19 ms·

We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

406 points by iamsanteri 6y ago

MikeTheGreat 6y ago
I love how, just 2 spots up from this post, is another post entitled "Debian Packages That Need Lovin' (debian.net)". I do hope the Debian packages get the help they need (and this is a great place to ask for such help) but it's hilarious for my mind to ping-pong between "Hey, maybe that's a new hobby (that I probably don't have time for)" and "Huh. There are a lot of distractions out there" :)
eingineer43 6y ago
I love how you summarize the dilemma of a digital native. May I add some juicy polarization by referencing the quote "I don't know how to live, but I got a lot of toys" from the song 21st Century Digital Boy? Your article gives great reason to rethink. How to use the time we have been given in a meaningful way, to be labelled as a sentient being rather than a robot. It is definitely a daily test to one's choice: Rather to be a creator than consumer. Creating things is usually a sequential process, without a secret passage, lots of effort, making own (in-)abilities public and taking real risks - consumption can be found the exact opposite. So it's a path that needs decent courage. In the end it makes life brighter - and as you point out: it doesn't matter if you write about thoughts, read a book in length or build a trustful relationship with a person you love. It will be a lasting and enriching experience.
- iamsanteri 6y ago
  Yes! To your comment, if you could commit yourself to balancing and trying to produce an equivalent of just 1/10th of all the stuff you consume, I think you would end up being a major and great creator. And just like you said, although creating and publishing takes a decent amount of courage, it is very rewarding, especially when the main purpose to do it comes for the sake of your own observation, learning and joy.
  - eingineer43 6y ago
    Which ”funny book” are you reading?
    - iamsanteri 6y ago
      The book was ”Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore. Actually, even just by searching online you can find this small chapter from the book where he tells his ”high tech parable”, illustrating an (unfortunately) common story of a fast growing start-up that struggles to expand beyond its early adopter market into the critically important majority. I think you might consider it pretty funny too, although my humor might be dry here.... Even if it’s a bit early to tell, the book seems like a nice read!
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  I've been reading technical books for so long, hunting for information and with my shortened attention span, I now have difficulty reading for the sheer pleasure of it. I tried reading fiction not too long ago and found it laborious. It was the most disappointing feeling in the world to me.
  - defterGoose 6y ago
    This is interesting, and I kind of know what you're getting at. I've never been a super avid reader, but ive always enjoyed fiction and most sci-fi type stuff. As i get older i find myself gravitating towards more non-fiction. I recently read "Shadow Divers" which is the true story of some divers who discover an unknown U-Boat off the coast of New Jersey and spend years and several divers' lives in the pursuit of an identification. It was completely riveting which id rarely if ever experienced in a piece of non-fiction; felt like i remember the Harry Potter books feeling when i was a teenager. So maybe try expanding the scope of your search a little.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
    It's definitely is a muscle that can atrophy, and can be rebuilt. It takes about 3 weeks of reading most days for me to re-learn how to do it. Even after that period, it still takes me 10 - 15 minutes to properly slip back into a novel, which feels like an eternity when we're so used to instant gratification, but it's not so long if your average reading session is the length of an average film.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about COVID death tolls, how big their stimulus checks are going to be, the value of their crypto portfolio, GameStop, and every other popular topic under the sun that they don’t have any attention left for their own lives. Bitcoin is especially distracting right now, as they’re all nervously watching the real-time changes of their $1000 portfolios to see if they need to be sad about losing money because it’s crashing or sad about not investing more money because it’s going up. These are all smart students. I always wonder how much more they could accomplish if they’d simply pick four hours each day to turn off their phones. That’s a tough sell, though.
- zzzeek 6y ago
  > It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. I meditate every day and it's cost me nothing, uses nothing, does not require going anywhere, literally brushing my teeth is more of a commercial activity than meditation is. Meditation is exactly what your students could use most effectively to learn to manage distracted minds, so given you are in a position of mentorship it's kind of sad you seem to think the basic act of sitting and doing exactly nothing but observing how it feels is some kind of corporate fad that should be avoided.
  - hybridtupel 6y ago
    I think what was meant here are the countless (monetarized) apps and courses which gamify the meditation experience of course. You are totally right that the original intention of meditation is quite the opposite. No app, gadget or anything else required. Edit: Grammar
    - 6y ago
ppf 6y ago
