13 ms·

The End of Reflection

177 points by kawera 10y ago

asolove 10y ago
Anecdotally, switching back from an iPhone to a flip phone has been very revealing for me. I don't know about all the generalizations made in this piece, or decrying overall social change. And I expect I am an outlier as being far more distractible than most. But I do think it's worth spending a week living your normal life but without a smartphone to see how you personally are different. Don't just go on vacation and "disconnect". Try living your life but disconnected. It's interesting. You have to get places earlier. You have to make plans that have pre-arranged fallback plans. You have to have something to think about to not get bored. (Or, at least, I do.)
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  The reason I like small smartphones (3.5-4 inch screens) is similar to this. It's a middle ground. I won't argue that a 6.5" screen is great for doing stuff on, and you can more comfortably do more stuff on it than on a hand sized device. I'm just not sure why you'd want to.
  - johnloeber 10y ago
    I think this goes the other way: the use case is still so compelling that you try to do on the 3.5" phone what you would normally do on the 6" phone, and then just get frustrated by the subpar UX.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      It really doesn't. I'll manage with my phone if something's actually important, but if it's not I can do it on a tablet/laptop later. Phone gets used for communication, camera, music, Nike+ running, entering meals into myfitnesspal, and not a lot else.
- laurencei 10y ago
  I want to do this - except I have 2-3 apps I feel I could not live without. Google Auth for 2-factor been the main one.
  - tbrooks 10y ago
    If you use 1Password, they have 2-factor auth built-in. Read more here: https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/ https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/
    - DenisM 10y ago
      Also, on Apple Watch!
    - trusche 10y ago
      I didn't realize they had that feature. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of 2FA to have your password and your second factor in one single app?
  - loosescrews 10y ago
    What are the others? You could always switch to one of the low-app smartphone platforms. I recommend Sailfish. It has a really nice native Google Auth 2-factor app.
    - porker 10y ago
      For me, Google Maps Navigation. Having real-time routing and traffic updates without paying a fortune for a fancy SatNav is wonderful.
      - derwiki 10y ago
        I just did a road trip through southern Utah with the explicit goal of not using any turn-by-turn navigation. It requires a little more up front planning, but if you reset your trip odometer at each major turn, it's just as easy as following navigation. It also felt good to not be dependent on the navigation.
- athenot 10y ago
  Part of the draw of smartphones is that many of us are terrified of boredom. I view boredom as an asset: it's when I get to introspect. My happy medium is to carry my smartphone (I need it for work) but I turn off many notifications that are not essential, or make them more discrete (eg. in notification center but no sounds).
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    People also feel very guilty for not filling every waking moment of their time with some task. I can spend a weekend doing nearly nothing and not feel an ounce of guilt. I won't do it every weekend, my house would fall into disrepair. But sometimes you just need that weekend off.
    - mitchty 10y ago
      Indeed. This is what learning Buddhist and Stoic philosophy has taught me. Doing absolutely nothing but staring at at river for hours on end reconnects me with the world. Hearing and feeling the world around you without distraction is grounding. Coming back to the electronic world after that really shows you how crazy and hectic a world we live in right now.
  - amag 10y ago
    > I view boredom as an asset: it's when I get to introspect. This. It's a lost art. My kids constantly complain about boredom and I envy them. They don't understand me and I fear they never will.
- Fargren 10y ago
  I have a smartphone, but no mobile data plan. I am always reachable on the phone (mostly because some people I care about really disliked that they could sometime not get in touch with me) but a lot of the time if I'm out, I don't have the internet. Being connected all the time makes me a into a person I don't like as much as the one I am when I can actually disconnect a bit every day. There a "zone", or maybe a rhythm, I get to when I'm walking outside where I can focus on myself or in whatever I'm working on. It's much harder to get here when I know I could be on the internet instead. It's not the middle ground I'd chose in an ideal world - I'd rather not have a smartphone, maybe not even a dumb phone, but I develop for mobile a lot.
- lmm 10y ago
  > Try living your life but disconnected. It's interesting I found it the opposite of interesting. It was exactly as I expected it would be: like normal life, but a lot more boring and generally worse.
  - derwiki 10y ago
    Worse how? When I'm "on the sauce", I pull out my phone to idly check Facebook, Instagram etc for the 3 minutes I have on BART or 2 minutes while waiting at the grocery store. I don't get the sense those make my life any better. If I didn't check then, the same stories would be surfaced later when I'm at home. If I know I'll have more than 10 minutes downtime (like riding the bus) I'll just bring a book/Kindle. I've also noticed that when I'm not constantly looking at my phone, I notice more interesting things around me.
    - pm90 10y ago
      > I've also noticed that when I'm not constantly looking at my phone, I notice more interesting things around me. This is so true. It boggles my mind how much cellphones have made it normal to just sit and stare into a screen while there are so many things going around in the real world around one.
    - arvinsim 10y ago
      Why not just uninstall those social apps? There are lots of things that can be done on a phone without wasting it on social media. Things like language learning, listening to a podcast and the like.
      - thinkingkong 10y ago
        Isnt that the whole point. Mindless or not the suggestion is the lack of doing nothing.
      - jmspring 10y ago
        At the rate FB is going, I can see an uptick in people not willing to install messenger, etc. either moving away from social apps or finding other alternatives. For me, if they force the change on iOS, I will definitely be cutting back.
ahuibers 10y ago
