agreed on energy for reading. do you think it’s that we’re getting older or that the friction associated with consuming information is just getting lower and lower over time?

When it comes to online reading, there are quite a few things that cause me fatigue that I don't feel I used to experience. Advertisements have been there for a long time, but often these are woven into the content, either as literal text placed in the article, or as visual ads that you need to scroll through to continue reading the article. Relying on different JavaScript and CSS techniques to "enhance" the user experience often cause me issues when I'm just trying to focus on reading. Those include overriding scrollbars, dynamic loading of content when the text is small enough to have been included in the page, and displaying some kind of alternative action when highlighting text. I'll often highlight text to keep track of where I'm reading, and some sites will pop up a dialog with share actions, or the ability to add annotations, etc. This is distracting and makes it more difficult to follow along with a longer article.

I'm 45, and got my start on BBS pre-internet, but I feel like if I find an article without the distractions I mentioned above, I actually have more energy to complete an article than I did in my 20's and 30's. Having access to the article without distractions helps me to focus, and when I focus, I tend to consume more content than I normally would. Most likely one of the reasons we're drawn to HN.

You've just made me realize why I usually avoid clicking the actual article link on HN. It's usually a very unpleasant experience, unless it's clear that it's a smaller website.

Perhaps a small help for you might be "reader mode" or "focus mode" or whatever your browser of choice calls it.

It's usually embedded in the url bar (probably a hotkey for it), and gives you only the text. A major step forward in not having to subconsciously ingest and then choose to ignore all the ads, related links, etc.

Thank you, I'm not sure why I always seem to forget that feature. Although I don't like the Google lock-in, on certain sites I can also visit the AMP version of the page, and have fewer ads while also getting the images.

So my energy levels have declined noticeably from age 20 to 30. I thought it was mostly my own chronic health issues causing accelerated aging, but many of my friends are making similar complaints.

I did notice far before this point (e.g. age 10 to 20) that my patience for reading had gone down significantly. If I had to guess I'd say that in my case it's due to an underlying anxiety that started in early teens and never left me. Drowning it out seems to require something more stimulating than reading (on paper).

(Perhaps meditation or therapy (shadow integration?) would help here. I've certainly had glimpses of inner peace during times when I was meditating regularly. One insight from this time: "holy crap, I always thought I needed to struggle harder, but it turns out I just needed to learn how to relax...")

I can get through audiobooks but I can only consume them while traveling or doing chores. If I'm sitting down, the restlessness is too high and I can't concentrate on the book.

I also have ADHD and heard similar things from others with ADHD, so I'm not sure to what degree this translates to others.

I never had ADHD or related attention problems. However, I find the way interwebs has evolved over years and to basically trained our brains to be so focused on super short pieces of simply digestible content has basically turned me off of longer form content. I’ve noticed my preference for immediate gratification has increased significantly. It feels like I’m developing an attention disorder in my middle age years.

I read a huge amount every day, lots of news articles, chapters of whatever book, random material of interest, people's comments and questions. I rarely read anything "long-form", however, because it has a strong tendency to be a giant self-indulgent bloviating pile of shit. There are exceptions: I've read every story on damninteresting, because it's true to its name. (Hi Alan. Post something new.)

I've nearly finished Moby Dick, but I don't know why, it's dreadful, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I guess it's historically interesting.

Possibly you guys are not losing the will or energy to read, you're merely discovering that the things you think you ought to read are terrible. Try only reading what you like. So what if it's short? Maybe your preference is right.

I can't read long form content from a phone screen or computer monitor. I really don't like it. It might be the scrolling, or maybe the type of screen, or conditioning to expect instant gratification. I do, however, read 20-30 books a year, both paper and on an ereader.

I think it's super important to make reading a habit so one must identify what doesn't work for them and try something else. You lose so much if you don't read.

Yeah, reading on a screen is ass. What eReader do you use?

I got a Kobo recently and I don't like it much. It's much duller than my last one, which is either due to the color screen having less contrast or me misremembering.

Kobo's main selling point was that it's not botnet, but I couldn't even turn the thing on without making an online account...

I use a Kobo Clara HD. I think Claras are the second cheapest ones. No colour. I find the contrast about as good as a cheap paperback book. Not as good as good quality printing on acid-free paper, but that's OK.

I actually prefer lower contrast, it gives me less eye fatigue and I've specifically chosen low-contrast themes on my computer for as long as I can remember.

I think there is a way to not create the account if you really don't want to. I put KOReader on mine straight away and never use the built-in software. That also incidentally has an option to adjust the contrast.

Wanted to share that I also had intense anxiety/depression well into my thirties but was able to finally sort it out a few years ago.

