We all know that you might also be reading Hacker News.

Ha! I almost said that to OP who stares off into space while at the bus stop, but hey.

The internet is not really organised in a way for you to do anything useful if you are bored. There’s no “learn about the world” course you take when you have nothing else to do.

In fact, all the stuff we’ve designed to capture attention is almost the exact opposite of a good use of the internet.

I find it very difficult to queue up good content to read or listen to on a daily basis. And I try. Imagine all the people without the time to discover enough good content.

I would agree that most people don't use the internet for that when they're bored (including me more often than I'd like to admit), and the big tech websites are all about capturing attention and not providing good uses of the internet, for the most part, but that doesn't mean it's not available for people if they want it.

Last night I was working through some shader tutorials, for instance, albeit on my laptop (I prefer laptop to phone when possible).

I also playtest one of my games (current one has a mobile version), or brainstorm and take notes for my game designs, or read up on something I want to do with one of my games, or go through my github issues list and sometimes even look at my code repos while I'm killing time while out and about (I mostly don't use my phone when I'm not out, I'll just use my laptop).

I try to remember I have a Kindle app with lots of informative books to read but I do forget about a little too often.

When I was younger, I would program text-based games all the time on my TI graphing calculator. I would even bring that instead of my Game Boy to my grandparents sometimes, because I just wanted to code more of my games.

I do think that capability is lacking on phones. It's technically possible, but the environment (at least on iPhone) is so sandboxed it's difficult to do effectively, or at least it was the last time I tried. Anything you're making on the device directly does not have access to the same capabilities as what you make from a laptop or desktop, and that's a shame.

> The internet is not really organised in a way for you to do anything useful if you are bored. There’s no “learn about the world” course you take when you have nothing else to do.

I'd argue you're holding it wrong. The repository of all human knowledge absolutely does contain numerous "learn about the world" courses in all shapes and forms. HN, arXiv, Wikipedia, parts of YouTube, and dedicated learning platforms abound and each probably has enough content for a lifetime of learning. I agree it's not designed to make this easy, but it's also not particularly hard. Hit "random article" a few times on Wikipedia and you're off to the races.

Well, it's not all knowledge. It doesn't know the inner thoughts of everyone. And human explicit knowledge is limited, it can't tell me whether I'll enjoy a certain bookstore if I go there.

And it's only explicit knowledge, not tacit knowledge. Nobody learns skills from browsing the Internet.

> There’s no “learn about the world” course you take

There's practically an undoable number of hours of free courses on Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy, and others. Thousands of hours of interesting material on youtube.

I used to think so, but with more experience a lot of dark patterns and perverse incentives are becoming obvious. These people are not there to explain something interesting in a useful way, they are there to get your eyeballs to extract money from advertising or a Patreon. They are not teaching you, they are making you think they teach you to make you feel satisfied and give them money. Of course some of them are actually good, but a lot are not really.

> Of course some of them are actually good, but a lot are not really.

How does the ratio of actually good to not really in the real world compare?

It seems pretty amazing that anyone, anywhere can watch a physics lecture from the multiple top professors at any time.

There's also Wikipedia. It takes a pretty long time to exhaust that, although I've tried my hardest.

Ad-free and fast, Wikipedia is imo the best learning resource on-the-go, at home, or at work.

> There’s no “learn about the world” course you take when you have nothing else to do.

Good newspapers usually allow you to do that.

> The internet is not really organised in a way for you to do anything useful if you are bored. There’s no “learn about the world” course you take when you have nothing else to do.

I have a list of links to read for when I have time to do so. But yeah, if I don’t have anything to do, I prefer just doing nothing than seeking engagement. Social media are a mind killer.

> I find it very difficult to queue up good content to read or listen to on a daily basis.

When I come across something that looks interesting, I add it to the list and stuff accumulates until I go through each link and read the page, usually during my 30 minutes commute. (or not, sometimes it is not as interesting as I thought it would be). For me it works quite well.

Sounds like you have a good list — can you share some of it?

Sure there is. I used to read Wikipedia's Article of the Day every day at lunch. I only stopped because I found even more interesting (to me) things to read about.

I have a massive folder of ebooks, pdfs, YouTube videos, etc that I've downloaded on my phone. I also have a list in Google keep of about twenty of these things in order of preference, so I always have something to read/watch/listen to based on my level of energy.

HN enters the chat...

My brother/sister in Christ, its time for you to embrace TikTok. You'll never be bored again! /s

> There’s no “learn about the world” course you take when you have nothing else to do.

I've been testing https://brilliant.org/ and like it so far. Its scope is limited to STEM topics, but the thing I like about it is you can set courses to bite sized daily chunks as small as 5 minutes.

What are you talking about? Find any topic you're vaguely interested in, say history. Type "history" in YouTube, and you'll very quickly find enough videos to fill hundreds of lifetimes, to suit exactly what you want. Prefer high-production high-graphics videos? Check. Prefer a person speaking into a microphone? Check. Prefer a university lecture? Check.

Rinse and repeat for anything you're vaguely interested in.

The problem is way too many interesting things to see, not too few.

Much rather read a book on my laptop. The phone is shitty-internet.

Interesting. Do you actually do that? I agree that phones are not as good in general but I can’t imagine reading a book on a laptop.

I keep a paperback on the passenger seat of my car. If waiting is going to happen I bring it with me.

you'd rather read a novel on your laptop while standing in line at Discount Tire than on your phone?

you walk around with your laptop in your back pocket all the time like Eminem or something?