Donald Knuth on email: "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration." http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  I've never heard of or been part of any organization (academic, non-profit, corporate, open source, etc.) that respects the basic need of developers for uninterruptible concentration. Note also that it is a particular word choice by Knuth: uninterruptible ... not uninterrupted. It harkens back to what Paul Graham wrote in both Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule and in Great Hackers -- even just having a mid-morning meeting on the calendar at all can prevent you from even attempting something hard at the start of your day, because you know the time is already interrupted. You need more than just happenstance of not being interrupted in a given time window. You need to know that you can't be interrupted, at least not unless it's a sky-is-falling kind of emergency (and you need to be able to trust that your colleagues know the difference). This is far and away the number one thing I need as a developer. I can write passable software that I'm not proud of if it's loud, violently anti-privacy, over-saturated with "collaboration" generally in some ultra-Agile open-plan nightmare setting. But the only times I've ever written software that I was proud of -- software that made huge, huge differences in the organizations I was part of -- was when I could finally find a loophole or something to create a situation when it was not possible to interrupt me with the usual bullshit. It amazes me that even still, status effects and incredibly poor understanding of where the value of software engineering resides leads to so many organizations that not only have interruption-is-the-norm open-plan disasters for offices and a million Agile meetings, but actually praise that garbage and hold it up as if it is an example of positive collaboration or effective engineering, despite it being the very antithesis of positive collaboration or effective engineering.
  - GnarfGnarf 10y ago
    Very true. I hate being interrupted when I'm programming. I'm fortunate that I work alone (except when my wife comes into my office). I think programming is a Zen state of concentration. Either that, or the trance that programmers get in, is a type of hypnosis. Einstein's wife was forbidden from entering his study.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
The last remaining place I’m guaranteed to be alone with my thoughts is in the shower. Teddy Wayne clearly hasn't discovered LifeProof cases. When I first got a LifeProof case many a friend received a photo of water coming out of the shower head and the words "just having a shower". But anyway, yeah we spend too much time on our phones. But so what? There are much worse things. Out of the 20 or so <25 year olds at my work place only three of them smoke cigarettes. Who cares if we use our phones too much. If we go to work, pay the bills, and generally don't get too involved in fucking people over, do whatever you like on your phone. At least smartphones are interactive, at least to some extent.
- techsupporter 10y ago
  > Teddy Wayne clearly hasn't discovered LifeProof cases. Tangentially related but I hadn't discovered LifeProof cases prior to you mentioning it. These things look amazing. I'm ordering one for my phone right now. Less for using in the shower (I take really fast showers) and more for using in the rain and not worrying about an accidental drop in a puddle. (And maybe I'm the outlier here but I don't want to go back to having a not-smartphone. I remember using flip phones like my StarTac as well my complete tank of a Nokia 3390--complete with Snake--but I also enjoy being able to e-mail and text with my friends and read books and play music all from one device. And I'm in my mid-30s so it's not like I've never lived when we didn't have smartphones.)
samatman 10y ago
Two observations: first, I would probably underestimate my smartphone use by the criteria they provide. It wouldn't occur to me to describe checking the time as 'using' my phone, but it would count, because it turns the screen on. I'd guess that half the occasions I turn my screen on, it's to check the time. Second, I easily use my phone for five hours in a typical day, because I like to listen to music. But listening to music is no barrier to reflection or introspection at all, rather the contrary, at least for me.
agumonkey 10y ago
All this thread makes me wanna walk on a mountain and do yoga for a few months.
- DenisM 10y ago
  Go to Vipassana instead. 10 days make dramatic difference.
mbil 10y ago
For the last few weeks I've been not listening to podcasts or music on my morning walk to work (half hour). I deliberately did this to give myself time to be more introspective or creative. Realizing after X minutes that you've just been lost in thought is kind of satisfying.
WWKong 10y ago
Try this 4x4 digital detox. Repeat every 4 months. Customize to your habits. Prereq = Delete feed apps, turn off notifications Day 1, 2 = No feeds, forums, news Day 3 = Introduce News, forums limited to 2 slots of 15 mins Day 4 = Introduce feeds limited to 1 slot of 20 min
- derwiki 10y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but this is certainly a valid idea. Tangentially, I've thought about resetting my phone once a month to make sure I only have installed what I want/need. But as a first step, I disabled 23 notifications I didn't need -- kept just SMS and WhatsApp.
mbrock 10y ago
This whole question of what to do with one's mind. Introspection sounds nice but it's not always useful. What I'm kind of trying to do with technology is study or learn for many hours every day, it's just that I'm not doing a great job, because the stressful approach makes it hard to find and approach real valuable material. I'm also trying to keep up with some kind of professional community as well as some cultural forms of community. I appreciate the professional or hobbyist communities because basically they don't revolve around Donald Trump and I can pretend the world is basically sane. I've reflected a lot but not really gotten anywhere. I really value two different three month periods in the past few years when I haven't had internet access at home at all, though. Having hours every day when my mind wasn't hooked up to high frequency information systems was pretty wonderful. There's something in Bob Dylan's memoirs, the first book which is the only one I read (I don't finish books anymore), about how his "news" for a while was the history of the Byzantine empire (or something) because that's what he was studying at the time. I'm more and more interested in the visceral feeling of "offline" and I think it's a source of refreshment that is becoming scarce (this ought to be a considerable driver of interest in meditation retreats).
