Put down devices, let your mind wander, study suggests | Hacker News Reader

Put down devices, let your mind wander, study suggests

apa.org

327 pointschazeon183 comments

There is some interesting discussion in the analysis portion of the paper that resonated deeply with me.

>However, the fact that participants underestimated the potential task motivation during the thinking period may indicate that people avoid thinking not because it is aversive but because it is expected to be aversive.

>Such an inaccurate expectation may lead people to unnecessarily avoid spending time thinking in their daily life.

>For example, the current widespread availability of the Internet and mobile phones makes it extremely easy for people to kill time when they have nothing to do, and our results suggest that people’s continual engagement in electronic devices may in part reflect inaccurate metacognitive beliefs about the value of not doing anything

I found that hiking helps me break the addiction (or dopamine hits or whatever you prefer to call it) to the internet. I observe a similar effect to that described in the paper (not because it is aversive but because it is expected to be aversive) -- the act of filling my water bottle an getting in the car sometimes takes every ounce of my will, but after I am over that I absolutely enjoy the exercise and sense of clarity it brings to let my mind wonder for a few hours.

As an experiment I just changed my HN bookmark to point to this story, to remind me that I shouldn't be refreshing HN for the 12th time today, and then add one more click to get to the homepage.

Just did the same to my bookmark. In Smart Note Taking, the idea of focusing on what you are consuming for the purpose of learning and writing is constantly stressed. Namely, in reading something, how does this further my learning and/or writing? If it does, record a brief note of it. If it does not, consider, well, putting that away and moving back to something else.

What are other good mobile strategies?

I need my phone to keep an eye on some work stuff + elderly parents on WhatsApp, but clearly parts of the phone are neurologically optimized to keep me distracted (and it works!)

So what are other good ways to fight this?

Go to accessibility settings and make the display grayscale.

Thank you. For anyone else on iOS you find this by going to Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Color Filters -> On. The default color filter when turned on is grayscale.

I set the Triple Click function to automatically trigger grayscale -- very useful!

This is a neat trick. I wonder if my eyes would just get used to see B&W phone content and keep going.

A neat app would be a 5' slow fade off that eventually locks your phone. You can just unlock to keep going but at least you know 5' have gone by.

This [1] was handy for me, a Pixel user:

[1] https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/enable-hidden-graysca...

Disable automatic suggestions in your web browser when you only just focused the address bar. The only suggestions that may appear, should be contextual to what you started to type.

Ooo this is a new good one, I had not heard off before! Thanks

I found that linking a smartwatch (Garmin VA4) to my phone enabled me to check relevant notifications without touching the phone for hours.

If you have something like donotdisturb on your device, use it and make exceptions for the really important.

I used to think the phone was important, but my phone has been off for 6 months now. Needed to inform work and people but everyone is fine with it now. Most comms are email now. If there is something critical there is an always on device that alerts me.

You can get a phone pureley for work, and turn it off outside of working hours. As with your elderly parents, it might be a good idea to tell them to call you instead of text for important/time-critical things. Non-important stuff can go to Whatsapp, and you check infrequently.

I myself gotten a non-smart feature phone as secondary device with a MultiSIM - i.e. both my smartphone and my feature phone ring when I get a phone call, and I can take it on any device. I also told my close contacts to call instead of text as I might be without smartphone. If I want focus time, I turn off the smart-phone or leave it at home.

Apart from the already suggested tip to make your screen B&W (which makes everything just a little bit more boring) I do the following:

- I have my phone permanently on "do not disturb" and only made exceptions for important colleagues, SO and parents. In those cases my phone actually makes a sound so I don't need to keep an eye on it. - I don't put any distracting apps (including browsers) on the home-screen of my phone. Making it a little bit harder to find them makes me often not bother. - No social media apps on my phone. - I used Leechblocker in the past to have me wait 30 seconds before entering sites like this. It worked but I started to find ways around it like using another browser.

Yea, It is as if people expect you to pull out the phone and stare at it if you have nothing to do in a public place. Imagine someone catching you, being lost in your own thoughts, in somewhere like that. They would suerly peg you for a weirdo.

Just start talking to yourself out loud - they'll quickly assume you're perfectly normal.

I think the problem for some may be that not physically doing anything in a public space opens them up to strangers approaching with unwanted conversation

As I grew older, there are certain things I have learned to enjoy more, such as slowness, inaction, loneliness, boredom.

Boredom is typically the most controversial, so the reason here is that boredom first allows for moments you want out of, but also there's more: It expands the range of comfort zone of emotions and sets the ground floor of your emotions low enough that you can actually welcome more experiences as rather good. That limits the number of "meh" moments drastically. Beware though that setting the ground floor of your emotions lower doesn't mean it lowers down the average "feeling of happiness" in your life.

The thing I reject the most today is the constant pressure for action, movement and performance. I used to love them though but now, nearing 40, I see them a way to escape rather than embrace what life has to offer.

Well as a hacker, boredom is the enemy and we’re always at war with boredom. For a hacker, boredom is a form of death.