Yeah, no, I don't read while standing in line at Discount Tire. I people-watch.

But at a bus stop, your options are phone or standing around. The immediate area of the bus stop beats a book on your phone?

I understand you may want boredom as a practice, but do you genuinely find the bus stop area more interesting?

I think the point is that mindfulness in your present moment, if done intentionally, can be a beneficial practice. There is value in not constantly seeking dopamine hits and allowing your brain to feel discomfort in doing nothing. It's really up to the individual when they choose to do this, though. I don't personally enjoy doing this in public and when having to do stuff like commute or try to get through a work day. But I can respect that others do.

No, the bus stop is quite boring — and that's fine. My best ideas come when I am bored.

WAP has risen from the dead in a fury just to enter the chat...

I'm the same. I spend somewhere between 1 and 5 hours on the phone daily, but 80 % of that is writing articles and reading books I don't have on my Kindle.

Indeed. I spent surely a few thousand hours in books as a teenager. Now I spend majority of time on my phone reading short- and long-form non-fiction. “Time on phone” is irrelevant without specifying the activity. Perhaps not if it automatically implies “time on social networks”.

i'm sure the vast majority of americans spent 2.5 months on their phones reading books, of course, we have nothing to worry about

They very obviously weren't claiming that, they were responding to a specific comment about there being nothing interesting on smartphones. Try to interpret what people say with good faith.

the subtext of their comment, the unspoken implication, the between the lines meaning was that it's fine people are on their phone all the time, because some of them are reading books

I didn't read it like that at all.

obviously I did

what do we do now, ask other users for their input? make a poll?

i don't know why HN has this habit of using anecdotes as absolute counter-arguments, makes for uninteresting discussion in my opinion

and the subtext is always the same "A did/didn't happen to me, so then it follows A does/doesn't happen to anyone"

Actually, you phrased your previous post as though it were a fact, not an opinion, so it's more like "A didn't happen for me, so A does not happen for everyone."

I was challenging your assertion, not making a counter-assertion.

I think the implication was that it didn't have to be on tiktok. it's a choice that people make. the phone doesn't force them. rejecting the phone entirely isn't some form of virtue or moral purity.

Tending to one's mental health and advancement is a virtue, falling into abject hedonism is a moral failing

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with hedonistic activities, so long as they don't harm other people and so long as you avoid things like addiction. Even something like using heroin isn't immoral in and of itself (except according to some religions), it's just that it's so unlikely you'll be able to use it once without going down the path of addiction that most of us sensibly treat it as something to never do.

Social media can cause mental health issues, qnd can lead to addiction to it, but that doesn't mean that using it is a moral failing. And frankly, neither is becoming addicted to heroin a moral failing (though most people would consider it a personal failing since we would dislike being addicted to it), it's a healthcare issue not a morality issue. The only moral failing would be committing offences against other people because of the addiction, eg stealing from somebody to pay for the drugs.

true, addiction is not a moral failing

that doesn't negate what I said at all, not striving to keep a healthy body and healthy mind, not working on developing yourself, on elevating yourself, not wanting to become better, IS a moral failing

and certain hedonistic activities, like the social media dopamine dispensers, although they do not hurt other people, do hurt the moral imperative of growing yourself as a person

>>not striving to keep a healthy body and healthy mind, not working on developing yourself, on elevating yourself, not wanting to become better, IS a moral failing

Whoa. How is it any of your business how I live my life so long as I am not impacting you or society in any way? I'm 72 years old and I spend my time the way I want to spend my time. I don't exercise any longer. And that will almost certainly shorten how much longer I live. How is that any of your business?

Just because your choices might not affect me, and they don't, at all, doesn't mean they're moral, doesn't mean they're good.

I would rank self-actualization, personal growth, as the second rule behind the golden rule, and there are many schools of philosophy where that's the case: aristotelian ethics, kantian ethics, existentialism, etc.

>>I would rank self-actualization

Why should I (or anyone) care where you (or anyone) rank anything?

I'm pretty comfortable with my ranking of things. What someone else thinks about how I decide to live my life is pretty much at the bottom of my ranking board.

> Whoa. How is it any of your business how I live my life so long as I am not impacting you or society in any way? I'm 72 years old and I spend my time the way I want to spend my time. I don't exercise any longer. And that will almost certainly shorten how much longer I live. How is that any of your business?

Because your actions will impact society. You might get healthcare, paid for by the rest of society, which may or may not be caused by you not exercising. Or it might be caused by you exercising.

The way people raise their kids affects society, or even simply their decision to have or not have a certain number of kids impacts society. Some personal actions can collectively impact society.

Maybe you talking shit causes some of us to experience stress which results in medical issues that impacts society.

We could go on that merry-go-round forever. Just ridiculous.

Said on a social media platform?

reading a book isn't neither abject hedonism nor a moral failing.

true

spending 2.5 months doomscrolling or browsing tiktok, on the other hand....

I'll refer you back to my original comment:

> I think the implication was that it didn't have to be on tiktok. it's a choice that people make. the phone doesn't force them. rejecting the phone entirely isn't some form of virtue or moral purity.

arguing semantics

in this particular context "rejecting the phone" means "rejecting tiktok"

no one was concerned about the phone if the vast majority of users were reading books on it

I get the impression you just didn't read it properly and are now digging in your heels.

If "the vast majority of users" could "reject the phone", then they could also "reject tiktok".