[SoftTalker]

I'm not sure I agree. We had all these complaints about TV going back to the 1970s (the earliest clear memories I have). It was called "the plug in drug" and "the boob tube."

Homebound and housewives used to watch hours of game shows and soap operas all day.

If a kid liked to read, some parents would tell them to "get your head out of that book and go outside."

It's just something to do to fill the boredom.

[majormajor]

We've had those complaints for a long time, and associated stereotypical problems with them - like daydrinking housewives. And now we have increased loneliness, mental health issues, etc. So maybe there's something to the complaints. Maybe sticking your face in media cloistered away at home 24/7 is worse for the mental health of most people than socializing, having to get out there and find ways to entertain yourself with others.

If you never practice making and having friends, how are you ever going to have them?

[bobthepanda]

at least from what i've seen, most Americans now live in communities where even if they wanted to there are an increasing lack of places to just hang out, particularly if you don't want booze involved.

the real estate shortage is driving two effects; places not optimized for revenue are being priced out of existence, and workers need higher wages to pay housing costs which squeezes these places further and results in things like shorter operating hours even if full closure doesn't happen.

[majormajor]

Malls aren't that dead yet, for starters.

"Hey come over to my place" also works.

"Let's grab dinner."

If they weren't constantly driving themselves to distraction most people would be able to make at least 1 or 2 friends at work or from a shared hobby, based on the experience of all the decades prior.

The US not having "third spaces" went into the founding story of Starbucks. The big difference today is people not even having friends and no longer knowing how to even do so, thanks to the addiction machines. Why risk rejection when you can just go back to your scroll?

[bobthepanda]

malls have basically also optimized for sales per square foot to the detriment of their former status as hangout spots. at the modern mall, "kids just hanging out" is considered a loitering nuisance these days. and the malls that are surviving are those geared towards upper incomes, which means that the availability of third places is bifurcating like everything else in the economy.

amongst the people I know, a fair amount are not able to willing or host events because they have roommates who they are not necessarily friends with; and amongst those lucky enough to live alone, new build apartment sizes have been shrinking.

[thfuran]

Something like 75% of the residential land in the US is zoned exclusively for SFH. There's not even a third place to squeeze because it's just houses.

[bobthepanda]

The US has the highest retail square foot per capita by a long shot.

This is old but even with the mall apocalypse, we haven’t had a reduction from 20+ sq ft per person to the 3-4 normal in Western Europe and Japan. https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-i...

I would actually say the (indoor) mall apocalypse is a contributing factor since for all their faults, malls were third places in a way that strip shopping centers are not.

At least for retail the problem is moreso that lenders and landlords are playing hot potato with inflated rent and extend and pretend; some(most?all?) commercial loans go into default if rent goes below a certain amount

[theoreticalmal]

Not a super useful metric because third places probably wouldn’t be zoned residential. This is like saying 75% of fruits are apples, so there’s no room for asparagus

[thfuran]

Ideally they would be in a place zoned residential, just not exclusively residential. If everything is zoned for only single family homes, there won't be a third place nearby. The density is low and it's not mixed use.

[ashtakeaway]

Where would those friends ever be in the first place? Everyone I know and see is on their phone doing the same exact thing. Nobody socializes except at work where they're forced to be.

[kakacik]

TV is still addictive, and it was. I felt it myself in 80s and 90s, good content was rare and I had to set an alarm in the middle of the night to watch some good stuff. And stick around 5 minute block of ads. Active screens, especially ones always in the pocket or on the table, are way more addictive.

It takes some... special mindset to be polite to not see it literally everywhere, the scale and intensity of it, the addiction of kids especially. They have no freakin' defenses and often didn't experience normal life, ever. Ask any child psychologist about their opinion of screens among kids before say 14, and even afterwards.

It can be fought, we are quite successful so far with our kids and we have quite a few parents around us with same mindset, but we have to lead by example.

Easiest is to unplug from active social cancers (fb, instagram, tiktok or whatever kids are addicted to these days). Ignore most of the news, read about topic from source far away from place/country affected. TV can serve some quality content but one has to do some effort, no ads. Computer games are a waste of time and life (I know, I've wasted half of my childhood with them, 100x that for any online gaming), if one is bored then get a sport, passion, read a book, force yourself into some social action, whatever is vastly better. Then comes along junk food, again parents lead by examples.

