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Sorry to make you feel bad, but that exact realization is the reason I don’t do remote work anymore. (I still scroll on my phone here and there!) A cynic might

Sorry to make you feel bad, but that exact realization is the reason I don’t do remote work anymore. (I still scroll on my phone here and there!) A cynic might retort that reading a book is also “doing nothing”, but I think there is a certain physical presence that is missing with the scrolling. Hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it.

waterhouse 3y ago
And how about reading an ebook?
dotnet00 3y ago
There's nothing cynical about pointing out that "to a cat, there's no difference between staring at a wall and scrolling" is just a shallow truism that falls apart the moment you consider even many non-digital activities people engage in.
whatshisface 3y ago
With a physical book people can ask "what's that about?" There's a big title on the back. When you are scrolling as far as anyone knows you're already in a conversation and there's nothing more isolating than that.
asow92 3y ago
I still work remote, but go to a co-working space most days even if it's just half a day. Getting dressed, out of the house, and seeing real people face-to-face is a huge boost to my mental health.
spurgu 3y ago
There are so many different kinds of scrolling though. For me: - HN scrolling to find ideas/inspiration, staying longer if I find something interesting - Twitter scrolling to get a glimpse of what's going on in the world and then staying if I get baited by something :D - Facebook scrolling, usually for a particular purpose these days (maybe once every other week on average, to check up on someone in particular I happen to think of), then staying scrolling for a bit, past irrelevant posts for a while, where I might get warm/happy/nostalgic by some updates - Instagram scrolling takes literally 30 seconds before I get annoyed by the ads and close the app (happens 100% of the time although I might last 1-2 minutes some times) Those are all quite different experiences and I could do them all in quite different ways. I used to mindlessly scroll FB for example while not using Twitter at all. The psychological effects were quite different, but perhaps more socially attuned? Nowadays I scroll less overall and more for intellectual reasons. But... getting caught in the "must... scroll.... more...." mode is the same for all of them psychologically (Youtube as well), the same addictive behavior. So yeah. I think there needs to be a distinction between scrolling for a (moderately healthy) while and doomscrolling. The algorithms can be quite very helpful in presenting relevant data, but they're also a potential black hole. Oh and I'm not sure why I was replying to you specifically. I guess you got to be my therapist today.

waterhouse 3y ago

And how about reading an ebook?

dotnet00 3y ago

There's nothing cynical about pointing out that "to a cat, there's no difference between staring at a wall and scrolling" is just a shallow truism that falls apart the moment you consider even many non-digital activities people engage in.

whatshisface 3y ago

With a physical book people can ask "what's that about?" There's a big title on the back. When you are scrolling as far as anyone knows you're already in a conversation and there's nothing more isolating than that.

asow92 3y ago

I still work remote, but go to a co-working space most days even if it's just half a day. Getting dressed, out of the house, and seeing real people face-to-face is a huge boost to my mental health.

spurgu 3y ago

There are so many different kinds of scrolling though. For me: - HN scrolling to find ideas/inspiration, staying longer if I find something interesting - Twitter scrolling to get a glimpse of what's going on in the world and then staying if I get baited by something :D - Facebook scrolling, usually for a particular purpose these days (maybe once every other week on average, to check up on someone in particular I happen to think of), then staying scrolling for a bit, past irrelevant posts for a while, where I might get warm/happy/nostalgic by some updates - Instagram scrolling takes literally 30 seconds before I get annoyed by the ads and close the app (happens 100% of the time although I might last 1-2 minutes some times) Those are all quite different experiences and I could do them all in quite different ways. I used to mindlessly scroll FB for example while not using Twitter at all. The psychological effects were quite different, but perhaps more socially attuned? Nowadays I scroll less overall and more for intellectual reasons. But... getting caught in the "must... scroll.... more...." mode is the same for all of them psychologically (Youtube as well), the same addictive behavior. So yeah. I think there needs to be a distinction between scrolling for a (moderately healthy) while and doomscrolling. The algorithms can be quite very helpful in presenting relevant data, but they're also a potential black hole. Oh and I'm not sure why I was replying to you specifically. I guess you got to be my therapist today.