4 ms·

Slightly paraphrasing Donald Knuth: The Internet is a great way to stay on top of things. But I want to get to the bottom of things. Understanding, co

Slightly paraphrasing Donald Knuth: The Internet is a great way to stay on top of things. But I want to get to the bottom of things. Understanding, compassion, and emotional depth require reflection, concentration, and time ... a quiet walk in a garden does more for me than an hour of social media.

hamiltonians 4y ago
the internet is great for research though
agumonkey 4y ago
Just this afternoon I was reflecting on how, in many case, N hours of internet feels like nothing in your mind. It's a long stream of nice actions that rarely lead to a worthy memory. On paper it's great, you have free, high grade information.. but something is missing.
- Jtsummers 4y ago
  Real engagement, not passive. Even discussions like these aren't always memorable. It's like driving the same route to and from the office for years, at some point you start arriving home or at the office with little recollection of what happened in between. You weren't asleep, but you made few new memories if nothing out of the ordinary happened (days I remember: Seeing a red truck on its side off the road, the days deer or antelope cross the path, the time a cow decided to turn up on the road, etc.). So what are you doing on the internet? Just reading? Is it creating new memories, new connections? Sometimes, but how frequently? What if you try to actively engage with the material, make summaries, try out the ideas in a small project, anything.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    right, thus I wonder about two things: - disconnected events even if passive, like contemplating, or having someone around, doesn't cause the same kind of void - being genuinely active on internet is hard, your brain is constantly battling the possibility of a sweet distraction in your browser tab
- nicbou 4y ago
  Perhaps leave some time for contemplation. It's getting really hard to just be alone with your thoughts; a whole industry is devoted to replacing it with more scrolling. It's still worth it though. I love going on long motorcycle rides, because I get to let thoughts resurface, and to chew on them for as long as needed. I can't chase them online unless they persist for hours. I have to just think about stuff unassisted. I often return from longer motorcycle trips with a sense of clarity that's hard to describe. The same applies to long walks and hiking, if I can resist using my phone.
  - bumby 4y ago
    Your motorcycle riding reminded me of Attention Restoration Theory, where spending time in nature recharges oneself in pert due to the loosely held attention (as opposed to directed attention, like when we read or spend time online).
    - nicbou 4y ago
      It's basically an extended shower thinking session. I started adding tea breaks to my work day and it helps too, if I can force myself to sit idle on the balcony.
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      Nature is also extremely vibrant and dense, but no abstracted or symbolic. Trying to follow squirrels in forest or pick a path in dense woods will warm up your brain quite a bit.
      - nicbou 4y ago
        Observing nature is a skill that needs practice. It's one of the most rewarding things you can learn.
  - ghiculescu 4y ago
    Good comment - time to put the phone away for the day.
  - 4y ago
UncleOxidant 4y ago
> a quiet walk in a garden does more for me than an hour of social media. A quiet walk in a garden does something positive whereas an hour on social media would leave me feeling very negative and depleted - there's an inverse relationship between time spent on social media and how one feels. The more time spent there, the worse one feels. You could say this is "by design" - outrage increases engagement.
- bigyikes 4y ago
  I hear this repeated a all the time. I can see how this might be the case, but I just don’t get it. My social media is overwhelmingly positive. I see celebrations, beauty, fun, and love. Social media makes me happy and more connected. Maybe it’s because I’ve deliberately curated my feeds and follow few people? If I see something I don’t like repeatedly, I unfollow.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    > Maybe it’s because I’ve deliberately curated my feeds and follow few people? Maybe. I guess I could say my Instagram feed is like what you're saying to some extent - mostly exercise tips, recipes, underwater photography, pics of friends having dinner, etc. But twitter on the other hand was terrible. I quit twitter in May as it was just becoming an outrage factory. Maybe I've been more careful with who I'm following on IG? Maybe IG isn't as amenable to political discussions and thus tends to stay saner? I'm not sure.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      Twitter is fine if you very meticulously curate who you follow and list tweets by chronological order. But yeah, I sometimes accidentally click a trending topic. That makes me a bit sad, mostly because there clearly are a lot of people out there who aren't getting the help they need.
- ngc248 4y ago
  Do you think this maybe because of the positive connotations we ascribe to "contemplation in the garden" vs the negative connotation of "an hour of social media". I have also seen this before, where doing something with negative connotations makes me feel worse.
makeitdouble 4y ago
> a quiet walk in a garden does more for me than an hour of social media. This is to me a weird way to put it, as we're probably doing both, and for different reasons. We all have different goals and expectations regarding social media, but I don't think compassion and emotional depth are the first and formost reason most of us are here for instance. On the "social media" label, HN is one, but it works pretty differently from the others. Same goes for MMORPGs, drawing sites, reddit gardening communities etc. Putting all of it in a single basket makes the discussion a lot harder I think.
- II2II 4y ago
  > On the "social media" label, HN is one, but it works pretty differently from the others. Same goes for MMORPGs, drawing sites, reddit gardening communities etc. Putting all of it in a single basket makes the discussion a lot harder I think. I become very much confused when people conflate HN with social media since I more closely associate it with a forum than media. Forums I associate with discourse. Media I associate with pushed content. Sure, most sites blur the lines but it is also pretty easy to figure out the underlying intent. Twitter is about pushing messages to an audience, even if a handful of people try to encourage conversations. Reddit communities are typically for people discussing things, even though Reddit tries to push other content.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    There's discourse on social media, often in the form of comments. IG comments, YouTube comments, etc. I bin HN in social media where speakers are generally unverified, expertise is little known, and there's little social punishment for lying. Arguably the quality of discussion is higher here than other places, but I don't think so. I just find the topics here more relevant than other places.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    > Forums I associate with discourse. Media I associate with pushed content. I see all services you describe as matching both, I assume your focus is really on the primary intent, or the ratio between the content publisher’s influence and the discourse amount ? Content is of course pushed on HN as well: we’re discussing articles that are posted for our consumption, often from the people who produced the content or are related to the product described. Even when unrelated to the content, there is an intent from the user pushing the article to influence the readers in a way or another (a “thought provocative” piece will be promoting an alternative angle on common issues) Twitter also has ton of discourse and it’s one of the few places where you’ll see an official statement from a gov. for instance be discussed in place, with lower restrictions on comments and sharing than let’s say Youtube for instance.

