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90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)
- darepublic 6y agoThe monolith
- greesil 6y agoThe system works
- frongpik 6y agoIt's the lack of interesting new information that drives humans to look into these portable screens. Humans aren't cats to be content with the 4 walls around them.
- quiescant_dodo 6y agoI'm not sure cats are content with the 4 walls around them, either. (Plenty of cats prefer the outdoors, even if they sleep inside.)
- xkcd-sucks 6y agoWell yeah - What do cats do? Hunt little critters and patrol/defend territory. It is difficult to get suitable environmental enrichment indoors for something that can't read.
- unstatusthequo 6y agoI’ve seen many a cat enjoy cardboard boxes.
- ummonk 6y agoEhhh... There is a reason they say curiosity killed the cat.
- BuzzwordBingo 6y agoSo many ads. This site has become cancer.
- wyclif 6y agoI thought this was funny, but the serious point behind it is that we're only beginning to understand the negative effects that screen time has on humans.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoReally? My friend wrote her dissertation in 1989 or 1990 on the affects of television on children. The affects were dire. We’ve known about this a long time, even before screens were interactive.
- whydoineedthis 6y agoReally? (No pun or /s intended). I grew up in the 80's and 90's watching a significant amount of television. Myself and my like friends seem to be ok. Didn't go mad or become dumb. Matter of fact, we seem to excell in the digital age because of how familiar we are with the tech behind the television. I'm not saying there could not be some detrimental effect, but it seems the research stating as such was a bit overblown and was more driven by fear than by observed facts.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoYep. I agree. Nevertheless, the research was there.
- strngeattractor 6y agoThe name of the supra-FAANG, all encompasing global corporate monolith in my post-mcluhanist-super-late-stage-capitalist dystopia novel: Rectangle Group...Ahhh, the ancient Greeks worst nightmare ><
- vharuck 6y agoIn the old days, the rectangles didn't even glow. In fact, they even stained our fingers black sometimes.
- bronco21016 6y agoThe new Croods movie makes a great joke of this. The cavemen come across a slightly more modern group of people and they have windows. One of the cave kids becomes obsessed with watching out the window and even builds a portable window to watch the world through. Love when they give the parents little pieces of humor like that!
- repsilat 6y agoBecause this thread always needs someone to say the obvious truth: "Screen time" isn't the most useful concept. Maybe it was in the TV days (though with diverse programming it may not have been), but with phones/tablets/laptops it's as broad a label as "technology company". Are we talking about chatting with friends? Doing work? Watching a show? Playing a game? Reading the news? A novel? Meeting with people? Organising transport? Finding a place to eat? There is a diversity of rectangles, and for each rectangle there is a diversity of uses.
- SllX 6y agoTrue, but isn’t that why vendors that track screen time also offer a means of categorizing it? At least Apple does, I’m fairly certain Android does. I’d be interested in seeing this extended to “listening time” as well since I probably use my headphones and speakers more than I use the glowing rectangles.
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoYep, I have an iPad which I use purely for drawing. Technically it counts as screen time but the activity is really no different to drawing on paper. Unless perhaps you are studying eye strain
- FartyMcFarter 6y agoReductionism is fun. "90% of waking hours spent activating tendons in response to electrical impulses".
- kulig 6y agoOne of these will actually kill you pretty quick though.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoAll of us with seldom exception use our glowing rectangles as addictive dopamine drips that exploit our innate desire to scavenge for information that ends up disconnecting us from the world and, likely, things we actually find fulfilling. And we watch our own children suffer the exact same way and wonder what can actually be done about it. There was a submission this morning or yesterday about "if we could live our lives over" where many HNers were lamenting how they felt like they were wasting their precious hours. How many of those people would say that their screen time wasn't contributing? Or that it was actually fulfilling? Not sure who here relates to the idea of spending the bulk of their screen time organizing transport and planning dinner parties or whatever. Or the idea of "no, I actually do like how much time I spend on <vice> and I'm trying to get those numbers up even higher." For some reason whenever this topic comes up, we have people playing coy with what "screen time" could possibly be referring to. "What, you're saying it's bad to use my iPhone to Facetime my dying father?"
- SimeVidas 6y agoI’m reading this on a glowing rectangle, what a coincidence.