I've spent the last year or so trying to control my smartphone usage, by removing apps and trying to set rules for myself like "your phone stays in the kitchen for most of the day". I recently took the plunge and got rid of it entirely, and it was truly surprising to realise how much of my time and attention it had still taken, despite my best efforts. If you think you're ready for that step, I highly recommend it. Just as mindless browsing, refreshing, and scrolling is self-perpetuating, so is the obverse. Once you start removing apps and accounts, and habits are broken, you will start asking yourself "Why am I on my (phone/computer/laptop)? What else could I be doing?"
- alexpetralia 6y ago
  Similarly, everytime I decide to relegate my phone to another room, I am better off for it. The problem is that, one week or another, it eventually liberates itself and somehow makes its way back into my day-to-day. One day, I hope to solve this.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Will it even be possible for many people to give up smartphones in favour of a dumbphone any more? Thanks to COVID, you may have to own an Apple or Android smartphone to do certain things. Several countries have announced that their vaccination certificate will exist mainly in digital form, with one official app that generates limited-time QR codes. For instance, I can’t find any information on what Israelis without a smartphone are supposed to do at restaurants etc., since the news is reporting that the QR code will be mandatory to enter such places. Nearly all people entering Poland must now quarantine, and after you hand over your details at the border, the police send you an SMS saying “Installing our quarantine app from the Google Play store or Apple’s store is legally required”. Then you already had the problem of some banks no longer offering code cards or SMS verification, and requiring you to use their app for 2FA for online banking.
  - ppf 6y ago
    Fortunately, I live in a country where I think there is less chance of such things happening. However - is mandated smartphone ownership the future we want? It goes without saying that almost all government over-reach is done "for your own good".
BannedQuick 6y ago
You get what you where trained to beg for.
soheil 6y ago
I bought the iPhone 12 mini so it forces me to use it less due to its small screen size, it's been working pretty well so far.
RGamma 6y ago
The fallout of a decade of senseless pushing, growing and disrupting in the attention economy. We'll get the smartphone zombie outbreak under control, but not before it becomes worse. And if not.. not sure we'll even care or notice anymore.
fxtentacle 6y ago
I wonder if we see a rise in ADHD in kids nowadays because it is an increasingly useful adaptation to our environment. "Hyperfocus is the experience of deep and intense concentration in some people with ADHD. ADHD is not necessarily a deficit of attention, but rather a problem with regulating one’s attention span to desired tasks." I don't know, but "hyperfocus" on a hobby you love sounds exactly like what most people need nowadays to get off their phone and stop wasting their life staring on ads and ad-financed content. Also, I remember that most things we covered in school were completely irrelevant for the real world. So a difficulty to concentrate on school stuff may actually be better than doing the homework. In short, ignoring what society considers normal and instead being super focused on your own things ... sounds more healthy to me than the average "normal" person.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > I wonder if we see a rise in ADHD in kids nowadays because it is an increasingly useful adaptation to our environment. We like to think of focus and attention span as innate abilities encoded by our genes, but the truth is that genetics are only a part of the story. Focus and attention are learned skills that can be trained and developed over time. Likewise, focus and attention can be diminished over time through constant cycles of rewarding ones' self with quick distractions. If instead of studying on a difficult topic, a person scrolls Twitter for an endless stream of quick context shifts and semi-rewarding posts, they're training their brain to associate Twitter with reward and studying with pain. It takes conscious effort to suppress the desire for short-term reward and focus on long-term reward that comes at a cost of additional up front work. The rise in ADHD diagnoses is partially due to ever-expanding criteria for ADHD. Decades ago, ADHD diagnoses were mostly limited to severe cases that were refractory to therapy interventions. These days, drug companies push ADHD quizzes on the internet that make common everyday struggles feel like ADHD. Take a look at Takeda Pharmaceutical's Adult ADHD site: https://www.adhdadulthood.com/adhd-test https://www.adhdadulthood.com/adhd-test With testimonials such as "I had to write everything down to maintain organization and memory" you'd think that non-ADHD people never had to write anything down to stay organized. > I don't know, but "hyperfocus" on a hobby you love sounds exactly like what most people need nowadays to get off their phone and stop wasting their life staring on ads and ad-financed content. The idea of "hyperfocus" is that the person loses focus on the wrong things. For example, if someone "hyperfocuses" on video games instead of doing their homework. It's a failure of time management and prioritization rather than a special ability to accomplish things. The idea of hyperfocus as a symptom of ADHD is a new phenomenon, and it's more prominent in pop culture than actual ADHD research. Just look at the only 6 hits for hyperfocus AND adhd in pubmed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22hyperfocus%22+AND+%22adhd%22 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22hyperfocus%22+AND+%... 