15 ms·

The New Smoking (2021)

174 points by conzar 4y ago

tonymet 4y ago
it won’t be the “new smoking “ until it’s stigmatized and taxed out of existence
rhacker 4y ago
I mean he's right. At some point if we're just robots playing candy crush or watching tiktok after tiktok - what's the real downside of just matrixing our society. I mean yes there are people that still skateboard or ski or hike, but if the population that finds meaning in activities disappears in the next 100 years, there's no reason to have physical anything. Might as well call it or fight back.
- rwbt 4y ago
  I'd imagine there's a lot less motivation to build new physical recreation spaces like skateboards etc if almost everyone is starting at a screen every waking minute.
  - nikanj 4y ago
    At the same time, appearances are more important than ever, so it might make business sense to sell equipment to people who want to pose with them. Same with rec spaces too, people don't actually have to partake in the activities, they just have to pay for the membership (and the tagging rights)
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    It isn't like they were really building these places before smartphones, though. These are things that are generally either services and cost money rather than make them or they are for-profit places that don't always have much demand. I don't know why it seems surprising that the "motivation" to build these isn't there now since the same restraints are still there.
    - harvey9 4y ago
      I agree. Local skateboarding places that are free get pretty well-used. Hiking is still popular but requires a bit more time unless you live near somewhere suitable. Part of the problem is so many people don't have free time and/or money to do anything more than scroll on their phones. That goes for people with good career jobs with long hours, and those scrolling on the bus as they go from one of their low paid part time jobs to another.
- nradov 4y ago
  The people who spend all day sitting and staring at screens will end up with lower reproductive fitness due to obesity, weakness, and various endocrine system disorders. So over a long enough time scale, evolution will sort us out.
  - eikenberry 4y ago
    Nah.. we'll evolution won't get a chance. Between cybernetics and genetic engineering we'll eventually overcome issues with our physical bodies way before evolution comes into play.
  - vsareto 4y ago
    Bad food and portion sizes carry most of the blame for obesity. You can be a gym nut and still addicted to technology though.
  - rhacker 4y ago
    That's only if staring at screens is a genetic trait, which probably isn't. Two super fit parents may end up having a slouch potato.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  I recently read How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. In it she advocates we "wrest our focus from the attention economy and replant it in the public, physical realm". Chapter 4 in particular covers being outdoors, in physical public spaces.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    The message I took from Jenny's book seemed more about rebuilding human relationships. My tagline in Digital Vegan was "take back tech" because I see technology as complementing and facilitating human relations. Currently it's designed to do the opposite, to corrode the interpersonal and make us more insular and selfish.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    Just read her blog post. The post in fantastic, but the book was long-winded and pretentious. I couldn't power through it. https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f59bbb https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...
- semicolon_storm 4y ago
  Digital and real world hobbies are not mutually exclusive. If you have an outdoor hobby, you've probably noticed it being busier than ever over the last few years. Hiking trails, beaches, surf breaks, running paths, etc have all been the busier than they ever were before COVID. People may be spending more time than ever online, but people are also spending lots of time in nature.
  - creaghpatr 4y ago
    If anything, tiktok/instagrammers are too prevalent in natural areas these days, harvesting those areas for likes and influence.
    - ShredKazoo 4y ago
      Out of the 63 national parks and thousands of state parks in the USA, can we have just one experiment with totally blocking those apps? The obvious place would be a park that has had problems with people going off the trail to take photos when they're not supposed to. I know you'll still need to offer people cell service so they can call 911 in emergencies, but why not block everything else, as an experiment? Put a big sign at all entrances to that park so people know what they're getting into. And then the big question would be... would taking this step increase park usage, or decrease it? I honestly have no idea, but I'm incredibly curious to find out.
      - hallway_monitor 4y ago
        A Data-Free zone. I love it. Probably you can find plenty of dead zones, but creating one purposely in a tourist spot? Genius.
- Yajirobe 4y ago
  Not disagreeing with you, but what determines that skiing or hiking is more 'valuable' or more worthy of spending time on than candy crush or tiktok?
  - oblak 4y ago
    It pains me seeing how nature is being treated when large amounts of lowest common denominator visit the woods. Lots of noise, junk food wrappers, bottles, beer cans. In that sense, it's more "valuable" having these types away from nature
    - seirim 4y ago
      Dang don't gatekeep so strongly. Sure, no one should litter, obviously; but among those amateur casuals making first trips out into nature are budding, next generation more "hardcore" real adventurers that might pass your standards as they gain more experience. Everyone has to start somewhere. It's better that some next generation folks are out enjoying nature and building up some care and appreciation for it than not, right?
- leetbulb 4y ago
  I think this is a somewhat self-manifested societal dichotomy requiring debate. One route leads to, as you say, a "matrix" society, which may or may not be a good thing. But we as humans need to make the decision if it's correct, because ultimately the humans profiting from the setup will end up irrelevant, and I don't think that's understood (ironic).
draw_down 4y ago
wyldfire 4y ago
> This extends to video games, usually of the free-to-play type. Free games are mostly hot garbage, with a couple of rare exceptions. Many of these are also pay-to-win games which strike me as the most preposterous use of time imaginable.
- hoherd 4y ago
  Mobile phone games are why I bought a 3DS. Some were good, almost all being paid games, but so many were just repetitious gambling for worthless achievements, portable slot machines. When I quit putting games on my phone and used that time for books and 3DS games my life got notably better. Breaking that repetition and proceeding through a story with characters and new ideas is so much more rewarding.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    I bought all my kids their own 3DS' long ago. the other added benefit is no "micro-transactions" or other ways of "monetizing the user". With the 3DS you pay for the game upfront, and for the most part that is the end of things.
- bdw5204 4y ago
  A good heuristic for determining whether a game is worth your time is to determine if the game will provide the same experience regardless of when you play it. If the answer is no, the game probably isn't worth your time and you probably shouldn't be playing it. Features that require you to play a game n days in a row or that require you to play a game at certain times of the day or that require you to stop playing the game and come back the next day are red flags in terms of the game being low quality because there's no need to exploit people's FOMO if you've actually created a good work of art that stands on its own merits. I also more or less completely ignore phones as gaming platforms. Those platforms have such bad reputations that a game (that isn't a port of a retro classic like the early Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy or Grand Theft Auto games) even being available on them tends to be a red flag that it is a low quality game. There's no reason why good games can't be released on iOS or Android but generally speaking they aren't because of the stigma that those platforms have due to all of the "free-to-play" garbage that has been released on them over the years.
hsuduebc2 4y ago
Same feeling. Mostly when I see that I unlock my phone two hundred times in last 24 hours. The habit to must have been somehow occupied is just toxic.
737min 4y ago
All true. It’s not free of government involvement however... Notable is the mention of TikTok, which supplies CCP-curated content that differs by country. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tiktok-in-china-versus-the-united-states-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tiktok-in-china-versus-the-uni...
- guntars 4y ago
  Wasn’t this debunked? Kids in China, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, overwhelmingly say influencer.
  - ekanes 4y ago
    How does that debunk the concept of CCP-curated content?
    - guntars 4y ago
