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May Sky Challenge
- reagular 6y agoy'all need to do shabbath
- sdoering 6y agoWhy? What is it with pushing religious stuff into peoples faces? I believe it is offensive to people who either have a different religion or none at all. One could just say: "You should do a day of digital detox every week. Like for example people do on Shabbat. Or in other ways."
- reagular 6y agoExactly, that's what I wanted to say. But we are on internet so I use a meme with ironic tone, I was not preaching.
- sdoering 6y agoAll fine. I had so much religious stuff shoved in my direction lately because of COVID - my tolerance massively decreased because of that in the last weeks.
- mikestew 6y agoOne could just say Or you could just give people the benefit of the doubt, read it that way to begin with, and save us all a lot of grief. Regardless... I believe it is offensive to people... If you have a personal beef, say it clearly. The rest of us don't need you to run interference for us. I'm of a "different religion" and I think it is an outstanding idea.
- sdoering 6y ago> If you have a personal beef, say it clearly I have no beef. I just stated my personal opinion. And I even stated a way how it could be framed with religious content in the text. I still feel I did a reasonable critique with an idea of how to communicate in a less offensive way towards others.
- alexpetralia 6y agoI admit I am increasingly interested in doing this. Very hard to do however (without a religious reason to do so).
- jackhalford 6y agoExcellent, I'll be doing this. We can never build enough awareness about our subconscious behaviors.
- madengr 6y agoYou had me there until Facebook was mentioned. Though I’m typing this in bed at 5:26 AM as I can’t sleep.
- acctng 6y agoSame here.
- lagilogi 6y agoI cannot see the sky from my apartment. So If have to wait until I leave for work or other reasons. I don't remember my parents having this problem with their newspaper. They did look at the newspaper before the sky every morning.
- stOneskull 6y agoThere'd be substitutes. Maybe just imagine the sky for one minute.
- stronglikedan 6y agoThey also didn't carry their newspapers around and constantly read them all day. I know the article proposes looking at the sky before you look at your phone first thing after waking, but the article probably wouldn't have been written if we checked our phones first thing, and then left them home the rest of the day.
- goda90 6y agoHow far of a walk to get someplace where you can see the sky? Could you do it in pajamas or would that be socially unacceptable?
- shlant 6y ago> I don't remember my parents having this problem with their newspaper. They did look at the newspaper before the sky every morning. This seems to be a pretty common comparison, especially as a reply to older generations remarking on everyone always being on their phones. Kind of a meme at this point[1][2]. It really makes me think that not a lot of thought/concern is given to the major difference between print media and modern technology/social media: print media is a one-way relationship. There is no interaction between the reader and the newspaper - it's a passive information source. Social media on the other hand is a two-way, highly interactive, highly curated information source/communication tool and that is where the comparison falls flat on it's face. To compare the two in the context of mental health/anti-social behavior/distraction etc. is missing the point. And for anyone interested in some research on the subjects of technology and social media as it related to kids, I will always plug the non-profit I work for: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research 1. https://memeworld.funnyjunk.com/pictures/Kids+these+days+always+on+their+phones_9a6937_6005297.jpg https://memeworld.funnyjunk.com/pictures/Kids+these+days+alw... 2. https://miro.medium.com/max/1080/1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4MP2HQ.jpeg https://miro.medium.com/max/1080/1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4MP2HQ.jp...
- _Microft 6y agoLook at the sky especially now during the lockdown. It's beautiful. I couldn't have imagined how distracting planes were until now that I have seen the sky without them.
- sdoering 6y agoI am living near an airport, but far away that planes did not seem too disturbing. Now that >80% are gone I see how loud they still were.
- Loughla 6y agoTwo nights ago a series of 40-50 satellites flew over. It was genuinely disturbing to see. I live where the night sky is dark, and full of stars. It was already pretty out here, but the lockdown, with less air travel, has really helped the sky. And then this line of SUPER bright satellites came over. I think they were part of the Spacex system of satellites. I'm hoping there aren't more coming. They were brighter than the moon, really, just smaller.
- laken 6y agoYou won't see that often; the reason you saw that many at once was due to a satellite deployment a little under a week ago. For the first few days they orbit very close together before separating into their own orbits. My understanding is that SpaceX is working with astronomers to minimize the impact to the night sky, but there are hiccups like just after a launch.
- FeepingCreature 6y agoHere's my perspective on it. "It's the year 2100, and" ... 1. Lots of lights are moving all over the night sky. 2. There are only stars visible in the night sky. Considering the implications, which of those two futures sounds preferable?
