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Yeah, guilty as charged. I’ve probably been constantly online since I was 13 (24 now). It’s incredibly easy to find a multitude of things to do online to keep a

Yeah, guilty as charged. I’ve probably been constantly online since I was 13 (24 now). It’s incredibly easy to find a multitude of things to do online to keep an ADHD-brained person entertained for hours on end, especially if they don’t have a social spark that makes them want to form connections with other people or go on any kind of social outing. I think this number will continue to rise in the future. Probably 40% by 2035.

catchnear4321 4y ago
> especially if they don’t have a social spark that makes them want to form connections with other people or go on any kind of social outing. this is a minimal connection made as part of a virtual outing. (hello.) many widely-held constructs are getting redefined. like what it means to be “social” or “connected.” zuck wasn’t wrong, but metaverse is already here. it’s just the internet, and we are slowly integrating it more fully into ourselves.
- Gnatworth 4y ago
  (Hi!) I think I’m seeing it, too. A number of IRL friends I’ve made were originally just known online until I moved out and we began hanging out in person (after we confirmed none of us are secretly human traffickers). I believe that non-virtual connection is always going to remain important. People who are social butterflies use things like Discord, Instagram, datings apps, and Twitter to really just optimize what they already had going for them in real life, and are having more success than they could have had in a past time, imo.
Mezzie 4y ago
I'm 34 and I've been online as often as I've been allowed for 30 years. Hell, I used to load sites/discussions while I got ready for school, print them off and bring them to school and spend my time reading them. I'm not sure internet use alone is concerning. It was a problem when I was a kid because it isolated me, but it's also hard to tell how the causality worked there because I was a weird-ass little kid. I'd love to look at/might try to find later what the average amount of time a person spent writing letters or on the phone was - or TV or radio listening. From what I've seen, most people use the Internet like we used to use telephones (lots of young people whose primary contact with their friends is online and I can't see much of a difference between hanging out in Discord for hours and talking on the phone with your bff for hours) or television/radio (I remember all the back and forth about the boob tube and honestly the passive consumption is pretty similar). It'll also be interesting to see if anybody starts to disengage. The Internet relies on constant novelty to keep people engaged since the body naturally starts regulating to things and once you've seen enough it stops hitting the way it used to.
- Gnatworth 4y ago
  >I'm not sure internet use alone is concerning. It was a problem when I was a kid because it isolated me, but it's also hard to tell how the causality worked there because I was a weird-ass little kid. Same with being a weird kid. Being weird led to not having many friends led to relying on internet socialization more and more. >It'll also be interesting to see if anybody starts to disengage. The Internet relies on constant novelty to keep people engaged since the body naturally starts regulating to things and once you've seen enough it stops hitting the way it used to. I’m hopeful but cautious. The internet is novelty manifest. There are single sites alone that can keep someone occupied for days. Content aggregation in the form of applications like Tik Tok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and even HN have the ability of providing hours of content and then some by just refreshing the page or scrolling down. It’ll take willpower for sure for some people to get out of the rut that they’re in right now, and especially for future generations, if entertainment continues to advance.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    > Content aggregation in the form of applications like Tik Tok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and even HN have the ability of providing hours of content and then some by just refreshing the page or scrolling down. Like over a thousand TV channels? And yet for some reason we were all pretty ready to ditch cable and pursue other entertainment options. Easy isn't enough. (I'm amused by how long this has been going on; Victorians had a similar panic about novels. Though given how I was glued to a book when I was forced away from the digital world, they may not be wrong there either.) > The internet is novelty manifest. There are single sites alone that can keep someone occupied for days. Content aggregation in the form of applications like Tik Tok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and even HN have the ability of providing hours of content and then some by just refreshing the page or scrolling down. Is it, though? It's novelty manifest compared to the pre-Web (and pre social media) days. But that was 30 years ago, and the Internet sure looks a lot less novel when you compare it to the Internet in 2010. You think the iPad babies are going to find anything novel in TikTok? Of course not. Novelty requires constant change, or else it stops being novel. Not just in the content, but also in the delivery mechanism. Being raised on digital content consumption, I use TikTok but after being glued to it for 3-4 months, I picked out enough of the similarities in content that it started being boring. Another weakness of the current social media landscape that shows up the longer the audience has engaged is recycled content. For example, TT has figured out that I like history content. It has not figured out that I've been looking for stupid fun history tidbits for decades and I already know what it's showing me. "Did you know...?" YES. YES, I DID. It's informational blue balls. I spend too much time on TikTok, but I also spent too much time on LiveJournal, IRC, Usenet, Tumblr, and Reddit. Showing me something new is way harder than a random 13 year old. Another example is the phenomenon of how people who are porn addicts usually end up seeking out new and novel stimuli because eventually the same old gets boring. That still applies to TikTok: The people who want thirst traps will eventually stop being tickled by the 50th one because it's too similar and their dopamine receptors demand an upping of the ante. I basically have hope because the human organism requires change. And because human adolescents really like doing the opposite of what the last generation did. We're due for another Great Awakening and shit is going to get weird. If Millennials and Gen Z are obsessed with content consumption, our grandkids are going to rebel pretty hard. I expect some very strong social/cultural taboos around entertainment and content use will show up in a few decades.
docandrew 4y ago
I have to wonder if being constantly online is what’s _causing_ our ADHD and lack of a social spark.
- dageshi 4y ago
  I don't think it causes it. I do think it reinforces both if that's how you're inclined.
- Gnatworth 4y ago
  I think there were always people in history who just couldn’t make friends like others could, but now the internet is a (sort of) welcoming environment for those kinds of people born now. What incentive do they have to limit/replace the time they spend online? I’m still undecided with ADHD. I’m honestly inclined to say it’s also been around forever, but we only recently have a name for it and a way to identify those with it.

catchnear4321 4y ago

> especially if they don’t have a social spark that makes them want to form connections with other people or go on any kind of social outing. this is a minimal connection made as part of a virtual outing. (hello.) many widely-held constructs are getting redefined. like what it means to be “social” or “connected.” zuck wasn’t wrong, but metaverse is already here. it’s just the internet, and we are slowly integrating it more fully into ourselves.

