5 ms·

I'm not sure I agree. We had all these complaints about TV going back to the 1970s (the earliest clear memories I have). It was called "the plug in drug" and "t

I'm not sure I agree. We had all these complaints about TV going back to the 1970s (the earliest clear memories I have). It was called "the plug in drug" and "the boob tube." Homebound and housewives used to watch hours of game shows and soap operas all day. If a kid liked to read, some parents would tell them to "get your head out of that book and go outside." It's just something to do to fill the boredom.

bogdanoff_2 1y ago
What exactly do you not agree with?
- pasteldream 1y ago
  Perhaps they disagree with the idea that it’s an addiction or that it’s a problem with screens in particular, rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways.
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    I can see that, but IMO the main difference is that this feels like it's intentionally trying to be an active detriment to your life. TV et. al are fairly neutral generally. Even with the ads. But with targeted advertisement, it feels a lot more like they're trying to get inside your mind to steal your money. And with content on social media, it feels specifically engineered to make your life as bad as possible. More fear, more anger, more racism, more sexism. Here's some big boobies, now look at this disgusting immigrant. Isnt Earth awful? Aren't these guys ruining everything?
    - financetechbro 1y ago
      This. Targeted adds + bespoke algorithms make our current tech incomparable to the previous boogeyman of TV et al. We have devices that are designed to keep and farm our attention at all costs
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    > rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways. That's literally what an addiction is.
    - nitwit005 1y ago
      An addiction would be you struggle to stop doing it. That would suggest they have no issue stopping, given a more interesting option.
      - mwarkentin 1y ago
        “I can stop any time I want!”
        nitwit005 1y ago
        You don't stop doing drugs because there's some movie you want to see. People do get off their phones for that.
        brnt 1y ago
        Have you seen how many people watch movies these days? Even in the cinema they are scrolling. Not touching alcohol for 12 hours a day does not mean you are not an alcoholic.
        nitwit005 1y ago
        If you stare at a wall all day because you have nothing to do, are you addicted to staring at the wall, or do you just have nothing to do? If someone stops drinking for a long enough period, with no urge to return to drinking, then yes, they aren't an alcoholic. You just made up a silly 12 hour window so you could beat a straw man to death.
        1718627440 1y ago
enraged_camel 1y ago
Nah, this misses the point entirely. The scale of the problem today is multiple orders of magnitude greater, for several reasons. First, TVs were stationary. Unlike smartphones, you couldn't take them wherever you went. If you were wealthier, you could somewhat compensate for this by having multiple TVs, for example in the bedroom in addition to the living room. But whenever you stepped outside your house the TV did not come with you. Places like doctors offices or hotel lobbies might have them in waiting rooms but that was really it in terms of the average person's exposure. Second, TV programming was not explicitly designed to be addictive. Sure, studios wanted people to watch their programs because that's how they got ad revenue, but they had neither sophisticated tools nor the methods to dial addictiveness to the max. They did not have algorithms, for example, to serve you personalized content based on your tastes and desires. You picked from a limited selection of what was available in that week's programming. Third, TVs did not have built-in mechanisms to demand re-engagement when you had them turned off. No such thing as notifications. At best you had blurbs about what is next on the program, but those were both channel-specific and also required your TV to be on. So people were not constantly bombarded with micro dopamine hits like they are today. I could go on, but yeah, your rebuttal does not stand up to critical scrutiny. What we have today is a global scale addiction. It is absolutely nothing like TVs or newspapers/books before them.
- parineum 1y ago
  You points about TV may stand but they don't apply to books, newspapers and magazines. All three of which I have seen people walking on the sidewalk while reading, btw.
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    Scale not only matters, it's pretty much the only thing that matters. That's why me having a butter knife is of no concern, but they certainly won't give me the nuclear launch codes.
- mindslight 1y ago
  I think even highly-engaging well-written high-production-value TV doesn't satiate all of your brain's achievement circuits. Being an Internet native, I was binge watching shows well before the term was invented, and before shows were fluffed out to compensate for bulk half-engaged viewing. When an episode ends I don't want to leave the universe - it's so easy to up-arrow, backspace to the episode number, tab, enter. But I always found there was kind of a limit whereby eventually I would have "had enough" and move on to something different to feel like I was actually achieving something - getting back to work, social interaction, physical chores, etc. Whereas the plethora of web/apps can provide simulations for all those different circuits in your brain, as you move between them each satiating a different aspect of your personality. And then when you've got time to really "relax", you can still turn on TV in the background to be engaged in multiple low effort stimulations at once.
kakacik 1y ago
TV is still addictive, and it was. I felt it myself in 80s and 90s, good content was rare and I had to set an alarm in the middle of the night to watch some good stuff. And stick around 5 minute block of ads. Active screens, especially ones always in the pocket or on the table, are way more addictive. It takes some... special mindset to be polite to not see it literally everywhere, the scale and intensity of it, the addiction of kids especially. They have no freakin' defenses and often didn't experience normal life, ever. Ask any child psychologist about their opinion of screens among kids before say 14, and even afterwards. It can be fought, we are quite successful so far with our kids and we have quite a few parents around us with same mindset, but we have to lead by example. Easiest is to unplug from active social cancers (fb, instagram, tiktok or whatever kids are addicted to these days). Ignore most of the news, read about topic from source far away from place/country affected. TV can serve some quality content but one has to do some effort, no ads. Computer games are a waste of time and life (I know, I've wasted half of my childhood with them, 100x that for any online gaming), if one is bored then get a sport, passion, read a book, force yourself into some social action, whatever is vastly better. Then comes along junk food, again parents lead by examples. Life is freakin' short, its pretty sad view to waste it on all above in more than a minimal fashion. Its sort of life success in 'look I am not a homeless person or heroine addict', but just a good fat notch above that. Literally anybody can do better.