5 of the 6 papers are from the last 4 years and most aren't from top quality journals. Before that, hyperfocus was only listed as an adverse effect of taking too high of a dose of an ADHD medication. > So a difficulty to concentrate on school stuff may actually be better than doing the homework. It's a mistake to think that children's schoolwork is only about learning how to do fractions or write cursive or just the core material. The kids are learning how to learn, learning how to focus, learning how to manage their time, learning how to follow through on tasks, and many other very valuable learned skills in the process. On HN we like to talk about the hypothetical genius child who would be studying engineering in their spare time if they didn't have to do a couple hours of homework at night, but in reality the vast majority of children are not worse off by doing schoolwork. It's training and learning how to function in the world. It's not perfect, but kids definitely do learn life skills from it. > In short, ignoring what society considers normal and instead being super focused on your own things ... sounds more healthy to me than the average "normal" person. The reality is that most people aren't forced to choose between being "normal" and being successful in their area of expertise. It has never been easier for someone to access information about their chosen topic online, but you only need to look at the traffic stats of major social media sites to see what people are actually choosing to do with their free time. It's also important to accept that good ideas don't always stand out on their own. Knowing how the world works and how to be "normal" is a critically important skill for working with others, getting your ideas out there, communicating, and so on. Obviously I'd never discourage anyone from pursuing study in their chosen field, but in my experience the people who didn't grow up in environments with strong structure, frameworks, and feedback loops from their educators and parents is often ill-equipped to follow their academic desires when they arrive at college or the business world. There are always exceptions, of course. However it's more common to hear kids complain that their early academic years were "not challenging enough" rather than too difficult, leaving them ill-prepared for reality when they finally encounter something challenging enough that they can't coast through it.
50 6y ago
We live in distraction because we give attention to what does not matter which, if we let our hair down, is the external world. The imperative of dying to the external world is a process of rediscovery of what does matter.
lrossi 6y ago
Sorry to say this, but HN is a problem as well. I’m looking for that 1% of the posts that interest me, and when I find them it’s fantastic, since it’s info I would not be able to find anywhere else. But going through the other 99% is a waste of time. These two combined have a harmful effect on me. I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but it’s the same as the one causing addiction in gambling/bets/games. Gathering energy/motivation to do something productive instead takes effort. Just a few days ago I was thinking of adding a dns block for it. But that 1% of the links is sweet...
- latexr 6y ago
  > Just a few days ago I was thinking of adding a dns block for it. In your profile you’ll find noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway, which you can use to limit your time on the site. > But that 1% of the links is sweet You can use RSS feeds to be notified of stories with over N points[1] (or another rule), lessening the desire to look at everything. [1]: https://hnrss.github.io/#activity-parameters https://hnrss.github.io/#activity-parameters
  - lrossi 6y ago
    I had no idea about this. Thanks, I will try it out.
    - mns06 6y ago
      Also check out this feed of the top 10 HN stories daily: https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ I find it cuts out a lot of the noise
  - alsetmusic 6y ago
    > You can use RSS feeds to be notified of stories with over N points[1] (or another rule), lessening the desire to look at everything. Thank you for this tip! HN is one of the only websites I don’t consume via RSS. I had no idea I could customize parameters and do this. Unfortunately, I’ll still be loading the site to find the rare links that are of high interest to but that get a low number of hits. But this will definitely help me optimize my interaction with the site. Again, thank you.
acwan93 6y ago
One way to combat this (if you’re physically capable): long distance running without headphones. It forces you to focus on one thing alone: finish your route. I’ve found that my mind wanders, but the pain exerted by running for an hour or so inevitably brings you back.
- dylkil 6y ago
  isnt the pain of running long distance a distraction too though?
  - ph2082 6y ago
    Man, I am reading this book Awakening Intelligence by Jiddu Krishnamurthy. It says same thing. Everything we do is trying to distract us from our true selves.
  - redisman 6y ago
    Sure, but on a scale from 0 to 10 - it’s a 2. You can also walk or hike and then the only distraction is the scenery.
- nicbou 6y ago
  Bicycle and motorcycle travel works too. You can think about things, but you're mostly focused on staying in movement.
  - pascalo 6y ago
    Came on here to say it's exactly what I use cycling for. 5 hours on the bike means 5 hours not looking at my phone or laptop. Just turn the legs over and let your mind wander or stare into the landscape (or deal with traffic, which sucks).
    - iamsanteri 6y ago
      Hi Pascalo, I have exactly the same feeling when going on a bike tour. We just did a 5-day, 250km bike ride along the Danube river here in south-Germany and it was one of the most incredible experiences I've had. On the saddle I feel free and my mind is resting. High-five!!
cutler 6y ago
And then there's Javascript.
thewarrior 6y ago
