Interesting post, it inspired me to think about why I do similar. Conclusion I came to, is that my brain doesn't want to expend a lot of effort and energy on o

Interesting post, it inspired me to think about why I do similar. Conclusion I came to, is that my brain doesn't want to expend a lot of effort and energy on optional things. If I've got a deadline coming up on something that's hard it goes into brute force mode in order to get it done, irrespective of the energy cost, because it has to be done. If I've decided to learn chess, it rebels against brute forcing it because the energy expenditure is not worth it on something that's optional. In that case subconsciously I want to find a better way to learn chess than whatever approach I'm currently taking because the current approach isn't worth the effort. As for reddit and HN, I think it's the brains default goto way of getting you off the thing you're spending too much energy on (without a good enough plan to accomplish it) to something low energy but interesting enough to distract you.