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The Death of Daydreaming

(www.afterbabel.com)
707 points isolli | 2 comments | 05 May 25 12:22 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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chiefgeek ◴[05 May 25 15:01 UTC] No.43895847[source]▶
I've been almost completely off social media (and candy - potentially a larger problem in the past for me) for a month other than to check once or twice a day to see if somebody has messaged me (rarely) and it really has been rather profound to experience life with the lack of regular hits of dopamine. It is such a subtle "drug". I've still been on a computer and surfing the web but not nearly the same amount of time as I was spending on my phone and social. I sat a ten day Vipassana course in 2016 - a profound experience that was at least an order of magnitude more impactful with regard to being off of "screens". There's definitely a cost that accompanies any perceived benefits of social media interaction. As in all things - balance!
replies(1): >>43895901 #
1. amelius ◴[05 May 25 15:06 UTC] No.43895901[source]▶
Did anyone ever research the dopamine-level fluctuations in HN-reading subjects?
replies(1): >>43896229 #
2. bee_rider ◴[05 May 25 15:37 UTC] No.43896229[source]▶
If it were somehow formalized, I’d be 0% surprised to see that HN is particularly bad from a distraction point of view. Other sites, I know with perfect certainty that I am going there to waste time. Here, there is a chance that I’ll actually come across something legitimately useful.

It is like Pavlov’s bell—the important part being the randomness, of course.

I always find it funny to see, on any social media site, “I’ve quit almost all social media sites, except this one.” Well, we have successfully identified which one was most addictive I guess.