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Comment by bcook | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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