- Cogito 6y agoFYI there is a known issue with the brightness of recent SpaceX satellites, that is being worked on. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1252986968058802177 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1252986968058802177 The important bits: Everyday Astronaut @Erdayastronaut Apr 23 Is there a reason they’ve been brighter and more noticeable lately? I feel like tons of people are spotting them all of a sudden and they went fairly unnoticed before. Elon Musk @elonmusk Replying to @Erdayastronaut Solar panel angle during orbit raise / park. We’re fixing it now.
- amelius 6y agoBonus if you do a Sun salutation (yoga).
- RawChicken 6y agoExtra bonus if you praise the sun
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago[praising intensifies]
- Infinitesimus 6y agoWhat a fitting username lol
- maemilius 6y agoIf only I could be so grossly incandescent.
- frogpelt 6y agoI love this idea but I found this part hilarious: "You can join the event on facebook, so we can keep in touch, and see how popular this gets! Invite your friends, spread the word!" The reason people look at their screens first thing in the morning is to see what everybody else is doing.
- komali2 6y agoSpeak for yourself, I look to see how much money I lost that morning with bad option bets
- dangus 6y agoStop telling me what to do. Seriously. I can look at the phone and the sky in one day. I enjoy both of those things.
- ver_ture 6y agoThis is a suggestion made to ease the habit of deferring to our phones for everything, starting with the first action. I welcome this initiative for decreasing how often I reach for my phone by at least one, and digging up my old alarm clock.
- Robotbeat 6y agoI did this last night. It was awesome. I’m in the city, so I can’t see much, but did see the beautiful crescent Moon (and the dark, barely-visible Earthshine-illuminated portion), very bright Venus nearby, Orion (with a red Betelgeuse whose brightness has now recovered after waning for months), and then I saw a spectacular stream of just-launched, orbit-raising Starlink satellites emit from the North Star and fly past the handle of the Big Dipper. (Plus a couple other non-Starlink satellites earlier.) (On a side note, it seems that SpaceX has made really good progress on solving the in-service brightness problem of Starlink, and hopes to launch all their satellites—starting with two launches from now—with low enough in-service brightness to be invisible to the naked eye once on-station.) https://spacenews.com/spacex-to-test-starlink-sun-visor-to-reduce-brightness/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-to-test-starlink-sun-visor-to-r...
- war1025 6y agoMy family just finally learned where Venus is a month or two ago. It's so obvious once you know, but I always assumed it was just another star or something. I get an unreasonable amount of joy out of seeing it up there each night.
- Cactus2018 6y agoAnyone interested in knowing when to look for Starlink can check here: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink
- fctorial 6y agoOr both by using the camera.
- mercora 6y agoi have no clock in my bedroom, the first thing i do in the morning is looking out of the window to see where the sun is at currently...
- gfiorav 6y agoJust answer: do you use vi?
- jpxw 6y agoNah this guy is an ed user for sure
- quickthrower2 6y agoButterflies!
- ezequiel-garzon 6y agoFor the minority here that doesn’t know the reference: https://xkcd.com/378/ https://xkcd.com/378/. A true classic!
- mercora 6y agono way, emacs only ;)
- thomasedwards 6y agoDo you live on the equator?
- cdubzzz 6y agoLately I’ve been wondering if an upcoming generation is going to be more anti-technology, or at least anti-smartphone. I’ve got a 2.5 year old who will occasionally say, “put your phone down, daddy”, or even swipe it from my hand (though we of course try to discourage that, hah) when I’m not paying enough attention to him. As he has grown up and started doing this, it has made me much more aware of my phone time and generally decreased my usage. He clearly notices when I do use it and doesn’t like it if he’s expecting me to engage more with him. I’m curious if this will lead to him seeing smartphone use as some sort of uncool adult thing.
- gen_greyface 6y agosmartphones' fate will be similar to television, television provided a new cool way to access content than newspapers/magazines, then came the smartphones which provided even better content which was easily accessible. My point being unless they(upcoming generation) get something that provides better content and ways to access it or they realize that instant access to information is bad, they wont be anti-smartphone.
- jacobush 6y agoNot trying to be flippant, but going at what kids do - probably copy your behaviour while at the same time feel it's an uncool thing. :-/
- phoenixdblack 6y agoI don't think smartphones will stay with us for very long. They'll probably be replaced by future technologies less clunky (and yes, I am calling smarthphones clunky) in favor of things like glasses, contacts and implants. I think our children won't be "anti-smartphone" in the same vain as we are not "anti-mainframe"
- dangus 6y agoI don’t buy your vision of the future because interacting with things with our hands is the most intuitive interface. And the idea that we will jump to having our devices being able to read our mind seems like a stretch.
