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I am a big fan of this. As a 25 year old, I feel that I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid. Hanging out at the school

I am a big fan of this. As a 25 year old, I feel that I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid. Hanging out at the school during the weekend wondering what to do - those days are over now. Technology has definitely taken over our lives, and now there's always something to do. I believe that leisure time is something that most people don't have nor know that they want. As the article states, it lets you think outside of the box and come back with fresh ideas. In a work-centered society though, it's really hard to justify spending that time. Even knowing all this, I still fall into the trap of always being busy with something.

epberry 7y ago
Fellow 25 year old chiming in. It can be incredibly hard to relax and do nothing. And setting the expectation that letting your mind wander will lead to fresh ideas is somewhat anxiety inducing. You have to be truly comfortable with quiet and stillness. I'm finding Sam Harris to be a good teacher in making progress on this.
- taurath 7y ago
  Best advice I can give - go away camping for a weekend, leave the phone or be in a no service area. Do that a few times, get used to it. Then for a week. “take the path to Nothing, and go Nowhere until you reach it.” - Benjamin Hoff
  - dragonsky67 7y ago
    Camping and spending time in the bush (wilderness) away from services may be one of the best ways of learning how to simplify your thinking and reduce your need to be always occupied. There is something about sitting back with a nice warm drink in your hands, your feet resting on a log near a crackling campfire gazing up as the embers from the fire spiral up amongst the stars that just helps put everything in perspective. Your focus boils down to the necessaries of what am I going to eat and am I going to be warm and dry if it rains tonight. Depending on where you are camping you could add the excitement of, is something going to try to eat me during the night.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
>I am a big fan of this. As a 25 year old, I feel that I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid. I am aware what I am going to say will sound condescending, although I do not mean it in a negative manner; but this is a really cute and naive perspective. Ask your grandparents. They will certainly claim _they_ were the last generation to experience true boredom as a kid. After all, those danged radios started to pop up around that time, much less black-and-white TVs.
- cambalache 7y ago
  At least he/she is kind enough to let us know his age.
  - oarabbus_ 7y ago
    I'm 28. Old enough to have felt the same way as the poster I responded to, but also old enough to know that everything I think is probably bullshit.
thesausageking 7y ago
> I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid Old guy chiming in. Every generation feels like this. Socrates lamented that becoming literate would "create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories." In the 16th century, Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, warned that the overabundance of information caused by the printing press was "confusing and harmful". In 1940s, radio had caused children to develop "the habit of dividing attention between the humdrum preparation of their school assignments and the compelling excitement of the loudspeaker." In my time, similar concerns were raised about cable TV and the walkman.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  There is a problem when people literally can't remain unoccupied for more than 30 seconds.
  - rexpop 7y ago
    What people?
    - pastor_elm 7y ago
      The President of the United States of America for one
    - taude 7y ago
      All the people looking at their phones in grocery line, while riding the train, waiting for anything, while paused at a stop light in their car, it's everywhere.
      - fwip 7y ago
        "Can't" is different than "don't want to." Is reading on your phone on the train fundamentally different than reading a book? Is chatting with your friends while in line at the grocery store bad? Your point about the stop-light is true, though, because it's unsafe.
BeetleB 7y ago
>As a 25 year old, I feel that I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid. Hanging out at the school during the weekend wondering what to do - those days are over now. Technology has definitely taken over our lives, and now there's always something to do. While growing up, I pretty much always had a computer, but did not have live Internet till I was 19. We had only one TV station to watch. The computer would be on for only a few hours - it could overheat, and it was routine to turn it off when not in use. For the last 6 months my mind has been preoccupied by this. I can't stop memories coming in on how I would just laze in the afternoon, enjoying the breeze. Even recalling the boredom is a "good" memory. I would read a lot more books. I would sometimes play with toys. I would attempt solving puzzles. I would doodle with the calculator and learn