- Bakary 6y agoI'd be overjoyed at the prospect of a life with meaningful activities and interactions that don't require a screen. I have yet to succeed in making much progress towards that goal. It bothers me that instead of adapting the tool to us we have adapted ourselves to the tool.
- curryst 6y ago> It bothers me that instead of adapting the tool to us we have adapted ourselves to the tool. Isn't that always the way it is? Society made obvious shifts with the invention of the car. With the invention of the printing press, we adapted by teaching people to read the things it produced. Adapting to our tools seems like the reason we live anything like we currently do. Otherwise we'd still live in communities in the woods, with technology that has adapted to us (which is an interesting thing to think about).
- dannyw 6y agoThere are plenty, at least pre-pandemic. • Explore a national park, go on a few hikes (guided by paper maps and a compass), and refine your photography skills with a DSLR/mirrorless. Budget ones can be had for a couple hundred dollars and they still beat phone cameras. • Cook something with your friends, or go out and eat dinner. • Play some board games, join a dungeon and dragons game. A great thing to do when the weather is bad. • If you have children, spend some screen free, activity free time with them. You could just chat, teach them spontaneous new skills, or explore together. • Have a maker itch but don’t want to look at a screen? Play around with physical hardware. Get a soldering iron, some components from Digikey, and make something yourself (and have fun). • Go to a party, festival, or rave. • Drive somewhere and just camp with good company and some drinks. • Meet a friend or colleague spontaneously for coffee and just catch up. • Draw. • Learn renovation and make your home better, just the way you want it (and increase its value). • Learn how to change oil on your car and start doing maintenance yourself. Fixing a car is kinda like fixing a computer. • Go for a swim. • Go to the gym, or workout with mates. • Read a book. • Go for a walk while listening to your favourite albums. Life is filled with meaningful, screen-free alternatives. You just have to appreciate them.
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- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- modzu 6y agoEgon Schiele - Man in Chair
- kenniskrag 6y agotheonion is a satire website but not always wrong.
- neilpanchal 6y ago2009 rectangles were pretty cool. They had scroll bars that were visible at all times, minimal whitespace and generally better usability and functionality. No purple gradients and huge buttons, responsive mess that serve what I consider mobile-first-desktop-last rectangles. It's becoming harder to find pure rectangles even, they've become soft baby-like with rounded corners to sooth our senses! Here are some relics with sane typography, iconic icons and compact UI [1][2][3]. [1] https://www.martinmajoor.com/6_my_philosophy.html https://www.martinmajoor.com/6_my_philosophy.html [2] http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/news https://news.ycombinator.com/news
- solarkraft 6y agoThe silk icons are fine visually, but way too complex to tell them apart quickly. [2] looks like an example of the headache badly mixed typography can cause. Those are opinions, of course, but I don't think the basics (like soothed senses) are controversial, many of which can be objectively studied.
- neilpanchal 6y ago2030 rectangles are back to pure retro forms! Most design today is based on trends, and hardly any objectivity: https://www.google.com/search?q=design+trends https://www.google.com/search?q=design+trends
- tim333 6y ago>minimal whitespace Your examples seem to have plenty of whitespace, at least 1 and 2 do. That said I quite like whitespace. I think there much to be said for sites that look like traditional nicely done books eg https://bikes-n-stuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/IMG_9229-2.jpg https://bikes-n-stuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/IMG_922... which is a look which evolved over many decades.
- teawrecks 6y agoNice, this predates the relevant xkcd. https://xkcd.com/722/ https://xkcd.com/722/
- emerged 6y agoAll glory to the hypnotoad.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoAnother Onion gem from 2000: “Area Man Consults Internet Whenever Possible” [1] > "I was on the phone getting directions to a restaurant we were going out to," Pamela said, "when Larry started yelling, 'No, no, don't ask! I'll find it!' So he opens up mapquest.com, enters our address and the restaurant's, and within 10 minutes, he had complete door-to-door directions printed out." > "That's right," Larry said. "And she wanted to get a pen and write down the directions by hand." [1] https://www.theonion.com/area-man-consults-internet-whenever-possible-1819565463 https://www.theonion.com/area-man-consults-internet-whenever...