Glad I found this useful post while refreshing HN for some mental stimulus. A book I found silly when I read it was Future shock. It said that change and information would be so rapid in the future that people would be in permanent state of shock. Seemed like a ridiculous notion at the time but not anymore. 22 year old me read about the Jewish tradition of Sabbath day and found it so silly. A day where you’re not supposed to use any technology or do any productive work ? How silly ! I totally get it now. They were onto something. We’ve now reinvented it as “digital detox” and “dopamine fasting”. Got my hit by writing this comment now off to the the next post I go.
- bquest2 6y ago
  I fed your addiction by giving you an upvote. I hope you enjoy that number next to your username, representing Karma go up. You should try to get the high score.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  I think future shock is something for the non-young period. If you are young you don't have a set of norms embedded and are adapting to the new. Phenomenally messed up things like domestic violence can be assumed normal because that is their baseline. This is because of a lack of a strong baseline trained in to have dissonance towards.
frogpelt 6y ago
Check out out Nir Eyal's book "Indistractable"[1]. It's about 5 hours long with plenty of useful tips for becoming indistractable. 1: https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable/ https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable/
tluyben2 6y ago
It seems though that people like this kind of thing, so it will get worse. Even in jobs that require focus like software development. Many people seem to like the bustle of constant chats in Slack instead of pre arranged meetings, face to face adhoc talks, open offices, living in a big city, notifications etc and then on a more technical level: setting up and configuring things that have nothing to do with the task at hand (which is writing code to answer to a business demand), spending strange amounts of time on 'automating their pipeline and processes' (which appears to be never finished and so is a perpetual distraction), checking out or even changing their stack/tools every week to adhere to the latest hype (which came from distractions like reddit and hn) etc etc. Not saying good or bad but not sure if people will ever like a life without these things even though they feel it is far from optimal, productivity wise.
Ralo 6y ago
Every time I see a post like this, I like to remind myself of a quote from Blaise Pascal in the 1600s, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone," This has been an internal battles for most, for much longer than smartphones have been around.
dash2 6y ago
I think by now, the post title is a cliché. That makes me wonder what I'll gain by reading another lament about how we're Stuck In The Shallows. That in turn makes me wonder if the post isn't an example of what it complains about.
jcynix 6y ago
Good points. And it reminds me that this is neither a new problem nor solved: I find myself in these kinds of situations often, checking email or Twitter, or Facebook, with nothing to gain except the stress of a work-related message that I can’t answer right now in any case. It turns out that digital devices and software are finely tuned to train us to pay attention to them, no matter what else we should be doing. The mechanism, borne out by recent neuroscience studies, is something like this: [...] Source: https://medium.com/@hughmcguire/why-can-t-we-read-anymore-503c38c131fe https://medium.com/@hughmcguire/why-can-t-we-read-anymore-50...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kthxb 6y ago
This reads a lot like the author just read Newport's "Deep Work". I highly recommend it if you liked this article.
- iamsanteri 6y ago
  I haven't read the book, but now I definitely will. Thank you for the tip!
ArcMex 6y ago
Unpopular opinion but I've embraced it. I'm OK with doing everything in small chunks anyway. So yeah, in between three pages of a novel, I'll check my notifications. When my pomodoro counter hits during a coding session, I'll stand take a walk and stretch. Five minutes later, I'll check my phone. Then return to my desk. While relaxing and watching Netflix, when an episode finishes, I'll stop watching, close Netflix, check my phone. If it's bed time, bed. If it's something else, do it for a small amount of time with notable progress. Small chunks, always. A hacker news post or a Reddit meme. Never hours of /g/. But my phone is my companion, not my enemy.
atleta 6y ago
I keep remembering that episode from The Outer Limits (the 90s series). I think the title was "The stream". It was set in the future, where everybody had an implant that they could use to access 'the stream' to get access to all the world's knowledge and information. (I.e. the internet, but back then even dialup internet was an uncommon thing for most people to have.) The story was that there was a single guy who could not have the implant and he was, of course, and outcast. And then there was a virus that started to spread through the stream and people started to show strange symptoms. Well, maybe not that strange: they started to consume more and more information. First the infected just started to look up and quote seemingly irrelevant pieces of information. You know, like the things you'd see on Quora (or during a random trip to Wikipedia) and then they would spend more and more time fetching more knowledge and have more and more information hunger. I'd say it's not unlike what we see around ourselves the past few years.
mybrid 6y ago
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. --Herbert Simon, economist
ruslan 6y ago
Go in to team sports (ice hockey, soccer, volleyball) reguarly, this will get your mind well disconnected for sufficient amount of time to recuperate.
hypefi 6y ago
distraction = destruction
arkaic 6y ago
I use my camera very often now for functional purposes, like snapshots of documents, paper maps, door notices and hours, etc where it serves as a replacement for having to remember things or even having to jot down a note.

