Hacker News Reader

Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

> A paper published in 2012 showed that in 2008 the average person was receiving 34 GB of information daily, with a daily information exposure growth rate of about 5.4% per year

The paper linked to justify this just talks about media that people consume which is growing. But that has nothing to do with the point this post is trying to make?

Your eyes "stream 4k video" anytime your eyelids are open regardless if you're watching a movie or looking at a wall? Why would me watching more videos say anything about how much information my brain processes?

View on HN

I understand your point, but a slightly more positive reading might be that the quantity of information consumed, while perhaps unable to be precisely quantified, can be related to the type of content being perceived.

Staring at wall produces little information in and of itself, perhaps through reflection, but staring at a TV produces a load of information, most of which is useless like names of characters, their favorite dresses, what food is being eaten where, etc. You can learn a lot by just passively observing even "dumb" TV especially if it contains foreign content or skills like cooking or sports. Again, not saying all of it is relevant to your life, but that's a different issue.

I dunno I feel like brains are always going? It's not like if I'm staring at a wall my thoughts slow down vs if I'm watching a movie. If anything I'll be more "focused" on my thoughts so maybe they are more intense than the "shut brain down" effect of mindlessly consuming media? And I gave example of a wall, but what about scrolling tiktoks vs walking in the woods? Am I really processing more information scrolling tiktok than walking in nature? Hard to believe for me!

Interesting example for sure. Walking the woods seems more complex, but I still think there is a real difference between "this character Xenia in a TV show acts an actor inside a TV show inside this current one and she likes to eat brownies with yellow cream on top" versus "I see trees with many leaves".

TikTok I have no knowledge of, but for sure seeing something like "Arab dude wearing suspicious looking outfit playing unknown instrument that I now have a name for playing a tune I did not know the name of but I do now says weird cultural thing that is highly specific to his or her locale but it kind of makes sense because of clues inside the video" is still very high-load compared to "I see a bird there that I do not care about in any way shape or form but I do remember it is blue".

Yeah I just disagree immediately. Even having to mechanically traverse and move, each step you think way more than, "swipe". Plus all the things to look at all around you, being tired, etc.

Obviously the blank wall compresses better

I’d venture that there’s less to process staring at a wall. Unless you’ve got exciting walls in your parts.

I don't think "Sitting in an office you sit in every day" or "Sitting in your living room" are the same amount of bandwidth/storage as "Travelling around the moon". I'm sure we have compression algorithms for this stuff and it's somewhat related to novelty.

I'm aware of an association between perception of time to number of photons received in the eyes.

These relate to both how much time the events appear to take subjectively as well as how well remembered they are or how long they feel retrospectively. As in there is an actual physiological explanation for "time flies when you're having fun".

There probably is something to also be said for attention too. Increased awareness and attention will undoubtedly use up more 'bandwidth' or 'storage' too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com