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The Death of Daydreaming

(www.afterbabel.com)
707 points isolli | 1 comments | 05 May 25 12:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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gaoshan ◴[05 May 25 15:53 UTC] No.43896416[source]▶
Only recently, like in the last year, have I found my phone just sucking me in. I am mindlessly browsing whatever (TikTok, Xiao Hong Shu, Reddit) and then suddenly my time has slipped away. The thing is, I'm not young by any means. I figured I was aged out of the risk that the phone could devour my time but I was so mistaken in thinking that way. Compared to how I felt my time went and was spent when I was younger (pre-internet days) this feels awful and draining and so damn easy to slip into. Feels like life is on pause yet time is still slipping away as fast as ever.
replies(4): >>43896514 #>>43896528 #>>43897954 #>>43898084 #
1. NoMoreNicksLeft ◴[05 May 25 16:04 UTC] No.43896514[source]▶
My phone is decent enough to read books... the large iPhone is not so far different in size than the paperbacks I used to enjoy reading when I was younger. And, in a pinch, I can use it for important things. To send a message to someone I care to communicate with or to look up something urgently, or maybe the maps app if I need to go somewhere. But for all other purposes it is worthless to me. 6 months ago I was debugging my furnace and I had a Youtube video to help with that... and it's just unwatchable on the tiny screen. I found myself going back to my desk to watch it on the big screen. Though, even on that, Youube is very unappealing unless I'm looking for something specific.

On the computer monitor(s), I could lose the entire day here on HN or (less often now days) reddit. I still can't understand the appeal of gluing my eyeballs to a phone screen.