[trh0awayman]

This and things like FocusMate seem symptomatic of much larger, more serious latent problems. It reminds of the younger generations having to put YouTube on to eat a meal. I can't quite put my finger on the connection, but paying a person sit behind you and ask how you're doing, and make you a smoothie... it feels like you're hiring someone to be your mother. This entire experiment left me feeling unclean.

[beezlebroxxxxxx]

The loss of "public life" in NA is a fairly well documented phenomenon. Putnam's Bowling Alone was a famous warning shot that we never quite reacted to. For a whole host of reasons, many people nowadays, and especially many young people, are lonely in a way and scale that is hard to imagine 50 or 60 years ago.

Btw this doesn't just include young people. People needing youtube on to eat is just another variation on needing the TV on. I know and have read about some elderly people that keep the weather channel or 24hr news on all day out of sheer loneliness. Across the board people are just lonely in numbers that lead it could be called an epidemic by many health and mental health organizations.

This experiment left me feeling unclean for a different reason: this person essentially just hired a retinue of servants.

[strikelaserclaw]

social media is the mcdonalds of feeling like you have a community, it robs individuals of the drive to go out and make real connections.

[drivers99]

> ADHD body doubling is a productivity strategy used by individuals with ADHD to finish possibly annoying jobs while having another person beside them. This person is the body double. The body double's duty is to keep the individual with ADHD focused on the task at hand to reduce potential distractions.

— add.org google extract

Sounds like a legitimate strategy.

[mtgentry]

My thought as well. People with ADHD will appreciate the experiment. Productivity tools may help some people, but there’s something about having people in the room that greatly amplifies productivity for me.