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Comment by crystal_revenge | Hacker News Reader

> you can't but help think about the thing that is top of mind, anxiety be damned.

This really captures what I think is the main problem with our state of being constantly distracted: it feels at first like a relief from anxiety, but ultimately results in even small anxieties never properly being dealt with. The end result is a vicious cycle (or I guess virtuous if you sell online ads) of becoming more and more anxious causing us to rely more and more on the screen to distract us, which in turn only increases that backlog of anxiety.

I see this happen in a lot of younger people that are constantly on screens: they frequently mention their need to "chill for a bit" and yet spend most of their time doing nothing but staring at a screen. It's clear that they are living in a lukewarm vat of anxiety that they can't face while staring at a screen, but also one which causes them immediate stress when they do look away.

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The anxiety does hit you back when in bed trying to sleep. I notice a vast difference in my ability to fall asleep if I've gone on a walk with a podcast in my ear vs just silently walking with my thoughts.

Wow, thank you for saying exactly this, this "deferred anxiety" probably does partly explain sleep issues I've had the last 3-4 years. I agreed with GP's comment and have more issues with screens, but didn't even notice this difference in how I take my walks now.

Sometimes my inner thoughts can crowd aside the podcast and I'll get home and realize I didn't hear anything from the podcast, but more often it keeps me distracted the whole time. I think unplugging from podcasts on walks and in the car is definitely worth a try.

Walking and movement is supposed to be a massive help for sleep, but in periods where I have more anxiety, this effect is stronger than the benefits of the walk itself. I manage a quite decent hygiene around my phone use, but buying in-ear headphones was quite a mistake on my part, as I found this difference quite soon after.

at least according to "irresistible" by adam alter, it's also close to the definition of behavioral addiction, more broadly when we routinely maladapt to engage with a certain behavior to avoid emotionally uncomfortable that gets worse due to the avoidance.

>"It's clear that they are living in a lukewarm vat of anxiety that they can't face while staring at a screen, but also one which causes them immediate stress when they do look away."

which sounds a whole lot like a word that starts with "a" and ends with "ddiction"

A "lukewarm vat of anxiety", what a nice way to put it!

Seems to me this is the floaty feeling when swimming in stress-induced high levels of cortisol, though I could be wrong. Bit heady and dissociated.

> it feels at first like a relief from anxiety, […] which in turn only increases that backlog of anxiety.

That’s exactly what’s describe in a book [0] I finished last week about addiction to nicotine. That book made the quit process easy by making you believe there’s nothing good about smoking, even the social aspect. They circle through every supposed advantages and disassemble one by one. There’s a few official rewrites for quitting "bad" sugars and taking good habits, not sure how they perform.

0 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Easy_Way_to_Stop_Smoking

This exact same book has been modified to also help effortlessly quit porn. I say quit because its what will be understood the most easily by majority of people but it is in fact not quitting since quitting implies there's something valuable in porn. there isn't. its escaping the addiction. Honestly its hands down one of the best methods to escape the addiction and besides you don't have anything to lose! either you successfully break free from the addiction or you stay the same (which doesn't happen from experience but its written to convince you to read it.) https://read.easypeasymethod.org

This comes off as projective judgement. I don't think everyone agrees with you, holds the same moral values, or has the same negative relationship with sex, porn or other "vices". Some people are able to integrate things like alcohol, porn or whatever other moral sin of the week without negative effects on their life or relationships. These things aren't addictions for many people and there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.

I didn't get that vibe. Just someone sharing something that worked for them..

Exactly, plus I read it as referring to the addictive aspect of dopamine cycles rather than passing moral judgment.

To expend on sibling comment, sweeping generation has never been the goal neither most Muslims, sports enthusiasts or vegans want to force everyone live like they do. However when someone finds something incredibly valuable ( > projective judgement) they’ll try to share that with everyone else. It’s a generosity act!

The reasons themselves can be anything. Ethic is a powerful one, we often see life changes for psychic and/or physic health, time gain (time/benefit of an activity), money, whatever. Those methods are tools to self-help achieve your own goal. When it worked, we’re proud and keen to share it with friends and the world.

The issue is the absolutist claim of a lack of objective value. From a purely philosophical standpoint, you really can't make that claim about almost anything (within reason).

I responded in a sibling thread. Just note that your usage of "almost anything" here is probably the objectively right way to use absolute quantifiers, however it doesn't seems to me you're trying to be pedantic but instead want to discuss the meaning itself. In that sense we could say something like:

"You really can't say 'anything' about almost everything without a proximity quantifier like 'almost'".

of course. I wasn't trying to be "correct" or trying to be nuanced here. My goal was to make the lazier people reading the comment to be more intrigued by the line (which itself i did not invent by myself just paraphrasing the book as seen above), in order to be pushed towards opening the link and reading it.