406 points by iamsanteri 6y ago

I love how, just 2 spots up from this post, is another post entitled "Debian Packages That Need Lovin' (debian.net)". I do hope the Debian packages get the help they need (and this is a great place to ask for such help) but it's hilarious for my mind to ping-pong between "Hey, maybe that's a new hobby (that I probably don't have time for)" and "Huh. There are a lot of distractions out there" :)

eingineer43 6y ago

I love how you summarize the dilemma of a digital native. May I add some juicy polarization by referencing the quote "I don't know how to live, but I got a lot of toys" from the song 21st Century Digital Boy? Your article gives great reason to rethink. How to use the time we have been given in a meaningful way, to be labelled as a sentient being rather than a robot. It is definitely a daily test to one's choice: Rather to be a creator than consumer. Creating things is usually a sequential process, without a secret passage, lots of effort, making own (in-)abilities public and taking real risks - consumption can be found the exact opposite. So it's a path that needs decent courage. In the end it makes life brighter - and as you point out: it doesn't matter if you write about thoughts, read a book in length or build a trustful relationship with a person you love. It will be a lasting and enriching experience.

iamsanteri 6y ago
Yes! To your comment, if you could commit yourself to balancing and trying to produce an equivalent of just 1/10th of all the stuff you consume, I think you would end up being a major and great creator. And just like you said, although creating and publishing takes a decent amount of courage, it is very rewarding, especially when the main purpose to do it comes for the sake of your own observation, learning and joy.
- eingineer43 6y ago
  Which ”funny book” are you reading?
  - iamsanteri 6y ago
    The book was ”Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore. Actually, even just by searching online you can find this small chapter from the book where he tells his ”high tech parable”, illustrating an (unfortunately) common story of a fast growing start-up that struggles to expand beyond its early adopter market into the critically important majority. I think you might consider it pretty funny too, although my humor might be dry here.... Even if it’s a bit early to tell, the book seems like a nice read!
UnpossibleJim 6y ago
I've been reading technical books for so long, hunting for information and with my shortened attention span, I now have difficulty reading for the sheer pleasure of it. I tried reading fiction not too long ago and found it laborious. It was the most disappointing feeling in the world to me.
- defterGoose 6y ago
  This is interesting, and I kind of know what you're getting at. I've never been a super avid reader, but ive always enjoyed fiction and most sci-fi type stuff. As i get older i find myself gravitating towards more non-fiction. I recently read "Shadow Divers" which is the true story of some divers who discover an unknown U-Boat off the coast of New Jersey and spend years and several divers' lives in the pursuit of an identification. It was completely riveting which id rarely if ever experienced in a piece of non-fiction; felt like i remember the Harry Potter books feeling when i was a teenager. So maybe try expanding the scope of your search a little.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  It's definitely is a muscle that can atrophy, and can be rebuilt. It takes about 3 weeks of reading most days for me to re-learn how to do it. Even after that period, it still takes me 10 - 15 minutes to properly slip back into a novel, which feels like an eternity when we're so used to instant gratification, but it's not so long if your average reading session is the length of an average film.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about COVID death tolls, how big their stimulus checks are going to be, the value of their crypto portfolio, GameStop, and every other popular topic under the sun that they don’t have any attention left for their own lives. Bitcoin is especially distracting right now, as they’re all nervously watching the real-time changes of their $1000 portfolios to see if they need to be sad about losing money because it’s crashing or sad about not investing more money because it’s going up. These are all smart students. I always wonder how much more they could accomplish if they’d simply pick four hours each day to turn off their phones. That’s a tough sell, though.

zzzeek 6y ago
> It is interesting how manufactured distraction-free sessions like yoga, meditation, paid retreats, have emerged to fill the demand for idle time. We’re forgetting how to unplug unless it’s a product or service that we can buy. I meditate every day and it's cost me nothing, uses nothing, does not require going anywhere, literally brushing my teeth is more of a commercial activity than meditation is. Meditation is exactly what your students could use most effectively to learn to manage distracted minds, so given you are in a position of mentorship it's kind of sad you seem to think the basic act of sitting and doing exactly nothing but observing how it feels is some kind of corporate fad that should be avoided.
- hybridtupel 6y ago
  I think what was meant here are the countless (monetarized) apps and courses which gamify the meditation experience of course. You are totally right that the original intention of meditation is quite the opposite. No app, gadget or anything else required. Edit: Grammar
  - 6y ago

ppf 6y ago

I've spent the last year or so trying to control my smartphone usage, by removing apps and trying to set rules for myself like "your phone stays in the kitchen for most of the day". I recently took the plunge and got rid of it entirely, and it was truly surprising to realise how much of my time and attention it had still taken, despite my best efforts. If you think you're ready for that step, I highly recommend it. Just as mindless browsing, refreshing, and scrolling is self-perpetuating, so is the obverse. Once you start removing apps and accounts, and habits are broken, you will start asking yourself "Why am I on my (phone/computer/laptop)? What else could I be doing?"

