Hacker News Reader

Comment by traceroute66 | Hacker News Reader

> Do you feel compelled to go to the library

As someone who is not Gen-Z and remembers what life was before the internet, I can sure say that the internet beats any library I've ever spent time in.

The volume, diversity and ease of research ... all at your fingertips.

Why would anyone want to spend time trawling obscure library database systems only to find the library doesn't stock the right books or that someone has taken it on loan for an unknown period of time ?

Or worse .... microfiche. My god how that's a hellish storage medium I will not miss !

View on HN

> Why would anyone want to spend time trawling obscure library database systems only to find the library doesn't stock the right books or that someone has taken it on loan for an unknown period of time ?

You're setting up a bit of strawman, I don't see anyone arguing the internet is inferior to the library, but that library usage (for example) doesn't trigger the dopamine release cycle in the way refreshing a frequently changing webpage does.

> You're setting up a bit of strawman, I don't see anyone arguing the internet is inferior to the library

I think you're missing the point a little.

Back in the day, nobody who spent 8 hours a day 5 days a week in the library would be accused of "library addiction".

But suddenly, anyone who spends a long time on the internet just gets tarnished with a brush that says "internet addict" irrespective of what they do on the internet.

I suspect that the majority of people don't spend their time posting conspiracy theories on Twitter. Which is just why lumping everybody into one "the internet" category is more damaging than it is useful.

(Before anyone takes it too seriously, the references to long hours above were purely examples and not meant to be judged or interpreted !)

I think you're the one missing the point. If someone is spending all their time online reading scholarly articles or learning skills nobody is going to accuse them of internet addiction. That does not mean internet addiction is not real.

To make an analogy, lots of people are able to enjoy drinking alcohol without issue, but that doesn't disprove the existence of alcoholism.

I believe that there are many in between the two extremes you mention for whom the draw of connection is far from benign, which is why I would not be so dismissive of addiction concerns.

Indeed. I was kinda ”library addicted” when I was young. But one had to work much harder back then to find the really good and interesting stuff. Scanning through shelf after shelf. Finding a librarian to aid me if I wanted to look at a title in the closed archive in the basement. And I couldn’t stay in the library till 11 pm since it would close at 7pm or so. When I was about to head home I couldn’t carry 60 books in my backpack. So it was much less accessible than what the Internet is. The library was good! But it was different both in quality and quantity compared to the Internet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com