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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: 0s | source
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snozolli ◴[05 May 25 15:12 UTC] No.43895965[source]▶
Before smartphones and the Internet, I almost always had a paperback book to read. Bus rides were either me talking to friends (rare, since our schedule didn't match often), reading a book, or uncomfortably fighting the urge to doze off.

While, yes, social media gives us a more pronounced dopamine hit-and-crave cycle, we've always had means of escape at our fingertips.

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jjulius ◴[05 May 25 16:06 UTC] No.43896539[source]▶
A smartphone and a book are, by and large, different modes of escape with different impacts on the escapee. Scrolling through social media is a far cry from focusing on a single subject for an extended period of time, which is what reading a book does.
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1. snozolli ◴[05 May 25 19:05 UTC] No.43898326[source]▶
Both are forms of escape. That can be escaping common boredom to pass the time, or it can be escaping bad feelings or a bad life situation. Also, I'm not convinced that a compelling fiction book that's struck a chord is actually a meaningfully different dopamine drip than scrolling Instagram.