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It seems like nowadays, we wring our hands about the effects of constant access to the internet on a near-daily basis. And isn't it kind of odd that the people

It seems like nowadays, we wring our hands about the effects of constant access to the internet on a near-daily basis. And isn't it kind of odd that the people working on these products in an 'individual contributor' capacity are often the same ones encouraging others to stay away from their platforms? Maybe that should tell us something. Anecdotally, most of the things that this article recommends are things that I wholeheartedly enjoyed several years ago, but tellingly no longer have time for despite a similar schedule. Reading for pleasure took the biggest hit - I can just listen to an audiobook or podcast during the commute, right? But it does also feel like I've gotten worse at persisting in tedious tasks after being interrupted, exercise feels more like wasted time, and even my breathing exercises are getting shallow and rapid these days. What is going on? It's not that thumbing through the news feels like an accomplishment, and I know that I'll look back on these years and shake my head at how terribly I'm wasting my time - it's already happening - but this is a comfortable lifestyle and I just keep on doing it. That does sound like an addiction, right? I don't know. But I do know that I've had enough, and I'm coping with it by planning to spend a couple of years on the road in the hopes that things blow over and the people of 202x will have this all figured out. And hey, maybe I'll feel better after forcing myself to be bored for several months. Because these issues seem so massive and unapproachable that I can't think of anything to do besides throwing up my hands and leaving. I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird?