      These are all claims by one guy (Tristan Harris) who's made a career out of speaking against social media. He claims that the Chinese version of TikTok is the "spinach" version and serves more wholesome science content. He doesn't say that this is because of CCP involvement, ByteDance manipulation on their own accord or because Chinese children choose this type of content. He does go on to say that as a result of this, most children express desire to be astronauts when they grow up. If this last part isn't true, why should we believe anything else he says? Even if it is true, why should we believe him? He doesn't offer any evidence. It's a bit weird to find myself in a position of defending a social media app. There are a lot of people in the US who have a reason to be upset with its existence. I think it played a key role in the last election, because that's where Gen-Z spends their time. Similarly the execs at Google and Facebook have a reason to want it gone, but you don't see them publicly lamenting how they don't make as much ad revenue as they used to. The negative comments here on HN at least are always some version of "national security" and "think of the children".
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  Heck, even pornhub shows you different content in different countries... at least a friend told me so. I guess CCP involvment is guaranteed in some form, but I would expect rather light touch and strong monitoring. To spot dissent early and weed it out in the roots. And to have something for blackmails on everybody in future.
thecatspaw 4y ago
A new-to-me term I learned recently which I feel quite nicely relates to this post is Consumer neuroscience. Wikipedia clinically describes the field as "The goal of the field is to find neural explanations for consumer behaviors in individuals both with or without disease." Personally I have a less favourable description of it. How to make people addicted to your product, and spend more money than they should.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  BJ Fogg [1] is someone who could have contributed to our recent "Things you built and regret" thread. His "Persuasive Computers" paper gets blamed (for example by Tristan Harris) for the explosion of attention economics. That's perhaps unfair as his Tiny Habits work seemed geared toward wellbeing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Fogg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Fogg
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    Fogg was pretty early in identifying some of the risks, although at the time (late 90s) I don't believe he took them seriously. One of the earliest critics from inside the industry, that I can find, was Joe Kraus, a partner at Google Ventures. You can watch his 2012 (I think) talk at https://vimeo.com/240721308 https://vimeo.com/240721308 ETA Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr, 2008
- leetbulb 4y ago
  Having worked in related industries, I've always referred to this as the "dopamine / reward loop" (I think this is fairly well accepted?). Some people are predisposed to hardcore exploitation (e.g. gambling addicts), but from what I understand, and generally speaking, we're all capable of falling victim to some degree (we're all susceptible to some level of superfluous dopamine response). Not helping, industry shaping our society to modulate where the average falls on this spectrum. A normal child having a cellphone is very similar to a normal child taking amphetamines, both yielding unnatural amounts of dopamine. Both can very well cause ADD-like symptoms after being taken away. There's also a parallel here to sugar and Type 2 diabetes, and other disorders. I think there may be a balance, but whatever is happening today is totally exploitative and should be regulated in some way, at least up until a certain age.
DerekBickerton 4y ago
If you like this article, I would suggest reading these too: I Don’t Want to Be an Internet Person: https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/11/04/i-dont-want-to-be-an-internet-person/ https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/11/04/i-dont-want-to-be-an... The Internet is Made of Demons: https://www.damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-internet-is-made-of-demons/ https://www.damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-internet-is-made-of... When traveling, I carry a dumb phone, specifically a Nokia feature phone that doesn't even connect to The Internet. The only distraction on it is the Tetris app which kills time waiting for the bus, or waiting to be seen by a doctor, etc I dedicate a small window of time (1 hour at most) to social media, and trained all my feeds to be high signal, so I come out of scrolling educated and informed. I don't engage in phubbing[0] which is a portmanteau of 'phone snubbing'. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phubbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phubbing
- eastbound 4y ago
  Serious question and not snarky (despite appearances): How come you comment on HN? It looks like it falls in addictive experiences, albeit maybe necessary to keep on top of IT news. If the theory of “quitting” was right, we wouldn’t see anyone commenting about quitting while still online. I’m asking because I wonder how to keep on top of things / what part should news-reading take in my less-dopamine life.
  - DerekBickerton 4y ago
    > How come you comment on HN? Just for the record, karma is a useless metric to me. It gives visibility into how one of my submissions performs, but that's it. I don't chase karma. > It looks like it falls in addictive experiences Addiction is when a thing controls you, and you don't control it. I am in charge of my experience here on HN, and as I said, I don't chase upvotes & karma.
    - eastbound 4y ago
      Equivalent to what a Youtube or Instagram user would say. So, if I understand, you see any other app as bad, but you don’t see HN as bad because you are in charge of your own experience? I personally think I don’t want to masquerade my participation as something else than an excitement to be part of an interesting online community, an interest in being up to date with trends, but nonetheless, an addiction, since it takes time and doesn’t create that much value in my life, and if I had to quit it, I would be doomed by being unoccupied.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
adrianhon 4y ago
Self-promo: I recently wrote a book critiquing gamification of this kind, examining it across health and fitness and lifestyle apps, video games, workplaces, finance, and more. It’s called You’ve Been Played and you can find a bunch of excerpts and reviews and discussions here: https://www.metafilter.com/197065/Youve-Been-Played https://www.metafilter.com/197065/Youve-Been-Played I think I have a unique perspective on the topic as CEO of a games company (Six to Start), designer of a fitness game with 10 million players (Zombies, Run!), and being a former neuroscientist.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. Great! EDIT: Mention of Lewis Mumford is already bodes well.
solaarphunk 4y ago
This is why China released comprehensive regulations governing algorithms that are aimed at companies which use dark patterns and ranked newsfeeds to fuel addiction and also exploit hourly workers, like delivery drivers, whose livelihood is determined entirely by an app. Interesting that they are ahead on this problem, of all things.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  Not to mention kids playing too much video games, which is also a concern. Yes the thing which China does well is regulated capitalism, they permit capitalism, they allow billionaires and so on, but only if it's in the interest of the state, which still reigns supreme. In the US and the West, the corporations give orders to the governments.
FearlessNebula 4y ago
The real question for me is how do we fix it? Both at the societal level but especially at the personal level for me I’ve been aware of this habit but unable to kick it for years now.
- vsareto 4y ago
  We can't if we keep running a society that's working people into a minimal life. Reduce work and living expenses to give people back some time and energy to actually pick up something more complicated than social feeds or digital entertainment.
  - FearlessNebula 4y ago
    Totally agree with this principle although that’s not what drives me to use my phone. I have a very generous amount of free time for my age, and I squander it for some reason.
- lonk11 4y ago
  The way I am trying to solve this is by building a different kind of content feed. One that is not optimized for "time-spent-on-site" but for "will you be happy to have spent time on it". This is how https://linklonk.com https://linklonk.com works: you upvote content that you found useful and the system gives more priority to users and RSS feeds that posted this content in your future content recommendations. As a result you see content from those who have brought to you useful information in the past - a feedback loop that is better aligned with your needs.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Tax and regulate the everloving heck out of the field. Prior to the 1830s, Britain had exorbitantly high tax rates on advertising, I'm given to understand. (I've found relatively little material on this fact, and forget where I picked up the information.)
revskill 4y ago
Stupid parenting is what causes current issue. Yes, they're too busy to take care of their children, so let's just give them a phone and done, you're free! If all parents forbid their children to touch the phone, problem solved.
- leetbulb 4y ago
  How else are parents going to have time to tend their virtual farms? Edit: Yeah go ahead, down vote, but this is intended to be a humorous take on a systemic problem, as other have mentioned.
- bonniemuffin 4y ago
