[yazboo]

It’s a difference of degree not kind. The constant audiovisual stimulus running through the internet is much more powerful than any of those things, and more widely available. Cable TV was close. It was always on in the room, but you had to be in the room, and you had to negotiate with your cohabitants over what to have on, or else you could go somewhere and be bored. There are no constraints anymore, with exceptions for the most impoverished among us - there’s always something close at hand to tickle your particular reptile brain until you fall asleep.

[Buttons840]

Computers with social media are so extremely reactive. Literally within half a second I can react to my boredom and find new content. I've noticed myself beginning to read a sentence, get bored half-way through, switch tabs, look over the new recommendations, do it again 30 seconds later.

Never bored, and yet never really entertained or satisfied.

[netsharc]

The best is when you're on reddit, think "this is boring", open a new tab and type in "reddit.com"...

On that topic, I've luckily managed to make reddit boring that I open it, scroll for a minute or so, and close it again: I unsubscribed from the "interesting" subreddits like politics or tifu or askreddit.

[Buttons840]

One trick I've found to help with this is to live-stream. I once streamed a game on Twitch, nobody really watched, but it forced me to sit down and actually play the game for a good 2 or 3 hours. It was draining, gloriously draining and satisfying. You can stream programming and other personal projects as well. It doesn't matter if you get many viewers or not, just forcing yourself to maintain a consistent course of action helps. If you do get some real viewers though, all the better, you can monetize your work and enjoy free advice and socializing with viewers.

[tarboreus]

Playing the game was what was draining?

[Buttons840]

Yes, normally I would play for 30 mins and then do something else. It was Outer Wilds though, a mystery / puzzle game similar to Myst and so the problem solving made it more tiring and more tempting to take breaks.

[Jensson]

Streaming games live is a job that people burn out doing, it is very draining.

[winternett]

That's because it really doesn't pay to do so... Even though a lot of streamers act like they're making money, they're really not getting paid much.

[byecomputer]

The act of performing in front of others was probably the draining part.

But also, yeah. If you need someone to watch you do X so you can enjoy X, maybe you don't like X all that much in the first place.

[dawatchusay]

Yeah, wow

[alfiedotwtf]

> Never bored, and yet never really entertained or satisfied.

Social media in a nutshell

[jonjacky]

> Never bored, and yet never really entertained or satisfied.

"Nobody is bored, everything is boring." -- K-Punk

[scotty79]

That's not what happens when people doom scroll. They are not perfectly entertained. They are profoundly bored on social media. But they still scroll for scraps of entertainment because more promising alternatives are not really accessible to them at that moment, because of physical limitations or their state of mind or their energy levels.

[pronlover723]

Agreed, and quite often there was nothing of interest. On the net I can almost always find something of interest or at least interesting enough for me to crap my time away

[agumonkey]

yeah, internet has near no constraint and this is the key problem

TV had time.. you may be able to store it but you'd need tapes .. still space and efforts constraints

today your hard drive and infinite connection create an infinite pit

I also believe our brains love, just like muscles love exercise, prioritizing, you feel better when you made a smart decision. the feeling of never having to choose, skip through many videos, pausing them, in any order tickle the gluttony in us but then you get stuck and rot

[DieAgainAli]

We