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Sometimes I feel HN also is a similar attention sink, even Wikipedia as well. They also can draw you in for information snacking, and before you know hours have

Sometimes I feel HN also is a similar attention sink, even Wikipedia as well. They also can draw you in for information snacking, and before you know hours have gone. Commenting and reading responses in HN is also another attention consuming loop.

vymague 5y ago
"HN comments are terrible. On any topic I’m informed about, the vast majority of comments are pretty clearly wrong." From https://danluu.com/hn-comments/ https://danluu.com/hn-comments/ . I happen to agree.
- georgeecollins 5y ago
  All true, but in both cases I control what I look at. I am the filter. If I waste my time or learn the wrong things, it is on me.
- city41 5y ago
  But if you keep reading he then makes the argument that despite that, there's still quality content to be found and gives some nice examples.
- randomdata 5y ago
  Stands to reason. The purpose of commenting is to be wrong, so that someone will correct you, allowing you to learn more about the subject matter. Cunningham's Law. If you are well versed in a topic there is no reason to talk about it. You are already well versed in it and gain nothing from discussing it further.
- TremendousJudge 5y ago
  The Gell-Mann amnesia effect: "...In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know." https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
coding123 5y ago
And checking to see if your comment stays near the top, how many up votes, reading the replies to see if you're a smart person or not.
- philangist 5y ago
  I'm not the only person who never feels like they're one of the "smart people" in these threads, right? After close to a decade on this forum I've just learned not to fight that feeling and instead to find the humor in it.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  This is what made me delete my Reddit account. I realized I was putting an inappropriate amount of effort into impressing people I'd never meet. Not sure if that treadmill is just built into my personality or if it was specifically caused by the site. I don't feel it here as much, although it could just be that the account there was older, so it felt like it'd developed more of an 'identity' (silly as that is).
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    I have a couple Reddit accounts and that is a game you can get caught up in. The trick is that you can always score more points by making a stupid in-group comment on /r/politics or /r/funny than you can being smart. Once you know this the number matters a lot less (at least to me).
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      My best comment was a dumb in-joke for quite a while. But eventually I beat it with a comment was reassuring people who didn't excel as much as they'd expected during the pandemic. I actually feel pretty good about the comment itself, there were some people who followed up that really did seem to be relieved by the sentiment. But it still is, essentially, this bizarre fleeting interaction where we just see one comment from each other, and no real attachment is made. Then then afterwards, it is like, "am I playing some weird gamified thing where expressing actual human empathy is how you get a high score" which didn't feel good really.
paganel 5y ago
> even Wikipedia as well In my case at least browsing Wikipedia is an assumed guilty habit, just like coffee. What usually happens is that I browse /r/soccer or something similar and I get to the wikipedia page of a specific (mostly European) football league, like the Dutch Eredivisie or the Norwegian first league. Once on that page I click on a specific team (let's say Utrecht, Molde or Groningen) and before I know it I end up reading about the Hanseatic league or about the Spanish dominions in the Low Countries in the 1600s.
TuringNYC 5y ago
I use HN and Twitter in between builds and deploys. Not sure what else I could do during that time, it is too small to focus attention on most other things. I wonder if this time is really "wasted" since otherwise i'd be looking at the docker progress monitor. Perhaps I could take a walk, which would be good.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
It is. There's a lot more than hacker news on here. And the rules aren't always followed, which makes it a bit more social-media-y, but the mods do a great job keeping it tidy. I guess there is more non-hacker news stuff appearing because it gets a little tedious to see "New programming language X" or "CSS tricks you never heard of" every week.

vymague 5y ago

"HN comments are terrible. On any topic I’m informed about, the vast majority of comments are pretty clearly wrong." From https://danluu.com/hn-comments/ https://danluu.com/hn-comments/ . I happen to agree.

georgeecollins 5y ago
All true, but in both cases I control what I look at. I am the filter. If I waste my time or learn the wrong things, it is on me.
city41 5y ago
But if you keep reading he then makes the argument that despite that, there's still quality content to be found and gives some nice examples.
randomdata 5y ago
Stands to reason. The purpose of commenting is to be wrong, so that someone will correct you, allowing you to learn more about the subject matter. Cunningham's Law. If you are well versed in a topic there is no reason to talk about it. You are already well versed in it and gain nothing from discussing it further.
TremendousJudge 5y ago
The Gell-Mann amnesia effect: "...In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know." https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

coding123 5y ago

And checking to see if your comment stays near the top, how many up votes, reading the replies to see if you're a smart person or not.

philangist 5y ago
I'm not the only person who never feels like they're one of the "smart people" in these threads, right? After close to a decade on this forum I've just learned not to fight that feeling and instead to find the humor in it.
bee_rider 5y ago
This is what made me delete my Reddit account. I realized I was putting an inappropriate amount of effort into impressing people I'd never meet. Not sure if that treadmill is just built into my personality or if it was specifically caused by the site. I don't feel it here as much, although it could just be that the account there was older, so it felt like it'd developed more of an 'identity' (silly as that is).
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I have a couple Reddit accounts and that is a game you can get caught up in. The trick is that you can always score more points by making a stupid in-group comment on /r/politics or /r/funny than you can being smart. Once you know this the number matters a lot less (at least to me).
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    My best comment was a dumb in-joke for quite a while. But eventually I beat it with a comment was reassuring people who didn't excel as much as they'd expected during the pandemic. I actually feel pretty good about the comment itself, there were some people who followed up that really did seem to be relieved by the sentiment. But it still is, essentially, this bizarre fleeting interaction where we just see one comment from each other, and no real attachment is made. Then then afterwards, it is like, "am I playing some weird gamified thing where expressing actual human empathy is how you get a high score" which didn't feel good really.

paganel 5y ago

> even Wikipedia as well In my case at least browsing Wikipedia is an assumed guilty habit, just like coffee. What usually happens is that I browse /r/soccer or something similar and I get to the wikipedia page of a specific (mostly European) football league, like the Dutch Eredivisie or the Norwegian first league. Once on that page I click on a specific team (let's say Utrecht, Molde or Groningen) and before I know it I end up reading about the Hanseatic league or about the Spanish dominions in the Low Countries in the 1600s.

TuringNYC 5y ago

I use HN and Twitter in between builds and deploys. Not sure what else I could do during that time, it is too small to focus attention on most other things. I wonder if this time is really "wasted" since otherwise i'd be looking at the docker progress monitor. Perhaps I could take a walk, which would be good.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

It is. There's a lot more than hacker news on here. And the rules aren't always followed, which makes it a bit more social-media-y, but the mods do a great job keeping it tidy. I guess there is more non-hacker news stuff appearing because it gets a little tedious to see "New programming language X" or "CSS tricks you never heard of" every week.