  I don't think keeping phones away from kids is enough to solve smartphone addiction. There are lots of smartphone addicts who were already adults before smartphones were invented-- I was well into my 20s when the iphone was invented, so I definitely wasn't using it as a kid, yet I don't think I have a healthy relationship with the technology. I also don't think it's particularly helpful to blame individual parents (most of whom are doing the best they can at a very difficult job!) for what is ultimately a social issue that all of us contribute to.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Boomers, few of whom are presently toddlers, pre-teens, or even adolescents, seem as prone to screen-addiction as any other age group. This is unlikely a result of bad parenting brought about by an extant technological environment in their own youth: "Baby boomers can’t stop staring at their phones" November 12, 2022 But there is another demographic that is struggling with putting down their devices: Baby boomers. Smartphones came into their lives late, but they were quickly won over. Now some of their children say they are hooked, staring at their screens constantly, even when they should be paying attention to their own grandchildren. Two-thirds of boomers own a smartphone and about 6 in 10 are on social media, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/12/boomers-screentime/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/12/boomers...> Archive/paywall: <https://archive.ph/Tz5Lj https://archive.ph/Tz5Lj> The Pew study on which that article is based: <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/09/us-generations-technology-use/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/09/us-generati...>
civopsec 4y ago
Many, many people point this out but most of them don't seem to have much insight beyond the symptoms. I've thought about the apparent paradox that I keep distracting myself with a phone/computer while also not getting any fulfillment out of it. Right now I think it is about self-loathing and hating my own company. I hated being undistracted since that meant more attention for my thoughts. Those nagging, awful thoughts. I've also had some experience with meditation. I was never succesful. But I did manage to have the mini-insight that I am not my thoughts. So I didn't pick up meditation again but I did try to carve out some 10 minutes here and there where I just sat with myself, focused on the moment, and didn't look at my phone. I used to get super-annoyed at myself when I did this because my mind would always start to wander. But that mini-insight might have actually had some lasting effect, since now I was able to not get annoyed when I noticed myself -- um, I mean my thoughts -- just blahblahblahing. Because chatty mind is fine as long as you can observe it with detachment. At least at my level. I don't know if it did anything, but it has correlated with a change in attitude towards these distractions. I now have better impulse control, am more optimistic, have more initiative, less irritable. And I have a better attitude and partial control over those nagging thoughts—I can either let them play out in the background or pivot them. Sometime. Total mastery of the chatty mind is a long ways off. So how do I resolve this paradox? Before I hated myself and my mind—which I identified with myself—so much that I instantly reached for distractions whenever nothing was happening. Was past me an idiot for doing that? No. He simply didn't know any better; he was knee-deep in the ramblings of the chatty mind, either reacting to it or arguing with it. Writing periods like this down feels like I am a leaving a note to my future, possibly confused self. From my now-lucid self.
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  For me I can’t even say I’m using it to escape negative thoughts, it’s just a compulsion. I pull my phone out and scroll when I pee. Yep, apparently I can’t even have 1 minute of downtime without my hand automatically reaching for my pocket.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  > I did try to carve out some 10 minutes here and there where I just sat with myself, focused on the moment, and didn't look at my phone You say you didn't pick up meditation again but what you describe sounds like meditation to me :p The meditation guide I use always assumes that my mind will be wondering off and gently reminds me to come back to focus, just like you've been doing by yourself!
polynomial 4y ago
> ’m starting to believe a lot of the technology we engage with on a daily basis is doing us more harm than good Who is "us" here? The users of the technology? Absolutely, it's terrible for your mental health. Or so you mean the owners of the technology who deploy it? In which case it's great, it super profitable and barely regulated. But I expect you mean society as a whole where we have to integrate the above. Good question.
- conzar 4y ago
  By "us" I meant the users of the technology :)
ekanes 4y ago
Something that’s helped in a “high leverage” way is interrupting the impulse to open an app that takes me into glazed eyes territory, or “licking the phone” as I describe it to my kids. :) None of the kids actually want to waste time on social media… but we all still struggle with it. I ran across an (iOS) app that they've come to accept and even appreciate. Rather than blocking apps completely, it adds a pause of maybe 8 seconds; enough time to take a breath and maybe your higher self gets a word in edgewise. It’s free (though I think you pay for more apps) and it’s called “One Sec”. Installing it requires a few steps, but I found myself opening Youtube much less so the next day was “ok kids, bring me your phone.”
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  I think this could be a really helpful tool. Whenever I find myself having a compulsion (check my phone, order fast food, skip the gym) I try my best to make myself wait 10-15 minutes (depending on the circumstances) and most of the time I’m no longer interested because I’m thinking more clearly. Very much applies to shopping as well. Do I really need a new laptop? Let’s see how I feel next week, there’s always another sale.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bad416f1f5a2 4y ago
I’m reminded of the moral panic my parents generation had around televisions. And their parents generation had over serialized plays on the radio. And several generations removed, the panic over the printing press.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  Early usage of TVs consisted in living the tv set turned on constantly, which in the hindsight was insane. With time, we learned to « master » the technology that was put in our hands. Much along the lines of what this article points out.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    There are still people who do leave the television on constantly. Far worse, there are many, many, many public spaces --- waiting rooms, bars, restaurants, cafes --- in which televisions are ominipresent and, again, always on. This has become far worse, rather than better, with thinner and cheaper displays.
    - dopidopHN 4y ago
      That's considerably more prevalent in the US. I choose my bar and restaurants by the abscence of large screens. ( Not only obviousely but if it can be avoided, I do )
  - buildsjets 4y ago
    The voice of inexperience with early TV sets is loud here. You would never do that with early sets, as the damn vacuum tubes would burn out very quickly, then Dad would get mad, take the back off the set, take ALL the tubes out, cart them down to the drugstore, use their tester to find the burned out tube, and buy a replacement. Dad, being a busy man, would not appreciate doing this very often, and so tightly controlled our use. We didn’t get our first color + solid-state set (a huge marketing term back then) until 1978. That was probably about 5 years later than typical. It was a Zenith Space Command, also our first with a remote control. It used no batteries, pressing a button struck a metal tuning fork set for an “ultrasonic” frequency that a microphone in the set listened for. I quoted “ultrasonic”, because as a child I could definitely hear it.
program_whiz 4y ago
Not to be pedantic, but smoking is actually the new smoking. Its just now being normalized through weed (which is rationalized as healthy or cool) and vaping (which is seen as less harmful than smoking cigarettes). The sheer number of smoke shops has exploded.
- tonymet 4y ago
  very good point
- googlryas 4y ago
  Smoke shops have exploded but it isn't clear to me that there is higher availability - every convenience store in the US sold cigarettes and most still do. Even pharmacies like CVS/Walgreens used to sell them. I think just now you have dedicated storefronts for certain types of smoking products.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    I think the difference is that cigarettes and packaging were almost completely uniform - the same size and footprint regardless of brand. As such they were relatively easy for stores to maintain. I think the sheer variety and variability of vaping hardware and packaging almost requires a dedicated smoke shop to be able to service customers.
  - reshie 4y ago
    interestingly you had head shops(paraphernalia) before legalization. everyone knew what they where for but nothing illegal until it was used for that specifically. you can even buy crack pipes in some of the seedier neighborhood stores.
- adastra22 4y ago