(i apologize in advance but this really feels like an "uhm akshually" on your part )

> This comes off as projective judgement.

Which part?

Someone with a $FOO addiciton wants to quit - that's not a moral judgement at all, and it doesn't magically become one when $FOO === "porn".

The part when they declare it has no value comes off as quite an absolutism, moral judgement and sweeping generalization. You could replace porn with almost any other thing and the claim is still hard to defend.

> Some people are able to integrate things like alcohol, porn or whatever other moral sin of the week without negative effects on their life or relationships. These things aren't addictions for many people and there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.

A generalisation in itself. And I find your username interesting, given your comment.

Banter aside, there is A LOT of scientific literature about how porn is literally a damaging drug-like addiction.

It's like saying smoking is not bad for some people because they can quit whenever they want. Well, lucky them, but maybe they should, because having that capacity doesn't mean their lungs aren't getting irreversibly vandalised.

I agree that porn, as with any other source of dopamine, can be extremely addicting, and porn addiction in particular can destroy lives and relationships. But I wholly disagree that we can just go around pointing at things and essentially saying, "that objectively has no value to anyone and if you think it does for you, you're wrong.".

OP specifically says, "quitting since quitting implies there's something valuable in porn. there isn't." That's an insanely broad claim to make, and it ostracizes all non-addicts with healthy sexual proclivities and boundaries, and again we can replace porn here with a multitude of other things. In a general sense, OP's argument is flawed.

I agree with that and your responses to other siblings comments, generalizations are often wrong.

In the meantime I see how GP post was ambiguous and led to your rectification: he was writing as it's his own words, but in fact was paraphrasing the book series we're talking about [0]. But whatever it's GP or book authors' viewpoint, you are right to point out the logical fallacy. However I mostly disagree with this:

> there is also no value in making sweeping generalizations.

Those book series use this kind of generalization everywhere. You may argue those sentences are false - ok, but they still have a tremendous value: help the reader with their goal! One of the fondation of that method is the use of those sentence and in a sense (with extreme words) it's a brainwashing with false informations. But a very useful brainwashing that readers engage themselves consciously.

Also on a more linguistic side: people make generalizations everywhere to simplify the communication (Dogs are nice - Python versions management is always a pain - The internet has made everyone more connected...) and it often don't bother readers. But that's not the point here I guess.

0: just one exemple but there's plenty in every chapters, but I like this one because it's very factually debatable : > porn provides no genuine pleasure or crutch and you aren’t making a sacrifice. There’s nothing to give up[...]

You're correct, thanks for pointing that out, my snark was bleeding through there. Of course that statement itself is an absolutism, it was tongue-in-cheek but I certainly agree that generalizations can be valuable; however, sweeping generalizations can also be dangerous and require knowledge to wield effectively. When taken as a rule, they can do damage.

I don't think your excerpt is very factually debatable though, as "genuine" and "pleasure" are both vague and subjective words which reduces the discussion to one of semantics.

I rarely drink alcohol, I had my first drink yesterday in a year and a half and it was a small one. But I certainly won't preach that it has no value or provides no genuine pleasure. Or that everyone uses it as a crutch. I have a healthy relationship with it. It's not hard to imagine someone having a similarly healthy relationship with pornography. We can certainly speak on the toxic environment in the industry, and even on capitalism in general and how it subverts consent, which complicates ethical consumption. But as far as the consumption of porn, it's just like any other source of pleasure: stay away if you have trouble with moderation or compartmentalization. And in general, don't succumb to vices, keep a clear head and spend your limited time on this earth wisely. But we cannot be making proclamations about the objective value of subjective experiences.

absolutely agree, I thought multiple times throughout the book that this is just like counter brainwashing but for your own benefit

That is basically what psychiatrists have been saying about the topic.

Humans need downtime to process emotions - in the olden days there was a lot of menial work which served this purpose, but we automated most of it since, freeing time for more productive, but stressful activities.

Meanwhile looking at screens allows one to leave all that for later. Unfortunately unprocessed emotions don't go away - they pile up.

I've been using this to gauge how well I'm doing mentally and address whatever issues there might be. My ideal state is that of a chimpanzee who was finally let outside after years in captivity which, upon leaving the building where it was kept, just stares at the sky.

That's a good insight, tech work is brain work, leaving little room for your own thoughts or processing stuff.

I had a summer job once at a production line, pick up foam piece, place on plastic piece, repeat for two hours, then a break. I did have a CD player at the time and earbuds, but other than that it was completely devoid of mental effort or stimulation. There was something weirdly meditative about it. Not something I'd want to do as a day job but I wouldn't mind for a bit.

it mimics drug addiction, that same cycle can often happen with cannabis.

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