Re:Ask HN: What do you do to recharge after a day of work?
by WaffleIronMaker on Monday April 11, 2022 @08:20AM
(#30987697)
I can recommend this. I've felt like frequent internet use makes people feel they cannot allow themselves to be bored. It's much easier to pick up reddit/youtube/whatever than to sit in silence.
In the words of Bo Burnham, "Apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime".
However, that's the thing with recommendation algorithms: They always recommend you use their site. They never suggest, "Hey, you should really just relax for a bit", even when you really should. You have to make that choice for yourself, and its way more difficult when you're used to using entertainment media.
I have fallen into this cycle many times, my advice for if you are feeling tired is to give up that sort of content for a few weeks. In the time when you would [watch tv, game, browse reddit] just sit on the patio and watch the clouds go by (maybe with a single beer or glass of wine if you are so inclined) and let your mind wonder. It can be excruciating at first as you overcome your addition to mindless content, but after you get over that you can finally let your thoughts be free and actually relax. As you get into the rythm then you can start to shift to more productive activities like going for a walk or cooking or blogging or whatever, but the first step is to break the addiction to mindless content.