interesting properties of numbers. And fun stuff on the computer - be it games, or programming, or playing with Fractint and POV-Ray. These days: While I still have constructive hobbies, I'm realizing they exist mostly to make me feel constructive. If I examine my time at home, a lot of it is on the computer. And most of that is on the browser or email. I use a desktop which is on 24/7. The browser window is always open, with tabs open. And if I were to randomly ask myself what I gained in browsing the web in, say, the last month, I can't come up with enough to justify it. Intellectual debates on HN are cool, but I'm way past the point where it is meaningfully useful. Yes, I may have learned a few things while browsing the net, but the gain vs time spent ratio is not that good. I'm not an addict. I spend time outside the house, and don't miss the computer when I'm, say, hiking. But it troubles me that this is my life at home. And fortunately, I find smartphones to be a real pain to use, so it can't be an attention sink. In the last few months I've been musing on how I can capture some of my pre-Internet lifestyle back. It's complicated - I don't want to go cold turkey. There are scripts I run on a cronjob on my PC that are very useful to me (and are not tied heavily to my Internet/PC habits) - so I don't want to simply switch it off. Instead, I want to cripple some aspects of my Internet usage. I haven't actually taken some concrete action, but ideas: 1. Disallow certain programs/processes (e.g. my browsers) from having access to the Internet. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do this in Linux. 2. Use extensions like Leechblock. I don't have much hope for this working - I tried some years ago and kept finding ways around it. And I often just fired up another browser that did not have Leechblock installed. 3. Make accessing the web via browser painful. In the old days, when I wanted to use the computer, I had to boot it up (took a bit of time), then dial up to the Internet, then launch a browser. If I could simulate it so that when I launch the browser it takes that much time, it may significantly reduce how often I browse the Internet. Bonus points if the whole computer becomes unusable in that time period (it's not really effective if while I'm waiting for the browser to load I start doing other stuff). 4. Whatever crippling methods I have should be appropriately difficult to disable. If it's too easy, then I'll disable it all the time. If it's too hard I won't use the system. 5. Maybe have a cronjob that kills all open browsers every, say, 45 minutes. When I'm busy browsing and the browser crashes, will I really want to restart the browser? More effective if I couple it with 3 above. And maybe I shouldn't allow the browser to reload the crashed session, so I'd have to rebuild the tabs? 6. Disable multitasking while in the browser. I think the fact that we can browse the web, and run other programs at the same time, makes it more difficult to control. In the old DOS days, I ran only one program at a time. Even with the early Windows, I effectively ran one program at a time - multitasking ate up resources. 7. I just realized that I used to program in the days I did not have the Internet. It's a bit sad that the norm is to find solutions in Google or Stack Overflow, or even in the online docs. See if I can somehow download the docs for offline use. But then I wouldn't want a 5 minute delay in loading up the browser if all I want to do is browse local files. Conundrum... 8. Every so many minutes, somehow autoclose all tabs except the active one. While tabs are awesome, they also lead to more time in the browser. This will force me to be more discriminating in picking the tabs I want to read. 9. Somehow suspend accounts on sites like HN for, say, 6 months. I won't be able to post. Maybe block it altogether. 10. Netflix via Roku on my TV does not count. To me that's "TV time", and in any case, I don't spend much time on it. Thankfully, Youtube has always been a poor experience. 11. The goal isn't to get off the computer. It's to do more constructive things with it. So I'll likely program, do image editing (I have a few years of backlog), write, etc. 12. I haven't figured out where email fits into all this. Should I cripple it or keep it as is? I don't use webmail - it's the old style of IMAP + MUA + MDA I hope I find some way to achieve a healthy amount of the above. In the back of my mind I'd been planning on posting this as an Ask HN to see what other people have come up with. (As an aside, I think part of my current obsession is that in the last year I've met with a number of my high school friends - most of whom I hadn't seen since getting live Internet - scattered across the globe. That's actively reminding me of life in earlier days).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jmkni 7y ago
I'm 30, and was never really bored as a kid, thanks to my Sega Mega Drive, followed by my N64, followed by my Playstation 2 and the internet, etc. I think you need to go back a lot further to find that generation.
bookofjoe 7y ago
I always said to my daughter, from the time she was able to say "I'm bored," "Good. Now you can invent something."