alexpetralia 6y ago
Similarly, everytime I decide to relegate my phone to another room, I am better off for it. The problem is that, one week or another, it eventually liberates itself and somehow makes its way back into my day-to-day. One day, I hope to solve this.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Will it even be possible for many people to give up smartphones in favour of a dumbphone any more? Thanks to COVID, you may have to own an Apple or Android smartphone to do certain things. Several countries have announced that their vaccination certificate will exist mainly in digital form, with one official app that generates limited-time QR codes. For instance, I can’t find any information on what Israelis without a smartphone are supposed to do at restaurants etc., since the news is reporting that the QR code will be mandatory to enter such places. Nearly all people entering Poland must now quarantine, and after you hand over your details at the border, the police send you an SMS saying “Installing our quarantine app from the Google Play store or Apple’s store is legally required”. Then you already had the problem of some banks no longer offering code cards or SMS verification, and requiring you to use their app for 2FA for online banking.
- ppf 6y ago
  Fortunately, I live in a country where I think there is less chance of such things happening. However - is mandated smartphone ownership the future we want? It goes without saying that almost all government over-reach is done "for your own good".

BannedQuick 6y ago

You get what you where trained to beg for.

soheil 6y ago

I bought the iPhone 12 mini so it forces me to use it less due to its small screen size, it's been working pretty well so far.

RGamma 6y ago

The fallout of a decade of senseless pushing, growing and disrupting in the attention economy. We'll get the smartphone zombie outbreak under control, but not before it becomes worse. And if not.. not sure we'll even care or notice anymore.

fxtentacle 6y ago

I wonder if we see a rise in ADHD in kids nowadays because it is an increasingly useful adaptation to our environment. "Hyperfocus is the experience of deep and intense concentration in some people with ADHD. ADHD is not necessarily a deficit of attention, but rather a problem with regulating one’s attention span to desired tasks." I don't know, but "hyperfocus" on a hobby you love sounds exactly like what most people need nowadays to get off their phone and stop wasting their life staring on ads and ad-financed content. Also, I remember that most things we covered in school were completely irrelevant for the real world. So a difficulty to concentrate on school stuff may actually be better than doing the homework. In short, ignoring what society considers normal and instead being super focused on your own things ... sounds more healthy to me than the average "normal" person.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> I wonder if we see a rise in ADHD in kids nowadays because it is an increasingly useful adaptation to our environment. We like to think of focus and attention span as innate abilities encoded by our genes, but the truth is that genetics are only a part of the story. Focus and attention are learned skills that can be trained and developed over time. Likewise, focus and attention can be diminished over time through constant cycles of rewarding ones' self with quick distractions. If instead of studying on a difficult topic, a person scrolls Twitter for an endless stream of quick context shifts and semi-rewarding posts, they're training their brain to associate Twitter with reward and studying with pain. It takes conscious effort to suppress the desire for short-term reward and focus on long-term reward that comes at a cost of additional up front work. The rise in ADHD diagnoses is partially due to ever-expanding criteria for ADHD. Decades ago, ADHD diagnoses were mostly limited to severe cases that were refractory to therapy interventions. These days, drug companies push ADHD quizzes on the internet that make common everyday struggles feel like ADHD. Take a look at Takeda Pharmaceutical's Adult ADHD site: https://www.adhdadulthood.com/adhd-test https://www.adhdadulthood.com/adhd-test With testimonials such as "I had to write everything down to maintain organization and memory" you'd think that non-ADHD people never had to write anything down to stay organized. > I don't know, but "hyperfocus" on a hobby you love sounds exactly like what most people need nowadays to get off their phone and stop wasting their life staring on ads and ad-financed content. The idea of "hyperfocus" is that the person loses focus on the wrong things. For example, if someone "hyperfocuses" on video games instead of doing their homework. It's a failure of time management and prioritization rather than a special ability to accomplish things. The idea of hyperfocus as a symptom of ADHD is a new phenomenon, and it's more prominent in pop culture than actual ADHD research. Just look at the only 6 hits for hyperfocus AND adhd in pubmed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22hyperfocus%22+AND+%22adhd%22 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22hyperfocus%22+AND+%... 5 of the 6 papers are from the last 4 years and most aren't from top quality journals. Before that, hyperfocus was only listed as an adverse effect of taking too high of a dose of an ADHD medication. > So a difficulty to concentrate on school stuff may actually be better than doing the homework. It's a mistake to think that children's schoolwork is only about learning how to do fractions or write cursive or just the core material. The kids are learning how to learn, learning how to focus, learning how to manage their time, learning how to follow through on tasks, and many other very valuable learned skills in the process. On HN we like to talk about the hypothetical genius child who would be studying engineering in their spare time if they didn't have to do a couple hours of homework at night, but in reality the vast majority of children are not worse off by doing schoolwork. It's training and learning how to function in the world. It's not perfect, but kids definitely do learn life skills from it. > In short, ignoring what society considers normal and instead being super focused on your own things ... sounds more healthy to me than the average "normal" person. The reality is that most people aren't forced to choose between being "normal" and being successful in their area of expertise. It has never been easier for someone to access information about their chosen topic online, but you only need to look at the traffic stats of major social media sites to see what people are actually choosing to do with their free time. It's also important to accept that good ideas don't always stand out on their own. Knowing how the world works and how to be "normal" is a critically important skill for working with others, getting your ideas out there, communicating, and so on. Obviously I'd never discourage anyone from pursuing study in their chosen field, but in my experience the people who didn't grow up in environments with strong structure, frameworks, and feedback loops from their educators and parents is often ill-equipped to follow their academic desires when they arrive at college or the business world. There are always exceptions, of course. However it's more common to hear kids complain that their early academic years were "not challenging enough" rather than too difficult, leaving them ill-prepared for reality when they finally encounter something challenging enough that they can't coast through it.

