[slashclee]

Every time I see a post like this (including Paul Miller over at the Verge), it reminds me of an obese person suddenly deciding to go anorexic. You know what the problem is? It's not the food. It's self-control, plain and simple.

[jacobolus]

It makes sense for an obese person to stop stocking the pantry and refrigerator with ice cream, cookies, chips, and soda. Binge eating and sugar addiction are serious problems, and just blaming people and telling them they have “bad self control” doesn’t really solve anything. Putting dangerous temptation out of reach, however, can have real benefits. (Although usually overeating is also linked to other unrelated stress, so this may mainly be treating a symptom rather than the root cause.)

For the science, some of it quite shocking, check out this great lecture series http://www.youtube.com/course?list=PL4FD135EA45DEEBB6&fe...

This lecture in particular, about rat studies, is amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cli0RJQiPc

[awj]

> It makes sense for an obese person to stop stocking the pantry and refrigerator with ice cream, cookies, chips, and soda.

I would call this "self control", which is exactly what the GP was advocating.

[jacobolus]

Okay. Then by the same token, getting rid of the home internet connection is “self control”. So then what is he complaining about?

[mbell]

The proper analogy to getting rid of the internet connection would be throwing out the refrigerator, the cabinets and every piece of food or food holding device you have.

Of course, you'd be risking dying of hunger to do so, just as you'd be risking intellectual death by cutting off the internet.

[jacobolus]

> risking intellectual death by cutting off the internet

Give me a fucking break. I know many people (even several programmers) without an internet connection at home, and none of them are at any sort of risk of “intellectual death”.

[anthuswilliams]

He still has access to the Internet with his phone and nearby wi-fi networks. It's not like he suddenly became Amish.

[scott_meade]

"intellectual death" is a little hyperbolic, I think. I too know people who spend little to no time on the internet and seem to be quite intellectual, informed, functional, and happy.

It's the people that get their "information" from daily doses of "I saw it on the internet" that worry me, to be honest. Some people I know that spend the most time on the internet seem able to tell you a lot of stuff they read and saw, but are not able to apply much intellect to it.

[nixterrimus]

As a programmer I want to think that it's just self control, that we can impose discipline on ourselves (or products) and engineer a solution. The thing is that it looks like from the recent studies that the internet fundamentally changes the way our brain works. I'm away from my copy of The Shallows by Nicholas Carr [1] but I know that he references specific studies on the way the internet changes the brain. Here is a quote I found from a recent interview with NPR:

"Neuroscientists and psychologists have discovered that, even as adults, our brains are very plastic," Carr explains. "They're very malleable, they adapt at the cellular level to whatever we happen to be doing. And so the more time we spend surfing, and skimming, and scanning ... the more adept we become at that mode of thinking."

I highly recommend The Shallows[1]. It's a look at the way the internet is changing our brains. It really might be a good idea to limit exposure to the internet. As a programmer and geek it's worth spending some time thinking about these questions and least being aware of the affects of the medium.

[1]: http://amzn.to/Ofpbd2

[griffindy]

I'm not sure if this was in the book you're describing, but I remember reading somewhere that was has changed is that we no longer remember specific facts (Boston is the capital of Massachusetts), rather where we can find them most easily (Wikipedia). Whether or not that's a change for the better, I couldn't say.

[wpietri]

Willpower is a limited commodity. This guy decided to spend his elsewhere. Why is that a problem at all?

[tadfisher]

There's something to be said about forcing yourself to develop new habits. Take away the distractions for a while, and you'll find that when you add them back, it's harder to break these new habits.

Just focusing on self-control is very hard. Take smoking, for instance -- it's hard to just "cut down" when that temptation is always there.

[billswift]

You have to force or trick yourself into changing habits, the problem with habits is that they become automatic responses to some stimuli; enter "habit change Wood" into Google Scholar for some interesting reading, especially a pdf of http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/15/4/198.short , which is the single best article I have found.