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I've spend most of my day today napping and watching youtube and a bit of doom scrolling. With less technology, that would be categorized as mostly nothing.

Ekaros 5y ago
I feel that what technology has changed is that we have something to do that is in actuality nothing. Watching Youtube, browsing news or reading HN and posting some comments really are for me doing nothing... Not that you couldn't do something in there, but I think many of the ways we spend time is doing nothing. We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  > We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not. I think we did. We could read a book, do puzzles, draw/doodle, carve a chunk of wood, watch the clouds, etc. That's about the same level of exertion as watching videos or posting on HN.
- brimble 5y ago
  > We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not. Back when? TV and very low-value, low-effort reading (periodicals, comics, books) have existed for quite a while and filled many an otherwise idle hour. I think you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find a time when there weren't very cheap options available to fill idle hours without effort. They still had cheap low-value books and such (penny dreadfuls, for instance) but volume and availability was more limited, so do-nothing entertainment wasn't quite as plentiful.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Functionally it feels very different. Doing something that doesnt feel like much of anything is still different from doing nothing. You could argue that the tweets linked included tidying up and making tools as doing nothing but those seemed more like something you could do while lounging around. Interacting with social media feel very different from sitting on a porch and whittling. One feels like I'm doing something in my brain. One feels like nothing.

Ekaros 5y ago

I feel that what technology has changed is that we have something to do that is in actuality nothing. Watching Youtube, browsing news or reading HN and posting some comments really are for me doing nothing... Not that you couldn't do something in there, but I think many of the ways we spend time is doing nothing. We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not.

throwawayboise 5y ago
> We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not. I think we did. We could read a book, do puzzles, draw/doodle, carve a chunk of wood, watch the clouds, etc. That's about the same level of exertion as watching videos or posting on HN.
brimble 5y ago
> We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not. Back when? TV and very low-value, low-effort reading (periodicals, comics, books) have existed for quite a while and filled many an otherwise idle hour. I think you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find a time when there weren't very cheap options available to fill idle hours without effort. They still had cheap low-value books and such (penny dreadfuls, for instance) but volume and availability was more limited, so do-nothing entertainment wasn't quite as plentiful.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Functionally it feels very different. Doing something that doesnt feel like much of anything is still different from doing nothing. You could argue that the tweets linked included tidying up and making tools as doing nothing but those seemed more like something you could do while lounging around. Interacting with social media feel very different from sitting on a porch and whittling. One feels like I'm doing something in my brain. One feels like nothing.