Not my experience. I'm happy to hack things so I have more alone space and time too. I don't see the two opposed at all.

This sounds like a quote from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

Well, some hackers are also Buddhists, which don't tend to view boredom like that.

And that is how we get Bodhi Linux. ;)

As a hacker, boredom is a powerful motivator and creator.

Motivation to explore/create <> motivation to avoid boredom.

"enemy" ... "at war with" ... "death" ... such metaphors.

As a hacker,

I gotta disagree here. Boredom is where all my ideas come from. Boredom is the catalyst to wondering how Xyz works.

Boredom is taking an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem, and then realising you can put a front end on that and do it as a service for people who don't have that skillset.

No boredom, no hacking.

The second para though is not part of boredom.

The second paragraph was a HN-jokey way to describe hacking a project from a personal itch to a service with a target market

Insightful comment, thanks. Finding better ways to frame things is an important tool.

Honestly this. I never understood the point of mowing a lawn until now. Taking care of my yard (while failing miserable in some places), gets me away from my computer/phone/tv/whatever, and in touch with the outside world, even if its just me and my yard.

Heck, I have come up with solutions to coding problems while mowing or just removing weeds

> Heck, I have come up with solutions to coding problems while mowing or just removing weeds

As paradoxical as it sounds, serendipity does not happen on its own. You have to foster an environment to let it bloom. Exactly what you did here.

There are different kinds of boredom -- one where you can think of something on your own, other where you are distracted constantly or an opposite, concentrated on something boring. First allow you to relax, recuperate, plan, other one doesn't seem to be constructive to me.

I have stopped listening to audiobooks while I'm out for a walk.

At first, audiobooks seemed like such an efficient use of time. But after finishing a couple of audiobooks on my walks, I felt that my brain and my ears always yearned for not listening to audiobooks and instead just wanted to enjoy the walk itself. Now I just walk. If I'm not feeling that well, I do put on some music for a while, but never an audiobook or a podcast.

On that note, I have decided to just read physical books. For all the inconveniences that reading a physical book has, I have felt that it makes reading more intentional. I can't just read anywhere or anytime I want. I have to now deliberately decide to read, even if it is way more inefficient. It lets my thoughts breath and settle. The purpose for me now is not to read as many books as possible, but to enjoy the books that I do read, and absorb them down to their core.

I took a sketchbook on my walk today. I did have my phone and used it some, but drawing things from life, with traditional materials, is a nice way to slow down and engage with the immediate world. Especially since with walking routes, it's usually the same things every day, so while you might think "I've seen this before", once you try to draw it and capture everything you can, it's like you haven't seen it at all.

Sketching forces you to pay attention. It's a very deliberate thing.

My walks got a lot better when I started looking up birds and plants. Now green spaces aren't just a nice background, but a rich, immersive world.

Even in the city, it's fun to watch and listen. There's a ton going on, and you rob yourself of that experience when you have something playing over it.

Walking without distraction is a pleasure that I rediscovered recently. It’s been great for my mental health. I also seem to solve problems out of nowhere on my walks.

I too play around with this.

Even when cleaning or doing chores, I was listening to podcasts or audiobooks, I still like this, but I have also started to realise that I never just have any stillness or space and that is valuable too.

The amount of thoughts I have or ideas while showering or cleaning is great.

Unsolicited anecdote time... I can't seem to get through physical books, but I can easily digest audio books and podcasts. I think that it has to do with the low bandwidth of reading combined with ADHD.

There's also the long-standing idea that people come up with great/interesting ideas while in the shower (so much that it's an internet meme), and that's attributed to the shower being one of the few places where you don't have media or electronics trying to capture your attention.

Not just media and electronics; nearly all sensory input is minimized in the shower.

I should stop bringing my smartphone to the shower!

Indeed, that's what bubble-baths are for. How else are you going to do that rubber-duck debugging?

That phenomenon is very real in my personal case. Unfortunately the ideas go away by the time i get hold of pen and paper after the shower. Possible solutions to this are welcome.

Have a voice recorder record your thoughts while in the shower.

I had one of these for a while, water proof:

https://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Notes-Water-Proof-Note/dp/B01AS5...

Nice! I've been wanting something to take notes on in the shower and this looks perfect.

Are you able to share your thoughts on how well it worked? I don't trust Amazon reviews.

Well it's good enough to mention it on hacker news

> Unfortunately the ideas go away by the time i get hold of pen and paper after the shower.

I've been in this situation. For better or worse, I have a Google smart speaker outside of my shower. On more than one occasion, I have asked Google to remind me to do something the following day and have provided enough detail for me to recollect the thoughts I had in the shower.

I write my ideas on the bathroom walls with crayons. Those crayons are for kids to play with in the bath and can be easily erased.

I sometimes drive without any music/podcasts/radio on and get the same effects as shower thoughts. The mind is good at promising things when you dont have to follow through with them immediately.