  Yeah it really bugs me how inconsiderate weed and vaping smokers can be. I’ve had weed smokers casually walk by my family blowing smoke everywhere without care, like this was the 1950’s. In a sense this is even worse as not only did I not agree to me or my kids breathing in this cancerous cloud of smoke, but it is psychoactive too.
DavidPiper 4y ago
Surprised not to see Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" on the list - though the author may just not know about it. I finished the audiobook yesterday, and highly recommend it. When framed against the active, intentional social media strategies suggested in the book, the argument that "normal, every-day" social media usage is just like smoking becomes very persuasive. EDIT: Also recommend "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. It's about television, but every salient point applies directly to modern social media as well.
gumby 4y ago
I miss smoking (well, not really; I'm not a smoker). But all the rituals around it were very important for modulating the cadence and even nature of conversation, offering shared rituals, give-and-take, and, by convention, forced but acceptable pauses.
- iisan7 4y ago
  Interesting point, re the pauses to take a drag on a cigarette. The only thing I can think of like that now in a workplace or chance social encounter is taking a drink of water or coffee, but I suppose it hasn't really replaced smoking. Maybe carrying a small water flask to give ourselves moments to pause meaningfully in a conversation!
  - gumby 4y ago
    Not just the drag, but a pause to take one out, tap-compact it, light it, take a couple of puffs... As a non-smoker I was at a conversational disadvantage. As a nerd, this didn't bother me much.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  That's interesting because it does seem like despite how unhealthy it is, it was very much a social activity. And I think the indoor smoking bans only reinforced that social ritual as smokers were forced to gather outside bars and restaurant to smoke. "Do you have a light" has probably been one of the biggest conversation starters in history. What I see now is mostly people having a cigarette in one hand and the smart phone in the other. The chatting with fellow smokers seems to have been replaced by scrolling. A smoke break used to literally be taking a break from whatever it was you were doing. Now it looks like more of an opportunity to satisfy two addictions at the same time. It seems kind of depressing.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  Someone's gotta invent a cigarette that's actually good for your health! (Oddly enough this might actually work. My understanding is that nicotine is not actually that unhealthy; it's mostly the other stuff in cigarette's that's bad for you. Additionally, based on an old coworker of mine who quite smoking successfully, a big part of the addiction is just having something to put in your mouth.)
chips_n_fries 4y ago
Tangent, but I never understood the cargo-cult anti-smoking culture in the US; it was a perfect reflection of their media hypnotization. The people that would do a thousand different rebellious, risky, or damaging stuff would recoil in horror if you ask if they ever had a cigarette, as if one puff will char and shrivel your lungs or something.
- jrsj 4y ago
  You're 100% right and I see this kind of attitude all the time and it drives me crazy. Especially when people are worried about what others are doing, or complaining about second hand smoke outdoors, etc. People really need to learn to just live their fucking lives. Or at least shut the fuck up and let other people live theirs.
- wara23arish 4y ago
  1000 times yes. I’ve been given dramatic lectures in college parties by people who were 6-7 drinks in on how bad that cigarette im smoking right now is. Media hypnotization is indeed a thing. I grew up in a very very low trust society. I wonder if that’s related.
strken 4y ago
This resonates with me for some things, but there are two very unrelatable parts. I play video games with acquaintances and friends who I've known for years. They're fulfilling in the same way a zoom chat or phone call is, and they're much better than watching alone. Video games aren't a substitute for in-person contact, but what is? Some of the malaise from games seems to come from the ephemeral nature of matchmaking, where you're not playing with or against people you know and there's no community, but this is a solvable problem. When I'm head-down on a train staring at my phone, I'm either messaging the people I'm about to meet up with, or I'm reading a book. Conor's problem seems as much aesthetic as behavioural: he doesn't like the cold sterile white rectangle, but at a guess he'd be happier if I was holding a warm off-yellow-beige paper slab and turning the pages.
gladiatr72 4y ago
I quit looking at Facebook/etc and Twitter in 2016. I still smoke.
visarga 4y ago
In the past, if you wanted to smoke, you’d have to take out a cigarette and light it. There was a physical barrier to you smoking, and you were aware of the act of smoking. Nowadays, it’s so much easier to smoke: you just pull out your phone and have a cigarette. The problem is that you don’t realize you’re smoking. You don’t realize the time you’re wasting by looking at your phone. When you’re scrolling through social media, you’re not aware of the time you’re wasting. You’re not aware of the mental health damage you’re doing. I’ve been spending too much time on my phone and it’s been affecting my mental health. The more I use social media, the more I get sucked into the algorithm and the more I get depressed. Social media is designed to keep you hooked, and it’s been affecting my mental health. That is why I’m quitting social media. I’m not saying you should never use social media, but be aware of how much time you spend on it and whether it’s really worth your time. If you’re not careful, social media will take over your life. The way social media platforms were designed is a big part of the problem. I’ve been on social media for a long time and I’ve seen how social media has changed in the past few years. Social media used to be fun, but now it’s a lot more serious. It’s become a place where people are constantly arguing with each other and it’s become stressful. The way social media companies have changed their algorithms is the main reason why social media has become so toxic. The new algorithms reward you for posting controversial things that get a lot of engagement. The more engagement you get, the more the algorithms will show you content that’s similar to yours. That’s why people are constantly posting things that are controversial and the algorithms keep showing you more of the same. It’s a vicious cycle. Social media companies are using the same techniques that casinos use to keep people hooked on gambling. They’re using the same techniques that slot machines use to keep people hooked on gambling. Every time you open your phone, you are opening a slot machine. You don’t know what you’re going to get. You could get a like, a comment, a message, or nothing at all. That’s what keeps you hooked. The more we understand how these products are designed to keep us hooked, the better we can manage our own use of them. (gpt-3 on the same topic as the OP)
- generated 4y ago
  Fuck this got me. I thought it was a rather vapid comment but it just slid right past my relevance filter, easily ignored in a stream of people sharing their opinions as a weak form of anecdata. Until that last footnote. And the dawning realization that this is my opinion of 98%+ of comments and yet I read them anyway. And even here now as I respond with yet more drivel and unsolicited anecdotal opinion vaguely attempting to contribute to an already obsolete comment thread. I question everything.
carabiner 4y ago
The funny thing is in our recent thread about stuff you've built that you regret, only one FB employee admitted so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33676995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33676995 Social media and its consequences (adtech) have been a disaster for the human race. We're still largely oblivious to it though, and mostly see the benefits. Similar to smoking and before that, fossil fuels, we just see it as something that improves our lives at little cost. In 50 years we will wonder how we were so naive.
raydiatian 4y ago
This feels like a long form rant that anybody with a modicum of self reflection already had concluded on an individual basis.
NoPicklez 4y ago
"When each round of League of Legends or Warzone finishes, I’m just left wondering what the hell the point in all that was and feeling very unsatisfied in a similar way one feels after eating fast food." I don't think free to play has anything to do with it. People used to say that World of Warcraft was way too addictive and that's pay to play.
MarkusWandel 4y ago
I've never smoked but I used to date someone who did. Part of what makes it so addictive is that it's a social activity. With smoking having been marginalized to zones ever further away from buildings - for example, not even on hospital grounds any more, never mind the buildings - the smoker areas tend to be little social hubs. Quit, and you lose that cameraderie. You can get over the nicotine dependency in less than one (unpleasant) week but what is harder to quit is the ritual. If you don't count the smartphone interaction itself as cameraderie, then the problem with these things is actually the opposite! Instead of marginalized people engaging in real social interaction, you now have social interaction banished e.g. even from restaurant tables as everyone is busy with their little addicto-gadget.

