[DyslexicAtheist]

time spent in a way that made you feel good isn't wasted. maybe it had no economic output but that isn't a waste.

But the long term benefit of TV/Video isn't a diet that's good for you. Consider all the things you could do (not "achieve") if you'd use it for reading books, travel, learning a language or art. What this medium robs you of is boredom, which maybe feels great in the short run, but is hugely damaging to your creativity, focus and (probably even) mental health.

When I deleted facebook I noticed a huge improvement, but also I shifted my attention to other things which are equally addictive (HN, and my "personal information pipeline"). So like when I stopped smoking and moved to caffeine and sugar I substituted my FB addiction with other forms of unhealthy consumption. Getting rid of FB is therefore easy but getting rid of the underlying addiction is _really_ hard.

Sitting alone in a room with your thoughts is almost impossible (for most). Try it for a couple of days! Do nothing - not even reading a book you'll feel like you're going insane!

What works though is taking really long walks, or going out to nature for a few weeks (or months) and being on your own. You won't feel bored for long I'll promise! The most awesome memories I personally have are from things that made zero sense (and often in the most terrible circumstances).

[mlang23]

> time spent in a way that made you feel good isn't wasted

I am not sure this sentence is universally true. I'd like to remind you about the experiment with mice that got a button to trigger their own happiness center... They end up pressing that button, until they die from lack of food.

[sobani]

IIRC those mice were also locked up in drab cages. And the experiment was redone in a more natural environment (for example other mice to interact with) were they didn't show this behavior.

[DyslexicAtheist]

true. also drugs usually feel great. there seems to be a cost for feeling great, e.g. you can't have feeling great/happy without sometimes feeling down/sad. how would one even understand the concept of happiness or being fulfilled if they have never experienced the other side.

[Ntrails]

I have never understood why people claim reading is a more worthy use of time than watching tv. Love island probably teaches people more about the human condition than fifty shades does, so pick your poison

[coffeefirst]

Because it's not actually about "optimizing time," it's about a feeling. A lot of people find themselves in a pattern where they binge-watch a show they don't really even like to fill time. Likewise with social media, at some point you're not sure why you're even doing it. Likewise for people who cut back on video games.

It's the behavior, not the medium, that gives this uneasy feeling all of your time is going to a thing that you didn't mean to spend it on.

On the other hand, if you find yourself sucked into a book for a weekend, odds are it's because you can't put it down and will regret nothing. Nobody binge-reads bad books.

[DyslexicAtheist]

most books that have been published in the past 100 years will disappear because they aren't worth the e-/paper they're written on. What makes reading more valuable for your brain is that it requires active engagement. films might be valuable too (I love films such as sci-fi, crime and comedy) - but binging 6 hrs on movies/shows every days is sure not as valuable as reading 6 hrs every day.

It becomes even more damaging when the screen is your only window into the world. e.g. we work in front of a screen all day, then on the way home metro/train or whatever hold a phone to check up on social-media, then after dinner switch on the TV. No wonder so many (young!) people are isolated. (young is especially shocking. I'm old and it's normal for me to be alone. Guess men are terribly at socializing. But seeing so many kids end up lonely and isolated is pretty sad)

[Ntrails]

> binging 6 hrs on movies/shows every days is sure not as valuable as reading 6 hrs every day.

Citation needed

All reading is not inherently valuable, in the same way all television is not. I don't get any more socialisation from reading a book, and indeed unlike e.g. watching TV with housemates/family it's an entirely isolated non-social activity.

Now, if we're talking solely about _children_ then i will give the act of reading additional value due to reading comprehension being a key skill that they need to improve! But mine isn't getting any better at this point, certainly not by reading the same old trash I always do.

"TV bad, Books good" is just a weird generalisation that sticks in my craw and I've never seen a believable piece of evidence for it

[vidarh]

Most of my sons screen time is spent socializing. He rarely watches TV, but he spends a lot of time in multiplayer games where he is simultaneously on discord and building friendships. Yes, he needs face to face socialization too, and he gets plenty of that at school and various other activities, but the point being that screen time can be very passive or it can be active and involve lots of social contact.