epberry 7y ago

Fellow 25 year old chiming in. It can be incredibly hard to relax and do nothing. And setting the expectation that letting your mind wander will lead to fresh ideas is somewhat anxiety inducing. You have to be truly comfortable with quiet and stillness. I'm finding Sam Harris to be a good teacher in making progress on this.

taurath 7y ago
Best advice I can give - go away camping for a weekend, leave the phone or be in a no service area. Do that a few times, get used to it. Then for a week. “take the path to Nothing, and go Nowhere until you reach it.” - Benjamin Hoff
- dragonsky67 7y ago
  Camping and spending time in the bush (wilderness) away from services may be one of the best ways of learning how to simplify your thinking and reduce your need to be always occupied. There is something about sitting back with a nice warm drink in your hands, your feet resting on a log near a crackling campfire gazing up as the embers from the fire spiral up amongst the stars that just helps put everything in perspective. Your focus boils down to the necessaries of what am I going to eat and am I going to be warm and dry if it rains tonight. Depending on where you are camping you could add the excitement of, is something going to try to eat me during the night.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

>I am a big fan of this. As a 25 year old, I feel that I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid. I am aware what I am going to say will sound condescending, although I do not mean it in a negative manner; but this is a really cute and naive perspective. Ask your grandparents. They will certainly claim _they_ were the last generation to experience true boredom as a kid. After all, those danged radios started to pop up around that time, much less black-and-white TVs.

cambalache 7y ago
At least he/she is kind enough to let us know his age.
- oarabbus_ 7y ago
  I'm 28. Old enough to have felt the same way as the poster I responded to, but also old enough to know that everything I think is probably bullshit.

thesausageking 7y ago

> I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid Old guy chiming in. Every generation feels like this. Socrates lamented that becoming literate would "create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories." In the 16th century, Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, warned that the overabundance of information caused by the printing press was "confusing and harmful". In 1940s, radio had caused children to develop "the habit of dividing attention between the humdrum preparation of their school assignments and the compelling excitement of the loudspeaker." In my time, similar concerns were raised about cable TV and the walkman.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
There is a problem when people literally can't remain unoccupied for more than 30 seconds.
- rexpop 7y ago
  What people?
  - pastor_elm 7y ago
    The President of the United States of America for one
  - taude 7y ago
    All the people looking at their phones in grocery line, while riding the train, waiting for anything, while paused at a stop light in their car, it's everywhere.
    - fwip 7y ago
      "Can't" is different than "don't want to." Is reading on your phone on the train fundamentally different than reading a book? Is chatting with your friends while in line at the grocery store bad? Your point about the stop-light is true, though, because it's unsafe.