- studentrob 10y ago
  > Having hours every day when my mind wasn't hooked up to high frequency information systems was pretty wonderful. I feel like this is what many people would describe as a period of introspection. You are temporarily closing out far away communications and narrowing focus to immediate surroundings. You can get more of this by focusing on one object, or closing your eyes. If you do it for 20 minutes a day, you might find yourself more capable of handling other stresses. The skill is currently called being mindful or aware, and you can strengthen it, as you observed, by closing out externalities. After closing your eyes, the idea is to close out thought. It is a challenging and useful exercise. There are some books on mindfulness that could say more.
niftich 10y ago
When I want to reflect, I go for a drive. It takes me through places I don't see every day, and ensures I keep my hands off my phone. When I get home, I will have cleared my head, and I often feel I just had an adventure.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  I used to do that all the time before I got married.
- derwiki 10y ago
  It also works just as well to leave your phone at home and go for a walk. We existed for a long time with just landlines; you weren't at home when Bob called? That's fine. Just because we _have_ cell phones, we're not required to be accessible 24/7.
fimdomeio 10y ago
The only problem I have with my feature phone is the fact that it has opera mini which is capable enough to write this comment. On the first week I broke the email when trying to update it. Facebook on the other hand is kind of interesting. it takes 2min to send a message.
jgrahamc 10y ago
I get constantly distracted at work by people asking me questions, needing something etc. My solution has been to leave the office and go for a walk. No one knows where I am and I get to think quietly to myself while walking. I have my phone with me and I just leave it in my pocket.
mike_hock 10y ago
That kind of reflection. I was starting to think inspecting the types from within a language wasn't considered good anymore ...
ASpring 10y ago
Active reflection on past experiences has many positive effects on psychological wellbeing and I'm quite surprised that they weren't mentioned in this article. Artie Konrad (disclaimer: a labmate of mine until he graduated recently) focused on the effects of Technology Mediated Reflection (TMR) which deals with user's keeping a sort of personal diary and being prompted to reflect on past experiences routinely. Overall this increases mental wellbeing significantly with some interesting effects on how memories are evaluated over time and how the reflective process affects current moods.
- DenisM 10y ago
  I would expect the opposite - ruminating over past problems will make them worse. It clearly does for some people, but you're saying it's different for other, do you know where the distinction lies? If you ever find out please send me an email. Thanks!
  - ASpring 10y ago
    Great question. Their result in this area did surprise me. Conscious reflection on past negative memories slowly turns them into less negative and less painful memories. There is a lot of work here done by Pennebaker about how writing about past negative events transforms our memory of them [1]. And the work done by my lab started off with a system that facilitated these reflections through technology [2]. There is more recent work on this in press. I think the difference lies in the structure. Rumination is symptomatic of depressive thinking and often characterized by intrusive negative thoughts. Reflection on the other hand is the conscious process of sitting down and reevaluating a past situation (often in writing). 1. Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2011). Expressive writing: Connections to physical and mental health. In H. S. Friedman (Eds.), Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 417-437). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2. Isaacs, E., Konrad, A., Walendowski, A., Lennig, T., Hollis, V., & Whittaker, S. (2013). Echoes from the past: how technology mediated reflection improves well-being (p. 1071). ACM Press. http://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466137 http://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466137
    - 10y ago
CuriouslyC 10y ago
The single best thing you can do for your productivity and peace of mind is leave your phone on airplane mode unless you are expecting an important call, or need to make a call. Anyone trying to reach you that you actually want to hear from will leave a message, and the hassle of having to switch out of airplane mode keeps you from compulsively surfing, using facebook/twitter/etc.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Disabling mobile data and wifi may be a more workable solution for some
- ytpete 10y ago
  Or leave it on but turn off wi-fi and mobile data. So you can get phone calls but not do anything online.
- derwiki 10y ago
  I've found that the act of logging out of Facebook after using it generally has the same effect. If I find myself casually loading Facebook, but it takes me to a login screen, I remember that I wanted to be purposeful about using Facebook and put it away.
  - cageface 10y ago
    I removed all social media apps from my phone. I will still occasionally access them from my laptop now but usually when I'm using my laptop I'm working so the temptation is a lot weaker.
brudgers 10y ago
Maybe I reflect less now than I did before I had a supercomputer in my pocket. I am not certain. However, today I have more and better information to reflect upon than back then. Of that I am certain. When I turn off, tune out and drop into a book it's more out of the habit of an older generation than some quest for a quality inaccessible to the well wired. I don't think that being wired has made people less contemplative so much as it facilitates encountering those who aren't now and would not have been in the past.
woodandsteel 10y ago
The thing about the way the human mind works is that you often can't find out what would be most rewarding, or why you are acting as your are, good or bad, unless you spend some quiet time slowly paying attention to your unclear feelings and various experiences. Meditation can help a great deal with this, ditto keeping a journal. So can engaging in artistic expression such painting or writing poetry. Ditto reading great thinkers or novelists. I particularly like the focusing method developed by the philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin. You have to understand, social media corporations don't want you to know what you really want, because it often would turn out to be something other than what they are selling. So they keep you distracted with mental candy and an unending worry that you are missing something important.