174 points by conzar 4y ago

it won’t be the “new smoking “ until it’s stigmatized and taxed out of existence

I mean he's right. At some point if we're just robots playing candy crush or watching tiktok after tiktok - what's the real downside of just matrixing our society. I mean yes there are people that still skateboard or ski or hike, but if the population that finds meaning in activities disappears in the next 100 years, there's no reason to have physical anything. Might as well call it or fight back.

rwbt 4y ago
I'd imagine there's a lot less motivation to build new physical recreation spaces like skateboards etc if almost everyone is starting at a screen every waking minute.
- nikanj 4y ago
  At the same time, appearances are more important than ever, so it might make business sense to sell equipment to people who want to pose with them. Same with rec spaces too, people don't actually have to partake in the activities, they just have to pay for the membership (and the tagging rights)
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  It isn't like they were really building these places before smartphones, though. These are things that are generally either services and cost money rather than make them or they are for-profit places that don't always have much demand. I don't know why it seems surprising that the "motivation" to build these isn't there now since the same restraints are still there.
  - harvey9 4y ago
    I agree. Local skateboarding places that are free get pretty well-used. Hiking is still popular but requires a bit more time unless you live near somewhere suitable. Part of the problem is so many people don't have free time and/or money to do anything more than scroll on their phones. That goes for people with good career jobs with long hours, and those scrolling on the bus as they go from one of their low paid part time jobs to another.
nradov 4y ago
The people who spend all day sitting and staring at screens will end up with lower reproductive fitness due to obesity, weakness, and various endocrine system disorders. So over a long enough time scale, evolution will sort us out.
- eikenberry 4y ago
  Nah.. we'll evolution won't get a chance. Between cybernetics and genetic engineering we'll eventually overcome issues with our physical bodies way before evolution comes into play.
- vsareto 4y ago
  Bad food and portion sizes carry most of the blame for obesity. You can be a gym nut and still addicted to technology though.
- rhacker 4y ago
  That's only if staring at screens is a genetic trait, which probably isn't. Two super fit parents may end up having a slouch potato.
cratermoon 4y ago
I recently read How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. In it she advocates we "wrest our focus from the attention economy and replant it in the public, physical realm". Chapter 4 in particular covers being outdoors, in physical public spaces.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  The message I took from Jenny's book seemed more about rebuilding human relationships. My tagline in Digital Vegan was "take back tech" because I see technology as complementing and facilitating human relations. Currently it's designed to do the opposite, to corrode the interpersonal and make us more insular and selfish.
- nicbou 4y ago
  Just read her blog post. The post in fantastic, but the book was long-winded and pretentious. I couldn't power through it. https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f59bbb https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...
semicolon_storm 4y ago
Digital and real world hobbies are not mutually exclusive. If you have an outdoor hobby, you've probably noticed it being busier than ever over the last few years. Hiking trails, beaches, surf breaks, running paths, etc have all been the busier than they ever were before COVID. People may be spending more time than ever online, but people are also spending lots of time in nature.
- creaghpatr 4y ago
  If anything, tiktok/instagrammers are too prevalent in natural areas these days, harvesting those areas for likes and influence.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    Out of the 63 national parks and thousands of state parks in the USA, can we have just one experiment with totally blocking those apps? The obvious place would be a park that has had problems with people going off the trail to take photos when they're not supposed to. I know you'll still need to offer people cell service so they can call 911 in emergencies, but why not block everything else, as an experiment? Put a big sign at all entrances to that park so people know what they're getting into. And then the big question would be... would taking this step increase park usage, or decrease it? I honestly have no idea, but I'm incredibly curious to find out.
    - hallway_monitor 4y ago
      A Data-Free zone. I love it. Probably you can find plenty of dead zones, but creating one purposely in a tourist spot? Genius.
Yajirobe 4y ago
Not disagreeing with you, but what determines that skiing or hiking is more 'valuable' or more worthy of spending time on than candy crush or tiktok?
- oblak 4y ago
  It pains me seeing how nature is being treated when large amounts of lowest common denominator visit the woods. Lots of noise, junk food wrappers, bottles, beer cans. In that sense, it's more "valuable" having these types away from nature
  - seirim 4y ago
    Dang don't gatekeep so strongly. Sure, no one should litter, obviously; but among those amateur casuals making first trips out into nature are budding, next generation more "hardcore" real adventurers that might pass your standards as they gain more experience. Everyone has to start somewhere. It's better that some next generation folks are out enjoying nature and building up some care and appreciation for it than not, right?
leetbulb 4y ago
I think this is a somewhat self-manifested societal dichotomy requiring debate. One route leads to, as you say, a "matrix" society, which may or may not be a good thing. But we as humans need to make the decision if it's correct, because ultimately the humans profiting from the setup will end up irrelevant, and I don't think that's understood (ironic).

draw_down 4y ago

wyldfire 4y ago

> This extends to video games, usually of the free-to-play type. Free games are mostly hot garbage, with a couple of rare exceptions. Many of these are also pay-to-win games which strike me as the most preposterous use of time imaginable.

hoherd 4y ago
Mobile phone games are why I bought a 3DS. Some were good, almost all being paid games, but so many were just repetitious gambling for worthless achievements, portable slot machines. When I quit putting games on my phone and used that time for books and 3DS games my life got notably better. Breaking that repetition and proceeding through a story with characters and new ideas is so much more rewarding.
- kennend3 4y ago
  I bought all my kids their own 3DS' long ago. the other added benefit is no "micro-transactions" or other ways of "monetizing the user". With the 3DS you pay for the game upfront, and for the most part that is the end of things.
bdw5204 4y ago
A good heuristic for determining whether a game is worth your time is to determine if the game will provide the same experience regardless of when you play it. If the answer is no, the game probably isn't worth your time and you probably shouldn't be playing it. Features that require you to play a game n days in a row or that require you to play a game at certain times of the day or that require you to stop playing the game and come back the next day are red flags in terms of the game being low quality because there's no need to exploit people's FOMO if you've actually created a good work of art that stands on its own merits. I also more or less completely ignore phones as gaming platforms. Those platforms have such bad reputations that a game (that isn't a port of a retro classic like the early Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy or Grand Theft Auto games) even being available on them tends to be a red flag that it is a low quality game. There's no reason why good games can't be released on iOS or Android but generally speaking they aren't because of the stigma that those platforms have due to all of the "free-to-play" garbage that has been released on them over the years.

hsuduebc2 4y ago

Same feeling. Mostly when I see that I unlock my phone two hundred times in last 24 hours. The habit to must have been somehow occupied is just toxic.