hamiltonians 4y ago

the internet is great for research though

agumonkey 4y ago

Just this afternoon I was reflecting on how, in many case, N hours of internet feels like nothing in your mind. It's a long stream of nice actions that rarely lead to a worthy memory. On paper it's great, you have free, high grade information.. but something is missing.

Jtsummers 4y ago
Real engagement, not passive. Even discussions like these aren't always memorable. It's like driving the same route to and from the office for years, at some point you start arriving home or at the office with little recollection of what happened in between. You weren't asleep, but you made few new memories if nothing out of the ordinary happened (days I remember: Seeing a red truck on its side off the road, the days deer or antelope cross the path, the time a cow decided to turn up on the road, etc.). So what are you doing on the internet? Just reading? Is it creating new memories, new connections? Sometimes, but how frequently? What if you try to actively engage with the material, make summaries, try out the ideas in a small project, anything.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  right, thus I wonder about two things: - disconnected events even if passive, like contemplating, or having someone around, doesn't cause the same kind of void - being genuinely active on internet is hard, your brain is constantly battling the possibility of a sweet distraction in your browser tab
nicbou 4y ago
Perhaps leave some time for contemplation. It's getting really hard to just be alone with your thoughts; a whole industry is devoted to replacing it with more scrolling. It's still worth it though. I love going on long motorcycle rides, because I get to let thoughts resurface, and to chew on them for as long as needed. I can't chase them online unless they persist for hours. I have to just think about stuff unassisted. I often return from longer motorcycle trips with a sense of clarity that's hard to describe. The same applies to long walks and hiking, if I can resist using my phone.
- bumby 4y ago
  Your motorcycle riding reminded me of Attention Restoration Theory, where spending time in nature recharges oneself in pert due to the loosely held attention (as opposed to directed attention, like when we read or spend time online).
  - nicbou 4y ago
    It's basically an extended shower thinking session. I started adding tea breaks to my work day and it helps too, if I can force myself to sit idle on the balcony.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    Nature is also extremely vibrant and dense, but no abstracted or symbolic. Trying to follow squirrels in forest or pick a path in dense woods will warm up your brain quite a bit.
    - nicbou 4y ago
      Observing nature is a skill that needs practice. It's one of the most rewarding things you can learn.
- ghiculescu 4y ago
  Good comment - time to put the phone away for the day.
- 4y ago

