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Comment by sodapopcan | Hacker News Reader

I feel justified turning this around on you and asking what is good about it? It's disposable media. In and out of brain in seconds. There are any number of better ways to waste time let alone ones that don't show you ads.

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Better ways to waste time.

If I'm on the toilet not having a fun time, pardon me for wanting to see some cat videos instead of solving a Rubik's Cube, I guess?

You're pardoned, but I have much more fond memories of magazine baskets in bathrooms. Today you should at least have a Switch in there ;)

But also, of course people aren't just using these apps in the bathroom, they are using them everywhere. If they didn't exist, you wouldn't miss scrolling the bathroom.

The Economist app and Inoreader are higher on my front page than Instagram is, so I am being slightly tongue in cheek.

But I do maintain that there is a place for mindless time killing. Life is stressful, I'm constantly switching between different projects and responsibilities, and a few minutes of mindless scrolling is nice.

But it is very addicting and can very easily vacuum up many hours of time I can't get back.

Oh ya, I did not mean to rag on mindless time killing! I just mean, I used to doodle or play guitar or drums far more often than I do now when I was looking for mindless distractions (which is not to say that any of those things can't also be mindful, which is maybe my point? I dunno). And of course I watched a lot of TV which, back then, was more limited so at least had the benefit of being able to use it as common ground when meeting new people. Nowadays it's a viral video that a million people have seen has not been seem by billions. Any even so, we could have a much more in depth conversation about Star Trek than an 8 second video we both happened to see.

Anyway, I'm a bit crusty about the world right now so sorta going off. Don't mind me.

Magazines are exactly the same type swipe-every-few-seconds crap.

They are absolutely not the same! I mean, they come in all forms so yes, they are overlaps, but many magazines have long form articles that you can take in over several, uh, sessions. You can re-read them catching new things each time. As a guest, bathroom magazines had that funny specialness to them in that they were curated by the host. You get "recommendations" far outside of what The Algorithm would ever give you (this is actually how I learned about Scott Pilgrim comics 25 years ago). You're basically "forced" to read/look at something the host actually cares about which, if you were interested in the material after having some private time to digest it on your own, made for more meaningful conversations, way better than, "Hey! Check out this video I like! I'm going to watch with you and eagerly await your reaction!"

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