8 ms·

I've said this a bunch of times before on articles like this, which are fairly commonly posted on HN, likely because the people who populate HN are very online

I've said this a bunch of times before on articles like this, which are fairly commonly posted on HN, likely because the people who populate HN are very online and work on computers all day: If you think you are spending too much time online, or you think you are wasting your time online, a solution is, for lack of a better way of saying it, to get a life. (I don't mean that in the "get a life, nerd" way) Get things you want to do, hopefully with other people, hopefully ever so often in person. Once you actually have goals and ambitions, social relationships to maintain, you will see your use of the internet changing quite a bit. Personally, I think some people get far too attached to the idea that the internet is a place to hangout or a place to just be. In some cases that can be true, but it pales in comparison to hanging out in person and doing things. The internet is a tool, and once you have things to do with it, especially with people you know and meet in person or in service of a project, you begin to change how you use it pretty much right away.

pantulis 5y ago
For me this is a matter of timeblocking my personal life too. If I don't have anything else, I basically procrastinate by browsing the Internet (Reddit! HN! All shiny new stuff!) So every quarter I have my objectives (I shudder to write the OKR word) and then time block my personal calendar. I have calculated I have around 20 hours per week of "me" time (besides work, sleep, home stuff, and so on). Do I want to get healthy? Bam! There goes 3 hours per week! Do I want to learn to play the piano? Bam! That would be 4 hours sir. Meditate? 2 hours per week. Read fiction books? Bam! 4 hours and you're done. Visualizing that time is scarce helps me a lot.
- mabub24 5y ago
  Timeblocking can help. I think it also helps to make and sustain friends, which is a kind of "work" in its own right as you mature into adulthood. You begin to learn that lifelong relationships take effort and almost always meeting each other in person. For all but the very few, loneliness is very detrimental to your health and sense of well-being, and I don't think being online is a "cure" or even a very good facsimile. Some people get far to into the idea that "being online" is their hobby, that the relationships they make online are as important as the relationships they make offline. And I would gently disagree in almost every case. The relationships we make online are often ephemeral, anonymous, and superficial. They have their time and place, but they don't replace relationships with real people you can see and interact with in person. They are not nearly as fulfilling. For people that game a lot, for instance, games often have online communities, but I've always found that online communities pale in comparison to in-person events or LANs. All attempts to recreate them online are but shadows of the real thing. Once you start to see being online as just a minor attachment to your offline life, then being online simply stops having as much importance in your life.
  - pantulis 5y ago
    > I think it also helps to make and sustain friends" Wait what, you mean, like, real people?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
raldi 5y ago
Right: if you're the target of this piece, the Internet probably isn't the cause of your emptiness; it's how you're filling/numbing it. In previous generations, you'd just be a crazy cat person or alcoholic or bookworm or spend all your time at the racetrack. Indeed, the solution is to add other interests and activities to your day, and they'll outcompete the timewasters.
sysadm1n 5y ago
> Likely because the people who populate HN are very online and work on computers all day There's a phrase for that: 'Extremely Online': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_online Smartphones pretty much enable being Extremely Online. Sitting in a chair to do your computing has largely been phased out, except for busy offices. However, I will add: Desktop PCs and accompanying chairs sort of force you to create things. Smartphones (for me) have always been about consumption, not creation.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Do desktops really force one to do that. Many gaming addicts are on PC, not console or mobile. Desktops also accord more screen real estate for consumption.
  - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    I think GP is making the point that they are less problematic than devices that can go everywhere in life with you.
- handrous 5y ago
  > Smartphones (for me) have always been about consumption, not creation. One of the top uses of smartphones is creating and sharing photos and videos. They're also very capable tools for a variety of creative tasks that aren't focused on making files on a computer.
bserge 5y ago
Yeah I've got stuff I want to do. I can't. No money, no time, no people and even when I had all that, I fucked it all up and shat it down the toilet. So I spend time shitposting and reading other people's shit. It's easy, fast, and takes my mind off the miserable game called life. For many, the solution is to get a life. For me, it's to get rid of mine. If someone could do it for me, that'd be great.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  I'm seeing distortions here. If you've got time to "live" on the internet, you've got time for friends, and you can make them. No reason you can't have this again.
  - bserge 5y ago
    Well, I did try, half-arsedly as always. Joined a few Discord groups, no one talks (had fun a few times when people were in voice chat tbf), servers just die. Volunteered for community cleaning, fixing computers and bikes. The former was really nice, but no friends. The latter, they did their best to make it clear I wasn't wanted there. I mean, I wish they'd just say it to my face "look, we don't like you". Every time I went drinking with coworkers, same thing. This reminds me a lot of my early years, where I would break my back (once literally) to help people, give them money, anything. They're friends, right? Turned out I'm no friend to them. Now, the thing is, unlike online, I'm not an asshole offline. I am very quiet and really reserved. You'll never get a disagreement or any emotional opinion for that matter out of me and you certainly won't hear my real thoughts on anything. But I do want to and enjoy helping people, and I wish others were the same. I guess that's a big problem to other people. There's no place for me here, damn. Just wish I wasn't such a coward and just went through with it.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      That actually doesn't sound half-assed. Just unfortunate. It sounds banal, but by the numbers, given enough time putting yourself out there trying different things you'll accrue more connections with people who aren't complete assholes. There are many like you who just want to meet nice people.
Taylor_OD 5y ago
100% this. Interview use is often just a default thing to do to fill time when one is bored.
0xcde4c3db 5y ago
For me, the experience of "getting a life" has been sort of like being duped by crappy infomercial products. I get excited by the prospect of the thing, but it turns out that it simply does not work as advertised. The manual is poorly translated from an original that was poorly written to begin with, and the customer support reps seemingly can't do anything except search a knowledge base that doesn't mention the problems I'm having. I can technically make it "work" with a considerable amount of effort, but the results are always underwhelming, it never gets any easier, and I get nowhere near a point where I feel like this thing is worth the hassle before I decide to just shelve it.