- _vqpz 1y ago
  I'm curious how you reconcile reading and commenting on HN multiple times a day every day with the lifestyle you claim to live.
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    Not the OP, but it's because what's on HN is generally much more informative than the 10-sec TikTok meme videos and click-bait news headlines or FB feeds. I wouldn't be on HN otherwise. (I deleted my FB account 10 years ago, and my Twitter account 3 years ago.)
  - kakacik 1y ago
    I never claimed I live a perfect life, but I am trying my best and calling things proper names, even if they are ugly and harmful (in my opinion) yet feel good. Too much time spent in HN comments can be harmful too obviously, mind easily falls for addictive behavioral patterns. Although for me its probably best really good usable information from all aspects of life gained vs time spent ratio for all discussed. And spending 0-30 mins daily, usually during work, commute or similar empty time rather than reading some outrage-filled news is something I am fine with. Is what I describe so unreachable for you that you make your words make sound... unkind? I am also doing these passions while helping raising 2 small kids: hiking, sport climbing, via ferratas, skiing, ski touring, diving, and recently abandoned paragliding due to brushing death in pretty bad accident. Those take way more time and effort than coming here. I spend almost 0 time in front of TV, don't have consoles, play like 1 game per 2 years, offline and on desktop PC only (last one was Baldur's Gate 3).
majormajor 1y ago
We've had those complaints for a long time, and associated stereotypical problems with them - like daydrinking housewives. And now we have increased loneliness, mental health issues, etc. So maybe there's something to the complaints. Maybe sticking your face in media cloistered away at home 24/7 is worse for the mental health of most people than socializing, having to get out there and find ways to entertain yourself with others. If you never practice making and having friends, how are you ever going to have them?
- ashtakeaway 1y ago
  Where would those friends ever be in the first place? Everyone I know and see is on their phone doing the same exact thing. Nobody socializes except at work where they're forced to be.
- bobthepanda 1y ago
  at least from what i've seen, most Americans now live in communities where even if they wanted to there are an increasing lack of places to just hang out, particularly if you don't want booze involved. the real estate shortage is driving two effects; places not optimized for revenue are being priced out of existence, and workers need higher wages to pay housing costs which squeezes these places further and results in things like shorter operating hours even if full closure doesn't happen.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    Something like 75% of the residential land in the US is zoned exclusively for SFH. There's not even a third place to squeeze because it's just houses.
    - theoreticalmal 1y ago
      Not a super useful metric because third places probably wouldn’t be zoned residential. This is like saying 75% of fruits are apples, so there’s no room for asparagus
kjkjadksj 1y ago
You weren’t watching TV every free instant you had, like at a red light, on the escalator, while using the urinal, etc. I mean some of these people must not think at all. All free time they could have spent daydreaming or planning or whatever is just taken up by the dumb app in tiny dopamine driving chunks of time. This has to have some effect on brain wiring over time. Just giving yourself absolutely no time for your own thoughts.
- aeontech 1y ago
  guiltily looks up from HN while stopped at a red light
  - Freedom2 1y ago
    Insane to be using a phone in that manner while driving regardless.
    - kordlessagain 1y ago
      <Votes for Freedom exiting I35S>
    - aeontech 1y ago
      Yep. You'd be shocked (or maybe not) at how many people I looking at their phones on a freeway. I wonder if there's any statistics comparing deaths and injuries from drunk driving versus distracted driving over the past 20 years or so. Is it a comparable at all?
GeoAtreides 1y ago
We had opium dens in the past, why not fentanyl dens today? It's just something to do to fill the boredom. (That's to say: Just because something was mildly bad in the past doesn't mean that the current, somewhat similar, thing in the present isn't horrifically bad. The issues are orthogonal +- 5deg max)
- andy99 1y ago
  If we kept opium dens there probably wouldn’t be widespread fentanyl use, isn’t it a reaction to the challenges of getting less dangerous opiates, i.e. is more potent and easier to smuggle? Many places have “supervised consumption” sites or decriminalization now that has gone very poorly, I think in retrospect having opium dens for those who choose to live that way might have been a better alternative to the current state.
  - GeoAtreides 1y ago
    My comment wasn't really about drug consumption and policy, that was just a metaphor...
HPsquared 1y ago
People did watch too much TV, and it was bad.
- almosthere 1y ago
  They still do it's just replaced with YT or NF or TT or IG
bdangubic 1y ago
TV in the ‘70s cannot possibly be compared to what we are up against today…
w0de0 1y ago
Too true. Then we elected a reality TV star president. Just ‘cause humanity survived doesn’t mean it thrived.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
It was bad then. But it's much worse now because it's ubiquitous -- you're carrying it around in your pocket to fill every empty moment. Not to mention that back then, your "favorite shows" were on a couple of times a day if you were lucky. Now, it's 24/7. The quantity and availability of "visual entertainment" for me as a child of the 70s pales in comparison to what my young kids have available to them. As parents we're continuously fighting it, including shutting off the router at set times.

