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> "Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen everything there is to see on the internet" That's very sad, and a direct result in my opinion of the gamification of digita

> "Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen everything there is to see on the internet" That's very sad, and a direct result in my opinion of the gamification of digital attention. If it's not on ${social_network} and doesn't earn you Likes then it might as well not exist. Even just pressing Random Article in Wikipedia would be a step up out of that abyss. But first teenagers have to relearn the ability to self-discover, like previous generations did in libraries, instead of sitting staring at a feed waiting for something to be pushed to them. And the second lesson might be that not everything has an immediate feeback. I still reach back to things that I learned about by chance on the Web and Usenet back in the 90s.

freehunter 9y ago
Eh... I'm not Gen Z and I get this quite often too. Sure there are a few dozen new articles on the front page of HN, but not all of them are interesting to me. Sure there are thousands of subreddits but good ones are hard to find and eventually you'll run out of interesting content there, too. Random Wiki pages are fun, but for every good one there's a hundred boring ones. I used to use StumbleUpon but again, the signal to noise ratio is just silly. I don't think your assumption that these teens just don't know how to discover content is correct. The problem is that content isn't interesting. There's only so many times you can hit random on Wiki and stare at "List of famous dogs from Bollywood movies" before you want something more engaging. Your comment, to my ears, sounds like "these kids need to put down their Nintendos and go play a nice game of kick-the-can!"
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > Sure there are a few dozen new articles on the front page of HN, but not all of them are interesting to me. I think the problem is deeper than that. The problem is that even many of the interesting articles are only interesting in a certain way. I'm looking for something, and what I'm looking for isn't really here. And after a few years on HN (or Facebook, or Reddit, or Twitter, or whatever), I start to realize that the next article isn't going to really supply what I'm looking for, just like the last thousand didn't. So I'm bored even while I'm looking at the next HN article, hoping it will do the trick, and at the same time knowing that it really won't.
Taylor_OD 9y ago
> "That's very sad, and a direct result in my opinion of the gamification of digital attention" In my opinion it's teenagers thinking they know everything or think they are much smarter than they are with a new 2010's era spin.

freehunter 9y ago

Eh... I'm not Gen Z and I get this quite often too. Sure there are a few dozen new articles on the front page of HN, but not all of them are interesting to me. Sure there are thousands of subreddits but good ones are hard to find and eventually you'll run out of interesting content there, too. Random Wiki pages are fun, but for every good one there's a hundred boring ones. I used to use StumbleUpon but again, the signal to noise ratio is just silly. I don't think your assumption that these teens just don't know how to discover content is correct. The problem is that content isn't interesting. There's only so many times you can hit random on Wiki and stare at "List of famous dogs from Bollywood movies" before you want something more engaging. Your comment, to my ears, sounds like "these kids need to put down their Nintendos and go play a nice game of kick-the-can!"

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
> Sure there are a few dozen new articles on the front page of HN, but not all of them are interesting to me. I think the problem is deeper than that. The problem is that even many of the interesting articles are only interesting in a certain way. I'm looking for something, and what I'm looking for isn't really here. And after a few years on HN (or Facebook, or Reddit, or Twitter, or whatever), I start to realize that the next article isn't going to really supply what I'm looking for, just like the last thousand didn't. So I'm bored even while I'm looking at the next HN article, hoping it will do the trick, and at the same time knowing that it really won't.

Taylor_OD 9y ago

> "That's very sad, and a direct result in my opinion of the gamification of digital attention" In my opinion it's teenagers thinking they know everything or think they are much smarter than they are with a new 2010's era spin.