BeetleB 7y ago

>As a 25 year old, I feel that I was truly the last general to experience what true boredom was like as a kid. Hanging out at the school during the weekend wondering what to do - those days are over now. Technology has definitely taken over our lives, and now there's always something to do. While growing up, I pretty much always had a computer, but did not have live Internet till I was 19. We had only one TV station to watch. The computer would be on for only a few hours - it could overheat, and it was routine to turn it off when not in use. For the last 6 months my mind has been preoccupied by this. I can't stop memories coming in on how I would just laze in the afternoon, enjoying the breeze. Even recalling the boredom is a "good" memory. I would read a lot more books. I would sometimes play with toys. I would attempt solving puzzles. I would doodle with the calculator and learn interesting properties of numbers. And fun stuff on the computer - be it games, or programming, or playing with Fractint and POV-Ray. These days: While I still have constructive hobbies, I'm realizing they exist mostly to make me feel constructive. If I examine my time at home, a lot of it is on the computer. And most of that is on the browser or email. I use a desktop which is on 24/7. The browser window is always open, with tabs open. And if I were to randomly ask myself what I gained in browsing the web in, say, the last month, I can't come up with enough to justify it. Intellectual debates on HN are cool, but I'm way past the point where it is meaningfully useful. Yes, I may have learned a few things while browsing the net, but the gain vs time spent ratio is not that good. I'm not an addict. I spend time outside the house, and don't miss the computer when I'm, say, hiking. But it troubles me that this is my life at home. And fortunately, I find smartphones to be a real pain to use, so it can't be an attention sink. In the last few months I've been musing on how I can capture some of my pre-Internet lifestyle back. It's complicated - I don't want to go cold turkey. There are scripts I run on a cronjob on my PC that are very useful to me (and are not tied heavily to my Internet/PC habits) - so I don't want to simply switch it off. Instead, I want to cripple some aspects of my Internet usage. I haven't actually taken some concrete action, but ideas: 1. Disallow certain programs/processes (e.g. my browsers) from having access to the Internet. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do this in Linux. 2. Use extensions like Leechblock. I don't have much hope for this working - I tried some years ago and kept finding ways around it. And I often just fired up another browser that did not have Leechblock installed. 3. Make accessing the web via browser painful. In the old days, when I wanted to use the computer, I had to boot it up (took a bit of time), then dial up to the Internet, then launch a browser. If I could simulate it so that when I launch the browser it takes that much time, it may significantly reduce how often I browse the Internet. Bonus points if the whole computer becomes unusable in that time period (it's not really effective if while I'm waiting for the browser to load I start doing other stuff). 4. Whatever crippling methods I have should be appropriately difficult to disable. If it's too easy, then I'll disable it all the time. If it's too hard I won't use the system. 5. Maybe have a cronjob that kills all open browsers every, say, 45 minutes. When I'm busy browsing and the browser crashes, will I really want to restart the browser? More effective if I couple it with 3 above. And maybe I shouldn't allow the browser to reload the crashed session, so I'd have to rebuild the tabs? 6. Disable multitasking while in the browser. I think the fact that we can browse the web, and run other programs at the same time, makes it more difficult to control. In the old DOS days, I ran only one program at a time. Even with the early Windows, I effectively ran one program at a time - multitasking ate up resources. 7. I just realized that I used to program in the days I did not have the Internet. It's a bit sad that the norm is to find solutions in Google or Stack Overflow, or even in the online docs. See if I can somehow download the docs for offline use. But then I wouldn't want a 5 minute delay in loading up the browser if all I want to do is browse local files. Conundrum... 8. Every so many minutes, somehow autoclose all tabs except the active one. While tabs are awesome, they also lead to more time in the browser. This will force me to be more discriminating in picking the tabs I want to read. 9. Somehow suspend accounts on sites like HN for, say, 6 months. I won't be able to post. Maybe block it altogether. 10. Netflix via Roku on my TV does not count. To me that's "TV time", and in any case, I don't spend much time on it. Thankfully, Youtube has always been a poor experience. 11. The goal isn't to get off the computer. It's to do more constructive things with it. So I'll likely program, do image editing (I have a few years of backlog), write, etc. 12. I haven't figured out where email fits into all this. Should I cripple it or keep it as is? I don't use webmail - it's the old style of IMAP + MUA + MDA I hope I find some way to achieve a healthy amount of the above. In the back of my mind I'd been planning on posting this as an Ask HN to see what other people have come up with. (As an aside, I think part of my current obsession is that in the last year I've met with a number of my high school friends - most of whom I hadn't seen since getting live Internet - scattered across the globe. That's actively reminding me of life in earlier days).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jmkni 7y ago

I'm 30, and was never really bored as a kid, thanks to my Sega Mega Drive, followed by my N64, followed by my Playstation 2 and the internet, etc. I think you need to go back a lot further to find that generation.

bookofjoe 7y ago

I always said to my daughter, from the time she was able to say "I'm bored," "Good. Now you can invent something."