bogdanoff_2 1y ago

What exactly do you not agree with?

pasteldream 1y ago
Perhaps they disagree with the idea that it’s an addiction or that it’s a problem with screens in particular, rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  I can see that, but IMO the main difference is that this feels like it's intentionally trying to be an active detriment to your life. TV et. al are fairly neutral generally. Even with the ads. But with targeted advertisement, it feels a lot more like they're trying to get inside your mind to steal your money. And with content on social media, it feels specifically engineered to make your life as bad as possible. More fear, more anger, more racism, more sexism. Here's some big boobies, now look at this disgusting immigrant. Isnt Earth awful? Aren't these guys ruining everything?
  - financetechbro 1y ago
    This. Targeted adds + bespoke algorithms make our current tech incomparable to the previous boogeyman of TV et al. We have devices that are designed to keep and farm our attention at all costs
- 1718627440 1y ago
  > rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways. That's literally what an addiction is.
  - nitwit005 1y ago
    An addiction would be you struggle to stop doing it. That would suggest they have no issue stopping, given a more interesting option.
    - mwarkentin 1y ago
      “I can stop any time I want!”
      - nitwit005 1y ago
        You don't stop doing drugs because there's some movie you want to see. People do get off their phones for that.
        brnt 1y ago
        Have you seen how many people watch movies these days? Even in the cinema they are scrolling. Not touching alcohol for 12 hours a day does not mean you are not an alcoholic.
        nitwit005 1y ago
        If you stare at a wall all day because you have nothing to do, are you addicted to staring at the wall, or do you just have nothing to do? If someone stops drinking for a long enough period, with no urge to return to drinking, then yes, they aren't an alcoholic. You just made up a silly 12 hour window so you could beat a straw man to death.
        1718627440 1y ago