[mlang23]

When I was younger, I spent quite a lot of "active screen time" with IRC. Back then, it felt like I am connected to other people. In retrospect, it would have been far better for me if I used that time to socialize with real people IRL. If I could go back in time, I would force myself to go out and meet real people, instead of simulated friendships in a chatroom...

[vidarh]

Having also spent lots of time on IRC, most IRC channels are very different from voice chats with a circle of close friends. Even an IRC channel with close friends is very different,because it's a much more async communication with bursts of more live interaction Vs. the continued direct interaction of a voice chat during shared gaming.

Personally what he's doing would be hopelessly exhausting to me - I'm quite introvert and the level of social interaction he's engaging in is way above my tolerance level in terms of intensity.

[icebraining]

Yeah, but your current judgment of what would have been better is tainted by the fact that you spent a lot of time on IRC, so can you really trust it?

[mlang23]

Oh yeah, I can trust my assesment that real life contacts (lets call it a network) would have been more useful in the long run. I "wasted" about 10 years of my life spending time in front of a computer, as a sort of escape from the fact that I am an outsider by trade. I would have benefited a lot more if I tried to break that habit much much earlier.

[VLM]

For TV, a large number of people are paid enormous amounts of money and put huge efforts into the best result a bland corporate team can produce to increase ad sales by encouraging consumerism. "Love Island" does NOT exist to teach people about the human condition, its only goal is to increase hair spray sales, any other positive effect is simply a happy accident. Even "non profit" TV like PBS mostly exist to entertain the egos and virtue signalling of a small number of major monetary donors.

On the other hand, books are usually written by one person so they have a much stronger and more focused voice, and that strong voice usually has an interesting axe to grind. Or rephrased, if its not interesting or is overly bland, no one reads the book. Admittedly being the most successful at appealing to the groupthink of a sub-population willing to pay for a book is not a Utopian civilization level result, but it is still better than peddling consumerism, and most authors seem to want to get their story out more than they want wealth. Book authors much like pro athletes are a power law distribution where most starve but a microscopic minority get very famous and very rich, so if money were a primary goal they would have gone into finance or software development instead of writing books.

One exists to addict you into consuming ever more bland megacorporate products, the other exists to sell the best ideas, either inherently best, or at least best at meeting existing groupthink demands.

The voice of the product is like the difference between the billionth corporate marketed mcdonalds burger vs a (celebrity?) chef multi course meal.

An excellent analogy would be watching TV would be like following the Walmart twitter account, whereas reading a book would be like reading Paul Graham's blog posts.

[RichardCA]

> TV like PBS mostly exist to entertain the egos and virtue signalling of a small number of major monetary donors.

There was a time in the past when you could find true educational content.

Imagine randomly channel surfing and running into this.

https://youtu.be/feBT0Anpg4A

But I agree with your point. You can watch PBS mindlessly. I used to geek out on the obscure, ephemeral nature of all the educational films they used to show. It was a guilty pleasure.

[_lacroix]

At this point I consider both reading and TV, and especially movies because they don't encourage bingeing, more worthwhile than internet use of any kind - mainly because they require sustained concentration and don't encourage the tab-jumping, notification-checking, infinite-scrolling content addiction that I feel myself falling into when I'm on the internet. There's something to be said for sustained focus on one piece of content, even if that content is Love Island.

[AQuantized]

If you have no problems with your current levels of creativity, focus, etc. is doing those things ("reading books, travel, learning a language or art") still superior to TV?

[DyslexicAtheist]

I wouldn't say superior. That would be snobby and ignorant, but I think it depends on "does it make you happy"? If you have to stop and think then maybe it doesn't. If not then great! Why change something that fulfills you. Doesn't matter what other say, or does it?