Life is freakin' short, its pretty sad view to waste it on all above in more than a minimal fashion. Its sort of life success in 'look I am not a homeless person or heroine addict', but just a good fat notch above that. Literally anybody can do better.

[Liftyee]

I agree with quite a few points here especially on short form content and the mainstream news these days. However on computer games I am still a little undecided. I tend to (try to?) play "creative" games... think Minecraft, Factorio, etc... where you have the chance to execute some project or vision without any real world costs.

Thinking about it, my overall position is to maintain a balance between dopamine from long-term sources and short-term ones. I think long-running creative projects that make you think are generally good whether they are digital (see: 3D animators/artists) or physical - it's just personal preference which one you tend towards. The types of games I try to limit are those with temporary rounds/matches/etc... unlike a Minecraft world, there is no cumulative aspect, no long-term planning apart from your own increase in skill. Despite that, the short satisfaction from momentary successes in each game keep you playing.

[kakacik]

Look, there are way more harmful ways to spend time than those creative games you mention. It can be even net positive for many, especially compared to more mind numbing activities.

I just hate seeing them in hands of kids who should get development pressures from anything but glowing interactive screens, and generally folks who form addictions very easily (I am simply on the opposite side for whatever reason, when comparing to many peers in various drugs but also general mental habits... but I feel if I fell for it hard enough my defenses would weaken across the board, probably permanently).

[_vqpz]

I'm curious how you reconcile reading and commenting on HN multiple times a day every day with the lifestyle you claim to live.

[kakacik]

I never claimed I live a perfect life, but I am trying my best and calling things proper names, even if they are ugly and harmful (in my opinion) yet feel good. Too much time spent in HN comments can be harmful too obviously, mind easily falls for addictive behavioral patterns. Although for me its probably best really good usable information from all aspects of life gained vs time spent ratio for all discussed. And spending 0-30 mins daily, usually during work, commute or similar empty time rather than reading some outrage-filled news is something I am fine with.

Is what I describe so unreachable for you that you make your words make sound... unkind?

I am also doing these passions while helping raising 2 small kids: hiking, sport climbing, via ferratas, skiing, ski touring, diving, and recently abandoned paragliding due to brushing death in pretty bad accident. Those take way more time and effort than coming here. I spend almost 0 time in front of TV, don't have consoles, play like 1 game per 2 years, offline and on desktop PC only (last one was Baldur's Gate 3).

[insane_dreamer]

Not the OP, but it's because what's on HN is generally much more informative than the 10-sec TikTok meme videos and click-bait news headlines or FB feeds. I wouldn't be on HN otherwise. (I deleted my FB account 10 years ago, and my Twitter account 3 years ago.)

[lucyjojo]

We do the opposite of what you do.

[kjkjadksj]

You weren’t watching TV every free instant you had, like at a red light, on the escalator, while using the urinal, etc. I mean some of these people must not think at all. All free time they could have spent daydreaming or planning or whatever is just taken up by the dumb app in tiny dopamine driving chunks of time. This has to have some effect on brain wiring over time. Just giving yourself absolutely no time for your own thoughts.

[aeontech]

guiltily looks up from HN while stopped at a red light

[Freedom2]

Insane to be using a phone in that manner while driving regardless.

[aeontech]

Yep. You'd be shocked (or maybe not) at how many people I looking at their phones on a freeway.

I wonder if there's any statistics comparing deaths and injuries from drunk driving versus distracted driving over the past 20 years or so. Is it a comparable at all?

[kordlessagain]

<Votes for Freedom exiting I35S>

[bdangubic]

TV in the ‘70s cannot possibly be compared to what we are up against today…

[enraged_camel]

Nah, this misses the point entirely. The scale of the problem today is multiple orders of magnitude greater, for several reasons.

First, TVs were stationary. Unlike smartphones, you couldn't take them wherever you went. If you were wealthier, you could somewhat compensate for this by having multiple TVs, for example in the bedroom in addition to the living room. But whenever you stepped outside your house the TV did not come with you. Places like doctors offices or hotel lobbies might have them in waiting rooms but that was really it in terms of the average person's exposure.

Second, TV programming was not explicitly designed to be addictive. Sure, studios wanted people to watch their programs because that's how they got ad revenue, but they had neither sophisticated tools nor the methods to dial addictiveness to the max. They did not have algorithms, for example, to serve you personalized content based on your tastes and desires. You picked from a limited selection of what was available in that week's programming.