I can't do audiobooks in the car because my mind starts wander and I notice that I've missed a ton of relevant plot - and it's damn hard to skim backwards in an audiobook.

It less about the devices and more about giving the mind some simple physical task.

I have the same thing with any solitary sport. Rowing/Sculling in particular. No phones in the boat (since they're very tippy), and an hour of reasonably delicate physical activity.

The rowing movement requires a little concentration so it absorbs say 40% of the mental activity, what's leftover flows into light thinking and connection-making, without much angst.

"The difference between loneliness and solitude is who you are alone with and who made the choice."

I was told this 3 weeks in to an Outward Bound course in the colorado wilderness when I was 18.

It has stayed with me my whole life now (i'm 43!) and I think of it often.

"Tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre."

"All the unhappiness of men arises from a single fact, which is from not knowing how to stay at rest in a room."

(Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 139)

It is no coincidence that the word 'idle' means both 'doing nothing' and 'being worthless'. I could write out a longer comment with some more thoughts on the health of a society that is obsessed with productivity and 'staying busy', but I'd rather spend those minutes doing nothing instead.

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Blaise Pascal

For another spin on it.

That quote is brilliant and profound. Sad that thinking is regarded as an afflicting disease and our devices are the cure.

I purposefully dedicate an hour to just do jack shit and be alone with my thoughts.

‘Oh you saw something in your mind? Relax it’s called an idea. Get used to them’

"The Belcerebons of Kakrafoon Kappa were sentenced to telepathy by a Galactic Tribunal because the rest of the galaxy found peaceful contemplation contemptuous." - HHGTTG

I often think smartphones were inflicted upon Earth by our alien neighbours to distract us and stop us ever getting off this rock.

> ...And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains. -- Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut

We don't need Diana Moon Glampers, we do it to ourselves.

Another quote:

"Writing is thinking." -- David McCullough

We need to write more, for ourselves, to others, in slow, careful sentences, building arguments. Tweets don't cut it.

I also liked the digital watches quote:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea...

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches."

Douglas Adams seems strangely forgotten these days (or is he, in the UK?), considering how great he really was. It would be extremely interesting to hear his thoughts or spinoffs on the climate crisis.

Then again, he did offer many straightforward solutions, though, e.g.:

"FOOT WARRIOR: Do not panic! Lay Down your arms. We just want you to relax and enjoy your shoes."

Chambre would normally be translated as bedroom.

Not usually and definitely not in this context.

Most people today are still learning to control their emotions, and since emotions dont exist in a still form, such people have to keep talking or moving. Some people are mastering thoughts at the moment, and few are learning to use intuition.

The 1st kungfu panda movie shows a great allegory on these three stages. Po is a beginner: his emotions, by virtue of their momentum, keep Po making talk endlessly and make lots of random moves that summarily achieve nothing. Shifu has mastered emotions, and is mastering thoughts: he knows lots of tricks, but he isn't wise, precisely because he is too busy with the tricks. Oogway shows how to use mind properly: he is balancing on a stick of attention, perfectly still, and is waiting for the voice of intuition; only when a droplet of wisdom falls on him, he engages his mind and with a few precise moves turns that droplet into knowledge.

Great scientists can switch between the two modes. Good ones are too busy with symbolic trickery and never hear the voice of intuition.

Good luck with young kids!

If you reflected on the meaning you might have questioned your impulse to have kids

Pretty sure Buddha warned against nihilism. The void may be tempting, but is ultimately empty, after all.

What does that have to do with anything? We're talking about Pascal's claim

Because you implied in your statement that having kids is due to a lack of reflection, rather than due to reflecting.

I'm pointing out a fork in the road in mindset.

What makes you think they haven’t? I don’t buy it for one bit that people simply have kids on impulse, and you can question an impulse and come out the other end still wanting to go through with it.

I think young kids are much more OK with boredom than adults, at least up to a certain age. The whole idea of "boredom = bad" is, IMO, a cultural meme. In the course of time, kids are simply taught to think this way.

Before going to the kindergarten, our firstborn was fine with "doing nothing". He rarely questioned it. As soon as the first months there were passed, he started complaining about "boredom" at home -- obviously, either other kids or the teacher had brought this meme up. He is 2nd grade now, and with some success, we teach him to think that boredom is OK and a source of unexpected, inspiring ideas.

I think kids are fine as long as you don't completely forget the right buttons.

I think my kid is broken, they can just leave their phone at home when we go out.

They can also not check their messages for a few days.

Dunno if we did something right or wrong =)

Sometimes I wonder if our preoccupation with information consumption is a catalyst for our inability to have epiphanic thought.

We’d probably have more Einstein-like breakthroughs in science if we weren’t constantly reading to find the answer and instead let our minds connect into the collective consciousness that already knows all.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

...but the giants are getting bigger for every generation and it takes longer and longer to climb to the shoulders.

Some people make it, some quit half way and some don't even try when they see the monumental effort needed.

