11 ms·

You don't want quality time, you want garbage time

kstenerud 7y ago
It's unfortunate that "quality time" has come to have similar meaning to "Kodak moments". Quality time is just time spent being comfortable. It's when your soul gets some rest, and you look up at the end of the day and think "Wow! Night time already!". Whether you spent that time collecting butterflies, blasting aliens, or looking at clouds, is irrelevant. It's nice to spend quality time with people you care about, because those times together are a slow bonding process.
- avoidboringppl 7y ago
  Agreed - it can really be the little things and moments that matter. When we've become focused on creating camera worthy moments at the expense of having an enjoyable, satisfying moment, that's a problem. I don't think there's a default "oh just don't use instagram/cameras/phones" reaction that we should jump to; as with everything there's a certain amount of usage that's good and bad.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  I feel this whole era has been trying to game the metrics and forgot about the real thing. Good times => photos. So more photos => more good times. QED
  - floren 7y ago
    I wonder if children being born over the last decade will come to despise taking photos, because from their first memory they have been constantly interrupted at play by mom or dad trying to get their attention for a picture. My niece's every trip to the playground is documented in photo and video; she looks down from the playset not at her mother's face but at the back of her mother's iPhone.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      I had the same thought. Sure, I take photos of my kid, but sometimes I might go weeks without taking a picture of him (Oh my, the horror!). Then people bug me that I haven't taken any recent photos of him for a while and I can't help but think, "yeah, because I was too busy having fun to take a picture." And if I do decide to take one, I usually try to snap it discretely when he's not looking so I'm not interrupting his play. I also show them to him later and he likes looking at them, or a video of him going down the slide. It's the same when I go on trips. I go on vacation then come back and realize I only took maybe three photos on the first day and that was it. I think people take photos when they're not having fun so they can look back later and pretend they were.
      - ta999999171 7y ago
        Great comment. Real life is HD as fuck!
      - floren 7y ago
        It's funny that the old point-and-shoot film cameras everyone used in the 80s and 90s were perhaps the best way to actually capture what's going on rather than turning a photo into a big production. You'd hold the camera in your right hand and prepare for the picture by cranking the film with your thumb. When you wanted the picture, you'd quickly raise it to your eye and take the shot. There was no waiting for focus, because they were all set to infinity focus. They used simple analog light sensors to set the exposure the instant you pointed the camera. With a phone, you might raise it to your face so FaceID will unlock it, then you look for and open the camera app, then you're using both hands to hold the phone out in front of you and wait while it focuses and figures out exposure; if you're using a cheaper phone, this could be several seconds. Then you take the picture and, again, if you're not using the freshest iPhone it might take 1-2 seconds between tapping the shutter button and actually being sure the picture has been taken. It's intrusive and slow. Photos from my childhood often feature me either looking at something else or having just turned my head to look at the camera because my mom called to me. Photos today often seem to have a more posed and unnatural feel to them, because it's difficult to take a good picture stealthily; "hang on, I'm going to take a picture" is the common refrain.
awb 7y ago
It's this just a quote? The rest of the content on the page doesn't seem related.
- jvagner 7y ago
  There are 3 topics covered in the newsletter. It's number 3, scroll down.
  - avoidboringppl 7y ago
    Yep thanks for pointing that out! It's the last of 3 main topics in the post
Balanceinfinity 7y ago
I became familiar with the term "quality time" as a contrast to "quantity time," regarding child rearing. As both parents began working outside of the home, and less time was spent with the kids, parents tried to ease their guilt by ramping up the quality time. This really doesn't work, and I agree with Al Franken: "“Parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever love. First and foremost, being a good parent means spending lots of time with your children. I personally hate the phrase ‘quality time.’ Kids don’t want quality time. They want quantity time, big, stinking, lazy, nonproductive quantity time.” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/upshot/upshot-letter-our-anti-parenting-bias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/upshot/upshot-letter-our-...
- aidenn0 7y ago
  I think people just have different ideas of what "quality time" is. The definition I've always used is roughly: If I'm sitting right next to my kid and ignoring them, that's not QT. If I'm sitting right next to my kid and interacting with them, that's QT. Even if I'm doing household chores, if my kid is watching and I answer questions they have about what I'm doing, that's QT. If I let them help out, that's QT. If I say "go in the other room and watch TV so I can get this chore done" that's not QT. Some people seem to think if it's not a planned-out highly-structured nutritious, fun and educational activity, it's not QT which is not how I ever interpreted it.
  - samtimalsina 7y ago
    Oh I love this definition! As a parent of a just-started-crawling infant, I can already see how they thrive on attention.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      Oh yeah, #1 piece of advice for toddlers is roughly: 1. They crave attention 2. If they do something wrong they reliably get lots of attention (sure they'd rather have more positive attention, but...) 3. If you don't reliably give them loads of attention for doing something right, see #2
  - 7y ago
jakearmitage 7y ago
That's a very confusing page layout with not so good news design. I'm sure the content must be nice, but I couldn't focus at all.
fxtentacle 7y ago
For me, the concept of "quality time" only really applies to work. You can be "in the flow" and get a lot of stuff done in 2 hours that might otherwise take weeks to build. And in the context of work, there are factors (organized, bright, distraction-free room) that you can optimize to make it more likely for you to have a short, but high-quality work session. But for free time, I don't get it. The whole point of relaxing is that you stop worrying about getting things done, so there should be nothing left for you to measure to determine the quality level. If you can measure the "relaxingness-level" of your free time, you're playing make believe for other people. The quality of your instagram photos is probably inversely related to how relaxing the vacation was. When you're asleep at the beach all the time, there won't be any photos to show for it.
ackshually 7y ago
Imagine putting a paywall up on your personal blog. I can't imagine people reliably get invested in your content if you're blocking them from reading the top three posts.
- avoidboringppl 7y ago
  If you're interested in reading them I can forward any of the paywalled ones to you :)
julienreszka 7y ago
Random never made me happy.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
chadthenderson 7y ago
This reads like it was written by someone on a coke binge.