caseymarquis 10y ago
Initially thought this was an argument against meta-programming till I saw the source. I got very defensive for no reason. |D
cgs 10y ago
I wanted to check my phone less, and one thing that helped was setting the screen to grayscale (iOS: Settings > General > Accessibility ). When things are less shiny, you're less inclined to compulsively have a look. Tip from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/480240/adventures-in-grayscale/ http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/480240/adventures-in-...
- manifaust 10y ago
  Wow this look is nuts. I'm gonna give it a try.
- spoinkaroo 10y ago
  Thanks for the tip. Is grayscale better for your eyes also? I'd imagine it would be.
noobermin 10y ago
I read the first two sentences, and then I immediately closed the tab. I then decided to give it a second thought seeing the response on HN, and I see my first gut reaction was correct. I'm 27, and I know people who are younger who surprise, surprise are reflective. I stay about 45 minutes away from my office by bus. By bike it takes 35. I like the bike ride, but initially, I missed the bus rides because I had time to contemplate on the bus...yes, with my phone in hand. May be I am the minority, but even with my phone I think a lot because I decide to and to be honest, my phone isn't as interesting as my thoughts...frequently. Technology has always been an augment to my life, it isn't my life. When I didn't spend 5 hours on my phone I probably spent 5 hours playing video games or 5 hours doing something else. This feels like another thinly veiled $(echo Rock and roll is corrupting the youth | sed 's/Rock and roll/Marijuana/' | sed 's/Marijuana/Grunge Music/' | sed 's/Grunge Music/Video Games/' | sed 's/Video Games/the Internet/') argument--it also is another article that indirectly targets Millenials ( attacking the selfie, then the tweet ) and that their culture is "unreflective"...yes, the same generation that drinks, smokes, is more educated, and has less teen pregnancies than prior ones. Possibly, some of those 5 hours were spent self-inflicting one's self with cancer in generations past, which I would argue is quite unreflective. The phone and the internet is not going away, many introspective introverts like me still do think and still like it. Just because we have written language, it doesn't mean the corrupt youth know less since they no longer have to memorize. In fact, as Aristotle was dead wrong on Newton's 1st Law, I offer that written language, like all technology, just makes us better thinkers...it all comes down to how we use it.
- studentrob 10y ago
  Agreed. The article speaks more to the awareness of the author than the collective awareness of the public. Every tool will be used by people however they choose. Tech can enhance or lower intellect. It's how you decide to use it that matters. Collectively, I'm not convinced this age is becoming less aware of itself. There are some awesome things out there. Creative, artistic things in all walks of life. I have my own list of things that won't apply to everyone. It just depends what you like. If the world isn't producing something that you think should exist, then make it. I suppose, for this author, that is this article.
- 10y ago
apatters 10y ago
So increased smartphone usage may be impairing our reflective abilities, but to play devil's advocate, what is it imparting instead which is beneficial? As the article notes, a thought may be tweeted out to others instantly and developed in a public forum instead of in isolation in the thinker's head. That may very well result in better thoughts, particularly for people who never had very complex ideas in the first place.
rollthehard6 10y ago
Agree that reflection and contemplation is important. Likewise, writing your thoughts out is also powerful and sometimes, being forced to edit your point down to one or two 140 char snippets is not such bad thing either. Similarly, being exposed to the views of people you would likely never meet in pre-internet/social media times is no bad thing either IMHO. "Everything in moderation" and "Variety is the spice of life" are aphorisms that persist for a reason.
- miloshadzic 10y ago
  We were writing out our own thoughts before the internet and also cutting the length down(see graffiti, sms). Being exposed is not the same as being constantly bombarded with new content. By the way, you're not really being exposed to that differing views as Google, Facebook, etc are putting you inside a bubble filled with things you like. Moderation is hard when companies are working hard to make you use their tech as much as possible (more looking, more clicking -- more money).
jernfrost 10y ago
I am actually worried about myself for spending too much time with the smart phone. Even at the bathroom, while I stand peeing I browse stuff that I actually don't care that much about. It is a compulsion. Probably should get treatment. I find that I've started to lose the ability to read and concentrate on longer pieces of text. I hardly read books anymore, which goes into things at any depth. I used to take long walks where I thought about difficult problems and found solutions. I would ponder these problems on the bus, or subway. I never mined being alone with my thoughts before. I never understood how people could be bored when there are so many things one could be thinking about. Yet here I am in 2016 incapable of being alone in my own thoughts for more than 5 minutes before pulling up the iPhone. I starts to feel more like a bad drug, than a usable tool. If anybody has good suggestions for phones or ways of configuring the iPhone so that I can only read email. I am not addicted to email. It is the browsing functionality which is so addictive. I also wish I was not wasting my time on HN writing this comment ;-)
- studentrob 10y ago
  I suggest mindfulness meditation. 20 minutes a day of trying to focus on nothing can help get your brain back in order. It may seem odd that the cure for the inability to concentrate might be concentrating on something as basic as your breath. It worked for me. Mindfulness in Plain English is a good book to get started is and free online.
- rtb 10y ago
  Just get a dumb phone. I don't have a smartphone because I'm sure I'd fall into the same trap. It's occasionally difficult, but usually just freeing.
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177 points by kawera 10y ago