- harimau777 6y agoDoes anyone know what the background picture is?
- GoToRO 6y agoOr not look at the sky, instead make sure to ask for your rights so that looking at the sky is something that just happens. No need to blame and shame people.
- m0llusk 6y agoThis is a great opportunity for a LookAtTheSky app. Personally, I like to combine both modes by using moon tracking apps to watch my favorite sky object.
- interestica 6y agoHa! So like an AR type app that lets me see my social media feed overlaid on the live views of the sky on my screen? ....
- vharish 6y agoI need to turn off the alarm though :(
- third_I 6y agoThat doesn't count IMHO, it's just a couple taps most likely, you're not engaging with the device (it's merely an overkill alarm clock at that point). ;)
- swiley 6y agoEven before the lockdown I made a habit of going out and looking at the sky and the farthest/highest thing I could find every morning right after I wake up. Before it was just nice, now I feel like it’s keeping me sane.
- qqssccfftt 6y agoI looked at the sky this morning. It was cloudy. There wasn't really much there. This is literal boomer newspaper comic type stuff at 75 upvotes.
- PretzelFisch 6y agoMy two cents, I don't care about your addiction don't assume it is mine too. I wake up at 4:30 am and hit the "gym". So yes my first screens are an alarm, then the ipad to keep my mind distracted. around 7 I enjoy watching the sun come up while I have a cup of coffee to make the most of SIP. When life was normal I would walk to work and enjoyed that a lot. I also make it a point to go outside for 1-2 sort walks each day. I don't see much difference between my use of tv,cpu compared to my parents tv/paper/magazine or grand parents tv/radio/paper and magazines. Every generation has new socialization norms and every one has to fight for attention.
- fredley 6y agoOne of the best small changes I made was sleeping in a different room to my phone. We now have a charging station in the study where all our phones and other devices charge. When I wake up I often go through breakfast etc. before going to get my phone. If you're stil sleeping near your phone, stop it. Alarm clocks are very cheap. You don't need any of the fancy features of your phone's alarm - you'll adapt.
- yoz-y 6y agoI like the idea in theory but I always use my phone to actually fall asleep by listening to some monotonous audio. Before doing this I had extremely hard time falling asleep.
- fredley 6y agoThat sounds great if it works for you. Obviously don't change your habits if they're not problematic! For me before I made the change the last thing I'd do at night was look at my phone, the first thing I'd do in the morning was look at my phone, and if I woke in the night I'd look at my phone. Bed is now a mentally distinct place for me, which helps my sleep a lot.
- CDSlice 6y agoOne option if you really want to sleep in a separate room from your phone is to get a dedicated audio player for your bedroom. Depending on the features you need (Bluetooth, streaming support from Spotify, etc.) you can get one for around $70 to $300. You could also get a Raspberry Pi and automate playing your monotonous audio at your bedtime each night. That would be cheap and a neat quarantine project.
- yoz-y 6y agoThis can help. I use my old phone that I otherwise use for dev. It does not have games and social networks on it so it's harder to just spend time on something.
- third_I 6y agoThe idea is nice, great even, but... No but seriously. Who, in 2020, grabs their phone first thing before hitting a drink, or bathroom, or wash your face or whatever you do when you wake up? I (37M) find it weird. In 2010, sure, it was all new and I was younger maybe. Nowadays I just don't even have to refrain myself, it could be 10, 20 minutes before I look at any screen. It would usually be my laptop actually. Am I the exception? I'd think a technologically mature crowd to be much less... dependent, less hooked to their phone. I would think of this being an actual challenge for the mainstream Facebooking / Instagramming / Twittering, but not people like us... [work notwithstanding, evidently, sometimes we need to grab the phone but that's irrelevant to my observations]
- vzidex 6y ago21-year-old here, I do that pretty often. Most days when I wake up I feel super groggy and/or have very little motivation to get out of bed, so mindlessly scrolling Reddit/Facebook or reading the news gives me a slow start to gather some energy to get out of bed. However, recently I _have_ been wondering whether being on my phone all the time contributes to those symptoms.