It takes huge effort and tons of time just to stay current on world events, never mind popular culture and hobbies and other interests. Combine that with 8-10 hours of work every day (including commutes) + family time + sleep and there really isn't time for epiphanic thought.

A bit over a hundred years ago we had people like Sabine Baring-Gould[0], who wrote over a hundred books and published over a thousand papers. He was born to a rich family, though, which did give him the time and resources. But at the time it was possible for him to learn much of the existing knowledge and expand it radically during his lifetime.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Baring-Gould

I actually think it's the opposite. We put TOO much emphasis on epiphanic breakthroughs and often incorrectly attribute major discoveries to seemingly moments of epiphany. Einstein's biggest discovery took him decades to formalize, and definitely was not a eureka moment.

Perhaps Einstein had many small epiphantic thoughts along the way to his great breakthrough, that aren't of any real interest to the average person.

"We owe the cultural achievements of humanity—which include philosophy—to deep, contemplative attention. Culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible. Increasingly, such immersive reflection is being displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyperattention. A rash change of focus between different tasks, sources of information, and processes characterizes this scattered mode of awareness. Since it also has a low tolerance for boredom, it does not admit the profound idleness that benefits the creative process.

...

"hyperactive intensification leads to an abrupt switch into hyperpassivity; now one obeys every impulse or stimulus without resistance. Instead of freedom, it produces new constraints. It is an illusion to believe that being more active means being freer.

"Without the “excluding instincts” Nietzsche praises, action scatters into restless, hyperactive reaction and abreaction. In a pure state, activity only prolongs what is already available. In contrast, a real turn to the Other presupposes the negativity of an interruption. Only by the negative means of making-pause can the subject of action thoroughly measure the sphere of contingency (which is unavailable when one is simply active)."

"The Burnout Society" - Byung-Chul Han

There is a famous chinese saying that "Learning without thinking is vain; thinking without learning is perilous". I guess the problem is getting the right balance.

And to be honest, I am not sure whether we are reading to find the answer or just searching for stimulus now.

I'm trying to do this more.

It's a tough one, because with access to so much information, I feel like there are a lot of interesting things to see and learn which could impact my thinking and the stuff I do a great deal, but at the same time, all of that stuff and content seems to have crept into every spare moment of time, I am not sure how much I know how to genuinely think deeply about things for myself anymore. Most of my 'ideas' or view points are more just something I read from somewhere and I wonder about this is terms of how do these people come up with these thoughts and ideas? i'm just copying there view points but not having much original thoughts of my own, they are just people like me, everyone seems to look up to certain people or 'leaders' but they are just people.

I feel like I need more time and space to have more thoughts of my own. Last year I did experiences with just sitting in silence for an hour a day, or doing a meditiation where I just allowed myself to think whatever thoughts I wanted, it felt really nice, but in the end I wasn't so sure I could spend an hour a day on it.

> It's a tough one, because with access to so much information, I feel like there are a lot of interesting things to see and learn which could impact my thinking and the stuff I do a great deal, but at the same time, all of that stuff and content seems to have crept into every spare moment of time, I am not sure how much I know how to genuinely think deeply about things for myself anymore.

This resonates with me, not from an originality standpoint only, but from just a contentment standpoint as well. While there is this great potential for me to see interesting things or learn something new, I find my appreciation for a lot of things has also gone way down. Nothing seems to be special anymore. Even if I do find something cool, my appreciation for it is non-existent because "there could be something else."

My anecdotal experience is this is good thing to do.

But I am addicted to devices, especially HN, Reddit and a game I won't mention because I don't want to get you addicted to it too.

I think you can get a lot of joy by letting your mind wander! It may not be productive (like an Eureka moment), but it can be fun, it can also remembering to do something you would have otherwise not thought about.

Try me.

ROT13: fyvgure.vb

slither.io?

Wished I never saw this comment :)

it was meant to be a spoiler proof comment

It takes a fair bit to go from hearing about a game to being addicted to it. What game is it?

My money is on one of the classic HN-crowd time-sinks: KSP, Factorio, EVE Online, Stardew Valley, Rimworld, etc.

edit: can't believe I almost forgot Universal Paperclips

ROT13: fyvgure.vb

Wow....what a great game, was not expecting to get hooked. Sure enough, I did.

I signed up for EVE online on a whim and got a notification email to the effect of "Captain, your mission awaits you!" when I was trying to get some digital housekeeping done and the immediate feeling I got was "hello no, I dont need more things to be sorted out - I am already exhausted!" and marked it as spam.

> ...I am addicted to ... HN, Reddit and a game I won't mention because I don't want to get you addicted to it too.

We're also addicted to HN and Reddit! This sounds like a game for us!

Hmmm. Just got home. While driving I noticed several bad drivers. I immediately assumed they were holding their cell phone in one hand and looking at it. I was right. Then I thought of making bumper stickers: "Do you hold your spouse's hand as much as you hold your phone while driving?!?" Then I reached over and held my wife's hand.

hahaha!

that was so cute

edit: ops i forgot there is a thumbs up button… so how about vehicles having a simple lock checking if driver phone is being used? that would save so much accidents

Many pediatricians in Berlin (presumably all around Germany as well) have a poster showing parents doom-scrolling with the mention "how much did you talk to your kids today?".