737min 4y ago

All true. It’s not free of government involvement however... Notable is the mention of TikTok, which supplies CCP-curated content that differs by country. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tiktok-in-china-versus-the-united-states-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tiktok-in-china-versus-the-uni...

guntars 4y ago
Wasn’t this debunked? Kids in China, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, overwhelmingly say influencer.
- ekanes 4y ago
  How does that debunk the concept of CCP-curated content?
  - guntars 4y ago
    These are all claims by one guy (Tristan Harris) who's made a career out of speaking against social media. He claims that the Chinese version of TikTok is the "spinach" version and serves more wholesome science content. He doesn't say that this is because of CCP involvement, ByteDance manipulation on their own accord or because Chinese children choose this type of content. He does go on to say that as a result of this, most children express desire to be astronauts when they grow up. If this last part isn't true, why should we believe anything else he says? Even if it is true, why should we believe him? He doesn't offer any evidence. It's a bit weird to find myself in a position of defending a social media app. There are a lot of people in the US who have a reason to be upset with its existence. I think it played a key role in the last election, because that's where Gen-Z spends their time. Similarly the execs at Google and Facebook have a reason to want it gone, but you don't see them publicly lamenting how they don't make as much ad revenue as they used to. The negative comments here on HN at least are always some version of "national security" and "think of the children".
saiya-jin 4y ago
Heck, even pornhub shows you different content in different countries... at least a friend told me so. I guess CCP involvment is guaranteed in some form, but I would expect rather light touch and strong monitoring. To spot dissent early and weed it out in the roots. And to have something for blackmails on everybody in future.

thecatspaw 4y ago

A new-to-me term I learned recently which I feel quite nicely relates to this post is Consumer neuroscience. Wikipedia clinically describes the field as "The goal of the field is to find neural explanations for consumer behaviors in individuals both with or without disease." Personally I have a less favourable description of it. How to make people addicted to your product, and spend more money than they should.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
BJ Fogg [1] is someone who could have contributed to our recent "Things you built and regret" thread. His "Persuasive Computers" paper gets blamed (for example by Tristan Harris) for the explosion of attention economics. That's perhaps unfair as his Tiny Habits work seemed geared toward wellbeing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Fogg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Fogg
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Fogg was pretty early in identifying some of the risks, although at the time (late 90s) I don't believe he took them seriously. One of the earliest critics from inside the industry, that I can find, was Joe Kraus, a partner at Google Ventures. You can watch his 2012 (I think) talk at https://vimeo.com/240721308 https://vimeo.com/240721308 ETA Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr, 2008
leetbulb 4y ago
Having worked in related industries, I've always referred to this as the "dopamine / reward loop" (I think this is fairly well accepted?). Some people are predisposed to hardcore exploitation (e.g. gambling addicts), but from what I understand, and generally speaking, we're all capable of falling victim to some degree (we're all susceptible to some level of superfluous dopamine response). Not helping, industry shaping our society to modulate where the average falls on this spectrum. A normal child having a cellphone is very similar to a normal child taking amphetamines, both yielding unnatural amounts of dopamine. Both can very well cause ADD-like symptoms after being taken away. There's also a parallel here to sugar and Type 2 diabetes, and other disorders. I think there may be a balance, but whatever is happening today is totally exploitative and should be regulated in some way, at least up until a certain age.

DerekBickerton 4y ago

If you like this article, I would suggest reading these too: I Don’t Want to Be an Internet Person: https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/11/04/i-dont-want-to-be-an-internet-person/ https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/11/04/i-dont-want-to-be-an... The Internet is Made of Demons: https://www.damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-internet-is-made-of-demons/ https://www.damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-internet-is-made-of... When traveling, I carry a dumb phone, specifically a Nokia feature phone that doesn't even connect to The Internet. The only distraction on it is the Tetris app which kills time waiting for the bus, or waiting to be seen by a doctor, etc I dedicate a small window of time (1 hour at most) to social media, and trained all my feeds to be high signal, so I come out of scrolling educated and informed. I don't engage in phubbing[0] which is a portmanteau of 'phone snubbing'. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phubbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phubbing

eastbound 4y ago
Serious question and not snarky (despite appearances): How come you comment on HN? It looks like it falls in addictive experiences, albeit maybe necessary to keep on top of IT news. If the theory of “quitting” was right, we wouldn’t see anyone commenting about quitting while still online. I’m asking because I wonder how to keep on top of things / what part should news-reading take in my less-dopamine life.
- DerekBickerton 4y ago
  > How come you comment on HN? Just for the record, karma is a useless metric to me. It gives visibility into how one of my submissions performs, but that's it. I don't chase karma. > It looks like it falls in addictive experiences Addiction is when a thing controls you, and you don't control it. I am in charge of my experience here on HN, and as I said, I don't chase upvotes & karma.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    Equivalent to what a Youtube or Instagram user would say. So, if I understand, you see any other app as bad, but you don’t see HN as bad because you are in charge of your own experience? I personally think I don’t want to masquerade my participation as something else than an excitement to be part of an interesting online community, an interest in being up to date with trends, but nonetheless, an addiction, since it takes time and doesn’t create that much value in my life, and if I had to quit it, I would be doomed by being unoccupied.

deleted 4y ago

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adrianhon 4y ago

Self-promo: I recently wrote a book critiquing gamification of this kind, examining it across health and fitness and lifestyle apps, video games, workplaces, finance, and more. It’s called You’ve Been Played and you can find a bunch of excerpts and reviews and discussions here: https://www.metafilter.com/197065/Youve-Been-Played https://www.metafilter.com/197065/Youve-Been-Played I think I have a unique perspective on the topic as CEO of a games company (Six to Start), designer of a fitness game with 10 million players (Zombies, Run!), and being a former neuroscientist.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this. Great! EDIT: Mention of Lewis Mumford is already bodes well.

solaarphunk 4y ago

This is why China released comprehensive regulations governing algorithms that are aimed at companies which use dark patterns and ranked newsfeeds to fuel addiction and also exploit hourly workers, like delivery drivers, whose livelihood is determined entirely by an app. Interesting that they are ahead on this problem, of all things.

Synaesthesia 4y ago
Not to mention kids playing too much video games, which is also a concern. Yes the thing which China does well is regulated capitalism, they permit capitalism, they allow billionaires and so on, but only if it's in the interest of the state, which still reigns supreme. In the US and the West, the corporations give orders to the governments.

FearlessNebula 4y ago

The real question for me is how do we fix it? Both at the societal level but especially at the personal level for me I’ve been aware of this habit but unable to kick it for years now.

vsareto 4y ago
We can't if we keep running a society that's working people into a minimal life. Reduce work and living expenses to give people back some time and energy to actually pick up something more complicated than social feeds or digital entertainment.
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  Totally agree with this principle although that’s not what drives me to use my phone. I have a very generous amount of free time for my age, and I squander it for some reason.
lonk11 4y ago
The way I am trying to solve this is by building a different kind of content feed. One that is not optimized for "time-spent-on-site" but for "will you be happy to have spent time on it". This is how https://linklonk.com https://linklonk.com works: you upvote content that you found useful and the system gives more priority to users and RSS feeds that posted this content in your future content recommendations. As a result you see content from those who have brought to you useful information in the past - a feedback loop that is better aligned with your needs.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Tax and regulate the everloving heck out of the field. Prior to the 1830s, Britain had exorbitantly high tax rates on advertising, I'm given to understand. (I've found relatively little material on this fact, and forget where I picked up the information.)

revskill 4y ago

Stupid parenting is what causes current issue. Yes, they're too busy to take care of their children, so let's just give them a phone and done, you're free! If all parents forbid their children to touch the phone, problem solved.