bradhoffman 8y ago
Yes, I think it's weird. Both because you notice it and because it is happening. I feel your frustrations with this hyper-connected life because this certainly feels like an addiction. I've worked through deleting social media. I've deleted apps off my phone. I've moved my phone outside of my bedroom. All of it seems to help a small amount, but not enough to keep me from moving to something else. Throwing up my hands and leaving seems to be a good solution as well, but not the whole world or my job, just the digital world, as much as I reasonably can. I miss having the ability to focus and remember, and I feel as if the only way I can accomplish my goals is to regain those skills.
deepGem 8y ago
but this is a comfortable lifestyle and I just keep on doing it. That does sound like an addiction, right? I have similar traits that I am actively working to wear off. My only addictions are Twitter, Hacker News and Yahoo Finance. I spend at least 4 hours in a day flipping across these. I must admit Twitter is quite helpful because my feed is well curated. YF is a total waste of time - I don't know why I keep checking the stock prices when I know for a fact I won't sell anything. It satisfies some part of my brain to keep watching the tickers. What a fucking waste. Hacker News is useful too. What has helped me in the beginnings of my de-addiction is measuring how much time I am wasting and writing it down. It's kind of a slap in the face to get up in the morning and see that you wasted 4 hours the previous day. I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird? Perhaps hanging out at an old fashioned bar might not be bad. Not the ones with fancy music but the ones that remain somewhat rustic, where you can just have a beer and a random conversation.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  > Perhaps hanging out at an old fashioned bar might not be bad. Not the ones with fancy music but the ones that remain somewhat rustic, where you can just have a beer and a random conversation. This is one thing I loved about rural Ireland. The service out there was so shitty and was a pain in the ass to get a text message in the old pub, let alone data. So it forced you to be more in the present with the people you're chatting with, even if they were just locals while you were visiting. It was really nice, actually. I wonder how a bar that is built to specifically jam signal while inside would fare?
- epicide 8y ago
  > I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird? I try to make it a point to ignore my phone while I'm eating lunch with people. I do wish others would do the same. Sometimes, it does require politely asking them to put their phone away and just spend lunch with me (typically just with friends, not everyone). However, I think it annoys me more that it's becoming harder and harder to find restaurants that don't have 5+ TVs in your face no matter which way you turn.
- 8y ago
et-al 8y ago
A large part of this is how one choses to use their smartphone. By default, it's a device that's receives a million notifications, but I've turned off most of them, so it's back to being a tiny computer that's helpful to look stuff up with. I only get notifications on four things: 1) phone calls - it's still a phone 2) "texts" (SMS/WhatsApp/iMessage/Line) - I disable Slack because it's too noisy aside from one "emergency" channel for work 3) one email account that notifies me of new gmail logins, foreign transactions, bank withdrawals, etc. to keep the junk mail away, i use filters on my other accounts to forward emails to this one special "notifications" account 4) financial ticker (which is set to only notify when something drops more than 5%) Sure, I might miss some chats and I'm always behind on Twitter, but so what?
- waldfee 8y ago
  I do that too. I don't need to be up to date on everything, for what? I don't need all this useless stuff screaming at me all day
- novaRom 8y ago
  > which is set to only notify when something drops more than 5% for what purpose? If you go long, you don't have to worry about any disturbance on the market. 5% per day or 5% per hour? Is there any difference if your stock will drop today 5% wrt yesterday or if it drops 5% this month relative to last month? I don't look at such swings, it's meaningless.
- montenegrohugo 8y ago
  Why have the financial ticker? If you own stocks, do you plan on reacting to this notification? Do you see yourself as a professional day trader? Imo the amount of noise is extreme in stock news and there is no value in listening to it. It is wasted attention and wasted emotion. Much better is to pick a few stocks/ETF's and invest on a longer horizon.
  - unstuckdev 8y ago
    I get the impression most stock news is generated, not written. Maybe they use the same software I heard was taking over in sports commentary.
borroka 8y ago
I interviewed at Facebook and when I realized that the whole interview was about finding ways to make people spend as much time possible on Facebook and Instagram (which I use in moderation, I love to share a good pic of myself), I ran for dear life. Then, when they asked me how I would convince Mark that a certain experiment is needed, I ran faster. Bad vibes overall, Blade Runner was more cheerful.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
  - woogiewonka 8y ago
    Now you got me thinking about your body.
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't do this here.
- gaius 8y ago
  interviewed at Facebook and when I realized that the whole interview was about finding ways to make people spend as much time possible on Facebook In the future people will look at Facebook and Google as the people of today look at Phillip Morris and BAT.
- akavel 8y ago
  Thank you so much, for having integrity, keeping it, and telling about it here now. It's so reassuring for me and strenghtening to learn that there are more people in the industry who try to look deeper and keep some moral spine. I personally had an interview with Google once, and had doubts about it. I was rejected, and I am glad of this, as I am not sure if I'd have enough strength to refuse the offer. With Facebook and Oracle, at least I am sure I would not choose to work there (unless in more dire life situation, as far as I can say now...)
Swizec 8y ago
Remember how stats used to say the average american spends 5 hours per day watching television? Now they do that with The Internet. Before telly that it was radio and newspapers. Before even that it was books. The more things change the more they stay the same. Is it possible humans simply aren’t meant to be totally productive always on all the time and that we crave time wasting on a fundamental level?
- agumonkey 8y ago
  It's true but partial. Internet is not a TV it's a cable network of Infinite size. I realize it was often like zapping or worth. It also eats on the social aspect, just like this comment is.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    It's pretty crazy how the internet, once perceived as superior to TV in terms of quality of content and possessing an interactive aspect (more interaction than couch potatoes get) has become seemingly worse for people. Probably because as you say, the content is infinitely more.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      Yeah we so often think things just scale without negative side effects. Internet started as web of academic/serious documents but the mainstream 'value' ended up in sucking attention for ads and shallow communications. I, too, did believe so much web 2.0 and ~real time json comments would make everything so much better .. but I don't believe so anymore. I think humans are 80% local and physical animals; we like having a bit of remote exchanges and seeing pictures, but it stop being deeply satisfying quickly. Especially when its devoid of human value (big companies don't make my heart sing with their new disruptive ideas anymore, to a point I have happy thoughts whenever I run into a single person passion driven ~crappy html4 website)
jhabdas 8y ago
Here's your escape plan. Don't be afraid to crack open the 401(k) if your Roth runs dry. https://hackcabin.com/post/become-digital-nomad-bali/ https://hackcabin.com/post/become-digital-nomad-bali/
salawat 8y ago
Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. You seem like you're trying to get back in touch with the idea of 'Quality' as it applies to life, and he does a good job at walking a reader through it. I won't bother going into what I got out of it, as most philosophy is best experienced without preconceived expectations Nowadays, you have to slow down. Most tech businesses thrive on shallow thinking to drive engagement, and try to tweak every little heuristic to "get a click" to justify their own existence. By all means, take a break, but understand as well that as a practitioner you are part of the problem every time you refuse to say no to some dark pattern B.S. I've started measuring every software pitch against my first set of Encyclopedia of the Natural World CD's from back in the 90's. No phoning home. No ads. No engagement metrics No dark patterns. Just an encyclopedia of 0's and 1's. It is amazing when you look at most software nowadays, and realize that a large proportion of it (especially on mobile) is trying to convert user->value instead of providing value->user.
derangedHorse 8y ago
I think a big contributor to these types of feelings is the fact that a lot of us don't know how to spend our time meaningfully. When enjoyment isn't a means to an end, we dismiss our usual pastimes in favor of something with impact. The thing is, a lot of us don't know what will have impact and eventually everything seems like a waste of time. I believe a side effect of this connected world is making everyone seem unspectacular, and therefore everything we do (compared to what we observe around on the net) unspectacular. Maybe the real detriment of the internet's influence is that it makes everyone feel like we're wasting time when their may not be a way to spend it in a way that makes us happier.