pantulis 5y ago

For me this is a matter of timeblocking my personal life too. If I don't have anything else, I basically procrastinate by browsing the Internet (Reddit! HN! All shiny new stuff!) So every quarter I have my objectives (I shudder to write the OKR word) and then time block my personal calendar. I have calculated I have around 20 hours per week of "me" time (besides work, sleep, home stuff, and so on). Do I want to get healthy? Bam! There goes 3 hours per week! Do I want to learn to play the piano? Bam! That would be 4 hours sir. Meditate? 2 hours per week. Read fiction books? Bam! 4 hours and you're done. Visualizing that time is scarce helps me a lot.

mabub24 5y ago
Timeblocking can help. I think it also helps to make and sustain friends, which is a kind of "work" in its own right as you mature into adulthood. You begin to learn that lifelong relationships take effort and almost always meeting each other in person. For all but the very few, loneliness is very detrimental to your health and sense of well-being, and I don't think being online is a "cure" or even a very good facsimile. Some people get far to into the idea that "being online" is their hobby, that the relationships they make online are as important as the relationships they make offline. And I would gently disagree in almost every case. The relationships we make online are often ephemeral, anonymous, and superficial. They have their time and place, but they don't replace relationships with real people you can see and interact with in person. They are not nearly as fulfilling. For people that game a lot, for instance, games often have online communities, but I've always found that online communities pale in comparison to in-person events or LANs. All attempts to recreate them online are but shadows of the real thing. Once you start to see being online as just a minor attachment to your offline life, then being online simply stops having as much importance in your life.
- pantulis 5y ago
  > I think it also helps to make and sustain friends" Wait what, you mean, like, real people?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

raldi 5y ago

Right: if you're the target of this piece, the Internet probably isn't the cause of your emptiness; it's how you're filling/numbing it. In previous generations, you'd just be a crazy cat person or alcoholic or bookworm or spend all your time at the racetrack. Indeed, the solution is to add other interests and activities to your day, and they'll outcompete the timewasters.

sysadm1n 5y ago

> Likely because the people who populate HN are very online and work on computers all day There's a phrase for that: 'Extremely Online': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_online Smartphones pretty much enable being Extremely Online. Sitting in a chair to do your computing has largely been phased out, except for busy offices. However, I will add: Desktop PCs and accompanying chairs sort of force you to create things. Smartphones (for me) have always been about consumption, not creation.

Apocryphon 5y ago
Do desktops really force one to do that. Many gaming addicts are on PC, not console or mobile. Desktops also accord more screen real estate for consumption.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  I think GP is making the point that they are less problematic than devices that can go everywhere in life with you.
handrous 5y ago
> Smartphones (for me) have always been about consumption, not creation. One of the top uses of smartphones is creating and sharing photos and videos. They're also very capable tools for a variety of creative tasks that aren't focused on making files on a computer.

bserge 5y ago

Yeah I've got stuff I want to do. I can't. No money, no time, no people and even when I had all that, I fucked it all up and shat it down the toilet. So I spend time shitposting and reading other people's shit. It's easy, fast, and takes my mind off the miserable game called life. For many, the solution is to get a life. For me, it's to get rid of mine. If someone could do it for me, that'd be great.

slothtrop 5y ago
I'm seeing distortions here. If you've got time to "live" on the internet, you've got time for friends, and you can make them. No reason you can't have this again.
- bserge 5y ago
  Well, I did try, half-arsedly as always. Joined a few Discord groups, no one talks (had fun a few times when people were in voice chat tbf), servers just die. Volunteered for community cleaning, fixing computers and bikes. The former was really nice, but no friends. The latter, they did their best to make it clear I wasn't wanted there. I mean, I wish they'd just say it to my face "look, we don't like you". Every time I went drinking with coworkers, same thing. This reminds me a lot of my early years, where I would break my back (once literally) to help people, give them money, anything. They're friends, right? Turned out I'm no friend to them. Now, the thing is, unlike online, I'm not an asshole offline. I am very quiet and really reserved. You'll never get a disagreement or any emotional opinion for that matter out of me and you certainly won't hear my real thoughts on anything. But I do want to and enjoy helping people, and I wish others were the same. I guess that's a big problem to other people. There's no place for me here, damn. Just wish I wasn't such a coward and just went through with it.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    That actually doesn't sound half-assed. Just unfortunate. It sounds banal, but by the numbers, given enough time putting yourself out there trying different things you'll accrue more connections with people who aren't complete assholes. There are many like you who just want to meet nice people.

Taylor_OD 5y ago

100% this. Interview use is often just a default thing to do to fill time when one is bored.

0xcde4c3db 5y ago

For me, the experience of "getting a life" has been sort of like being duped by crappy infomercial products. I get excited by the prospect of the thing, but it turns out that it simply does not work as advertised. The manual is poorly translated from an original that was poorly written to begin with, and the customer support reps seemingly can't do anything except search a knowledge base that doesn't mention the problems I'm having. I can technically make it "work" with a considerable amount of effort, but the results are always underwhelming, it never gets any easier, and I get nowhere near a point where I feel like this thing is worth the hassle before I decide to just shelve it.