this at all. Work and family restrict my travel. Reading news on my phone is inherently portable. And I'm not sure what visiting rural Easter Europe is supposed to prove. A lot of it is engulfed in war and I can't imagine those people are better off being completely ignorant of what Russia is doing. Certainly many of them are to everyone else's detriment. Media propaganda is obviously a bad thing,…

Are you going to do anything about the war in eastern Europe? If the news causes no change in your actions, you might as well have put a small pebble in front of the phone and had it, instead of your eyes, absorb the photons emitted by the screen.

I think this is a brilliant remark, although it likely will be taken the wrong way.

I've personally come to the conclusion that us humans aren't designed to take on the misery of the entire human population, and that we should stop projecting this assumption.

If there's no difference between caring and not caring, we should be quite a lot more humble in virtue signaling, or best just shut up.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#296

Post by vosper »

leobg wrote: post #204

Isn’t it funny how much attention these anti-procrastination posts are getting on essentially a procrastination site? (Tongue in cheek! I love HN. I just know that I sometimes do abuse it as a procrastination device.)

Just in case people don't realise: HN has a built-in anti-procrastination feature. You can set it in your profile. I have mine setup so that I can spend 10 minutes on HN every 2 hours.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#297

Post by andai »

Digital28 wrote: post #245
closedloop129 wrote: post #85

Did he regain concentration and focus? It's more like he just reduced distractions. That's not the same. What if being distracted is not a bug but a feature and his mind doesn't want to continue the path of constantly writing books? Instead of eliminating distractions, it could be more helpful to find the activities that don't create the desire for distractions.

He also says the pandemic didn't affect him, but honestly, whether it was Long COVID or an indirect psych effect of isolation, I've had extreme issues concentrating ever since 2020 that have been absolutely bullshit to manage.

Re: wide-scale reports of cognitive decline since lockdowns:

> In lab animals, isolation has been shown to cause brain shrinkage and the kind of brain changes you'd see in Alzheimer's disease — reduced brain cell connections and reduced levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is important for the formation, connection, and repair of brain cells.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/how-isolation-a...

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#298

Post by WaitWaitWha »

atmosx wrote: post #230
leobg wrote: post #204

Isn’t it funny how much attention these anti-procrastination posts are getting on essentially a procrastination site? (Tongue in cheek! I love HN. I just know that I sometimes do abuse it as a procrastination device.)

It’s also funny how all these posts are so “western” in style: ‘Hey look at me, I did something a bit difficult for 3 days, now I am a guru!’ Not trying to knock the author but the time window is simply too small and this approach is simply too common online. Let’s see if the author can actually change lifestyle for more than 5 years and then we can discuss about “lessons learned”.

Many Asian, North African, and Middle Eastern countries struggle with similar problems. And, this is not even developed/developing nations. I see it in economically poor or non-industrialized countries too.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#299

Post by Balgair »

mtnygard wrote: post #186
Zanneth wrote: post #154

Aaron Swartz wrote a blog post about the news[1] and just how terrible it is for the brain. Reading his post had a major impact on me—since then I have always thought differently about the time I spend online. It’s interesting how people, including myself, try to justify various addictions. How am I supposed to stay informed about important topics without the news? How do I know how to help people in need without kno…

I hadn’t seen that post before. This paragraph hit me as a tragic irony: ‘This seems to be true, but the curious thing is that I’m never involved. The government commits a crime, the New York Times prints it on the front page, the people on the cable chat shows foam at the mouth about it, the government apologizes and commits the crime more subtly. It’s a valuable system — I certainly support the government being mor…

Kinda like the Murry Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect

https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#300

Post by tootie »

aeze wrote: post #252
tootie wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I don't get it. News is bad for you so become deliberately ignorant? Don't get distracted by the world so you can work more? It's like saying traffic lights distract you from driving.

Reading news that will have little to zero impact on your life takes away time you can spend doing more meaningful activities. It doesn't just have to be 'work'. It can be hobbies, spending time with your kids, whatever you want.

Not all news is global. And besides we all vote. I hope. Do you live your life with no perspective of your world?
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