Gnatworth 4y ago
(Hi!) I think I’m seeing it, too. A number of IRL friends I’ve made were originally just known online until I moved out and we began hanging out in person (after we confirmed none of us are secretly human traffickers). I believe that non-virtual connection is always going to remain important. People who are social butterflies use things like Discord, Instagram, datings apps, and Twitter to really just optimize what they already had going for them in real life, and are having more success than they could have had in a past time, imo.

Mezzie 4y ago

I'm 34 and I've been online as often as I've been allowed for 30 years. Hell, I used to load sites/discussions while I got ready for school, print them off and bring them to school and spend my time reading them. I'm not sure internet use alone is concerning. It was a problem when I was a kid because it isolated me, but it's also hard to tell how the causality worked there because I was a weird-ass little kid. I'd love to look at/might try to find later what the average amount of time a person spent writing letters or on the phone was - or TV or radio listening. From what I've seen, most people use the Internet like we used to use telephones (lots of young people whose primary contact with their friends is online and I can't see much of a difference between hanging out in Discord for hours and talking on the phone with your bff for hours) or television/radio (I remember all the back and forth about the boob tube and honestly the passive consumption is pretty similar). It'll also be interesting to see if anybody starts to disengage. The Internet relies on constant novelty to keep people engaged since the body naturally starts regulating to things and once you've seen enough it stops hitting the way it used to.

Gnatworth 4y ago
>I'm not sure internet use alone is concerning. It was a problem when I was a kid because it isolated me, but it's also hard to tell how the causality worked there because I was a weird-ass little kid. Same with being a weird kid. Being weird led to not having many friends led to relying on internet socialization more and more. >It'll also be interesting to see if anybody starts to disengage. The Internet relies on constant novelty to keep people engaged since the body naturally starts regulating to things and once you've seen enough it stops hitting the way it used to. I’m hopeful but cautious. The internet is novelty manifest. There are single sites alone that can keep someone occupied for days. Content aggregation in the form of applications like Tik Tok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and even HN have the ability of providing hours of content and then some by just refreshing the page or scrolling down. It’ll take willpower for sure for some people to get out of the rut that they’re in right now, and especially for future generations, if entertainment continues to advance.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  > Content aggregation in the form of applications like Tik Tok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and even HN have the ability of providing hours of content and then some by just refreshing the page or scrolling down. Like over a thousand TV channels? And yet for some reason we were all pretty ready to ditch cable and pursue other entertainment options. Easy isn't enough. (I'm amused by how long this has been going on; Victorians had a similar panic about novels. Though given how I was glued to a book when I was forced away from the digital world, they may not be wrong there either.) > The internet is novelty manifest. There are single sites alone that can keep someone occupied for days. Content aggregation in the form of applications like Tik Tok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and even HN have the ability of providing hours of content and then some by just refreshing the page or scrolling down. Is it, though? It's novelty manifest compared to the pre-Web (and pre social media) days. But that was 30 years ago, and the Internet sure looks a lot less novel when you compare it to the Internet in 2010. You think the iPad babies are going to find anything novel in TikTok? Of course not. Novelty requires constant change, or else it stops being novel. Not just in the content, but also in the delivery mechanism. Being raised on digital content consumption, I use TikTok but after being glued to it for 3-4 months, I picked out enough of the similarities in content that it started being boring. Another weakness of the current social media landscape that shows up the longer the audience has engaged is recycled content. For example, TT has figured out that I like history content. It has not figured out that I've been looking for stupid fun history tidbits for decades and I already know what it's showing me. "Did you know...?" YES. YES, I DID. It's informational blue balls. I spend too much time on TikTok, but I also spent too much time on LiveJournal, IRC, Usenet, Tumblr, and Reddit. Showing me something new is way harder than a random 13 year old. Another example is the phenomenon of how people who are porn addicts usually end up seeking out new and novel stimuli because eventually the same old gets boring. That still applies to TikTok: The people who want thirst traps will eventually stop being tickled by the 50th one because it's too similar and their dopamine receptors demand an upping of the ante. I basically have hope because the human organism requires change. And because human adolescents really like doing the opposite of what the last generation did. We're due for another Great Awakening and shit is going to get weird. If Millennials and Gen Z are obsessed with content consumption, our grandkids are going to rebel pretty hard. I expect some very strong social/cultural taboos around entertainment and content use will show up in a few decades.

docandrew 4y ago

I have to wonder if being constantly online is what’s _causing_ our ADHD and lack of a social spark.

dageshi 4y ago
I don't think it causes it. I do think it reinforces both if that's how you're inclined.
Gnatworth 4y ago
I think there were always people in history who just couldn’t make friends like others could, but now the internet is a (sort of) welcoming environment for those kinds of people born now. What incentive do they have to limit/replace the time they spend online? I’m still undecided with ADHD. I’m honestly inclined to say it’s also been around forever, but we only recently have a name for it and a way to identify those with it.