50 6y ago

We live in distraction because we give attention to what does not matter which, if we let our hair down, is the external world. The imperative of dying to the external world is a process of rediscovery of what does matter.

lrossi 6y ago

Sorry to say this, but HN is a problem as well. I’m looking for that 1% of the posts that interest me, and when I find them it’s fantastic, since it’s info I would not be able to find anywhere else. But going through the other 99% is a waste of time. These two combined have a harmful effect on me. I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but it’s the same as the one causing addiction in gambling/bets/games. Gathering energy/motivation to do something productive instead takes effort. Just a few days ago I was thinking of adding a dns block for it. But that 1% of the links is sweet...

latexr 6y ago
> Just a few days ago I was thinking of adding a dns block for it. In your profile you’ll find noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway, which you can use to limit your time on the site. > But that 1% of the links is sweet You can use RSS feeds to be notified of stories with over N points[1] (or another rule), lessening the desire to look at everything. [1]: https://hnrss.github.io/#activity-parameters https://hnrss.github.io/#activity-parameters
- lrossi 6y ago
  I had no idea about this. Thanks, I will try it out.
  - mns06 6y ago
    Also check out this feed of the top 10 HN stories daily: https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ I find it cuts out a lot of the noise
- alsetmusic 6y ago
  > You can use RSS feeds to be notified of stories with over N points[1] (or another rule), lessening the desire to look at everything. Thank you for this tip! HN is one of the only websites I don’t consume via RSS. I had no idea I could customize parameters and do this. Unfortunately, I’ll still be loading the site to find the rare links that are of high interest to but that get a low number of hits. But this will definitely help me optimize my interaction with the site. Again, thank you.

acwan93 6y ago

One way to combat this (if you’re physically capable): long distance running without headphones. It forces you to focus on one thing alone: finish your route. I’ve found that my mind wanders, but the pain exerted by running for an hour or so inevitably brings you back.

dylkil 6y ago
isnt the pain of running long distance a distraction too though?
- ph2082 6y ago
  Man, I am reading this book Awakening Intelligence by Jiddu Krishnamurthy. It says same thing. Everything we do is trying to distract us from our true selves.
- redisman 6y ago
  Sure, but on a scale from 0 to 10 - it’s a 2. You can also walk or hike and then the only distraction is the scenery.
nicbou 6y ago
Bicycle and motorcycle travel works too. You can think about things, but you're mostly focused on staying in movement.
- pascalo 6y ago
  Came on here to say it's exactly what I use cycling for. 5 hours on the bike means 5 hours not looking at my phone or laptop. Just turn the legs over and let your mind wander or stare into the landscape (or deal with traffic, which sucks).
  - iamsanteri 6y ago
    Hi Pascalo, I have exactly the same feeling when going on a bike tour. We just did a 5-day, 250km bike ride along the Danube river here in south-Germany and it was one of the most incredible experiences I've had. On the saddle I feel free and my mind is resting. High-five!!

cutler 6y ago

And then there's Javascript.

