We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus

Great way to articulate this! This very experience is relatable although in my case with normal stocks, and something very interesting happened.

I sold some stocks for a modest profit, checked a few days later, and read that if I had just held a little longer then my profit would have been like double. It was very frustrating, and there was that negative emotional reaction. Then I realized I'd somehow misread the numbers, and in fact I would have had my initial investment cut in half. My frustration melted into relief and happiness. But more than that, it shocked me into realizing something very important: in the moment, my emotions seemed real, but were actually completely disconnected from reality. Further, the sense of "control" I thought I had was revealed to be a complete illusion.

After that, these "bets" (gambles) have completely stopped affecting me, and I haven't experienced FOMO since.

Hope more people have the same liberating realization!

Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not.

What I mean is that to exist and live in the modern world increasingly requires adept skills at managing bespoke technological platforms. To be a social being in the 21st century is largely about navigating these platforms and being 'plugged in'. Disconnect, and you'll miss out on the flow of humanity.

I mention I don't like this because frankly, I miss the idea of small towns with supportive communities that had inherent dependencies on each other. The baker, the butcher, the doctor, the pastor, etc, everyone had a feeling of purpose and a connectivity to their community. Of course this ideological view of society is long gone so there's just no sense trying to push back. Accept that today's child is a highly connected, distracted, techno-proficient being and let that be that.

I meditate every day and it's cost me nothing, uses nothing, does not require going anywhere, literally brushing my teeth is more of a commercial activity than meditation is.

Meditation is exactly what your students could use most effectively to learn to manage distracted minds, so given you are in a position of mentorship it's kind of sad you seem to think the basic act of sitting and doing exactly nothing but observing how it feels is some kind of corporate fad that should be avoided.

Stillness has become difficult and while the digital interactions haven been an imperfect substitute, they’re better than nothing and it’s even more challenging to engage in good digital habits when you’re leaning on these networks for such basic needs.

It’s been a challenge.

50 years ago this used to be normal. Now for some reason everybody expects perfection out of everybody at all times.

Insanity.

(Also, the ROI stuff is a rough guide, read/view/listen to whatever you'd like, I'm not your dad!)

I invest now but I have to be conscious of obsession mitigation techniques otherwise I will constantly be watching fluctuations and wondering if I need to sell, buy something else, etc. Instead I buy big boring companies that pay a dividend...and never sell. Just watch for whatever looks like the best deal at the time when I have new money to invest.

1) You can be right and still lose significant amounts of money. I've lost many thousands myself on something that I was eventually right about, timing is key - and it doesn't do to dwell on any decision - whether because you lost or could have made more. Sure, if I'd just invested my pocket money in bitcoin when I first mined it in 2012 I'd be retired already - but I didn't - shit happens.

2) If you are attaching emotion to your positions you're doing it wrong. This is a huge point, not one I've personally mastered - which is why I don't play with stocks anymore.

3) The whole cycle of emotions surrounding markets is explained brilliantly by George Soros in 'The Alchemy of Finance'. This is an excellent read. It's interesting and illuminating that Soros was a student of Philosophy and not strictly mathematics or business.

In my own experience there are two layers to markets - what actually is and what people think is or will be; usually the latter is much more powerful in terms of short term positions. One of Soros's points is that the two interact and influence the other eventually.

I was recently asked to attend a virtual mentoring session and I didn't due to scheduling conflicts but I had no idea what to say had I attended. I was going to kick it off if they had any questions about anything and then move into my career over the years. I didn't want to share too much because I feel it would be bragging.

I think most of them sincerely wouldn’t know what to do in those 4 hours. Working on their laptops? I guess I wonder: How can people “accomplish things” nowadays without being on a device?

For me I never want to unplug because it brings me all the stress from things I have going on (and not going on) in life. This continuous online state has allowed me to putoff major life decisions.

I'd say those students are learning a lot.

A few could make a profit or loss that is life-changing to them (this might also be a surprisingly small amount of money), and they are also presumably learning how to assess their risk profile in reality (as user warent describes in their comment) and be less likely to squander a much larger portfolio later.

This is the most interesting part to me, people managed to monetize these things. After vacations, entertainment, now they monetize idleness, I really don't know what to think of it. The funny thing is that they're really two sides of the same coin, they both compete for your time and money

It's really reflective of a (hopefully) near-endgame of marketing: turning over the last stones available. Well, I don't really believe that.

Again, a failure of economics. EVERYTHING shouldn't be monetized, that is truly a path to dystopia, where you pay for the air you breathe.

I just came back from a very free (for now) walk in the woods.

I never thought of it this way, very interesting. But it's not surprising. There's obviously a demand for these types of products.

In your profile you’ll find noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway, which you can use to limit your time on the site.

> But that 1% of the links is sweet

You can use RSS feeds to be notified of stories with over N points[1] (or another rule), lessening the desire to look at everything.

