Hacker News Reader

Comment by pradex | Hacker News Reader

Personally I have been a victim of this, about 7-8 years ago I was so much able to sit at one place without a phone or internet and study for 14-16 Hours. And I loved how much I was able to do in a single day, but today I find reading a book or a long article so hard (Even while writing this comment I was distracted thrice by my phone beeping for attention), In last few days I have been trying hard to get back to how It all used to be but nothing has been working. We give more attention to unimportant things today than to ourself. These digital devices and options are biggest attention seeker today and once you give them the toe they will suck you up whole inside. Please help me with some methods if anyone has I would appreciate finding a way out of this digital/social mess.

View on HN

You gave the device access (to yourself), you must take it away...

From the other side, I have very little social interaction (no phone or Facebook) and I'm not so sure it's a better choice. Sure, I have free time, but I am also "out of the loop", which has it's own social stigma.

Can you clarify how it makes you feel? Is it that you feel you are missing out on social interaction that you desire?

It's like a drug addiction (Facebook, & to a lesser extent, cell phones). I enjoy it, but I do not accomplish anything I am proud of.

I tell myself that I am more useful when I focus on making meaningful contributions to something, rather than stroking my ego by seeking likes or upvotes. I probably just need to balance things better, but I cannot... just as an addict cannot do just a little of <drug>.

I read Nicole Taylor's "Schooled on Fat - What Teens Tell Us About Gender, Body-image and Obesity" recently and I think it has some themes related to this feeling of helplessness. Just as the teens surveyed knew junk food was bad but couldn't resist it, we know spending too much time on these distractions is bad but we end up doing it. Interestingly, peer influence and social acceptability seem to be involved in this too, as it was in her study. We have to get 'social' so we don't appear to be odd and 'not modern'. And the media has been a major actor in strengthening and spreading these beliefs.

I have some ways I battle this: I listen to one repetitive track without vocals on repeat, I use pomodoros (http://pomodorotechnique.com) to break my time up and battle exhaustion and sometimes I'll put my headphones on to make sure I don't get distracted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com