Brutal and relevant. I think of it every time I have a "I am in this picture and I don't like it" moment.

My friends who are parents feel so guilty if they ever look at their phone while with kids. That message might have gotten through too strongly.

Why does that seem to be 'too strongly'? Just like how being very fit requires some level of guilt with eating cake, so too does avoiding overuse of smartphones.

Because there is a middleground.

Being fit or staying away from your phone doesn't require to run 20k a week or to remove the phone from your kids' perception of the world.

If you want to be a runner it will certainly require 20k. That is 2 hours of training.

I was specific about "being fit", not "being a runner".

Cause parents, especially young new ones, are constant target of guilting. All it achieves is that parents are more stressed and dont allow themselves rest or relax ... which makes them to be even more stressed. And it is not helping kids at all.

Also, most fit people I know eat cake with no quilt. A lot of physical activity goes with more eating.

> Not all thinking is intrinsically rewarding, and in fact some people are prone to vicious cycles of negative thinking

Major reason why I avoid thinking. If I’m left to wander, I have dark ideas, remember the bad parts of my life, and have hate for everyone.

What social networks and Youtube help me for, is cover these thoughts and let me spend my time in the present, at the price of not enjoying creativity anymore, or not being able to debrief on my day / month, because any debrieffing would cause think about the past.

Our societies are challenging and nothing happens like we want, and no amount of psychiatrist has helped, because psychiatrists don’t change society.

Ironically this is what I'm going through; as I read these comments, in the back of my head I'm darkly ruminating about my day.

I did a one hour float tank session before. It’s very interesting and kinda hard experience being with only yourself floating in water for a full hour.

I've enjoyed sensory deprivation tanks like this, but to be perfectly honest, I feel like I can let my mind wander the same way when I wake up an hour before my alarm goes off and manage to resist picking up my phone.

But even resisting the urge takes brain cycles. One day you’ll reach the level of being happy not to have the choice - put the phone in another room and be fine with it.

I found that a two week long vipassana meditation retreat was a great way to really come to appreciate being alone with your thoughts. I experienced a clarity of mind I pretty much never experienced in my life up to that point, mostly from spending two weeks of having no choice but to be alone with myself. It’s materially different than a 20 minute interlude of solitude/meditation (and also far more difficult both to make the time and to persist through it), but also very rewarding.

How did the experience change you in the long term

A few things

- I have a better awareness of how I’m feeling in general. This let’s me not wallow in my lows and really enjoy my highs

- I found a formulaic way that I can calm my mind - useful when I’m restless but want to sleep, stressed out and avoiding work, just want to think rationally about something, etc

- I feel just generally more open and flexible as a result of noticing how my emotions influence my thoughts.

Don't most people think about stuff before they fall asleep? I know I do. Often it takes quite awhile to fall asleep for me and have plenty of time to do it.

Not if you fall asleep to YouTube or TikTok

I specifically need to zone out and calm my mind TO fall asleep. Took me years to teach my brain that "lying down in bed" == "brain turns off".

Otherwise I'd spiral into a web of incomplete thoughts that would never get anywhere and I'd just get really stressed - and then fall to a restless sleep, anxious.

Now if I'm a bit wound up, I put on some wireless headphones and listen to some really boring or non-consequential podcast with a sleep timer on Overcast. Unless I'm really stressed, I never get to the end of a 10 minute episode.

I can't emphasize enough what an impact this approach had for me. I suffered from sleep anxiety and insomnia. Took trazodone for years. It lost its potency and I wanted to get off the sleep drugs. Then I discovered history podcasts. The only ones that work have a single person talking and no ads intermixed with the podcast episode. Usually I'm asleep five minutes into the podcast. Then when I wake in the morning, I listen to it with my coffee. A few years ago my daughter was having similar problems and she too solved it with podcasts.

Are there any specific podcasts you would recommend?

For history stuff, I just love: https://historyofeverythingpodcast.com

The creator got started on TikTok doing weird history trivia with is wife and has started a podcast after that.

For my "going to sleep" podcasts, I use "The Indicator from Planet Money" (the ads are a bit distracting at times), "More or Less" (facts about numbers in the news), "Robot or Not" and "Ungeniused". All are long enough to fall asleep to, but interesting enough to start listening.

History of Rome

Revolutions

The History of Bizantium

The British History Podcast

I fall asleep pretty much instantly. Isn't thinking about things distracting you from sleep?

I would love to be able to stop thinking just because I lay down or something.

Depends. I remember reading a while ago that the average time for a person to fall asleep is 15 minutes. I personally believe I fall asleep instantly, but maybe that’s just me not being conscious enough during those 15 minutes to remember them.

I envy you. It takes me an hour or more unless I've already stayed up way too late.

Recently un-installed the following apps.