leetbulb 4y ago
How else are parents going to have time to tend their virtual farms? Edit: Yeah go ahead, down vote, but this is intended to be a humorous take on a systemic problem, as other have mentioned.
bonniemuffin 4y ago
I don't think keeping phones away from kids is enough to solve smartphone addiction. There are lots of smartphone addicts who were already adults before smartphones were invented-- I was well into my 20s when the iphone was invented, so I definitely wasn't using it as a kid, yet I don't think I have a healthy relationship with the technology. I also don't think it's particularly helpful to blame individual parents (most of whom are doing the best they can at a very difficult job!) for what is ultimately a social issue that all of us contribute to.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Boomers, few of whom are presently toddlers, pre-teens, or even adolescents, seem as prone to screen-addiction as any other age group. This is unlikely a result of bad parenting brought about by an extant technological environment in their own youth: "Baby boomers can’t stop staring at their phones" November 12, 2022 But there is another demographic that is struggling with putting down their devices: Baby boomers. Smartphones came into their lives late, but they were quickly won over. Now some of their children say they are hooked, staring at their screens constantly, even when they should be paying attention to their own grandchildren. Two-thirds of boomers own a smartphone and about 6 in 10 are on social media, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/12/boomers-screentime/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/12/boomers...> Archive/paywall: <https://archive.ph/Tz5Lj https://archive.ph/Tz5Lj> The Pew study on which that article is based: <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/09/us-generations-technology-use/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/09/us-generati...>

civopsec 4y ago

Many, many people point this out but most of them don't seem to have much insight beyond the symptoms. I've thought about the apparent paradox that I keep distracting myself with a phone/computer while also not getting any fulfillment out of it. Right now I think it is about self-loathing and hating my own company. I hated being undistracted since that meant more attention for my thoughts. Those nagging, awful thoughts. I've also had some experience with meditation. I was never succesful. But I did manage to have the mini-insight that I am not my thoughts. So I didn't pick up meditation again but I did try to carve out some 10 minutes here and there where I just sat with myself, focused on the moment, and didn't look at my phone. I used to get super-annoyed at myself when I did this because my mind would always start to wander. But that mini-insight might have actually had some lasting effect, since now I was able to not get annoyed when I noticed myself -- um, I mean my thoughts -- just blahblahblahing. Because chatty mind is fine as long as you can observe it with detachment. At least at my level. I don't know if it did anything, but it has correlated with a change in attitude towards these distractions. I now have better impulse control, am more optimistic, have more initiative, less irritable. And I have a better attitude and partial control over those nagging thoughts—I can either let them play out in the background or pivot them. Sometime. Total mastery of the chatty mind is a long ways off. So how do I resolve this paradox? Before I hated myself and my mind—which I identified with myself—so much that I instantly reached for distractions whenever nothing was happening. Was past me an idiot for doing that? No. He simply didn't know any better; he was knee-deep in the ramblings of the chatty mind, either reacting to it or arguing with it. Writing periods like this down feels like I am a leaving a note to my future, possibly confused self. From my now-lucid self.

FearlessNebula 4y ago
For me I can’t even say I’m using it to escape negative thoughts, it’s just a compulsion. I pull my phone out and scroll when I pee. Yep, apparently I can’t even have 1 minute of downtime without my hand automatically reaching for my pocket.
creakingstairs 4y ago
> I did try to carve out some 10 minutes here and there where I just sat with myself, focused on the moment, and didn't look at my phone You say you didn't pick up meditation again but what you describe sounds like meditation to me :p The meditation guide I use always assumes that my mind will be wondering off and gently reminds me to come back to focus, just like you've been doing by yourself!

polynomial 4y ago

> ’m starting to believe a lot of the technology we engage with on a daily basis is doing us more harm than good Who is "us" here? The users of the technology? Absolutely, it's terrible for your mental health. Or so you mean the owners of the technology who deploy it? In which case it's great, it super profitable and barely regulated. But I expect you mean society as a whole where we have to integrate the above. Good question.

conzar 4y ago
By "us" I meant the users of the technology :)

ekanes 4y ago

Something that’s helped in a “high leverage” way is interrupting the impulse to open an app that takes me into glazed eyes territory, or “licking the phone” as I describe it to my kids. :) None of the kids actually want to waste time on social media… but we all still struggle with it. I ran across an (iOS) app that they've come to accept and even appreciate. Rather than blocking apps completely, it adds a pause of maybe 8 seconds; enough time to take a breath and maybe your higher self gets a word in edgewise. It’s free (though I think you pay for more apps) and it’s called “One Sec”. Installing it requires a few steps, but I found myself opening Youtube much less so the next day was “ok kids, bring me your phone.”

FearlessNebula 4y ago
I think this could be a really helpful tool. Whenever I find myself having a compulsion (check my phone, order fast food, skip the gym) I try my best to make myself wait 10-15 minutes (depending on the circumstances) and most of the time I’m no longer interested because I’m thinking more clearly. Very much applies to shopping as well. Do I really need a new laptop? Let’s see how I feel next week, there’s always another sale.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bad416f1f5a2 4y ago

I’m reminded of the moral panic my parents generation had around televisions. And their parents generation had over serialized plays on the radio. And several generations removed, the panic over the printing press.

whiplash451 4y ago
Early usage of TVs consisted in living the tv set turned on constantly, which in the hindsight was insane. With time, we learned to « master » the technology that was put in our hands. Much along the lines of what this article points out.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  There are still people who do leave the television on constantly. Far worse, there are many, many, many public spaces --- waiting rooms, bars, restaurants, cafes --- in which televisions are ominipresent and, again, always on. This has become far worse, rather than better, with thinner and cheaper displays.
  - dopidopHN 4y ago
    That's considerably more prevalent in the US. I choose my bar and restaurants by the abscence of large screens. ( Not only obviousely but if it can be avoided, I do )
- buildsjets 4y ago
  The voice of inexperience with early TV sets is loud here. You would never do that with early sets, as the damn vacuum tubes would burn out very quickly, then Dad would get mad, take the back off the set, take ALL the tubes out, cart them down to the drugstore, use their tester to find the burned out tube, and buy a replacement. Dad, being a busy man, would not appreciate doing this very often, and so tightly controlled our use. We didn’t get our first color + solid-state set (a huge marketing term back then) until 1978. That was probably about 5 years later than typical. It was a Zenith Space Command, also our first with a remote control. It used no batteries, pressing a button struck a metal tuning fork set for an “ultrasonic” frequency that a microphone in the set listened for. I quoted “ultrasonic”, because as a child I could definitely hear it.

program_whiz 4y ago

Not to be pedantic, but smoking is actually the new smoking. Its just now being normalized through weed (which is rationalized as healthy or cool) and vaping (which is seen as less harmful than smoking cigarettes). The sheer number of smoke shops has exploded.

tonymet 4y ago
very good point
googlryas 4y ago
Smoke shops have exploded but it isn't clear to me that there is higher availability - every convenience store in the US sold cigarettes and most still do. Even pharmacies like CVS/Walgreens used to sell them. I think just now you have dedicated storefronts for certain types of smoking products.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  I think the difference is that cigarettes and packaging were almost completely uniform - the same size and footprint regardless of brand. As such they were relatively easy for stores to maintain. I think the sheer variety and variability of vaping hardware and packaging almost requires a dedicated smoke shop to be able to service customers.
- reshie 4y ago
  interestingly you had head shops(paraphernalia) before legalization. everyone knew what they where for but nothing illegal until it was used for that specifically. you can even buy crack pipes in some of the seedier neighborhood stores.
adastra22 4y ago
Yeah it really bugs me how inconsiderate weed and vaping smokers can be. I’ve had weed smokers casually walk by my family blowing smoke everywhere without care, like this was the 1950’s. In a sense this is even worse as not only did I not agree to me or my kids breathing in this cancerous cloud of smoke, but it is psychoactive too.