Third, TVs did not have built-in mechanisms to demand re-engagement when you had them turned off. No such thing as notifications. At best you had blurbs about what is next on the program, but those were both channel-specific and also required your TV to be on. So people were not constantly bombarded with micro dopamine hits like they are today.

I could go on, but yeah, your rebuttal does not stand up to critical scrutiny. What we have today is a global scale addiction. It is absolutely nothing like TVs or newspapers/books before them.

[mindslight]

I think even highly-engaging well-written high-production-value TV doesn't satiate all of your brain's achievement circuits. Being an Internet native, I was binge watching shows well before the term was invented, and before shows were fluffed out to compensate for bulk half-engaged viewing. When an episode ends I don't want to leave the universe - it's so easy to up-arrow, backspace to the episode number, tab, enter. But I always found there was kind of a limit whereby eventually I would have "had enough" and move on to something different to feel like I was actually achieving something - getting back to work, social interaction, physical chores, etc.

Whereas the plethora of web/apps can provide simulations for all those different circuits in your brain, as you move between them each satiating a different aspect of your personality. And then when you've got time to really "relax", you can still turn on TV in the background to be engaged in multiple low effort stimulations at once.

[parineum]

You points about TV may stand but they don't apply to books, newspapers and magazines.

All three of which I have seen people walking on the sidewalk while reading, btw.

[array_key_first]

Scale not only matters, it's pretty much the only thing that matters.

That's why me having a butter knife is of no concern, but they certainly won't give me the nuclear launch codes.

[insane_dreamer]

It was bad then. But it's much worse now because it's ubiquitous -- you're carrying it around in your pocket to fill every empty moment. Not to mention that back then, your "favorite shows" were on a couple of times a day if you were lucky. Now, it's 24/7.

The quantity and availability of "visual entertainment" for me as a child of the 70s pales in comparison to what my young kids have available to them. As parents we're continuously fighting it, including shutting off the router at set times.

[bogdanoff_2]

What exactly do you not agree with?

[pasteldream]

Perhaps they disagree with the idea that it’s an addiction or that it’s a problem with screens in particular, rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways.

[1718627440]

> rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways.

That's literally what an addiction is.

[nitwit005]

An addiction would be you struggle to stop doing it. That would suggest they have no issue stopping, given a more interesting option.

[1718627440]

> people not being able to spend their free time in other ways

> people not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways

Are two indications how it is difficult to stop something.

[mwarkentin]

“I can stop any time I want!”

[nitwit005]

You don't stop doing drugs because there's some movie you want to see. People do get off their phones for that.

[array_key_first]

I can see that, but IMO the main difference is that this feels like it's intentionally trying to be an active detriment to your life. TV et. al are fairly neutral generally. Even with the ads.

But with targeted advertisement, it feels a lot more like they're trying to get inside your mind to steal your money.

And with content on social media, it feels specifically engineered to make your life as bad as possible. More fear, more anger, more racism, more sexism. Here's some big boobies, now look at this disgusting immigrant. Isnt Earth awful? Aren't these guys ruining everything?

[financetechbro]

This. Targeted adds + bespoke algorithms make our current tech incomparable to the previous boogeyman of TV et al. We have devices that are designed to keep and farm our attention at all costs

[w0de0]

Too true. Then we elected a reality TV star president. Just ‘cause humanity survived doesn’t mean it thrived.

[HPsquared]

People did watch too much TV, and it was bad.

[almosthere]

They still do it's just replaced with YT or NF or TT or IG

[GeoAtreides]

We had opium dens in the past, why not fentanyl dens today?

It's just something to do to fill the boredom.

(That's to say: Just because something was mildly bad in the past doesn't mean that the current, somewhat similar, thing in the present isn't horrifically bad. The issues are orthogonal +- 5deg max)

[andy99]

If we kept opium dens there probably wouldn’t be widespread fentanyl use, isn’t it a reaction to the challenges of getting less dangerous opiates, i.e. is more potent and easier to smuggle?

Many places have “supervised consumption” sites or decriminalization now that has gone very poorly, I think in retrospect having opium dens for those who choose to live that way might have been a better alternative to the current state.

[GeoAtreides]

My comment wasn't really about drug consumption and policy, that was just a metaphor...