bradhoffman 8y ago

Yes, I think it's weird. Both because you notice it and because it is happening. I feel your frustrations with this hyper-connected life because this certainly feels like an addiction. I've worked through deleting social media. I've deleted apps off my phone. I've moved my phone outside of my bedroom. All of it seems to help a small amount, but not enough to keep me from moving to something else. Throwing up my hands and leaving seems to be a good solution as well, but not the whole world or my job, just the digital world, as much as I reasonably can. I miss having the ability to focus and remember, and I feel as if the only way I can accomplish my goals is to regain those skills.

deepGem 8y ago

but this is a comfortable lifestyle and I just keep on doing it. That does sound like an addiction, right? I have similar traits that I am actively working to wear off. My only addictions are Twitter, Hacker News and Yahoo Finance. I spend at least 4 hours in a day flipping across these. I must admit Twitter is quite helpful because my feed is well curated. YF is a total waste of time - I don't know why I keep checking the stock prices when I know for a fact I won't sell anything. It satisfies some part of my brain to keep watching the tickers. What a fucking waste. Hacker News is useful too. What has helped me in the beginnings of my de-addiction is measuring how much time I am wasting and writing it down. It's kind of a slap in the face to get up in the morning and see that you wasted 4 hours the previous day. I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird? Perhaps hanging out at an old fashioned bar might not be bad. Not the ones with fancy music but the ones that remain somewhat rustic, where you can just have a beer and a random conversation.

dorchadas 8y ago
> Perhaps hanging out at an old fashioned bar might not be bad. Not the ones with fancy music but the ones that remain somewhat rustic, where you can just have a beer and a random conversation. This is one thing I loved about rural Ireland. The service out there was so shitty and was a pain in the ass to get a text message in the old pub, let alone data. So it forced you to be more in the present with the people you're chatting with, even if they were just locals while you were visiting. It was really nice, actually. I wonder how a bar that is built to specifically jam signal while inside would fare?
epicide 8y ago
> I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird? I try to make it a point to ignore my phone while I'm eating lunch with people. I do wish others would do the same. Sometimes, it does require politely asking them to put their phone away and just spend lunch with me (typically just with friends, not everyone). However, I think it annoys me more that it's becoming harder and harder to find restaurants that don't have 5+ TVs in your face no matter which way you turn.
8y ago

et-al 8y ago

A large part of this is how one choses to use their smartphone. By default, it's a device that's receives a million notifications, but I've turned off most of them, so it's back to being a tiny computer that's helpful to look stuff up with. I only get notifications on four things: 1) phone calls - it's still a phone 2) "texts" (SMS/WhatsApp/iMessage/Line) - I disable Slack because it's too noisy aside from one "emergency" channel for work 3) one email account that notifies me of new gmail logins, foreign transactions, bank withdrawals, etc. to keep the junk mail away, i use filters on my other accounts to forward emails to this one special "notifications" account 4) financial ticker (which is set to only notify when something drops more than 5%) Sure, I might miss some chats and I'm always behind on Twitter, but so what?

waldfee 8y ago
I do that too. I don't need to be up to date on everything, for what? I don't need all this useless stuff screaming at me all day
novaRom 8y ago
> which is set to only notify when something drops more than 5% for what purpose? If you go long, you don't have to worry about any disturbance on the market. 5% per day or 5% per hour? Is there any difference if your stock will drop today 5% wrt yesterday or if it drops 5% this month relative to last month? I don't look at such swings, it's meaningless.
montenegrohugo 8y ago
Why have the financial ticker? If you own stocks, do you plan on reacting to this notification? Do you see yourself as a professional day trader? Imo the amount of noise is extreme in stock news and there is no value in listening to it. It is wasted attention and wasted emotion. Much better is to pick a few stocks/ETF's and invest on a longer horizon.
- unstuckdev 8y ago
  I get the impression most stock news is generated, not written. Maybe they use the same software I heard was taking over in sports commentary.