thewarrior 6y ago

Glad I found this useful post while refreshing HN for some mental stimulus. A book I found silly when I read it was Future shock. It said that change and information would be so rapid in the future that people would be in permanent state of shock. Seemed like a ridiculous notion at the time but not anymore. 22 year old me read about the Jewish tradition of Sabbath day and found it so silly. A day where you’re not supposed to use any technology or do any productive work ? How silly ! I totally get it now. They were onto something. We’ve now reinvented it as “digital detox” and “dopamine fasting”. Got my hit by writing this comment now off to the the next post I go.

bquest2 6y ago
I fed your addiction by giving you an upvote. I hope you enjoy that number next to your username, representing Karma go up. You should try to get the high score.
Nasrudith 6y ago
I think future shock is something for the non-young period. If you are young you don't have a set of norms embedded and are adapting to the new. Phenomenally messed up things like domestic violence can be assumed normal because that is their baseline. This is because of a lack of a strong baseline trained in to have dissonance towards.

frogpelt 6y ago

Check out out Nir Eyal's book "Indistractable"[1]. It's about 5 hours long with plenty of useful tips for becoming indistractable. 1: https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable/ https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable/

tluyben2 6y ago

It seems though that people like this kind of thing, so it will get worse. Even in jobs that require focus like software development. Many people seem to like the bustle of constant chats in Slack instead of pre arranged meetings, face to face adhoc talks, open offices, living in a big city, notifications etc and then on a more technical level: setting up and configuring things that have nothing to do with the task at hand (which is writing code to answer to a business demand), spending strange amounts of time on 'automating their pipeline and processes' (which appears to be never finished and so is a perpetual distraction), checking out or even changing their stack/tools every week to adhere to the latest hype (which came from distractions like reddit and hn) etc etc. Not saying good or bad but not sure if people will ever like a life without these things even though they feel it is far from optimal, productivity wise.

Ralo 6y ago

Every time I see a post like this, I like to remind myself of a quote from Blaise Pascal in the 1600s, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone," This has been an internal battles for most, for much longer than smartphones have been around.

dash2 6y ago

I think by now, the post title is a cliché. That makes me wonder what I'll gain by reading another lament about how we're Stuck In The Shallows. That in turn makes me wonder if the post isn't an example of what it complains about.

jcynix 6y ago

Good points. And it reminds me that this is neither a new problem nor solved: I find myself in these kinds of situations often, checking email or Twitter, or Facebook, with nothing to gain except the stress of a work-related message that I can’t answer right now in any case. It turns out that digital devices and software are finely tuned to train us to pay attention to them, no matter what else we should be doing. The mechanism, borne out by recent neuroscience studies, is something like this: [...] Source: https://medium.com/@hughmcguire/why-can-t-we-read-anymore-503c38c131fe https://medium.com/@hughmcguire/why-can-t-we-read-anymore-50...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kthxb 6y ago

This reads a lot like the author just read Newport's "Deep Work". I highly recommend it if you liked this article.

iamsanteri 6y ago
I haven't read the book, but now I definitely will. Thank you for the tip!

ArcMex 6y ago

Unpopular opinion but I've embraced it. I'm OK with doing everything in small chunks anyway. So yeah, in between three pages of a novel, I'll check my notifications. When my pomodoro counter hits during a coding session, I'll stand take a walk and stretch. Five minutes later, I'll check my phone. Then return to my desk. While relaxing and watching Netflix, when an episode finishes, I'll stop watching, close Netflix, check my phone. If it's bed time, bed. If it's something else, do it for a small amount of time with notable progress. Small chunks, always. A hacker news post or a Reddit meme. Never hours of /g/. But my phone is my companion, not my enemy.

atleta 6y ago

I keep remembering that episode from The Outer Limits (the 90s series). I think the title was "The stream". It was set in the future, where everybody had an implant that they could use to access 'the stream' to get access to all the world's knowledge and information. (I.e. the internet, but back then even dialup internet was an uncommon thing for most people to have.) The story was that there was a single guy who could not have the implant and he was, of course, and outcast. And then there was a virus that started to spread through the stream and people started to show strange symptoms. Well, maybe not that strange: they started to consume more and more information. First the infected just started to look up and quote seemingly irrelevant pieces of information. You know, like the things you'd see on Quora (or during a random trip to Wikipedia) and then they would spend more and more time fetching more knowledge and have more and more information hunger. I'd say it's not unlike what we see around ourselves the past few years.

mybrid 6y ago

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. --Herbert Simon, economist

ruslan 6y ago

Go in to team sports (ice hockey, soccer, volleyball) reguarly, this will get your mind well disconnected for sufficient amount of time to recuperate.

hypefi 6y ago

distraction = destruction

arkaic 6y ago

I use my camera very often now for functional purposes, like snapshots of documents, paper maps, door notices and hours, etc where it serves as a replacement for having to remember things or even having to jot down a note.