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"Internet addiction" seems like a different thing than the rest of those to me. Being addicted to discovering new information and sharing with others sounds pr

"Internet addiction" seems like a different thing than the rest of those to me. Being addicted to discovering new information and sharing with others sounds pretty healthy to me. I think the difference with HN vs FB is that at some level, you are driving your HN interaction, while FB is driving your FB interaction. I think it only becomes "internet addiction" when you're not the one in control.

usr1106 6y ago
I was "addicted" to discovering new information before the internet existed. I biked 20 kilometers to the city to spend hours in the library and dig around in the shelves. When I got got access to the internet in the early 90s I spent hours to search in Usenet news and gopher sources (www hadn't been invented yet). I would not call that always a healthy behavior. It can be pretty inefficient and lacking any direction. Yeah, I sometimes wonder how narrow knowledge my fellow programmers or my early colleague from university who is a professor of computer science today can have. My interaction on HN could be more focussed to learn something new and not comment something old...
encom 6y ago
>Being addicted to discovering new information and sharing with others sounds pretty healthy to me. That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that you're passively consuming content for no real benefit. Sure, a lot of content on HN is interesting[#1], but it's ultimately useless[#2]. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere between these two extremes, but I think being addicted to anything is not healthy. I think a better way to satisfy your curiousity is to learn a practical skill. Play guitar, build a birdhouse, learn to swim. I mean as a supplement, not a replacement. I suppose this is a very roundabout way of saying turn off your computer and get out more. [#1]and a lot of it is SV circlejerk and JS frameworks [#2]to you, not generally

usr1106 6y ago

I was "addicted" to discovering new information before the internet existed. I biked 20 kilometers to the city to spend hours in the library and dig around in the shelves. When I got got access to the internet in the early 90s I spent hours to search in Usenet news and gopher sources (www hadn't been invented yet). I would not call that always a healthy behavior. It can be pretty inefficient and lacking any direction. Yeah, I sometimes wonder how narrow knowledge my fellow programmers or my early colleague from university who is a professor of computer science today can have. My interaction on HN could be more focussed to learn something new and not comment something old...

encom 6y ago

>Being addicted to discovering new information and sharing with others sounds pretty healthy to me. That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that you're passively consuming content for no real benefit. Sure, a lot of content on HN is interesting[#1], but it's ultimately useless[#2]. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere between these two extremes, but I think being addicted to anything is not healthy. I think a better way to satisfy your curiousity is to learn a practical skill. Play guitar, build a birdhouse, learn to swim. I mean as a supplement, not a replacement. I suppose this is a very roundabout way of saying turn off your computer and get out more. [#1]and a lot of it is SV circlejerk and JS frameworks [#2]to you, not generally