borroka 8y ago

I interviewed at Facebook and when I realized that the whole interview was about finding ways to make people spend as much time possible on Facebook and Instagram (which I use in moderation, I love to share a good pic of myself), I ran for dear life. Then, when they asked me how I would convince Mark that a certain experiment is needed, I ran faster. Bad vibes overall, Blade Runner was more cheerful.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
- woogiewonka 8y ago
  Now you got me thinking about your body.
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't do this here.
gaius 8y ago
interviewed at Facebook and when I realized that the whole interview was about finding ways to make people spend as much time possible on Facebook In the future people will look at Facebook and Google as the people of today look at Phillip Morris and BAT.
akavel 8y ago
Thank you so much, for having integrity, keeping it, and telling about it here now. It's so reassuring for me and strenghtening to learn that there are more people in the industry who try to look deeper and keep some moral spine. I personally had an interview with Google once, and had doubts about it. I was rejected, and I am glad of this, as I am not sure if I'd have enough strength to refuse the offer. With Facebook and Oracle, at least I am sure I would not choose to work there (unless in more dire life situation, as far as I can say now...)

Swizec 8y ago

Remember how stats used to say the average american spends 5 hours per day watching television? Now they do that with The Internet. Before telly that it was radio and newspapers. Before even that it was books. The more things change the more they stay the same. Is it possible humans simply aren’t meant to be totally productive always on all the time and that we crave time wasting on a fundamental level?

agumonkey 8y ago
It's true but partial. Internet is not a TV it's a cable network of Infinite size. I realize it was often like zapping or worth. It also eats on the social aspect, just like this comment is.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  It's pretty crazy how the internet, once perceived as superior to TV in terms of quality of content and possessing an interactive aspect (more interaction than couch potatoes get) has become seemingly worse for people. Probably because as you say, the content is infinitely more.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    Yeah we so often think things just scale without negative side effects. Internet started as web of academic/serious documents but the mainstream 'value' ended up in sucking attention for ads and shallow communications. I, too, did believe so much web 2.0 and ~real time json comments would make everything so much better .. but I don't believe so anymore. I think humans are 80% local and physical animals; we like having a bit of remote exchanges and seeing pictures, but it stop being deeply satisfying quickly. Especially when its devoid of human value (big companies don't make my heart sing with their new disruptive ideas anymore, to a point I have happy thoughts whenever I run into a single person passion driven ~crappy html4 website)

jhabdas 8y ago

Here's your escape plan. Don't be afraid to crack open the 401(k) if your Roth runs dry. https://hackcabin.com/post/become-digital-nomad-bali/ https://hackcabin.com/post/become-digital-nomad-bali/

salawat 8y ago

Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. You seem like you're trying to get back in touch with the idea of 'Quality' as it applies to life, and he does a good job at walking a reader through it. I won't bother going into what I got out of it, as most philosophy is best experienced without preconceived expectations Nowadays, you have to slow down. Most tech businesses thrive on shallow thinking to drive engagement, and try to tweak every little heuristic to "get a click" to justify their own existence. By all means, take a break, but understand as well that as a practitioner you are part of the problem every time you refuse to say no to some dark pattern B.S. I've started measuring every software pitch against my first set of Encyclopedia of the Natural World CD's from back in the 90's. No phoning home. No ads. No engagement metrics No dark patterns. Just an encyclopedia of 0's and 1's. It is amazing when you look at most software nowadays, and realize that a large proportion of it (especially on mobile) is trying to convert user->value instead of providing value->user.

derangedHorse 8y ago

I think a big contributor to these types of feelings is the fact that a lot of us don't know how to spend our time meaningfully. When enjoyment isn't a means to an end, we dismiss our usual pastimes in favor of something with impact. The thing is, a lot of us don't know what will have impact and eventually everything seems like a waste of time. I believe a side effect of this connected world is making everyone seem unspectacular, and therefore everything we do (compared to what we observe around on the net) unspectacular. Maybe the real detriment of the internet's influence is that it makes everyone feel like we're wasting time when their may not be a way to spend it in a way that makes us happier.