Hacker News Reader

With all due respect, this is nonsense written by someone who doesn't deal with this problem.

This argument comes from people seeing movement from A to B, and assuming all movement from A to B is identical. This particular pattern is that they're motivated to move toward B (and the fact they started at A is incidental), and can't understand that other people can move from A to B because they're motivated to move away from A (and ending up at B is irrelevant). For an extreme example: A Saudi man and a Saudi woman both moving to Norway. The man might be motivated to move towards a country with snow where he can ski, while the woman is motivated to move away from somewhere where she has limited rights.

I understand (and sometimes fall prey to) the stereotypical Civilization "one more turn" phenomenon, and have e.g. booked holidays and pulled an all-nighter to power through a new Warcraft expansion or some such nonsense — a clear case of "movement toward". But I also have anxiety issues, and this sort of "movement away from" procrastination is very much part of how it manifests itself. The two are distinct things that feel very, very different internally.

Ultimately, I don't actually care what it is that I'm doing, scrolling through reddit or playing a game, or even tidying up the house. I might even be exhausted and struggling to stay awake — the point is I don't want to go to bed, because high anxiety usually triggers my brain going into uncomfortable thoughts when I go to bed, and because going to bed puts me that much closer to the next day's anxieties and stresses.

A different (and ultimately unhealthy) sort of "movement toward" is the choice to not go to bed as an act of self determination by way of rebellion. Sort of "I don't feel in control so I exercise control on the one thing I feel I can, consequences be damned". The important part isn't the thing you're doing, it's that you're choosing to do it. AIUI, self-harm works along these same lines.

In short: please don't patronise people struggling with real problems by telling them they're just over-intellectualising things.

>going to bed puts me that much closer to the next day's anxieties and stresses

Rarely is this cycle of self-harm behavior expressed so plainly. Sorry you are dealing with this.

Regardless of the people struggling with actual problems, most people are probably doing exactly what the original author says.

At least, I do both.

I can on one hand try to stay awake because I’m absolutely convinced I’ll die in my sleep. Or on the other hand (most days when my anxiety has not flared to ridiculous levels) it’s just the first time during the day that I have some time that is truly to myself, so I can read and comment without interruption.

> A different (and ultimately unhealthy) sort of "movement toward" is the choice to not go to bed as an act of self determination by way of rebellion.

This is actually what I've been doing pretty much my whole adult life. Revenge Bedtime Procrastination gives it a name and a framework to express the problem and (maybe) face it - which is something I found really exciting in the linked article (before the political angle was shoehorned in).

This is really well stated and resonates with me deeply.

The “doing things I don’t even want to do” aspect of this is what also separates this from “just staying up late”.

For me, I’ve had some vague notion of trying to build a time buffer between today and tomorrow. Something to separate today’s stress from tomorrow’s stress.

With no due respect, Ed Zitron nailed this. Only a generation as devoid of meaning in their life as our current one could turn watching Netflix before bed into some idea that they're part of the cultural zeitgiest reaching out for collective labor action.

Bingo. Life devoid of meaning because we spend most of it working, and the work doesn't have much meaning or do much for many people other than allow them to survive... to work another day. Sure, we could pretend that the people who don't find meaningful work are just not as good as those that are able to find meaningful work. Or we could decide that life isn't about work. Which does indeed begin to look like collective action is called for.

If you need collective action to find meaning in life you're already screwed.

Collective action has been employed to fulfill every other step of Maslow’s hierarchy, why not the capstone?

Where does meaning in life come from?

You haven't addressed a single thing in the comment you are replying to.

This entire comment reads worse than if he were actually patronising someone.

You are reverse-patronising someone for supposedly patronising you. Ironic.

Both comments have merit and are both problems that exist based off the original problem of not wanting to finish the day/fun thing/event that is better than the next.

You need to grow up and stop playing a victim. People are allowed to realise what something is, even if it isn't the same realisation you came up with.... and yes. "I have this problem" and I know this problem very well, in case you want to cry out that I do not.

> it is the idea that we are staying up late doing things we want to do instead of going to bed, which is otherwise known as “being a person.”

When you are hungry, you get angry more easily. This is also known as "being a person". But knowing this fact helps you realize when you are only angry because you're hungry, which can help you avoid conflicts with friends/family.

Understanding the science behind "being a person" is valuable in improving your daily life. Understanding why people revenge bedtime procrastinate can help people avoid doing so.

> The answer is probably that they’re intellectually stimulated by the thing they’re doing and like doing it and are more interested in the thing than going to sleep.

This isn't the answer. There's a strong correlation between hours worked / stress level and likelihood of staying up too late. This is why "revenge" bedtime procrastinate is such a fantastic description. You're getting revenge on your workaholic attitude. You spent too much time doing things you didn't want to do, so you're protesting by staying up late doing things you do want to do.

> And now people have a new term for something that didn’t need a term, and can bring intellectualism to “I stayed up until 1am playing Slay The Spire.”

