from Hacker News

Era of Distraction

by zkanda on 6/29/15, 2:33 PM with 50 comments

• by Animats on 6/29/15, 6:43 PM

  That reads like a rant from the 1950s. People have been complaining about that since the introduction of television. Before television, entertainment was a scarce resource. After television, anyone with a receiver could obtain more entertainment than they could consume.

  About a dozen years ago, ABC, the TV network, had a promotion to the industry with banners around the Hollywood area. One on Wilshire near Beverly Hills said "All we ask is five hours a day". That refers to the average TV viewing time of Americans. That number has dropped since, much to the annoyance of the TV networks.

  We may have passed peak cell phone overuse. I see fewer people walking around while looking at their little screen. It's been several years now since someone walked into me while looking at a screen; in the early days of smartphones, that happened often in stores. I'm no longer seeing people on the California Coastal Trail watching little screens. Society seems to be dealing with this.

• by thegainz on 6/29/15, 5:02 PM

  I've recently given up a big temptation/distractor in my life. I packed up my gaming desktop and gave it away, and now I just use my laptop which I long ago set aside as school-only. This thing couldn't even play games if I wanted to, but it CAN ssh and compile code.

  I mean, after 9.5 years of playing DotA, what's the point? My grades have improved and I'm overall happier as I invest more time learning skills that I truly want to gain, all while traveling lighter.

  I think I hit a breaking point when I was living in my last apartment. I had too much junk around that I didn't want, need, or use. And because there was enough of it, I didn't have a real place for anything and didn't feel like cleaning it. My apartment wasn't dirty, but it was perennially untidy. I did not like that at all.

• by dopeboy on 6/29/15, 5:09 PM

  I don't think the author should be using the "we" pronoun. He's welcome to talk about himself but it's a step too far in generalizing that everyone has those behaviors and tendencies.

  Second, he needs to take a deep breath and relax. There is a balance that can be achieved through focus and discipline. How about changing the discussion to educating parents on these distractions and nipping the false sense of anxiety at the bud? How about having a psychology class in high school that confronts these desires and shows how artificial they really are?

• by Htsthbjig on 6/29/15, 6:14 PM

  I think the author uses the term "we" when he should talk about himself.

  He presents distraction as an insurmountable problem, and it is not. Society develops antibodies for everything, including novelties in the later century like propaganda and media mass control, advertisement and even TV.

  As tools things like cinema, TV or Internet, or cell phones give us much more options that what is taken from us.

  For example, going to the cinema for two hours made people understand places and people living far away much better than any book theater or picture could.

  Now if you want to solve distraction finding people that have solved it and developed effective techniques is only a touch away, if you really want to solve it instead of ranting about "we sinners" on Internet.

  Having said that "Man shall not live on bread alone". Some distraction in your life is necessary. People are not productivity machines. Curiosity is Ok. I "lost" time on HN, but I always "gain" from things I learn on it. I have cashed lots of money from this knowledge but hadn't I, I will continue reading it.

  Using twitter or facebook for getting in touch with the people you love does not need to take so much time and could be very useful.

• by habitue on 6/29/15, 3:08 PM

  I would say the author's point about buying things and distraction from being connected is pretty weak. There's actually a tension there: why buy other stuff when you only ever interact with your phone?

  You can be a complete minimalist, live in a house with nothing in it, and just lay on the floor in the dark surfing the internet on your phone, chatting with friends on facebook etc, and all of the problems the author complains about will still exist.

• by LiweiZ on 6/29/15, 4:30 PM

  Focus is a more valuable trait in this era. We spoil our mouth and stomach first. And it's mind's turn. Information diet might be a solution for most information consumers.

• by JadeNB on 6/29/15, 5:19 PM

  > I don’t want to offend anyone, and I’m saying this with absolute care and humility… but if only they hadn’t had that much stuff then they would have had an easier time evacuating their homes and focusing on making sure their families are safe.

  I've never understood these "I'm not a racist, but"-type comments. This is offensive, and does not demonstrate care and humility. Someone who learns from such a tragedy principally that others shouldn't have so much stuff is, I think, learning the wrong lesson.

  EDIT: To be clear, I don't mean that I don't understand the purpose of the disclaimer, but rather that, if not always then at least in a modern rhetorical environment, it seems like a poor way of achieving its goal. For example, if the author correctly recognises that his statement sounds offensive, and absent care and humility, why not explain why he thinks that perception is incorrect, rather than trying simply to deny it by fiat?

• by arh68 on 6/29/15, 6:11 PM

  Have any of you seen this television ad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4GjGhAhCn8

  Cox is the official sponsor of binge-watching.

  Addiction sells (see Phillip Morris). The wonderful thing about selling Internet is that you don't create the content, you just provide access to it. As content gets larger and larger (320x240 -> 4K streams..) so do profits. It's bizarre to me how blatantly they want their users to be helplessly addicted.

  I think the author is right about tangible things ("stuff") but could spend more time pointing out the intangible addictions: 1000+ RSS feed items to read, 100+ TV episodes to catch up on, 10+ news aggregators to check, 100+ new PNGs to arrow through, etc. These things don't pile up quite so visibly.

• by chipsy on 6/29/15, 6:13 PM

  I think I'll take his advice and not buy the book, cause I don't need more stuff(even digital stuff).

• by zkanda on 6/29/15, 4:12 PM

  The first half of the article is a genuine problem. There's just so much distraction going on right now, I wonder how people are being productive.

• by l33tbro on 6/29/15, 7:24 PM

  My favorite part of being a human is that I get to decide what stresses me, what makes me anxious, etc. So I make interacting with technology about me deciding how much I want to engage. Phones have silent. You can turn off email notifications pretty easy. You can turn it off on nights and weekends (I can't recommend this highly enough if you are in a position to do so).

  Sure, I get peeved with folk obsessing over their phone's Instagrat feed. But then I remember that it's their life, their choice, and who am I to think it's inherently wrong?

  I also couldn't help but think of this Louis CK bit the whole time reading this: https://vimeo.com/69662330

• by thanatropism on 6/29/15, 7:00 PM

  The ideas in this article:

  1. Contain a grain of truth 2. Might be better understood by reading Csikszentmihalyi (or Heidegger, for that matter) 3. Come in sets of three

• by colund on 6/29/15, 7:31 PM

  People should be masters over the technology, not the other way around. It's important to feel in charge and to retain the right to freedom of choice. Too many people are too worried not to keep up with everything new and shiny. But many people don't care and go their own way...

• by johnchristopher on 6/29/15, 8:33 PM

  > In fact, it leads to deeper debt and needing bigger houses to contain all this meaningless stuff.

  > It also becomes a cause of unnecessary stress, as it will take your precious money, time, emotion, attention, and effort to take care all of this stuff.

  > The recent massive flooding here in Olongapo City is a testament to that. Visiting houses of families ravaged by the flood, I was reminded by how too much stuff is not a luxury – it’s actually a burden, a liability.

  I am not rich. I am poor. The few possessions I have, that you might think are cluttering my rented apartment, I hold to them because I can't afford to replace them. Too many chairs in my living room, too many different knives in the kitchen drawer. I don't have a TV though. But I won't ditch my mp3 collection burned on CDs because I can't afford to listen to it on Deezer. I wish I could go on holidays with only my iPhone and my sennheiser headphone and just buy what I need on the spot. I'll drop some karma points to say this: "Fuck you".

• by lurkinggrue on 6/29/15, 9:54 PM

  TL;DR