Choose Your Addiction | Hacker News Reader

Choose Your Addiction

deprocrastination.co

61 pointsvitabenes24 comments

Getting sucked into stupid thing X is often a sign of running away from important thing Y, where identifying Y can be subtle and difficult. Y is usually not the immediate thing you're procrastinating, but something lurking further in the background. Y can also turn out to be stupid when you finally manage to look at it up close.

Lot of wisdom here. I never thought I was anxious, turned out was just really good at self-medicating with avoidance and procrastination. Wish I had figured it out sooner.

>If you keep playing video games or surfing the Internet for 8 hours a day, it’s almost impossible to develop a passion (or addiction) for anything else.

Stopped reading after this. I became a programmer because after playing video games for 8 hours a day, I wanted to make my own.

And it's led to an amazing career, as long as your hobbies aren't hurting anybody else, feel free to dive into them.

Way too much time is given to judging the personal habits of others, I literally couldn't bother to finish the article after reading that.

At some point I figured out that solving technical problems is very much like a game. It’s more rewarding because you’re actually accomplishing something (more or less), as opposed to playing a game where it’s just other people making pointless challenges for you to overcome.

That’s a very different thing than people who play games for avoidance reasons. It’s well established that most things are “addictive” when doing that activity so often impacts one’s ability to function in other parts of life, like maintaining a job, relationship, etc.

I don't know, this resonated deeply with me. I had a crippling game addiction that got turned into a very productive programming career, and giving up that dopamine hit was critical in making the change.

I've had this discussion with a few people: and afaict for some folks it's not actually an addiction, but a passion. I think the difference lies in whether you ever have the thought: "I wish I was doing something else right now", and then continued doing what you were doing. It comes down to whether you're in control of your own motivation and time.

Hobbies are great, and video games are a perfectly legitimate hobby, for some. Just like some people can casually do cocaine and not think about it the next day. For others, it's a different story.

> I think the difference lies in whether you ever have the thought: "I wish I was doing something else right now", and then continued doing what you were doing. It comes down to whether you're in control of your own motivation and time

This is a huge problem for people with ADHD. Executive dysfunction makes it incredibly hard to pull away from things you enjoy.

Is this satire?

What makes you think it's satire?

This worked for me, but the necessary step was understanding why I'm doing the things I'm doing. Long term habits are serving some need, changing them overnight to habits that are better for you but don't serve that need - isn't very likely to work.

For example I had problems with playing video games, and quitting single-player games was easy once I started walking/biking listening to audiobooks or podcasts. It's similarly relaxing. There's even CRPG-like progression angle - I measure how much I did through the year and see my average speed go up.

But I still craved multiplayer games, because they serve a different need. You don't play dota to relax, quite the opposite :) In this case a 3min chess game now and then and playing D&D once a week scratches that itch and is much harder to abuse.

Yeah, understanding why you do what you do is always a key step. In your example the walking/biking part can become a game of sorts, especially when you combine it with stats on Strava and involve some friends. It also crowds out potentially mindless screen time, which is good.

Hmm, the relaxation vs stimulation games angle is interesting.

I know (or, my sense is that) the whole dopamine detox thing causes a lot of folks to raise eyebrows, myself included for the most part. But, I’ve done multiple meditation retreats, which are a kind of extreme case of dopamine detoxing in practice (although most folks frame their reasons for meditating very differently than that).

I have to say, the quality of my first person experience is massively changed during these retreats, and you usually return to “normal life” with quite a different perspective on it. It just _feels_ different, and I realize I don’t have to be so caught up in all of it. Although if I don’t keep up the practice, that quality of experience and perspective fades very quickly, and I find myself back to being battered around by various interests, desires, impulses.

It’s kind of like crash dieting. Unless you can incorporate these changes (ie, a better digital diet) into your life sustainably, you won’t reap any real long- or maybe even medium-term benefit. Although, the upside of meditation retreats (or maybe dopamine detoxing?) is that you do at least learn that there is a “there” there.

Nice website and idea. Lose the pop up. Stop perpetuating this dark pattern and let people focus on your content.

Really interesting podcast with Dr. Lembke that goes into much more detail about exactly this kind of thing. https://hubermanlab.com/dr-anna-lembke-understanding-and-tre...

Yes, her work is quite interesting and that podcast is awesome.

This article promotes the idea of a "dopamine detox" as a way of making boring tasks more interesting and easier to focus on. As far as I know, there's no evidence that this actually works. Does anyone know if this topic is being researched?

The topic is not that well researched at the moment. Here's the most relevant study available: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/lim2.54

"Dopamine detox" in itself is a catchphrase. While it's uncertain how exactly it transforms the brain and what the specifics of a scientifically "correct" dopamine detox would be, I can tell you from experience running the Dopamine Detox Challenge (https://www.deprocrastination.co/dopamine-detox-challenge) that making changes to one's environment and reducing distractions does help people be more engaged in life and focus better.

In other words, "dopamine detox" serves as an excuse to make positive changes. Of course, Mat (who wrote the posted article) and I keep monitoring this research to see if we need to make changes to any of our materials. Hope that answers your question.

Yep. First and continuing addiction is hacking/programming/engineering.

Others are Go (board game), video games, a range of mild-to-extreme sports (cycling, hiking, skiing/windsurfing, skydiving, rock climbing).

I don't think people get addicted because they don't have enough challenge in life.

Well, people generally get addicted for 2 main reasons: life sucks and a substance/behavior provides a great escape, or life is boring and a substance/behavior gives you a high that beats anything else. Games fall more into the 2nd category. The challenge part is more related to getting into a flow state.

Substances are also an escape, you just don’t want to feel (or escape) whatever the negative feeling is (guilt, anger, depression, stress, hopelessness, so on).

Well, yes, that's what I meant by "life sucks and a substance/behavior provides a great escape" in the previous comment.

Sure, no I get it. I suppose it’s worth clarifying that the biological addiction to the substance is actually a side effect of the original issue (you’re running from discomfort).

Which goes back to the original post, in that, you really can’t choose your addictions, only your circumstances (will smith might be a great example, don’t be in a public open marriage, you’re fixing to start picking up addictions that you’ll have no autonomy over).

Yes, there's a whole series on addiction on the site that goes into the nuances of it: https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/what-is-addiction

I have to disagree with you.

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