  - Reddit
  - Amazon Prime Video
  - Netflix

I could not shake off the addiction of scrolling for new content and news, all day long.

I could not concentrate on any work.

I would either be scrolling on reddit or kept a show running "in the background" while doing work.

I suffered like this for 4 years

Thank god I was self aware enough of my addiction.

Planning to stay off them even on desktops.

I feel like reddit is unusable these days without prepending old. as a subdomain. And I never use netflix or prime video on a mobile device, but I mean that's cool if you find that useful!

When in your day do you find yourself using video streaming apps on mobile

On desktop, I always use the old. site.

On mobile, the app is decent enough (meaning extremely addictive).

I used to use the streaming apps to have something like Seinfeld, Friends or BBT running in the background.

I would have the streaming apps on at home all the time, and even at work, when I am working alone (my office situation is such that I can work in a separate conference room, with a wide view to let me know if someone is coming). So, my streaming would be several hours every day.

Thanks to dead cheap internet charges in India, and the fact that my provider allows for bandwidth carry forward, I have no worries about the bill.

Yeah, I recently gave up reddit too, for the same reason. It was interfering with my concentration too much, not only when working, but also when just trying to do something productive with my liesure time. I was clicking refresh hundreds of times a day. Very much a "poker machine" mentality. The clicks are free, but attention is priceless.

Sabbath.

Friday evening at the end of the workday, close your computer and put down your phone.

Don't open them until Saturday after dinner.

It is damn hard, and worth it.

Try to for a moment enjoy the irony and beauty in the fact that a bunch of technocratic tards might realize that the very thing that they created that pays for their mcmansion townhouse in Fremont or Bellevue is actually not good for their health. Movies will be made about this. We are unfortunately cartoons.

Has anyone experimented with having a "dumb phone" and taking that with them just in-case people need to contact them or for emergencies?

Lately, I've had a few times when I accidentally left my phone at home and after an hour or so realized how much fun I've had without it.

I wish my stupid smart phone had a dumb phone mode.

iOS has it, it’s called focus mode. But good luck actually having the resolve to stay in it. (Plus the app drawer kinda defeats the idea again).

Yes. The idea is great: hide some of the screens when in focus mode.

Problems: cannot totally disable apps like in the app usage settings. And there you cannot really schedule blocks where you can access them. Also: the allowed apps list has a bug which makes it unusable.

I have no idea why these two features are distinct. (mean thought: maybe apple doesn’t actually want us to use it properly?)

To me it seems that for a while Apple has become a bit Microsoft-ish with iOS (certainly influenced by its immense popularity) in that they never clean out the old stuff, only add in new stuff on top of it. Exhibit A: Stage manager living on top of but not replacing the previous multitasking features. On your point I totally agree, app usage should be unified with focus mode.

Apple Watch with cellular lets me leave behind my phone when I feel like it and still be contactable.

Do you think you could live with it alone? I am actually entertaining the idea of going without a phone all together.

I was thinking about getting a cheap prepaid phone to bring on long bike rides. Even though I only check my spartphone once or twice per ride I realized just having it prevents my mind from really relaxing. I should probably just bring everything to repair a flat then I wouldn’t need a phone at all.

I've taken all the tools and still had trouble, good to have a phone in case you need a ride home, maybe just an old Nokia or something would be fine.

I depend on my phone as a tool. Alarms, calendar, Google Pay and so on.

Instead I worked really hard to suppress the loud parts. Notification control, ad blocker rules, very few apps, and so on.

I'd say it works well enough.

I observed a similar "defense" mechanism on myself. I struggled with the thought of not having a phones and rationalizing why I can't do this, which is also a common defense mechanism for addictions. The truth is, the rationalization is often completely made up. I.e. in your case, you can get an alarm clock (or a cheap wristwatch with alarm), a paper calendar/planner (or simply a tiny notebook to write down stuff) and your old-fashioned credit card.

Now, I totally accept that the phone does provide some value and comfort when dealing with those things, and not having one makes life a teeny-bit less comfortable. But you have to think, is my attention and the ability to have deep, focused thoughts more worth than saving some seconds to minutes of a day when taking down notes or setting an alarm clock. Because thats usually what it boils down to, the phone saves you only seconds to minutes a day for usefull work, but you waste hours on doom-scrolling and having your attention taken away throughout the day.

I could do that, but it would not benefit me. It's not a defence mechanism, it's just being practical.

If its practical for you thats is okay and good for you. I'm just saying sometimes we trick our mind to thinking exactly that, like "its more practical with a phone" but at the same time not considering that its not practical to read news and browse social media for hours while we should be doing other things. If the later is not happening or not an issue for you, thats totally fine. I just want to point out very often this is not the case, but we make it up in our mind so that we believe it.

I use screen time on my phone. I've intentionally limited my time on social media daily. Of course I can just disable it, but it takes intent to do it.

I also use MacOS/iOS focus modes and morning/afternoon/evening summaries pretty heavily to filter the notifications I get actively. Really looking forward to the new lockscreens on iOS16.