DavidPiper 4y ago

Surprised not to see Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" on the list - though the author may just not know about it. I finished the audiobook yesterday, and highly recommend it. When framed against the active, intentional social media strategies suggested in the book, the argument that "normal, every-day" social media usage is just like smoking becomes very persuasive. EDIT: Also recommend "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. It's about television, but every salient point applies directly to modern social media as well.

gumby 4y ago

I miss smoking (well, not really; I'm not a smoker). But all the rituals around it were very important for modulating the cadence and even nature of conversation, offering shared rituals, give-and-take, and, by convention, forced but acceptable pauses.

iisan7 4y ago
Interesting point, re the pauses to take a drag on a cigarette. The only thing I can think of like that now in a workplace or chance social encounter is taking a drink of water or coffee, but I suppose it hasn't really replaced smoking. Maybe carrying a small water flask to give ourselves moments to pause meaningfully in a conversation!
- gumby 4y ago
  Not just the drag, but a pause to take one out, tap-compact it, light it, take a couple of puffs... As a non-smoker I was at a conversational disadvantage. As a nerd, this didn't bother me much.
bogomipz 4y ago
That's interesting because it does seem like despite how unhealthy it is, it was very much a social activity. And I think the indoor smoking bans only reinforced that social ritual as smokers were forced to gather outside bars and restaurant to smoke. "Do you have a light" has probably been one of the biggest conversation starters in history. What I see now is mostly people having a cigarette in one hand and the smart phone in the other. The chatting with fellow smokers seems to have been replaced by scrolling. A smoke break used to literally be taking a break from whatever it was you were doing. Now it looks like more of an opportunity to satisfy two addictions at the same time. It seems kind of depressing.
ShredKazoo 4y ago
Someone's gotta invent a cigarette that's actually good for your health! (Oddly enough this might actually work. My understanding is that nicotine is not actually that unhealthy; it's mostly the other stuff in cigarette's that's bad for you. Additionally, based on an old coworker of mine who quite smoking successfully, a big part of the addiction is just having something to put in your mouth.)

chips_n_fries 4y ago

Tangent, but I never understood the cargo-cult anti-smoking culture in the US; it was a perfect reflection of their media hypnotization. The people that would do a thousand different rebellious, risky, or damaging stuff would recoil in horror if you ask if they ever had a cigarette, as if one puff will char and shrivel your lungs or something.

jrsj 4y ago
You're 100% right and I see this kind of attitude all the time and it drives me crazy. Especially when people are worried about what others are doing, or complaining about second hand smoke outdoors, etc. People really need to learn to just live their fucking lives. Or at least shut the fuck up and let other people live theirs.
wara23arish 4y ago
1000 times yes. I’ve been given dramatic lectures in college parties by people who were 6-7 drinks in on how bad that cigarette im smoking right now is. Media hypnotization is indeed a thing. I grew up in a very very low trust society. I wonder if that’s related.

strken 4y ago

This resonates with me for some things, but there are two very unrelatable parts. I play video games with acquaintances and friends who I've known for years. They're fulfilling in the same way a zoom chat or phone call is, and they're much better than watching alone. Video games aren't a substitute for in-person contact, but what is? Some of the malaise from games seems to come from the ephemeral nature of matchmaking, where you're not playing with or against people you know and there's no community, but this is a solvable problem. When I'm head-down on a train staring at my phone, I'm either messaging the people I'm about to meet up with, or I'm reading a book. Conor's problem seems as much aesthetic as behavioural: he doesn't like the cold sterile white rectangle, but at a guess he'd be happier if I was holding a warm off-yellow-beige paper slab and turning the pages.

gladiatr72 4y ago

I quit looking at Facebook/etc and Twitter in 2016. I still smoke.

visarga 4y ago

In the past, if you wanted to smoke, you’d have to take out a cigarette and light it. There was a physical barrier to you smoking, and you were aware of the act of smoking. Nowadays, it’s so much easier to smoke: you just pull out your phone and have a cigarette. The problem is that you don’t realize you’re smoking. You don’t realize the time you’re wasting by looking at your phone. When you’re scrolling through social media, you’re not aware of the time you’re wasting. You’re not aware of the mental health damage you’re doing. I’ve been spending too much time on my phone and it’s been affecting my mental health. The more I use social media, the more I get sucked into the algorithm and the more I get depressed. Social media is designed to keep you hooked, and it’s been affecting my mental health. That is why I’m quitting social media. I’m not saying you should never use social media, but be aware of how much time you spend on it and whether it’s really worth your time. If you’re not careful, social media will take over your life. The way social media platforms were designed is a big part of the problem. I’ve been on social media for a long time and I’ve seen how social media has changed in the past few years. Social media used to be fun, but now it’s a lot more serious. It’s become a place where people are constantly arguing with each other and it’s become stressful. The way social media companies have changed their algorithms is the main reason why social media has become so toxic. The new algorithms reward you for posting controversial things that get a lot of engagement. The more engagement you get, the more the algorithms will show you content that’s similar to yours. That’s why people are constantly posting things that are controversial and the algorithms keep showing you more of the same. It’s a vicious cycle. Social media companies are using the same techniques that casinos use to keep people hooked on gambling. They’re using the same techniques that slot machines use to keep people hooked on gambling. Every time you open your phone, you are opening a slot machine. You don’t know what you’re going to get. You could get a like, a comment, a message, or nothing at all. That’s what keeps you hooked. The more we understand how these products are designed to keep us hooked, the better we can manage our own use of them. (gpt-3 on the same topic as the OP)

generated 4y ago
Fuck this got me. I thought it was a rather vapid comment but it just slid right past my relevance filter, easily ignored in a stream of people sharing their opinions as a weak form of anecdata. Until that last footnote. And the dawning realization that this is my opinion of 98%+ of comments and yet I read them anyway. And even here now as I respond with yet more drivel and unsolicited anecdotal opinion vaguely attempting to contribute to an already obsolete comment thread. I question everything.

carabiner 4y ago

The funny thing is in our recent thread about stuff you've built that you regret, only one FB employee admitted so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33676995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33676995 Social media and its consequences (adtech) have been a disaster for the human race. We're still largely oblivious to it though, and mostly see the benefits. Similar to smoking and before that, fossil fuels, we just see it as something that improves our lives at little cost. In 50 years we will wonder how we were so naive.

raydiatian 4y ago

This feels like a long form rant that anybody with a modicum of self reflection already had concluded on an individual basis.

NoPicklez 4y ago

"When each round of League of Legends or Warzone finishes, I’m just left wondering what the hell the point in all that was and feeling very unsatisfied in a similar way one feels after eating fast food." I don't think free to play has anything to do with it. People used to say that World of Warcraft was way too addictive and that's pay to play.

MarkusWandel 4y ago

I've never smoked but I used to date someone who did. Part of what makes it so addictive is that it's a social activity. With smoking having been marginalized to zones ever further away from buildings - for example, not even on hospital grounds any more, never mind the buildings - the smoker areas tend to be little social hubs. Quit, and you lose that cameraderie. You can get over the nicotine dependency in less than one (unpleasant) week but what is harder to quit is the ritual. If you don't count the smartphone interaction itself as cameraderie, then the problem with these things is actually the opposite! Instead of marginalized people engaging in real social interaction, you now have social interaction banished e.g. even from restaurant tables as everyone is busy with their little addicto-gadget.