Anecdotally, switching back from an iPhone to a flip phone has been very revealing for me. I don't know about all the generalizations made in this piece, or decrying overall social change. And I expect I am an outlier as being far more distractible than most. But I do think it's worth spending a week living your normal life but without a smartphone to see how you personally are different. Don't just go on vacation and "disconnect". Try living your life but disconnected. It's interesting. You have to get places earlier. You have to make plans that have pre-arranged fallback plans. You have to have something to think about to not get bored. (Or, at least, I do.)

wlesieutre 10y ago
The reason I like small smartphones (3.5-4 inch screens) is similar to this. It's a middle ground. I won't argue that a 6.5" screen is great for doing stuff on, and you can more comfortably do more stuff on it than on a hand sized device. I'm just not sure why you'd want to.
- johnloeber 10y ago
  I think this goes the other way: the use case is still so compelling that you try to do on the 3.5" phone what you would normally do on the 6" phone, and then just get frustrated by the subpar UX.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    It really doesn't. I'll manage with my phone if something's actually important, but if it's not I can do it on a tablet/laptop later. Phone gets used for communication, camera, music, Nike+ running, entering meals into myfitnesspal, and not a lot else.
laurencei 10y ago
I want to do this - except I have 2-3 apps I feel I could not live without. Google Auth for 2-factor been the main one.
- tbrooks 10y ago
  If you use 1Password, they have 2-factor auth built-in. Read more here: https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/ https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/
  - DenisM 10y ago
    Also, on Apple Watch!
  - trusche 10y ago
    I didn't realize they had that feature. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of 2FA to have your password and your second factor in one single app?
- loosescrews 10y ago
  What are the others? You could always switch to one of the low-app smartphone platforms. I recommend Sailfish. It has a really nice native Google Auth 2-factor app.
  - porker 10y ago
    For me, Google Maps Navigation. Having real-time routing and traffic updates without paying a fortune for a fancy SatNav is wonderful.
    - derwiki 10y ago
      I just did a road trip through southern Utah with the explicit goal of not using any turn-by-turn navigation. It requires a little more up front planning, but if you reset your trip odometer at each major turn, it's just as easy as following navigation. It also felt good to not be dependent on the navigation.
athenot 10y ago
Part of the draw of smartphones is that many of us are terrified of boredom. I view boredom as an asset: it's when I get to introspect. My happy medium is to carry my smartphone (I need it for work) but I turn off many notifications that are not essential, or make them more discrete (eg. in notification center but no sounds).
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  People also feel very guilty for not filling every waking moment of their time with some task. I can spend a weekend doing nearly nothing and not feel an ounce of guilt. I won't do it every weekend, my house would fall into disrepair. But sometimes you just need that weekend off.
  - mitchty 10y ago
    Indeed. This is what learning Buddhist and Stoic philosophy has taught me. Doing absolutely nothing but staring at at river for hours on end reconnects me with the world. Hearing and feeling the world around you without distraction is grounding. Coming back to the electronic world after that really shows you how crazy and hectic a world we live in right now.
- amag 10y ago
  > I view boredom as an asset: it's when I get to introspect. This. It's a lost art. My kids constantly complain about boredom and I envy them. They don't understand me and I fear they never will.
Fargren 10y ago
I have a smartphone, but no mobile data plan. I am always reachable on the phone (mostly because some people I care about really disliked that they could sometime not get in touch with me) but a lot of the time if I'm out, I don't have the internet. Being connected all the time makes me a into a person I don't like as much as the one I am when I can actually disconnect a bit every day. There a "zone", or maybe a rhythm, I get to when I'm walking outside where I can focus on myself or in whatever I'm working on. It's much harder to get here when I know I could be on the internet instead. It's not the middle ground I'd chose in an ideal world - I'd rather not have a smartphone, maybe not even a dumb phone, but I develop for mobile a lot.
lmm 10y ago
> Try living your life but disconnected. It's interesting I found it the opposite of interesting. It was exactly as I expected it would be: like normal life, but a lot more boring and generally worse.
- derwiki 10y ago
  Worse how? When I'm "on the sauce", I pull out my phone to idly check Facebook, Instagram etc for the 3 minutes I have on BART or 2 minutes while waiting at the grocery store. I don't get the sense those make my life any better. If I didn't check then, the same stories would be surfaced later when I'm at home. If I know I'll have more than 10 minutes downtime (like riding the bus) I'll just bring a book/Kindle. I've also noticed that when I'm not constantly looking at my phone, I notice more interesting things around me.
  - pm90 10y ago
    > I've also noticed that when I'm not constantly looking at my phone, I notice more interesting things around me. This is so true. It boggles my mind how much cellphones have made it normal to just sit and stare into a screen while there are so many things going around in the real world around one.
  - arvinsim 10y ago
    Why not just uninstall those social apps? There are lots of things that can be done on a phone without wasting it on social media. Things like language learning, listening to a podcast and the like.
    - thinkingkong 10y ago
      Isnt that the whole point. Mindless or not the suggestion is the lack of doing nothing.
    - jmspring 10y ago
      At the rate FB is going, I can see an uptick in people not willing to install messenger, etc. either moving away from social apps or finding other alternatives. For me, if they force the change on iOS, I will definitely be cutting back.