- third_I 6y agoThat's a very good question. I used to be you. As I said above, my 'secret' was to dissociate 'me' (the body, with an inner child inside) from 'my thinking brain', the overarching parent/boss up there who makes decisions. So parent takes care of the child and is able to say "nope, don't do that". Developing this approach is what made me an adult I think (I was in my 30s already, it didn't come naturally to me). A great trick was audiobooks. You just listen and that wakes the brain up, but a book is really, really so much better than random posts. 30 minutes as you wake up, then get up, have breakfast etc. is sure mind opener. It becomes a habit, maybe a need even, but it's a good need. Books and exercises is the winning combination for success and happiness (seriously, just these two things put you in the top 5%, or so I hear). Places like librivox have tons of free content. A well thought-out podcast is good too I think (long-form content). It's the idea of a passive but mind-opening activity. Then when I'm working during the day I put the phone away silent for ~30 minutes, then take a break and chill for 5-10 minutes, then back at it, rinse and repeat. That's what got me off the dopamine hook I think.
- soneca 6y agoI wake up and the first thing I do is check my phone and I don't think that's unhealthy. Quite the contrary I believe. It is a slow start to the day and I feel connected to friends and family. I am living abroad, a few hours behind my native country where most of my friends live. So when I wake up, there is already a lot of activity in the WhatsApp groups I am part of. I don't use WhatsApp professionally, so it's just personal stuff. I love to read trivial chatting from my friends and family first thing in the morning. Specially living abroad. Specially these days of Covid. I also check Twitter and HN, but just a quick look, not the reason I pick up my phone. I spend about 20min on WhatsApp, 5min elsewhere. It also wakes me up, so I don't oversleep. Then I am ready to go the bathroom, prepare my breakfast and when I get to work, I am ready and sharp. I believe people use the idea of picking your phone first thing in the morning as an image and a proxy for phone addiction, I don't think it is. I believe I would be less healthy if I had my phone locked away from me in the morning.
- code_duck 6y agoI pick up my phone and read the news. I don't see why that would be any more harmful than a magazine or newspaper.
- qqssccfftt 6y agoThe first thing I do when I wake up is send a good morning to people and check the stuff they wanted me to see as I was sleeping. It refuse to believe this is "unhealthy". It's communication.
- gukov 6y agoSure, communication by itself is not unhealthy. The question is should it be done right after waking up. The brain has no time to gather thoughts, plan the day, etc. It's anything but a graceful boot up. By reaching for the phone first thing in the morning you're telling your brain "you're nothing but a social media content processor." Not only that, but with news being mostly negative (a major reason of why people reach for their phones first thing in the morning), it's not a good recipe for mental health.
- fanatic2pope 6y ago> Well, just do it! You can join the event on facebook, Fail.
- zooli 6y agoi believe that the main audience of this campaign are hardcore fb users, it's easier to target them there. but any suggestions are welcome, how to reach people nowadays?
- wnevets 6y agophone bad
- alex_young 6y agoFor everyone concerned about your alarm, try existing without one! I gave up alarms over a decade ago, and I never wake up late. You have a great internal clock in your own head and the subtle stress of knowing an alarm is pending is horrible for actually getting restful sleep. Don’t believe me? Try it on a weekend or two, or if you have a week with few early events, set a resolve to do some task by a specific time and remind yourself to wake for it before going to bed. It’s amazingly simple once you get used to it.
- munificent 6y agoMy experience is that if I have an event that I need to be ready for and don't set an alarm my brain switches into panic "Oh shit, I overslept mode!" and I wake up way too early, repeatedly, and end up with a terrible night's sleep. In fact, I get that whenever I travel for work even though I do set an alarm because the disruption to my routine makes me afraid I failed to set it correctly. What I find helps the most for getting restful sleep is to do this at night: 1. Set an alarm for when I want to wake up. 2. Go to bed at a time that makes my sleep duration an integer multiple of my sleep cycle. For me, that's around 3.5 hours. I'll feel more rested with 7 hours of sleep than 9 because at 9 hours I'm woken from deep sleep. 3. When I get in bed, mentally how much time between there is between now and my alarm going off. Deliberately tell myself, "My alarm is going off in X hours." Setting an alarm cures my "I overslept!" anxiety. The other two points help align my alarm to my sleep cycle so I'm in shallow sleep when it goes off.
- ASalazarMX 6y agoEvery day I look up at the sky and landscape before looking down at my phone. It doesn't make any significant difference in my day. But whatever that makes people lives more varied in this isolation is fine, I guess.
- kharms 6y ago.
- jermaustin1 6y agoI've been doing a similar routine. But walking instead of reading. I wake at 6:30, take a short walk around the block, eat breakfast, then start work by 7:30. Take a break around noon for lunch and another 2-3 mile walk, then call it quits at 3:30 to 4:00, and either go out and do some wood working or another walk. Then shower before bed at 9:00-ish.
