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I've noticed a different bad thing that happens to me when I am active on HN. I become very argumentative IRL. On HN it's fun to engage other people, debating,

I've noticed a different bad thing that happens to me when I am active on HN. I become very argumentative IRL. On HN it's fun to engage other people, debating, disagreeing and arguing your point. It's constructive and usually we all get something from it. I noticed that the more time I spend active on HN (in comments) the more I tend to correct friends when they make a mistake or vigorously argue a point of view on something not that important (these aren't bad things the but the frequency with which I was doing them annoyed me and my friends and it wasn't just the important stuff I was arguing, it was stupid things). When I logged out of HN for a while this behaviour slowly started to improve. I couldn't stay away for ever though but I am much more aware of the effect and try to stop myself before I get too deep into a stupid debate/argument both on HN and IRL.

nisa 13y ago
Yes! This and the need to explain things always in an exact and neutral way without actually knowing all to much about the issue at hand and thereby blatantly ignoring the reality and the knowledge and interest of the persons around you. I don't blame HN. I've learned and still learn a lot of cool stuff here. It's the best source to stay up to date on internet drama and timely background information for security and hacking related incidents. Also a lot of programming and Unix related ideas I would hardly find anywhere else. But it's of little use to me. I'm not the security engineer of a start up. I'm not even really coding at the moment. My reality is different. I should leave my room, work on my bicycle, solve the real and urgent issues around my life and sit in the library or hanging around with friends doing real stuff. Connecting with real people and learning something about other aspects of life. This may be different for others here. Instead I'm here trapped in a strange click loop. I would do probably something similar without HN or even without internet. It's sad but the OPs post about is a good reminder to cut it down... it's irrational for me and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

nisa 13y ago

Yes! This and the need to explain things always in an exact and neutral way without actually knowing all to much about the issue at hand and thereby blatantly ignoring the reality and the knowledge and interest of the persons around you. I don't blame HN. I've learned and still learn a lot of cool stuff here. It's the best source to stay up to date on internet drama and timely background information for security and hacking related incidents. Also a lot of programming and Unix related ideas I would hardly find anywhere else. But it's of little use to me. I'm not the security engineer of a start up. I'm not even really coding at the moment. My reality is different. I should leave my room, work on my bicycle, solve the real and urgent issues around my life and sit in the library or hanging around with friends doing real stuff. Connecting with real people and learning something about other aspects of life. This may be different for others here. Instead I'm here trapped in a strange click loop. I would do probably something similar without HN or even without internet. It's sad but the OPs post about is a good reminder to cut it down... it's irrational for me and I'm sure I'm not the only one.