[blfr]

This explains too much. I remember the Internet before corporate dominance and it was just as, if not more, magical then.

There's just something about having a beautiful OLED screen, the tablet-like shape, touch interface, and access to all of human knowledge/news/entertainment. I remember when people used to have a tv on when they lounged around the house, or cooked, or cleaned. My parents even had a little special splash proof CRT TV in the kitchen.

The modern screens are just that, except also much more convenient and with million times more content, and personalized, and wireless ANC headphones if you like. This is it, this is peak human information environment. It's not a conspiracy of corporations.

Much like obesity is primarily driven by abundance of calories, another fight we won with our natural environment. The highly processed foods and marketing are just barely making a dent at the edge, and are largely a zero-sum game between food manufacturers.

[torben-friis]

I have noticed that better devices just lead me to more time spent in apps I don’t really enjoy, just because I like the device itself.

I’ve had success consciously worsening my experience, doing stuff like reducing color intensity with accessibility options or using the web version of an app for added friction, which is ridiculous but here we are.

[aziaziazi]

I had a similar experience rebooting my 9yo iPhone [0] after a more recent one went out of service. Hours of screen procrastination got replaced with IRL activities/thinking. I decided to not repair the fancy LCD and keep the little friend. It’s been two years and I don’t feel going back soon.

Reducing color intensity is a great idea to worsen the experience, I’ll give it a go. Yet first thing I do after wake up is checking Hacker News and the design is probably not at fault. Still some self improvement to do.

0 still security updated! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45270108

[tirant]

I have the same experience. I have felt it specially when moving to a new iPhone with 90 or 120Hz screen refresh frequency. Everything is so smooth that becomes pleasurable already by itself.

But not only that, also my work iPhone got recently upgraded from an old SE with small screen and laggy performance to the new 16e, and I found myself more eager to check work emails, ms teams than ever before.

I don’t think that’s a good development, but at the end it’s my responsibility and my own decision on how I use those devices. That also means I will probably downgrade to a worse iPhone instead of getting the best available.

[torben-friis]

I’ve considered that as well, simply getting rid of the high tech altogether and going for a budget or old phone. My main issue with that is the camera, as I place a lot of importance in photos/videos.

I know some people have gone back to carrying a digital pocket camera, but I haven’t really bought into the idea for convenience and because I think taking it out has different social implications.

[ileonichwiesz]

> taking it out has different social implications

It definitely does, but in my experience a standalone camera is usually better received than a phone.

I think it’s got to do with the implication of easy shareability. Pointing a phone at someone always brings to mind the idea that the photo can be sent anywhere within seconds. Are they going to post you on their instagram story? Are they going to send it to their friends and laugh about you?

The friction to sharing photos is so much higher with a standalone camera that I think a lot of people feel much more comfortable with one pointed at them.

Then again, that same friction quickly becomes a problem for the user - I know I’ve lost a lot of my photos just because I couldn’t be bothered to connect the camera, transfer the photos, organize them, back them up etc.

[torben-friis]

For me it’s not really the risk that it will be well received, but rather that cameras trigger a more artificial response.

Selfies or phone pictures are quick and people mostly don’t react, but cameras make us pose, subconsciously. At least I feel a phone gets me more natural photos, that work better as memories of the moment.

The lack of instant online backup is also a good point, I don’t know if that’s on the table on newer models.

[myaccountonhn]

It's a good idea. Companies try really hard to optimize and make everything they want you to do as easy and smooth as possible (and vice versa). Personally I avoid things like Apple Pay for this reason, it's there to remove friction from purchasing stuff, which results in us doing more of it.

[wlesieutre]

Huge agree. Apple likes to pay lip service to this with "screen time" features, but will they make a smaller phone for people who don't want their life centered around staring at the shiny screen? No, because they don't sell as much as big phones.

[JKCalhoun]

I disagree, I guess, except for your comment: "and with million times more content"

That's it in a nutshell, I think. We had television at home since I was maybe 10 years old but the content that would interest a kid was very neatly time-slotted to small segments of each day (with Sunday being essentially an entertainment desert to a kid).

So TV was boring most of the day so we went outside, or if Winter, found ways to amuse ourselves indoors. I drew pictures, played board games with my sister, wired up a circuit with my 65-in-1 electronics kit…

[senordevnyc]

How much do you disagree if you agree with the root of the argument?

Whatever it was that made humans enjoy books, newspapers, magazines, movies, tv shows, written correspondence, phone calls, etc, is now available times a million, 24/7, in your pocket, essentially free (if you don’t count externalities ofc). Plus the ability to handle a huge number of admin and business tasks from anywhere. Not hard to see why it’s so addictive for almost everyone.

[JKCalhoun]

Good point. I think I was reacting to the notion that we like the physicality of the tech — the OLED, whatever. I think the content is the point (and the lack of content for a kid when there were just four TV stations).

[zahlman]

The other half of that is that they used to make 65-in-1 electronics kits. And they were actually educational. There was an expectation that leisure activities could nevertheless improve you as a person. Now you have to go looking for that sort of experience, and it generally only happens as an adult, who has already developed skills and taste to do so.

[SoftTalker]

There is plenty of electronics-oriented content online that will teach you way more than 65 circuits. It's not "hands on" in the sense those Radio Shack kits were, but that's what Sparkfun is for.