It's unfortunate that "quality time" has come to have similar meaning to "Kodak moments". Quality time is just time spent being comfortable. It's when your soul gets some rest, and you look up at the end of the day and think "Wow! Night time already!". Whether you spent that time collecting butterflies, blasting aliens, or looking at clouds, is irrelevant. It's nice to spend quality time with people you care about, because those times together are a slow bonding process.

avoidboringppl 7y ago
Agreed - it can really be the little things and moments that matter. When we've become focused on creating camera worthy moments at the expense of having an enjoyable, satisfying moment, that's a problem. I don't think there's a default "oh just don't use instagram/cameras/phones" reaction that we should jump to; as with everything there's a certain amount of usage that's good and bad.
agumonkey 7y ago
I feel this whole era has been trying to game the metrics and forgot about the real thing. Good times => photos. So more photos => more good times. QED
- floren 7y ago
  I wonder if children being born over the last decade will come to despise taking photos, because from their first memory they have been constantly interrupted at play by mom or dad trying to get their attention for a picture. My niece's every trip to the playground is documented in photo and video; she looks down from the playset not at her mother's face but at the back of her mother's iPhone.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    I had the same thought. Sure, I take photos of my kid, but sometimes I might go weeks without taking a picture of him (Oh my, the horror!). Then people bug me that I haven't taken any recent photos of him for a while and I can't help but think, "yeah, because I was too busy having fun to take a picture." And if I do decide to take one, I usually try to snap it discretely when he's not looking so I'm not interrupting his play. I also show them to him later and he likes looking at them, or a video of him going down the slide. It's the same when I go on trips. I go on vacation then come back and realize I only took maybe three photos on the first day and that was it. I think people take photos when they're not having fun so they can look back later and pretend they were.
    - ta999999171 7y ago
      Great comment. Real life is HD as fuck!
    - floren 7y ago
      It's funny that the old point-and-shoot film cameras everyone used in the 80s and 90s were perhaps the best way to actually capture what's going on rather than turning a photo into a big production. You'd hold the camera in your right hand and prepare for the picture by cranking the film with your thumb. When you wanted the picture, you'd quickly raise it to your eye and take the shot. There was no waiting for focus, because they were all set to infinity focus. They used simple analog light sensors to set the exposure the instant you pointed the camera. With a phone, you might raise it to your face so FaceID will unlock it, then you look for and open the camera app, then you're using both hands to hold the phone out in front of you and wait while it focuses and figures out exposure; if you're using a cheaper phone, this could be several seconds. Then you take the picture and, again, if you're not using the freshest iPhone it might take 1-2 seconds between tapping the shutter button and actually being sure the picture has been taken. It's intrusive and slow. Photos from my childhood often feature me either looking at something else or having just turned my head to look at the camera because my mom called to me. Photos today often seem to have a more posed and unnatural feel to them, because it's difficult to take a good picture stealthily; "hang on, I'm going to take a picture" is the common refrain.