[1]: https://hnrss.github.io/#activity-parameters

Would this really help with HN addiction? I imagine it might exacerbate it since everything you see is so much more engaging (by definition), and probably count(posts that interest you) >>> count(posts that you've read).

Did the actual number increase? Did the definition broaden? Why does it seem like a plague now?

We like to think of focus and attention span as innate abilities encoded by our genes, but the truth is that genetics are only a part of the story. Focus and attention are learned skills that can be trained and developed over time.

Likewise, focus and attention can be diminished over time through constant cycles of rewarding ones' self with quick distractions. If instead of studying on a difficult topic, a person scrolls Twitter for an endless stream of quick context shifts and semi-rewarding posts, they're training their brain to associate Twitter with reward and studying with pain. It takes conscious effort to suppress the desire for short-term reward and focus on long-term reward that comes at a cost of additional up front work.

The rise in ADHD diagnoses is partially due to ever-expanding criteria for ADHD. Decades ago, ADHD diagnoses were mostly limited to severe cases that were refractory to therapy interventions. These days, drug companies push ADHD quizzes on the internet that make common everyday struggles feel like ADHD. Take a look at Takeda Pharmaceutical's Adult ADHD site: https://www.adhdadulthood.com/adhd-test With testimonials such as "I had to write everything down to maintain organization and memory" you'd think that non-ADHD people never had to write anything down to stay organized.

> I don't know, but "hyperfocus" on a hobby you love sounds exactly like what most people need nowadays to get off their phone and stop wasting their life staring on ads and ad-financed content.

The idea of "hyperfocus" is that the person loses focus on the wrong things. For example, if someone "hyperfocuses" on video games instead of doing their homework. It's a failure of time management and prioritization rather than a special ability to accomplish things.

The idea of hyperfocus as a symptom of ADHD is a new phenomenon, and it's more prominent in pop culture than actual ADHD research. Just look at the only 6 hits for hyperfocus AND adhd in pubmed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22hyperfocus%22+AND+%... 5 of the 6 papers are from the last 4 years and most aren't from top quality journals. Before that, hyperfocus was only listed as an adverse effect of taking too high of a dose of an ADHD medication.

> So a difficulty to concentrate on school stuff may actually be better than doing the homework.

It's a mistake to think that children's schoolwork is only about learning how to do fractions or write cursive or just the core material. The kids are learning how to learn, learning how to focus, learning how to manage their time, learning how to follow through on tasks, and many other very valuable learned skills in the process.

On HN we like to talk about the hypothetical genius child who would be studying engineering in their spare time if they didn't have to do a couple hours of homework at night, but in reality the vast majority of children are not worse off by doing schoolwork. It's training and learning how to function in the world. It's not perfect, but kids definitely do learn life skills from it.

> In short, ignoring what society considers normal and instead being super focused on your own things ... sounds more healthy to me than the average "normal" person.

The reality is that most people aren't forced to choose between being "normal" and being successful in their area of expertise. It has never been easier for someone to access information about their chosen topic online, but you only need to look at the traffic stats of major social media sites to see what people are actually choosing to do with their free time. It's also important to accept that good ideas don't always stand out on their own. Knowing how the world works and how to be "normal" is a critically important skill for working with others, getting your ideas out there, communicating, and so on.

Obviously I'd never discourage anyone from pursuing study in their chosen field, but in my experience the people who didn't grow up in environments with strong structure, frameworks, and feedback loops from their educators and parents is often ill-equipped to follow their academic desires when they arrive at college or the business world.

There are always exceptions, of course. However it's more common to hear kids complain that their early academic years were "not challenging enough" rather than too difficult, leaving them ill-prepared for reality when they finally encounter something challenging enough that they can't coast through it.

There's also one killer app I don't want to stop using: maps (Google, Apple, Open Street Map, doesn't matter which).

However, I have switched to NextDNS and locked out a large chunk of the internet on the phone. That helps.

The problem is that, one week or another, it eventually liberates itself and somehow makes its way back into my day-to-day.

One day, I hope to solve this.

Thanks to COVID, you may have to own an Apple or Android smartphone to do certain things. Several countries have announced that their vaccination certificate will exist mainly in digital form, with one official app that generates limited-time QR codes. For instance, I can’t find any information on what Israelis without a smartphone are supposed to do at restaurants etc., since the news is reporting that the QR code will be mandatory to enter such places.

Nearly all people entering Poland must now quarantine, and after you hand over your details at the border, the police send you an SMS saying “Installing our quarantine app from the Google Play store or Apple’s store is legally required”.

Then you already had the problem of some banks no longer offering code cards or SMS verification, and requiring you to use their app for 2FA for online banking.

I notice the same phenomena- I haven't restricted any behavior on my computer, but notice I am spending a lot less time on it

And just like you said, although creating and publishing takes a decent amount of courage, it is very rewarding, especially when the main purpose to do it comes for the sake of your own observation, learning and joy.