I do exactly this. I got a cheap feature phone (Nokia, ~50€) with a MultiSIM that my cellprovider offers. Both phones ring at the same time when I get a call, and I can take it on either. I only have close contacts on my feature phone, it can play music, and I can make calls. Plus, the battery lasts 3weeks in standby, more when you only turn it on when you need it of course.

Focus time is now only a matter of taking the right phone with me when I leave the house, or turning the smartphone off for a while. But there are some drawbacks, i.e. I would love for the feature phone to have a better camera.

This would be cool to take hiking and camping. I take a nice camera for photos.

Yes, many many times. I used to work in Haiti and though we had wifi on base I relished any time away from it.

I used to hike between the villages there and carry a $20 dumb (dual sim) that only had two numbers: my wife and my work. Even having the work number was fine because the conversations were very simple: no images, no text, just verbal exchange.

Blissful.

For me, this is running in a nutshell. Everyone is shocked because I don't listen to music or anything else when I run. It's my time for completely uninterrupted thinking about anything. It's lovely.

I’ll start doing this

It's really surprising how many things clarify for me when I take the dog for a long walk and have no choice but to think about random things for a half hour or so.

My ideal "day off" is basically aimlessly wandering around my city. During the walk, my brain just goes on its own adventure. After a full day of that, I'm always amazingly relaxed.

I heard an interview with Steven Spielberg years ago. I wish I could find it for reference. He said in the interview that anytime he drives in his car, he would not talk on his phone or listen to the radio. It was complete silence for the duration of the drive. And most of his best work and ideas came from these "silent drives" because he was forced to be creative and use his imagination to keep himself entertained.

I can’t, I gotta check hackernews

I've played with the idea that the internet should just have mandatory closing hours. Every day at 20:00 the ISPs would just stop routing traffic except maybe to a handful of critical services.

In Scandinavia we have a long history of limiting services (for example, sales of alcohol) for the collective benefit. Why not rekindle these type of policies?

Which timezone?

> Why not rekindle these type of policies?

Giving any government that much power right now is probably not the greatest move. Personally I think any type of restriction like this is the government overstepping.

You're allowed to turn your personal router off whenever you want. They can't stop you. Don't take peoples freedom away because you can't put down the phone.

This is one of the main benefits of meditation IMO. It's more about giving yourself the time and space to think through things to your own minds satisfaction. Giving your mind the space it needs to process things.

> The thinking group expected to enjoy the task significantly less than the news-checking group, but afterward, the two groups reported similar enjoyment levels.

Does the study really suggest not checking the news then?

Following the news very closely is a dubious activity, even though being ignorant is worse.

What if you’re not comfortable alone with your thoughts? To be honest, long drives alone have a way of dwelling up some tough memories.

Then don’t do it.

Therapy.

It's OK to have tough memories, it's bad to dwell on them without any resolution.

Talking to a friend or SO might work too, but some things are better told to a professional who has no emotional ties to the issue.

Any idea how to get rid of vicious cycles?

I like letting my mind wander, but often I hit unpleasent thoughts and it throws me off.

The only way out is through. Therapy while "being away from the pressure"* helped me.

* Go away from your job / family / country / ... - whereever you feel the pressure arises.

Might be a bit world-huggy, but here goes:

Accept the unpleasant thoughts, but don't dwell on them. One advice I got was to give yourself a set amount of time for unpleasant thoughts or worrying. After that you can let it go and move on.

The most important bit is noticing when you're just thinking in circles without any extra input, that's the route to anxiety and depression.

I wonder how much of the current anxiety wave that seems to have stricken Millennials and Gen Z is because they have no idea how to be alone with their thoughts. Anecdotally, I have heard a great many jokes about needing a distraction due to negative internal discourse. Like if they are left alone for more than 5 minutes by themselves, they will inevitably spiral into depression. I have people in my life that need a constant supply of internet, podcasts, music, tv, etc, or they start to get anxious.

As an anxious person, I see why. Like any skill, guiding your thoughts away from negativity without repression, is something that needs practice. If you are constantly distracted, you never get to practice this trait. I see the rise of "wellness" and pop-meditation as a reaction.

Well, that and the world is a pretty terrible place. Think about it for too long and you'll get pretty depressed.

Depends on your perspective.

I know the more I’m on my phone, and the more social media I consume, the more I feel that way. But when I actually get out into the world and meet people and do stuff.. it’s not nearly so bad.

And it’s cheesy but: “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

"The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better."

The world is generally a better place than it has ever been. That trend seems to continue.

The world, is full of goodness, hope, progress and humour. But, you need to accept that in between all the media (news) that focuses on the negative, and bad noise. Look at a parent playing with a kid, look at a kitten, look at a doctor, look at a teacher. Saving, creating, improving lives, in spite of the negativity of the 'press'.

The trick is not to think about it.

I stopped following the 24 hour news cycle a some time last decade and my quality of life improved radically.