I think your phrase "learn how to relax" is spot-on. I was chronically under-slept and chronically over-focused on school, university, career, side-hustle(s), etc.--without much great effect I might add. My brain was so wound up from a decade-plus of hyper-vigilance that I had actually forgotten how to relax.

Obviously, I am not you and n=1, but hopefully it is encouraging to know that you might not always need to drown it out.

Partly lower energy in general, though it would be interesting to try a "low information diet" and see what effect that has.

If you're eating snacks all day, you won't have a healthy appetite for proper meals.

I noticed on vacation I spend far less time online, and a lot more time reading books.

Thanks for the comment, I'm really enjoying the discussion it has sparked.

Yes, I'm just taking the top comments, along with a few child comments, in order to not exceed the context window of the model.

Regarding personalization, there's definitely lots of potential. HN can be so random though, sometimes you find things that you didn't even know you needed (intellectually). I guess as with most recommender systems, it's about a balance between exploration and exploitation. Maybe an MVP could filter for specific keywords and add those posts to the model input.

> Yeah, the YouTube algorithm kind of does this, but you unfortunately have no real control over it.)

You do, indirectly. Just need to curate your last watched videos.

Sometimes I feel like I got put into a certain genre or bubble or if things autopplay a when I sleep I'll not ice my front page being taken over.

I just go delete some of those videos from my recent list I can see visible improvement.

Or just start a few video on the topic you want to see and then it's all you'll be recommended.

This is possibly an interesting extension [1]. I just generally don't follow recommendations. But my kids love it, and they use my account (Premium, else they get all kind of inappropriate ads (which is even illegal)), so I have to be careful. So the other day I wanted to look into what the other political side had to say about something. You know, as a matter of broadening my view to gain some understanding. Boy, did I regret, as I was getting sucked into some kind of conspiracy bubble. My wife asked me what on earth I watched. So I ended up trying to have YouTube profile me as little as possible (via settings). Didn't fully solve it, but it is much more clean now. And if I do watch something which I don't want to be remembered: private browsing mode. I do this for porn, but unfortunately they do profile my IP address (so I should use a VPN).

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/regretsreport...

I just deleted my account and switched to an old account and the quality of my recommendations improved by an order of magnitude.

It's probably because I last used that one 10+ years ago when it seems things were a little more lighthearted (at least in my digital world). Going back to that recommendations page in current year was a truly magical experience.

Of course it didn't last though, within a few weeks algorithm was onto me, and went back to showing me the same stuff as on my old account.

> as I get older, I find that I have less energy for

Side comment: When a person says something like that, they might be speaking of only themself, but there's a different parsing that many will hear.

Ageism is a real problem in our field, and one thing we can do is to not accidentally feed it.

> Yeah, the YouTube algorithm kind of does this, but you unfortunately have no real control over it.

Wouldn't that argument hold true even if it was implemented here?

> as I get older, I find that I have less energy for reading,

As I get older (50 now), I have 0 patience for anything else than reading; it's much faster than listening and rereading stuff I didn't get the first time is easier and faster. I listen to stuff (including zoom/calls) to stuff that doesn't hold much importance/value; maybe it triggers something, then I go read about it instead.

Actually, I used to love reading, but the last years I've felt exactly like I had no energy to read any more, and have switched to audiobooks and podcasts. I then checked my eyes, and it turns out I need glasses. So as you get older, check your eyes!

I have had glasses since I was 7... A year after my father brought home a 'portable computer' (luggable) with a tiny monochrome screen. Not sure if related, but he.

But he… what? :)

Apparently, has no patience for writing too...;p

Very retro cool though, destroying your eyes in style!

I think people have different definitions of "reading":

- Skimming: In my day job this is 95% of "reading". I think this is unavoidable, since (even if the material is well written) there's very little chance that two consumers need the same information. In papers I read the abstract, jump to the conclusions, maybe go back to the intro if I'm confused, or check out the methods if that's what matters to me. I get frustrated with any medium where skimming isn't possible, and similar when search isn't possible.

- Reading as in reading a book: this is more for fun or to cool down. Video / podcast seems like a drop-in replacement here. I don't read HN this way. Does anyone?

I think people who create content should be aware of this dichotomy. If you are communicating with experts, make sure your information is well structured. If you are writing literature focus more on the flow.

> I don't read HN this way. Does anyone?

I skim HN, when I like something, I dive in & read it carefully and sometimes even implement it. The rest is just chewing gum; nice maybe but not serious.

> Last.fm came out 20 years ago (proving you don't even need AI for amazing recommender systems)

What makes that recommender system not AI? Wikipedia say it uses "collaborative filtering" which Gemini says is a form of AI. AI started nearly 70 years ago.