awb 7y ago

It's this just a quote? The rest of the content on the page doesn't seem related.

jvagner 7y ago
There are 3 topics covered in the newsletter. It's number 3, scroll down.
- avoidboringppl 7y ago
  Yep thanks for pointing that out! It's the last of 3 main topics in the post

Balanceinfinity 7y ago

I became familiar with the term "quality time" as a contrast to "quantity time," regarding child rearing. As both parents began working outside of the home, and less time was spent with the kids, parents tried to ease their guilt by ramping up the quality time. This really doesn't work, and I agree with Al Franken: "“Parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever love. First and foremost, being a good parent means spending lots of time with your children. I personally hate the phrase ‘quality time.’ Kids don’t want quality time. They want quantity time, big, stinking, lazy, nonproductive quantity time.” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/upshot/upshot-letter-our-anti-parenting-bias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/upshot/upshot-letter-our-...

aidenn0 7y ago
I think people just have different ideas of what "quality time" is. The definition I've always used is roughly: If I'm sitting right next to my kid and ignoring them, that's not QT. If I'm sitting right next to my kid and interacting with them, that's QT. Even if I'm doing household chores, if my kid is watching and I answer questions they have about what I'm doing, that's QT. If I let them help out, that's QT. If I say "go in the other room and watch TV so I can get this chore done" that's not QT. Some people seem to think if it's not a planned-out highly-structured nutritious, fun and educational activity, it's not QT which is not how I ever interpreted it.
- samtimalsina 7y ago
  Oh I love this definition! As a parent of a just-started-crawling infant, I can already see how they thrive on attention.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    Oh yeah, #1 piece of advice for toddlers is roughly: 1. They crave attention 2. If they do something wrong they reliably get lots of attention (sure they'd rather have more positive attention, but...) 3. If you don't reliably give them loads of attention for doing something right, see #2
- 7y ago

jakearmitage 7y ago

That's a very confusing page layout with not so good news design. I'm sure the content must be nice, but I couldn't focus at all.

fxtentacle 7y ago

For me, the concept of "quality time" only really applies to work. You can be "in the flow" and get a lot of stuff done in 2 hours that might otherwise take weeks to build. And in the context of work, there are factors (organized, bright, distraction-free room) that you can optimize to make it more likely for you to have a short, but high-quality work session. But for free time, I don't get it. The whole point of relaxing is that you stop worrying about getting things done, so there should be nothing left for you to measure to determine the quality level. If you can measure the "relaxingness-level" of your free time, you're playing make believe for other people. The quality of your instagram photos is probably inversely related to how relaxing the vacation was. When you're asleep at the beach all the time, there won't be any photos to show for it.

ackshually 7y ago

Imagine putting a paywall up on your personal blog. I can't imagine people reliably get invested in your content if you're blocking them from reading the top three posts.

avoidboringppl 7y ago
If you're interested in reading them I can forward any of the paywalled ones to you :)

julienreszka 7y ago

Random never made me happy.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

chadthenderson 7y ago

This reads like it was written by someone on a coke binge.