ahuibers 10y ago

Donald Knuth on email: "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration." http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html

p4wnc6 10y ago
I've never heard of or been part of any organization (academic, non-profit, corporate, open source, etc.) that respects the basic need of developers for uninterruptible concentration. Note also that it is a particular word choice by Knuth: uninterruptible ... not uninterrupted. It harkens back to what Paul Graham wrote in both Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule and in Great Hackers -- even just having a mid-morning meeting on the calendar at all can prevent you from even attempting something hard at the start of your day, because you know the time is already interrupted. You need more than just happenstance of not being interrupted in a given time window. You need to know that you can't be interrupted, at least not unless it's a sky-is-falling kind of emergency (and you need to be able to trust that your colleagues know the difference). This is far and away the number one thing I need as a developer. I can write passable software that I'm not proud of if it's loud, violently anti-privacy, over-saturated with "collaboration" generally in some ultra-Agile open-plan nightmare setting. But the only times I've ever written software that I was proud of -- software that made huge, huge differences in the organizations I was part of -- was when I could finally find a loophole or something to create a situation when it was not possible to interrupt me with the usual bullshit. It amazes me that even still, status effects and incredibly poor understanding of where the value of software engineering resides leads to so many organizations that not only have interruption-is-the-norm open-plan disasters for offices and a million Agile meetings, but actually praise that garbage and hold it up as if it is an example of positive collaboration or effective engineering, despite it being the very antithesis of positive collaboration or effective engineering.
- GnarfGnarf 10y ago
  Very true. I hate being interrupted when I'm programming. I'm fortunate that I work alone (except when my wife comes into my office). I think programming is a Zen state of concentration. Either that, or the trance that programmers get in, is a type of hypnosis. Einstein's wife was forbidden from entering his study.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

The last remaining place I’m guaranteed to be alone with my thoughts is in the shower. Teddy Wayne clearly hasn't discovered LifeProof cases. When I first got a LifeProof case many a friend received a photo of water coming out of the shower head and the words "just having a shower". But anyway, yeah we spend too much time on our phones. But so what? There are much worse things. Out of the 20 or so <25 year olds at my work place only three of them smoke cigarettes. Who cares if we use our phones too much. If we go to work, pay the bills, and generally don't get too involved in fucking people over, do whatever you like on your phone. At least smartphones are interactive, at least to some extent.

techsupporter 10y ago
> Teddy Wayne clearly hasn't discovered LifeProof cases. Tangentially related but I hadn't discovered LifeProof cases prior to you mentioning it. These things look amazing. I'm ordering one for my phone right now. Less for using in the shower (I take really fast showers) and more for using in the rain and not worrying about an accidental drop in a puddle. (And maybe I'm the outlier here but I don't want to go back to having a not-smartphone. I remember using flip phones like my StarTac as well my complete tank of a Nokia 3390--complete with Snake--but I also enjoy being able to e-mail and text with my friends and read books and play music all from one device. And I'm in my mid-30s so it's not like I've never lived when we didn't have smartphones.)

samatman 10y ago

Two observations: first, I would probably underestimate my smartphone use by the criteria they provide. It wouldn't occur to me to describe checking the time as 'using' my phone, but it would count, because it turns the screen on. I'd guess that half the occasions I turn my screen on, it's to check the time. Second, I easily use my phone for five hours in a typical day, because I like to listen to music. But listening to music is no barrier to reflection or introspection at all, rather the contrary, at least for me.

agumonkey 10y ago

All this thread makes me wanna walk on a mountain and do yoga for a few months.

DenisM 10y ago
Go to Vipassana instead. 10 days make dramatic difference.

mbil 10y ago

For the last few weeks I've been not listening to podcasts or music on my morning walk to work (half hour). I deliberately did this to give myself time to be more introspective or creative. Realizing after X minutes that you've just been lost in thought is kind of satisfying.

WWKong 10y ago

Try this 4x4 digital detox. Repeat every 4 months. Customize to your habits. Prereq = Delete feed apps, turn off notifications Day 1, 2 = No feeds, forums, news Day 3 = Introduce News, forums limited to 2 slots of 15 mins Day 4 = Introduce feeds limited to 1 slot of 20 min

derwiki 10y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but this is certainly a valid idea. Tangentially, I've thought about resetting my phone once a month to make sure I only have installed what I want/need. But as a first step, I disabled 23 notifications I didn't need -- kept just SMS and WhatsApp.

mbrock 10y ago

This whole question of what to do with one's mind. Introspection sounds nice but it's not always useful. What I'm kind of trying to do with technology is study or learn for many hours every day, it's just that I'm not doing a great job, because the stressful approach makes it hard to find and approach real valuable material. I'm also trying to keep up with some kind of professional community as well as some cultural forms of community. I appreciate the professional or hobbyist communities because basically they don't revolve around Donald Trump and I can pretend the world is basically sane. I've reflected a lot but not really gotten anywhere. I really value two different three month periods in the past few years when I haven't had internet access at home at all, though. Having hours every day when my mind wasn't hooked up to high frequency information systems was pretty wonderful. There's something in Bob Dylan's memoirs, the first book which is the only one I read (I don't finish books anymore), about how his "news" for a while was the history of the Byzantine empire (or something) because that's what he was studying at the time. I'm more and more interested in the visceral feeling of "offline" and I think it's a source of refreshment that is becoming scarce (this ought to be a considerable driver of interest in meditation retreats).

