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Comment by fidotron | Hacker News Reader

It's increasingly strange how psychologically different something is when it's physically in front of you vs a representation of that exact same thing on a particular sort of display, especially given apparently some representations of activities on the display are addictive, while others become repulsive. As I mentioned yesterday I'm hearing more from people that attempt to avoid screens as much as possible, and this seems like yet another manifestation of that tendency.

If our UIs were more skeumorphic would that help with all this and remove the need for the physical printer?

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It's not the skeumorphism but this:

I might have 5 virtual desktops and 3 different web browsers and each of those has 4 windows open and each window has 20 tabs. Never mind the terminal windows which themselves participate.

Conventional thinking is that if you can't find things you need to download and install some new program, maybe one that splits your tabs into "subtabs" or maybe one that organizes your virtual desktops into "virtual superdesktops", etc. Trouble is now you have another thing to find with all your desktops, windows, and tabs! You just can't win that way even though people insist that you can.

Paper, however, is privileged because it lives off the desktop. It doesn't disappear when you switch tabs, it doesn't disappear when you switch windows, it doesn't disappear when you switch virtual desktops. You can tape it here or there and it stays there even through reboots.

Do not Mac sticky notes do all that, except they don't live in the physical domain?

Isn't it just reflective of the fact that you are more disciplined about tidying up your physical world than the virtual one? (And this might be the basis for why the hack works).

I switch virtual desktops.

Physical objects don't disappear.

I switch tabs.

Physical objects don't disappear.

The power goes out.

Physical objects don't disappear.

Hard to understand in 2025, isn't it?

Mac Stickies absolutely can be set to float above everything else, and survive power outages (battery permitting) and reboots. It is true they are tied to the Space they are in though.

They also have the advantages associated with not being physical of course.

But they cover up things you might want to interact with on the screen!

I think an old e-ink reader could be the solution here.

I see it like when you compare digital books vs physical books: physical requires less context in your mind, and it provides direct rather than abstract stimulus to the brain.

When you go digital, your brain is writing the sticky note, but also has in its cache the instructions for the menu, the apps you normally use, that annoying notification, etc, plus your rl context. But on physical, you only have loaded the instructions for the pen and paper (and your rl context).

Having too many things in mind can reduce your executive function battery. Hope this helps! (ofc, this is an oversimplification of ADHD)

Correct. Computers are the realm of procrastination because there are so many ways work can hide and so many forms it can morph into. If you need to work from paper, there's not much you can do other than move through it. It may get disorganized, but it is still there. There is no question that modern workers have exponentially more reason to procrastinate than workers from 50 years ago.

I don’t think the issue is a lack of skeuomorphism. It’s more that the devices we use can’t replicate the feeling of something tangible that exists in the same space we do. And that these devices are bottomless portals to any number of other things unrelated to the task at hand.

Picking up the phone to check my todo list puts me in contact with 100 unrelated things, and at some point becomes counterproductive.

If something like the Apple Vision Pro was more accessible and wearing it was more like wearing eye glasses, I think its ability to render objects in space would make it more likely to be an effective interface for virtual task management. Emphasis on “more like wearing eye glasses” because it needs to be an always-on type of experience to come close to replicating a physical piece of paper.

You've started a very interesting discussion. I think that unfortunately nothing replaces paper. I understand Paul's comment, I have an infinite mess on my computer but on my desk I only have my paper tasks.

I doubt it. Skeuomorphs make me think of ipods, Shadowrun and Papers Please.

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