[matrix87]

I don't understand how people who are into their late 20s and 30s have time for all of this online drama

If you have to work, manage relationships, and have to cook and clean up after yourself, where is the extra time for it?

Not only that, but with what little free time that's left, people would choose to spend it on engaging in online drama instead of doing something actually pleasant

It's one of those things that I thought was funny and entertaining when I was younger, but it just seems kind of dumb to me now. Similar to the digital nomad thing. Maybe I've just gotten boring, idk

[lapcat]

You've spent the time to go on Hacker News, read about the online drama, and then comment on the online drama.

The author considered their writing on social media to be social activism, so that may be why they spent so much time on it, for a higher purpose.

[matrix87]

> You've spent the time to go on Hacker News, read about the online drama, and then comment on the online drama.

it's usually easier to read about something after the fact than it is to participate in it as it's unfolding. Especially if there are strong emotions involved

> social activism

It's less about the end goal than the way she goes about accomplishing it. Taking the time to seek out alt-right troll accounts to regularly engage with is probably the worst way of doing it (both from the standpoint of effectiveness and psychological cost involved)

[saurik]

But, this is the drama... you are part of the drama ;P (as am I! and we are both doing this--"instead of doing something actually pleasant"--because, what? FWIW, I can see the argument that it is maybe being justified mentally as "social activism"--for both of us, though in different ways--but I actually think, at least for me, that it is a form of escapism and addiction).

[matrix87]

Well as far as drama goes, this community is about as dramatic as a box of cereal

On the one hand for me, it's escapism. On the other, there's a lot of novelty available, new things that we'd never encounter irl. Which gives us new ideas for things to try irl. Sort of like the printing press spreading information faster

[John23832]

Eh idk if that’s true.

Think about the drama that was the recent rust for Linux lead resigning. People then have their opinions about it and then it spills into the comments here.

I think you just care less about the social media drama as described in the submission (which is ok).

[bongodongobob]

Anyone who describes themselves as an openly queer activist and microblogger is not really representative of the avg person. Their entire thing is being online all the time. It's not a hobby for them, it's their whole personality. I'll guess you're probably a straight white male due to the odds on this site, like me. We don't have the same struggles perceived or otherwise. It does seem alien to me. But, live and let live.

[ViktorRay]

You say “live and let live” but a life spent terminally online is no life at all.

I remember when I was in elementary school teachers would talk about minimizing time spent watching tv. Parents would be encouraged to tell their kids to minimize tv watching and spend more time reading. The point wasn’t to never watch tv. But to keep the time spent watching as little as possible.

It was well understood that tv is addictive and a life spent in front of the tv is no life at all.

But now we have the internet. Far more addictive than tv. People spend hours staring at the interactive tv that is the smartphone.

People spend hours engaging in “activism” on the internet that feels good inside but accomplishes nothing. The feeling of false accomplishment feeds into the addiction. Everyone instinctively knows a life watching tv is a waste but people are deluded into thinking that a life on social media matters.

In other words it’s all a drug. Makes you feel good but leads you to waste your life. Nobody says live and let live to a drug addict.

“It’s not a hobby for them, it’s their whole personality”

Just like a life lived like this is no life at all, a personality like this is no personality at all.

[bongodongobob]

Nah. The older I get the more I realize we're all making this up as we go along and there is no round two. That means different things to different people. Some people think typing on computers making bullshit B2B apps is no way to live. Some people think it is. It takes all kinds to run this big humanity experiment and it's a good thing that people value different things. We need people to have different and even bad ideas for any of this to work.

I couldn't care less how others spend their time, I'm just glad that everyone has their niche.

[watwut]

> People spend hours engaging in “activism” on the internet that feels good inside but accomplishes nothing. The feeling of false accomplishment feeds into the addiction.

Most people accomplish nothing. You go playing basketball with guys after work, you will accomplish nothing with it. You sit and read books, you are accomplishing nothing. You tend to your flowers at home and you are not actually accomplishing all that much.

Insisting on accomplishment all the time just leads to mental health problems.

> Just like a life lived like this is no life at all, a personality like this is no personality at all.

Why? Of course it is personality. It is not like the rest of us all had super special valuable personalities either. We just exist.

[CatWChainsaw]

Even in that age range I recognized that trying to keep up with fleeting drama was a red queen's race. That said I think whichever generations are "always online" at the current time are going to find it a lot harder to leave that headspace in the future, both because of the addiction-promoting behaviors baked into platforms and because of various motivations for trying to keep up. Social topics/"politics", influencer aspirations, toxic positivity, and lack of any other meaningful interactions all come to mind.

[jltsiren]

There are around 6000 waking hours in a year. A full-time job is 1/3 of that. Maybe managing your life is another 1/3. That still leaves 2000 hours, which is plenty for hobbies, vacations, doing silly things, and feeling bored.

Some people are busy because they need multiple jobs or have unexpected caretaker responsibilities. But many who feel busy are busy because they choose to be busy. They have made so many commitments that they are doing the time equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck.

[dijit]

5840 hrs awake, based on 16hours per day.

2080 hrs at work, based on a 40hr work week - of course not counting days off.

Math seems to be mathing (mostly) but it feels wrong, work definitely feels like it takes up much more than 1/3rd of our waking hours.

[DavidPiper]

Things get murky because you have to include commuting and preparation/returning home time. But I also like to distinguish physical time and mental time. Sure physically I'm at work for 40 hours a week, but the mental space it takes up is far more.

If anyone has good tips on how to mentally separate from work after hours I would love to hear them. I know some people can literally switch it on and off like a light but I've never been able to.

[matrix87]

40 hours in software feels kind of idealistic. Where I work, it feels like they're constantly pushing people to do shit outside of business hours

[fnfjfk]

Well, the author does kinda come around to that at the end:

> I’ve read more books in the last 16 months than I have in the 16 years before them. I’ve ran 5k, 8k for the first time in my life. I’m able to do more situps now than at any point since I was probably 15 years old.

At the start, I was definitely thinking "why keep going to a website you say is like hell?"

> We so belovedly called it the “hellsite” for good reason: the daily trek through the timeline was like tapdancing in a minefield. Twitter was awful because it rewarded awfulness.

[bell-cot]

Drama is as much a state of mind as it is something which requires blocks of time. And younger folks are often amazing multi-taskers...at least at the functionality level needed to do drama.

And online, those who have cut back on (or are slacking off at) work, relationships, etc. are probably over-represented.

(Yes, their wanting to drama I really don't get. But I'm an old geezer, so...)

[interludead]

Online drama can be a way to escape