studentrob 10y ago
> Having hours every day when my mind wasn't hooked up to high frequency information systems was pretty wonderful. I feel like this is what many people would describe as a period of introspection. You are temporarily closing out far away communications and narrowing focus to immediate surroundings. You can get more of this by focusing on one object, or closing your eyes. If you do it for 20 minutes a day, you might find yourself more capable of handling other stresses. The skill is currently called being mindful or aware, and you can strengthen it, as you observed, by closing out externalities. After closing your eyes, the idea is to close out thought. It is a challenging and useful exercise. There are some books on mindfulness that could say more.

niftich 10y ago

When I want to reflect, I go for a drive. It takes me through places I don't see every day, and ensures I keep my hands off my phone. When I get home, I will have cleared my head, and I often feel I just had an adventure.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
I used to do that all the time before I got married.
derwiki 10y ago
It also works just as well to leave your phone at home and go for a walk. We existed for a long time with just landlines; you weren't at home when Bob called? That's fine. Just because we _have_ cell phones, we're not required to be accessible 24/7.

fimdomeio 10y ago

The only problem I have with my feature phone is the fact that it has opera mini which is capable enough to write this comment. On the first week I broke the email when trying to update it. Facebook on the other hand is kind of interesting. it takes 2min to send a message.

jgrahamc 10y ago

I get constantly distracted at work by people asking me questions, needing something etc. My solution has been to leave the office and go for a walk. No one knows where I am and I get to think quietly to myself while walking. I have my phone with me and I just leave it in my pocket.

mike_hock 10y ago

That kind of reflection. I was starting to think inspecting the types from within a language wasn't considered good anymore ...

ASpring 10y ago

Active reflection on past experiences has many positive effects on psychological wellbeing and I'm quite surprised that they weren't mentioned in this article. Artie Konrad (disclaimer: a labmate of mine until he graduated recently) focused on the effects of Technology Mediated Reflection (TMR) which deals with user's keeping a sort of personal diary and being prompted to reflect on past experiences routinely. Overall this increases mental wellbeing significantly with some interesting effects on how memories are evaluated over time and how the reflective process affects current moods.

DenisM 10y ago
I would expect the opposite - ruminating over past problems will make them worse. It clearly does for some people, but you're saying it's different for other, do you know where the distinction lies? If you ever find out please send me an email. Thanks!
- ASpring 10y ago
  Great question. Their result in this area did surprise me. Conscious reflection on past negative memories slowly turns them into less negative and less painful memories. There is a lot of work here done by Pennebaker about how writing about past negative events transforms our memory of them [1]. And the work done by my lab started off with a system that facilitated these reflections through technology [2]. There is more recent work on this in press. I think the difference lies in the structure. Rumination is symptomatic of depressive thinking and often characterized by intrusive negative thoughts. Reflection on the other hand is the conscious process of sitting down and reevaluating a past situation (often in writing). 1. Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2011). Expressive writing: Connections to physical and mental health. In H. S. Friedman (Eds.), Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 417-437). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2. Isaacs, E., Konrad, A., Walendowski, A., Lennig, T., Hollis, V., & Whittaker, S. (2013). Echoes from the past: how technology mediated reflection improves well-being (p. 1071). ACM Press. http://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466137 http://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466137
  - 10y ago

CuriouslyC 10y ago

The single best thing you can do for your productivity and peace of mind is leave your phone on airplane mode unless you are expecting an important call, or need to make a call. Anyone trying to reach you that you actually want to hear from will leave a message, and the hassle of having to switch out of airplane mode keeps you from compulsively surfing, using facebook/twitter/etc.

sliverstorm 10y ago
Disabling mobile data and wifi may be a more workable solution for some
ytpete 10y ago
Or leave it on but turn off wi-fi and mobile data. So you can get phone calls but not do anything online.
derwiki 10y ago
I've found that the act of logging out of Facebook after using it generally has the same effect. If I find myself casually loading Facebook, but it takes me to a login screen, I remember that I wanted to be purposeful about using Facebook and put it away.
- cageface 10y ago
  I removed all social media apps from my phone. I will still occasionally access them from my laptop now but usually when I'm using my laptop I'm working so the temptation is a lot weaker.

brudgers 10y ago

Maybe I reflect less now than I did before I had a supercomputer in my pocket. I am not certain. However, today I have more and better information to reflect upon than back then. Of that I am certain. When I turn off, tune out and drop into a book it's more out of the habit of an older generation than some quest for a quality inaccessible to the well wired. I don't think that being wired has made people less contemplative so much as it facilitates encountering those who aren't now and would not have been in the past.

woodandsteel 10y ago

The thing about the way the human mind works is that you often can't find out what would be most rewarding, or why you are acting as your are, good or bad, unless you spend some quiet time slowly paying attention to your unclear feelings and various experiences. Meditation can help a great deal with this, ditto keeping a journal. So can engaging in artistic expression such painting or writing poetry. Ditto reading great thinkers or novelists. I particularly like the focusing method developed by the philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin. You have to understand, social media corporations don't want you to know what you really want, because it often would turn out to be something other than what they are selling. So they keep you distracted with mental candy and an unending worry that you are missing something important.