UncleOxidant 4y ago

> a quiet walk in a garden does more for me than an hour of social media. A quiet walk in a garden does something positive whereas an hour on social media would leave me feeling very negative and depleted - there's an inverse relationship between time spent on social media and how one feels. The more time spent there, the worse one feels. You could say this is "by design" - outrage increases engagement.

bigyikes 4y ago
I hear this repeated a all the time. I can see how this might be the case, but I just don’t get it. My social media is overwhelmingly positive. I see celebrations, beauty, fun, and love. Social media makes me happy and more connected. Maybe it’s because I’ve deliberately curated my feeds and follow few people? If I see something I don’t like repeatedly, I unfollow.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > Maybe it’s because I’ve deliberately curated my feeds and follow few people? Maybe. I guess I could say my Instagram feed is like what you're saying to some extent - mostly exercise tips, recipes, underwater photography, pics of friends having dinner, etc. But twitter on the other hand was terrible. I quit twitter in May as it was just becoming an outrage factory. Maybe I've been more careful with who I'm following on IG? Maybe IG isn't as amenable to political discussions and thus tends to stay saner? I'm not sure.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Twitter is fine if you very meticulously curate who you follow and list tweets by chronological order. But yeah, I sometimes accidentally click a trending topic. That makes me a bit sad, mostly because there clearly are a lot of people out there who aren't getting the help they need.
ngc248 4y ago
Do you think this maybe because of the positive connotations we ascribe to "contemplation in the garden" vs the negative connotation of "an hour of social media". I have also seen this before, where doing something with negative connotations makes me feel worse.

makeitdouble 4y ago

> a quiet walk in a garden does more for me than an hour of social media. This is to me a weird way to put it, as we're probably doing both, and for different reasons. We all have different goals and expectations regarding social media, but I don't think compassion and emotional depth are the first and formost reason most of us are here for instance. On the "social media" label, HN is one, but it works pretty differently from the others. Same goes for MMORPGs, drawing sites, reddit gardening communities etc. Putting all of it in a single basket makes the discussion a lot harder I think.

II2II 4y ago
> On the "social media" label, HN is one, but it works pretty differently from the others. Same goes for MMORPGs, drawing sites, reddit gardening communities etc. Putting all of it in a single basket makes the discussion a lot harder I think. I become very much confused when people conflate HN with social media since I more closely associate it with a forum than media. Forums I associate with discourse. Media I associate with pushed content. Sure, most sites blur the lines but it is also pretty easy to figure out the underlying intent. Twitter is about pushing messages to an audience, even if a handful of people try to encourage conversations. Reddit communities are typically for people discussing things, even though Reddit tries to push other content.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  There's discourse on social media, often in the form of comments. IG comments, YouTube comments, etc. I bin HN in social media where speakers are generally unverified, expertise is little known, and there's little social punishment for lying. Arguably the quality of discussion is higher here than other places, but I don't think so. I just find the topics here more relevant than other places.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  > Forums I associate with discourse. Media I associate with pushed content. I see all services you describe as matching both, I assume your focus is really on the primary intent, or the ratio between the content publisher’s influence and the discourse amount ? Content is of course pushed on HN as well: we’re discussing articles that are posted for our consumption, often from the people who produced the content or are related to the product described. Even when unrelated to the content, there is an intent from the user pushing the article to influence the readers in a way or another (a “thought provocative” piece will be promoting an alternative angle on common issues) Twitter also has ton of discourse and it’s one of the few places where you’ll see an official statement from a gov. for instance be discussed in place, with lower restrictions on comments and sharing than let’s say Youtube for instance.