- unethical_ban 6y agoA few thoughts: * Comparing newspaper to infinite social media feeds and online resources is a very incomplete model * There are clearly people who see the value in this, so don't be so quick to dismiss it. I feel the same as /u/convolvatron in that the quarantine has really screwed up my routine, and has worsened my addiction to social media/internet/interacting somehow with the digital world. The days where I wake up and make coffee/have a pre-Internet routine are better on the whole. * Don't assume this post thinks everyone needs this - it is a recommendation for those who do, or those who simply like trying different habits. * Finally, as a compromise, if you insist on some usage in the morning: Consider only using your alarm, and getting an email subscription or podcast of the morning's news. Though it dilutes the utility of this exercise, I believe the worst part of electronics addiction is the unbounded nature of it. Having a clear boundary of "one five minute podcast" or "only check email / SMS of friends" is much better than "Load up the times, post, reddit, HN, Facebook, messenger, Whatsapp, Hangouts, Slack, Signal, and the city paper".
- m4rtink 6y agoSo I though this is about some nice astronomic phenomena one can see in the sky during May (like the spectacular post launch Starlink satellite "trains") but it is just some weird anti smartphone addiction campaign. I am disappointed. :P
- nonbirithm 6y agoI always would like to participate in these but end up taking advantage of the rules, without fail. My guess is I'd get up, walk over to the window, pull down the blinds to ensure light enters my pupils for five seconds, then go back to bed and promptly read HN for half an hour. It would still count. I wouldn't even be able to see it since I'd probably not even bother to put on my eyewear just to see five seconds of sky. I'm trying to work out my intended goals if I'm going to attempt such a thing. I do believe cellphone usage in bed is a negative. But if that's what I'm trying to combat, I'm not sure just "looking at the sky first thing in the morning" is going to help me accomplish reducing phone usage in bed. Because once I've looked at the sky for the morning, I'm free to do whatever, and there's only one other thing I'm going to do first thing in the morning. The same happened when I tried to follow a course on building self esteem. It consists of writing three positive experiences and three things you're grateful for each morning. The author noted: if you're skeptical at staying on track, try it for 30 days. You'd be surprised at yourself. All that happened was that I did this for exactly the 30 days, stopped cold, and haven't found the motivation to start again. Rereading what I wrote during that time on the occasion, I fail to see what I accomplished. Same with a 30-day morning exercise routine. My thoughts: I'm no longer indebted to follow this person's advice. I've tried it. I've forced myself through it. I don't feel any different, except perpetually exhausted throughout the rest of the day. Now what? I still want to do these things, because there's clearly some benefit to be had if someone went out of their way to host an entire webpage for this concept, and stating that it "sounds easy" as opposed to "it is easy". Exercise leads to better health. Writing some words supposedly leads to better mental health. Yet it always feels compulsory, like someone on the Internet has the power to control my behavior against my will, and if I "fail" the "challenge" I'll think less of myself for it. The only reason I'm doing this is because someone I don't know suggested it, and the whole point is once you start, you have to follow through. So essentially, I feel like no matter what happens I'm roping myself into something I will not stick through to the end. Then I end up dreading every moment of it, eventually forgetting why I even bothered to try it in the first place amongst how forced and tiresome it is, and inevitably go back to my usual habits. Ultimately it comes down to consciously not trying and staying the course in equilibrium, or trying, failing, and managing to convince myself I didn't have it in me, or that I see no benefit. For something as simple as scribbling some notes in a journal. I noticed that my desire to exercise disappeared entirely the moment I bought myself an exercise bike and put it two feet away from my desk at home. I also tried sleeping for a week with my phone in a separate room. Cue not being able to fall asleep outright until 3-4 AM for the entire week. At least 12 AM with my phone on night mode was better for my health before. I don't get it. Maybe when next month comes around I'll just have to try harder, as they say. For $DIETY_NAME's sake, it's just looking at the sky.
- t0astbread 6y agoThe first thing I do in the morning is look outside and try to guess the clock time from the shadows and the position of the sun to test my sense of time and to check how fucked my sleeping schedule is. So I guess I've already done this? (If you don't count the days when I've set an alarm because my phone doesn't have the "shake to shut up" feature and it wouldn't make sense to guess the time if you've just woken up to an alarm.) Except for that, I generally don't use my phone a lot. I don't trust most mobile apps because I have no good way of isolating and limiting an app's capabilities on my phone (compared to the web where things like uMatrix and related tech are commonplace) and the few apps I do have are more of the information-pull rather than the information-push type (although that's unintentional). Maybe a bit off-topic but I think mobile operating systems are generally more a burden than a help for me. Android's design decisions make a lot of sense for a lot of people's needs but for me it's just too limiting compared to PC operating systems so I simply don't do a lot on my phone.