caseymarquis 10y ago

Initially thought this was an argument against meta-programming till I saw the source. I got very defensive for no reason. |D

cgs 10y ago

I wanted to check my phone less, and one thing that helped was setting the screen to grayscale (iOS: Settings > General > Accessibility ). When things are less shiny, you're less inclined to compulsively have a look. Tip from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/480240/adventures-in-grayscale/ http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/480240/adventures-in-...

manifaust 10y ago
Wow this look is nuts. I'm gonna give it a try.
spoinkaroo 10y ago
Thanks for the tip. Is grayscale better for your eyes also? I'd imagine it would be.

noobermin 10y ago

I read the first two sentences, and then I immediately closed the tab. I then decided to give it a second thought seeing the response on HN, and I see my first gut reaction was correct. I'm 27, and I know people who are younger who surprise, surprise are reflective. I stay about 45 minutes away from my office by bus. By bike it takes 35. I like the bike ride, but initially, I missed the bus rides because I had time to contemplate on the bus...yes, with my phone in hand. May be I am the minority, but even with my phone I think a lot because I decide to and to be honest, my phone isn't as interesting as my thoughts...frequently. Technology has always been an augment to my life, it isn't my life. When I didn't spend 5 hours on my phone I probably spent 5 hours playing video games or 5 hours doing something else. This feels like another thinly veiled $(echo Rock and roll is corrupting the youth | sed 's/Rock and roll/Marijuana/' | sed 's/Marijuana/Grunge Music/' | sed 's/Grunge Music/Video Games/' | sed 's/Video Games/the Internet/') argument--it also is another article that indirectly targets Millenials ( attacking the selfie, then the tweet ) and that their culture is "unreflective"...yes, the same generation that drinks, smokes, is more educated, and has less teen pregnancies than prior ones. Possibly, some of those 5 hours were spent self-inflicting one's self with cancer in generations past, which I would argue is quite unreflective. The phone and the internet is not going away, many introspective introverts like me still do think and still like it. Just because we have written language, it doesn't mean the corrupt youth know less since they no longer have to memorize. In fact, as Aristotle was dead wrong on Newton's 1st Law, I offer that written language, like all technology, just makes us better thinkers...it all comes down to how we use it.

studentrob 10y ago
Agreed. The article speaks more to the awareness of the author than the collective awareness of the public. Every tool will be used by people however they choose. Tech can enhance or lower intellect. It's how you decide to use it that matters. Collectively, I'm not convinced this age is becoming less aware of itself. There are some awesome things out there. Creative, artistic things in all walks of life. I have my own list of things that won't apply to everyone. It just depends what you like. If the world isn't producing something that you think should exist, then make it. I suppose, for this author, that is this article.
10y ago

apatters 10y ago

So increased smartphone usage may be impairing our reflective abilities, but to play devil's advocate, what is it imparting instead which is beneficial? As the article notes, a thought may be tweeted out to others instantly and developed in a public forum instead of in isolation in the thinker's head. That may very well result in better thoughts, particularly for people who never had very complex ideas in the first place.

rollthehard6 10y ago

Agree that reflection and contemplation is important. Likewise, writing your thoughts out is also powerful and sometimes, being forced to edit your point down to one or two 140 char snippets is not such bad thing either. Similarly, being exposed to the views of people you would likely never meet in pre-internet/social media times is no bad thing either IMHO. "Everything in moderation" and "Variety is the spice of life" are aphorisms that persist for a reason.

miloshadzic 10y ago
We were writing out our own thoughts before the internet and also cutting the length down(see graffiti, sms). Being exposed is not the same as being constantly bombarded with new content. By the way, you're not really being exposed to that differing views as Google, Facebook, etc are putting you inside a bubble filled with things you like. Moderation is hard when companies are working hard to make you use their tech as much as possible (more looking, more clicking -- more money).

jernfrost 10y ago

I am actually worried about myself for spending too much time with the smart phone. Even at the bathroom, while I stand peeing I browse stuff that I actually don't care that much about. It is a compulsion. Probably should get treatment. I find that I've started to lose the ability to read and concentrate on longer pieces of text. I hardly read books anymore, which goes into things at any depth. I used to take long walks where I thought about difficult problems and found solutions. I would ponder these problems on the bus, or subway. I never mined being alone with my thoughts before. I never understood how people could be bored when there are so many things one could be thinking about. Yet here I am in 2016 incapable of being alone in my own thoughts for more than 5 minutes before pulling up the iPhone. I starts to feel more like a bad drug, than a usable tool. If anybody has good suggestions for phones or ways of configuring the iPhone so that I can only read email. I am not addicted to email. It is the browsing functionality which is so addictive. I also wish I was not wasting my time on HN writing this comment ;-)

studentrob 10y ago
I suggest mindfulness meditation. 20 minutes a day of trying to focus on nothing can help get your brain back in order. It may seem odd that the cure for the inability to concentrate might be concentrating on something as basic as your breath. It worked for me. Mindfulness in Plain English is a good book to get started is and free online.
rtb 10y ago
Just get a dumb phone. I don't have a smartphone because I'm sure I'd fall into the same trap. It's occasionally difficult, but usually just freeing.

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