And I just checked their site, and what do you know... https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-inventors-kit-for-micropyt...

[realo]

Electronics is still not so bad, but today's chemistry sets have definitely lost a bit of their "fun" parts ...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-rise-and-f...

"... Sodium cyanide can dissolve gold in water, but it is also a deadly poison. “Atomic” chemistry sets of the 1950s included radioactive uranium ore. Glassblowing kits, which taught a skill still important in today’s chemistry labs, came with a blowtorch."

[rixed]

This explains too little. I remember TV before corporate dominance and it was nowhere as bad as cable-TV.

It's hard to believe but initially the content was much thoughful, with actual cultural gems produced for it. Then that content got pushed further and further late at night and eventually disapeared. We can categorize that trend as some kind of "natural erosion" but that'd be ignoring the various forces that fought to change that medium, one of which may be lazy humans relinquishing their soul to the beautiful screen, but another sure one is profit seeking through selling advertisement.

Also, I remember a time when bringing a handheld video game at school would be terrible for a kid's social status. Now it's socially acceptable to spend time in video games.

[lapcat]

> Also, I remember a time when bringing a handheld video game at school would be terrible for a kid's social status.

I don't remember that time. Even the "jocks" loved Mattel Football. And what else were they going to do in school, pay attention to the teacher? ;-)

[SoftTalker]

Exactly. I was in elementary school when those Mattel games came out and the kids who had them were very popular.

[rightbyte]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_drift

Ye Discovery channel etc used to be serious. By todays standard I guess MTV would be considered fancy.

[deegles]

Would you characterize opiate addiction as an abundance of neurotransmitters? You're missing the forest for the trees.

[dfedbeef]

An abundance of easily accessible opiates didn't help.

[amelius]

Yes, we all have a TV on our office desks now.

Something we could not have imagined a few decades ago.

[amelius]

And the worst part is the advertisements. I'm trying to get work done, thank you.

[loloquwowndueo]

UBlock origin is your friend.

If you can’t install it because you’re using chrome, switch to a real browser :)

[amelius]

Call me delusional but I don't trust browser extensions.

[mschulze]

Understandable, but you shouldn't trust the ads, either.

[do_not_redeem]

That's a fine default stance. But uBO is one of, and some would say the only, extension that you should evaluate on its own merits rather than stereotyping with the rest of the category.

[array_key_first]

Fair, but the risk of malware is probably much greater if you don't use an ad blocker. Most ads are scams are phishing these days. Even if you're quite savvy, you can always misclick.

[Larrikin]

Then install AdGuard on your network and pick any of the multiple solutions that let you run your DNS for all of your devices through it.

But yeah it's kind of delusional to put a blanket ban on code you could read yourself.

[ac29]

> But yeah it's kind of delusional to put a blanket ban on code you could read yourself.

uBlock origin is 307k lines of code. Yes, you could read it all, but its an impractical task.

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting uBO is untrustworthy, but just because a piece of software is open source doesn't mean it is practical for an individual to audit the code themselves.

[loloquwowndueo]

Ok - you’re delusional, uBlock origin is widely used and safe.

[grugagag]

We have TVs and 24/7 cable in our pockets, the current online experience resembles the yesteryear cable TV, except it’s more nocive and trackable

[lapcat]

> Much like obesity is primarily driven by abundance of calories, another fight we won with our natural environment. The highly processed foods and marketing are just barely making a dent at the edge, and are largely a zero-sum game between food manufacturers.

Who is getting obese from fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and the like?

People will eat a whole bag of salted potato chips or a whole container of ice cream in a sitting, but who eats a whole bag of oranges in a sitting?

[orwin]

I used to drink orange juice. Around 2 liter a day. I've learned since that it was almost as bad as drinking 2 liter of non caffeinated soda.

[lapcat]

It should be needless to say that oranges are more than just juice.

[orwin]

Yes, something i didn't know whan i was 18. It's not easy to know what to eat when you're young, and to pick up bad habits. Then when overeating destroyed your hormonal balance (insulin, ghrelin are appetite regulating hormones that which imbalance can make a tiny bit of hunger massive and painfull), it's extremely hard to adopt "normal" eating habits without a lot of stability in your life.

[SoftTalker]

Right and people don't stop and think that a 16oz glass of orange juice is like 6 oranges worth. An orange is fine. 6 at a time is ridiculous.

[none2585]

I think that's precisely the point. Junk food is _engineered_ to be irresistible.

[lapcat]

It seems like the person I quoted was denying a major role for junk food, though.

[ethanpailes]

I will absolutely eat a whole bag of oranges in a sitting.

[lapcat]

Are you obese?

I suppose that for any given action, there's likely always someone who will do it, but in any case a bag of oranges has significantly different nutritional properties than a bag of chips. How many oranges are we talking about, and what size oranges?

[throaway180]

Oranges are mostly water...I could definitely eat 4 or 5 in one sitting, and I'm not obese.

[lapcat]

> I could definitely eat 4 or 5 in one sitting

I could too... if I wanted to. For me at least, oranges are not the type of food that inspires me to binge. Do you seriously not understand why people tend to binge on certain foods and not on others? In any case, 5 oranges is at most maybe 400 calories, very low fat and sodium.

> I'm not obese.

Which is my original point: "Who is getting obese from fresh fruit"

Compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we have a practically unlimited supply of fruit, but I don't think thats really the problem.