enraged_camel 1y ago

Nah, this misses the point entirely. The scale of the problem today is multiple orders of magnitude greater, for several reasons. First, TVs were stationary. Unlike smartphones, you couldn't take them wherever you went. If you were wealthier, you could somewhat compensate for this by having multiple TVs, for example in the bedroom in addition to the living room. But whenever you stepped outside your house the TV did not come with you. Places like doctors offices or hotel lobbies might have them in waiting rooms but that was really it in terms of the average person's exposure. Second, TV programming was not explicitly designed to be addictive. Sure, studios wanted people to watch their programs because that's how they got ad revenue, but they had neither sophisticated tools nor the methods to dial addictiveness to the max. They did not have algorithms, for example, to serve you personalized content based on your tastes and desires. You picked from a limited selection of what was available in that week's programming. Third, TVs did not have built-in mechanisms to demand re-engagement when you had them turned off. No such thing as notifications. At best you had blurbs about what is next on the program, but those were both channel-specific and also required your TV to be on. So people were not constantly bombarded with micro dopamine hits like they are today. I could go on, but yeah, your rebuttal does not stand up to critical scrutiny. What we have today is a global scale addiction. It is absolutely nothing like TVs or newspapers/books before them.

parineum 1y ago
You points about TV may stand but they don't apply to books, newspapers and magazines. All three of which I have seen people walking on the sidewalk while reading, btw.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  Scale not only matters, it's pretty much the only thing that matters. That's why me having a butter knife is of no concern, but they certainly won't give me the nuclear launch codes.
mindslight 1y ago
I think even highly-engaging well-written high-production-value TV doesn't satiate all of your brain's achievement circuits. Being an Internet native, I was binge watching shows well before the term was invented, and before shows were fluffed out to compensate for bulk half-engaged viewing. When an episode ends I don't want to leave the universe - it's so easy to up-arrow, backspace to the episode number, tab, enter. But I always found there was kind of a limit whereby eventually I would have "had enough" and move on to something different to feel like I was actually achieving something - getting back to work, social interaction, physical chores, etc. Whereas the plethora of web/apps can provide simulations for all those different circuits in your brain, as you move between them each satiating a different aspect of your personality. And then when you've got time to really "relax", you can still turn on TV in the background to be engaged in multiple low effort stimulations at once.

kakacik 1y ago

TV is still addictive, and it was. I felt it myself in 80s and 90s, good content was rare and I had to set an alarm in the middle of the night to watch some good stuff. And stick around 5 minute block of ads. Active screens, especially ones always in the pocket or on the table, are way more addictive. It takes some... special mindset to be polite to not see it literally everywhere, the scale and intensity of it, the addiction of kids especially. They have no freakin' defenses and often didn't experience normal life, ever. Ask any child psychologist about their opinion of screens among kids before say 14, and even afterwards. It can be fought, we are quite successful so far with our kids and we have quite a few parents around us with same mindset, but we have to lead by example. Easiest is to unplug from active social cancers (fb, instagram, tiktok or whatever kids are addicted to these days). Ignore most of the news, read about topic from source far away from place/country affected. TV can serve some quality content but one has to do some effort, no ads. Computer games are a waste of time and life (I know, I've wasted half of my childhood with them, 100x that for any online gaming), if one is bored then get a sport, passion, read a book, force yourself into some social action, whatever is vastly better. Then comes along junk food, again parents lead by examples. Life is freakin' short, its pretty sad view to waste it on all above in more than a minimal fashion. Its sort of life success in 'look I am not a homeless person or heroine addict', but just a good fat notch above that. Literally anybody can do better.

_vqpz 1y ago
I'm curious how you reconcile reading and commenting on HN multiple times a day every day with the lifestyle you claim to live.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  Not the OP, but it's because what's on HN is generally much more informative than the 10-sec TikTok meme videos and click-bait news headlines or FB feeds. I wouldn't be on HN otherwise. (I deleted my FB account 10 years ago, and my Twitter account 3 years ago.)
- kakacik 1y ago
  I never claimed I live a perfect life, but I am trying my best and calling things proper names, even if they are ugly and harmful (in my opinion) yet feel good. Too much time spent in HN comments can be harmful too obviously, mind easily falls for addictive behavioral patterns. Although for me its probably best really good usable information from all aspects of life gained vs time spent ratio for all discussed. And spending 0-30 mins daily, usually during work, commute or similar empty time rather than reading some outrage-filled news is something I am fine with. Is what I describe so unreachable for you that you make your words make sound... unkind? I am also doing these passions while helping raising 2 small kids: hiking, sport climbing, via ferratas, skiing, ski touring, diving, and recently abandoned paragliding due to brushing death in pretty bad accident. Those take way more time and effort than coming here. I spend almost 0 time in front of TV, don't have consoles, play like 1 game per 2 years, offline and on desktop PC only (last one was Baldur's Gate 3).