I curate what I read myself, with RSS feeds, Reddit subscriptions and whatever happens to get to the front page of Hacker News =)

I don't need to know up to the minute death tolls from COVID the war in Ukraine or the latest natural disaster. I don't need to know which politician lied this time and what their opponent said to that. Knowing that doesn't bring anything positive to my life.

(I also find it fascinating that Gen X is completely forgotten in this discourse, like the OP did. It's just "Millennials and GenZ" for every debate)

I hope someone else also finds irony in taking advice on avoiding extensional terror from The Shrike.

This comment is filled with replies from obviously privileged people. I’m very glad there’s people who can look at the world and still think it’s more good than bad, and I sure hope those are the majority, but that’s simply not the case for everyone. Some people unfortunately live with fear not because they read too many news, but simply because the world is hostile to them, and we have to acknowledge that as well.

Terror management, or how to evade thinking about our own death.

There's many ways to think about death. It can motivate you to live life to the fullest.

Not being poor or in debt also helps quite a bit. Having a perspective and not being stuck in jobs that will never pay a house no matter what you do might also help. Having successful parents also helps, otherwise it's difficult to read all the subtle social cues that make a difference. Never felt as anxious and isolated as when hanging around with privileged art students. Subjectively society got a lot more focused on social status than it used to be. People from different backgrounds don't mix up easily anymore and it's subtle. Lacking a perspective and feeling excluded it's hard to not experience anxiety. Experimenting and being brave is also easier if you know you will fall soft. If you don't know how to pay the rent next month you are not going out and make new experiences or learn new skills - you are stuck and nervous. Might be hyperbole but I wouldn't underestimate that as it's difficult to relax in such a situation. Avoiding unpleasant situations and becoming addicted to your phone/internet/media might either be a cause or an effect of this - it's not helping for sure.

> Never felt as anxious and isolated as when hanging around with privileged art students.

I am picking up a broad brush but bear with me for the moment. It is likely that half -- if not more -- of those 'privileged art students' felt anxious and isolated in spite of their positive demeanor. If privilege alone was a solution for general well-being, we would not have as many rich and famous people struggling to keep it straight. Don't get me wrong, privilege helps a lot, but may not be enough.

Growing up, I thought that if only my family had more money, I would feel much better. Now, I think that my anxiety is caused by other things such as lack of control over my schedule, uncertainty about the future, and feeling of stuckness in the job (even if it is well paid). On the other hand, knowing that I have multiple options for gainful employment and having the ability to work on things that I care about -- brings me joy and satisfaction.

In short, just having the ability to walk away from a situation is calming and joy-inducing. It does not matter whether that situation is good or bad, all that matters is that I have options.

You are correct of course. My comment was kind of all over the place without any clear idea - I just wanted to illustrate that anxiety can also be triggered by the feeling - real or imagined - to not belong. Maybe mixing up class/privilege kind of misses the point as you said there are probably enough well off people full of anxiety. It was just a situation I vividly remembered and as such it's difficult to convey without context and maybe just unfair.

I've said this a thousand times and will repeat it until I die:

The #1 job for a parent is to make sure their children are bored out of their minds regularly. Take away the sources of easy serotonin (usually the smartphone), either by taking the kid outside without it or whatever works for you.

For example if you're on a 20 minute car ride as a family, the kids don't need to be on their smart device every second of the way - preferably at all. It's OK to be bored and just have your own thoughts to keep you entertained.

100%. A book, a backyard and a stick is all kids need. For each birthday they get an additional book and stick.

To pair with a book: blank paper and something to mark it with

To pair with a stick, when old enough: a knife.

This is a good guide to follow with kids: https://www.fiftydangerousthings.com

Our kid started with a knife when they were around 2 or 3. A dull-ish slightly serrated one first and graduated to an actual kitchen knife at 4. Got their first actual outdoor knife for their 5th birthday.

I got a Swiss army knife when I was maybe ten. I never really used it for anything. I've done lots of outdoors things but I've never quite understood why people find knives so useful.

Lifestyle blogs and popular subreddits have done great marketing for knives in the past 12 or so years. As such, their fashion or status have surpassed their utility.

How can you do "lots of outdoor things" and not need a knife?

That's what you use to do kindling, cut firewood to a smaller size, open any food packaging you might have, cut up ingredients for food etc etc.

Swiss army knives are kinda useless though. Leatherman-style pliers + stuff utility knives are a lot more useful in the modern world. You need pliers a lot more than a wine bottle opener or a toothpick :)

Spare the rod spoil the child?

> It is important to note that participants did not rate thinking as an extremely enjoyable task, but simply as more enjoyable than they thought it would be, according to Murayama. On average, participants’ enjoyment level was around 3 to 4 on a 7-point scale

Subtitle: you'll have a mediocre time doing it, but it'll be better than you expected!

As if that were not bad enough, the news-checking group seemed to enjoy their time more than the thinking group.

The article seems to be pitching the study as showing that thinking is preferable to other activities, but the data shows that simply isn’t the case.

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