Just because you don't experience something yourself and you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Interesting. Someone should start a scientific inquiry into human mental state and behavior. HN engineer types would love it. We could call it "brainology".

More seriously:

> staying up late doing things you do want to do.

That's not revenge procrastination.

Revenge procrastination, and why it's bad, is "staying up late doing things you know isn't good for you, out of spite and a desperate need for a sense that you are in control of your time"

What you want to do and what you know isn't good for you can be the same thing. Consider cigarettes or alcohol as obvious examples.

The problem here is what "want" means. When we want an heroin dose because we are craving it, but we also want to stop because it's fucking with us, what do you want?

Is "want" related to your long term goals, or short term desires?

>Revenge procrastination, and why it's bad, is "staying up late doing things you know isn't good for you, out of spite and a desperate need for a sense that you are in control of your time"

OK, I just wanted to quote this so that people would read it again, because this is what they need to understand about revenge bedtime procrastination.

* "I am finally home from work, I'll play Civ for 3 hours till 3AM because I can finally do it" -- NOT it

* "I am finally home from work, I'll stay on HN and tire myself out arguing with people, not enjoying it a single bit, while being aware of the harm I am doing to myself and not enjoying it a single bit, just so that I have a feeling that this time is mine" -- yup.

To paraphrase: you only know something when you can freely destroy it. You can take a sledgehammer to your car if you paid it off. You can smash your phone.

You wouldn't do this normally, because you know which things are yours.

But things get interesting when it comes to yourself.

When it starts feeling like you don't have any time for yourself, people start killing time just to feel that it's theirs.

If it gets too bad, we'll get into active self-harm territory. In a way, that, too, is making sure you're in control of at least your body.

>bring intellectualism to “I stayed up until 1am playing Slay The Spire.”

The point is that it isn't doing something fun like playing a game you enjoy, which we can all understand as being a sort of trade off, its where instead of going to bed you do sort of.. mindless, pointless, unpleasant things like refresh the same feed(reddit, HN, what have you) or browse mindlessly and for much longer than anticipated.

Maybe you just haven't experienced it? I have. It is very different from times where I make decisions that leave me worse off in the future.. when I ask myself "why did I do that?" for drinking or staying out late I usually have an answer. For another set of behaviors, where the term 'revenge bedtime procrastination' feels like a shockingly apt description, I have no answer.

Maybe you can better understand this as people finding words for their feelings.

>intellectually stimulated by the thing they’re doing and like doing it

This is the flaw in Ed's argument imo. Addictions don't need to be intellectually stimulating or enjoyable.

I agree. It's stimulation, but what the article talks about is relentless scrolling rather than anything intellectual. When I'm intellectually stimulated by something I feel great afterwards, and even if I'm tired the next morning I feel like it was worth it. When I find myself having gone into a scrolling trance for 45 minutes when it feels like 15 should have passed, I feel rubbish.

And intellectual stimulation works much better if you do it during your waking hours, not when you are a sleep-deprived zombie.

maybe "intellectually stimulated" is poor phrasing.

But I think if you were to poll somebody staying up past their bedtime, they would say that they prefer their current activity to sleep in the moment. I.e. that they like doing it. Not to get too far afield, but how much evidence is there that gaming or reading or scrolling social media or whatever activities supposedly constitute "revenge bedtime procrastination" actually meet some criteria of addiction?

No, most times that's not true for me. I often even consciously think "ugh, I'm exhausted, why aren't I asleep right now" and yet still feel "stuck"—sometimes for hours more! I'll even finish what I was doing—scrolling HN, for example—and then cast about desperately for some new distraction, even though I know that what I want to do most, & will feel best, is going to sleep.

You clearly don't experience this phenomenon. I'm jealous! But no, the whole problem is that I'm staying up late scrolling my phone even though sleep would be much more satisfying. And I can tell you that, in the moment! It's just hard to actually put my phone down and go to sleep.

I experience this phenomenon. I have made poor sleep hygiene decisions often in my life. What I'd dispute is that I actually prefer sleep in that moment. Maybe I'd prefer to be asleep. But when I'm on Twitter past midnight, generally I am conscious of the fact that I'm choosing to be reckless and have some fun instead of trying to fall asleep.

Revenge bedtime procrastinators are aware of that too. But in that moment, the recklessness overrides your better judgment. So how can you say when you "choose" to be reckless, you are not indulging in the same akrasia that addicts do?

I think you overestimate people's ability to make a decision that they themselves would consider preferable. If you ask someone engaged in destructive behavior whether they would prefer to continue, I think most would say no.

If you ask someone high on meth why they are doing it, they will say it's because it feels great.

Often, revenge bedtime procrastination is doing things we don't want to do instead of going to bed.

Maybe more people are staying up past what is healthy as part of the greater breakdown in work-life balance as part of the pandemic. Also see the flood of articles about burnout. The pandemic is a very real material change, with very real material effects on labor, see the great resignation. So revenge bedtime procrastination is not just a media-invented bugbear, but quite possibly part of a very real change that has occurred over the past two years.