majormajor 1y ago

We've had those complaints for a long time, and associated stereotypical problems with them - like daydrinking housewives. And now we have increased loneliness, mental health issues, etc. So maybe there's something to the complaints. Maybe sticking your face in media cloistered away at home 24/7 is worse for the mental health of most people than socializing, having to get out there and find ways to entertain yourself with others. If you never practice making and having friends, how are you ever going to have them?

ashtakeaway 1y ago
Where would those friends ever be in the first place? Everyone I know and see is on their phone doing the same exact thing. Nobody socializes except at work where they're forced to be.
bobthepanda 1y ago
at least from what i've seen, most Americans now live in communities where even if they wanted to there are an increasing lack of places to just hang out, particularly if you don't want booze involved. the real estate shortage is driving two effects; places not optimized for revenue are being priced out of existence, and workers need higher wages to pay housing costs which squeezes these places further and results in things like shorter operating hours even if full closure doesn't happen.
- thfuran 1y ago
  Something like 75% of the residential land in the US is zoned exclusively for SFH. There's not even a third place to squeeze because it's just houses.
  - theoreticalmal 1y ago
    Not a super useful metric because third places probably wouldn’t be zoned residential. This is like saying 75% of fruits are apples, so there’s no room for asparagus

kjkjadksj 1y ago

You weren’t watching TV every free instant you had, like at a red light, on the escalator, while using the urinal, etc. I mean some of these people must not think at all. All free time they could have spent daydreaming or planning or whatever is just taken up by the dumb app in tiny dopamine driving chunks of time. This has to have some effect on brain wiring over time. Just giving yourself absolutely no time for your own thoughts.

aeontech 1y ago
guiltily looks up from HN while stopped at a red light
- Freedom2 1y ago
  Insane to be using a phone in that manner while driving regardless.
  - kordlessagain 1y ago
    <Votes for Freedom exiting I35S>
  - aeontech 1y ago
    Yep. You'd be shocked (or maybe not) at how many people I looking at their phones on a freeway. I wonder if there's any statistics comparing deaths and injuries from drunk driving versus distracted driving over the past 20 years or so. Is it a comparable at all?

GeoAtreides 1y ago

We had opium dens in the past, why not fentanyl dens today? It's just something to do to fill the boredom. (That's to say: Just because something was mildly bad in the past doesn't mean that the current, somewhat similar, thing in the present isn't horrifically bad. The issues are orthogonal +- 5deg max)

andy99 1y ago
If we kept opium dens there probably wouldn’t be widespread fentanyl use, isn’t it a reaction to the challenges of getting less dangerous opiates, i.e. is more potent and easier to smuggle? Many places have “supervised consumption” sites or decriminalization now that has gone very poorly, I think in retrospect having opium dens for those who choose to live that way might have been a better alternative to the current state.
- GeoAtreides 1y ago
  My comment wasn't really about drug consumption and policy, that was just a metaphor...

HPsquared 1y ago

People did watch too much TV, and it was bad.

almosthere 1y ago
They still do it's just replaced with YT or NF or TT or IG

bdangubic 1y ago

TV in the ‘70s cannot possibly be compared to what we are up against today…

w0de0 1y ago

Too true. Then we elected a reality TV star president. Just ‘cause humanity survived doesn’t mean it thrived.

insane_dreamer 1y ago

It was bad then. But it's much worse now because it's ubiquitous -- you're carrying it around in your pocket to fill every empty moment. Not to mention that back then, your "favorite shows" were on a couple of times a day if you were lucky. Now, it's 24/7. The quantity and availability of "visual entertainment" for me as a child of the 70s pales in comparison to what my young kids have available to them. As parents we're continuously fighting it, including shutting off the router at set times.