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Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

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Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#471

Post by geoduck14 »

senjin wrote: post #322

I know exactly why I do it and it feels impossible to stop. I scroll endlessly to avoid the pain of everything else in life. Doing work, doing chores, doing hobbies, talking to anyone, making decisions even about projects I'm excited to work on, it all causes a small hit of emotional pain. I don't really know where this pain comes from either. Maybe some childhood trauma that I can't even remember? I don't know. The…

Hey pal. There are a lot of people giving you advice about how big of a deal this is. Here's my take: that all sounds pretty normal.

Should you take care of it? Probably

Should you drop what you are doing and schedule a bunch of Dr Apts? Probably not

Any who... if it turns out to be a big deal, hit me up, cause I should probably do something, too ;)

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#472

Post by geoduck14 »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #447
senjin wrote: post #322

I know exactly why I do it and it feels impossible to stop. I scroll endlessly to avoid the pain of everything else in life. Doing work, doing chores, doing hobbies, talking to anyone, making decisions even about projects I'm excited to work on, it all causes a small hit of emotional pain. I don't really know where this pain comes from either. Maybe some childhood trauma that I can't even remember? I don't know. The…

The 2nd part is especially bad, lots of people (I'm an offender) justify bs reading with "learning".

Oh. You just described like 95% on my HN activity

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#473

Post by chefandy »

motoboi wrote: post #288
chefandy wrote: post #214

This sounds like a major depressive episode. A very experienced psychologist recently told me that even folks with no hint of mental health trouble started having a hard time with motivation and mood in the pandemic, but many with existing tendencies towards depressive states were plunged straight into oblivion. Talk therapy and medication can be a big help, but CBT exercises can also help if you're against using med…

For those who didn't get the memo: Be warned, folks! Depression is not about sadness, but about not being able to do things. If you are feeling incapable of doing things, like physically siting in front of the computer and not being able to do any work, you are probably depressed. Sometimes you'll sit in front of the computer, try to start some task but somehow end opening hackeer news, digg, youtube. Seek help as so…

The opposite of depression isn't happiness— it's vitality.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#475

Post by noduerme »

I'm in my 40s. I've been online since dialup BBS's in the 80s. I never had this kind of addiction to screens before the pandemic took away all my other outlets for novelty and interpersonal communication. I loved to travel, to go out every night, meet people in person.

It's terrible. It's a terrible world we've created. I'm really scared for the generation of kids who are growing up with no memory of what human interaction was like before this. I think it's lowered my IQ significantly. And I think it's worse for people with curious minds, people who are formatted to absorb information. When I was a kid, I read the encyclopedia for fun. I was on the debate team. I ran forums. 90% of my interactions were offline. There was a gradient between real life and online life that made online life a tool, not a habit. The current modality of endless scrolling harnesses both the debating impulse and the information-gathering impulse in the most harmful, least useful, most meaningless way possible.

I'm an alcoholic, and I smoke cigarettes. I am sure the modern internet is worse than both those things for my health and mental well-being. Having struggled with other addictions, I'm really only just starting to recognize it for what it is.

I think I need to find some kind of AA for internet junkies. Sitting around with a bunch of sad sacks and drinking bad coffee can't be worse than whatever I was doing at 4am last night.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#476

Post by ochoseis »

olah_1 wrote: post #207
dcchambers wrote: post #21

My completely unprofessional opinion is that almost everyone that uses the internet throughout the day has developed some form of undiagnosed ADD/ADHD. The modern internet has broken our slowly evolved brains. We are not built to cope with these types of attention destroying activities and media. At least 20 years ago you had to sit down at a specific place and use a chunky computer. Smartphones have made it 1000x wo…

> The average shot length of English language films has declined from about 12 seconds in 1930 to about 2.5 seconds today https://www.wired.com/2014/09/cinema-is-evolving/

The article kind of says this, but I suspect the process of editing films and composing shots has gotten easier over the years as the industry has refined tooling and techniques. Not just CGI, but the ability to arrange and view scenes is probably much more fluid today than it used to be. This also seems like something where incremental editing improvements lead to incremental changes in shot duration.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#478

Post by cyranodeshell »

I find it interesting that most of the top replies here skew philosophical - death of religion, boredom due to being at the top of the food chain, and so on.

In my opinion my relationship to wasting time on the internet more resembles what I know about chemical addiction.

I want to quit it, but I can't, and it's because when I turn away from it I crave the feel-good juice I get from mindlessly scrolling through twitter.

I have concluded that I am not mentally strong enough to quit - and I consider myself to be reasonably happy and fulfilled in life other than the outrageous amount of time I spend online.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#479

Post by archhn »

I didn't read the article. My response is addressed to the headline.

I waste so much time on the internet because I'm alone. I'm an atomized worker drone spawned from a pipeline designed to service corporations and governments.

I have very little personal human contact. Sometimes I walk the streets at night. I see a glowing box in almost every window. Almost everyone is extracting parasocial interactions from their TV sets as they mostly lay alone at night.

I crave human interaction. The internet is the only place where I can feel connected to others. That's why I'm here, that's why I waste so much time on the internet: it makes me feel more connected, less alone.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#480

Post by noduerme »

senjin wrote: post #322

I know exactly why I do it and it feels impossible to stop. I scroll endlessly to avoid the pain of everything else in life. Doing work, doing chores, doing hobbies, talking to anyone, making decisions even about projects I'm excited to work on, it all causes a small hit of emotional pain. I don't really know where this pain comes from either. Maybe some childhood trauma that I can't even remember? I don't know. The…

Being a person who enjoys learning makes it a much nastier addiction. I just wrote this in my post.

>> even about projects I'm excited to work on

This. Let me lay a comparison here to alcoholism. One thing that happens when you're an alcoholic is you plan your time around when you're going to drink. Suppose there's something you really want to do after work, but you're going to get into it for 4 hours and not go to a bar. You get off work, and suddenly it feels like a really heavy lift, when it was something you actually wanted to do. So you make excuses that you'll do it on the weekend, but then you don't do it, and eventually it starts to feel impossible. Time gets chopped up and you never get the long-term focus that comes with settling in and losing yourself in a project that takes hours of concentration. You forget how to concentrate.

All of these things are true for internet addiction as well.

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