Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself

Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by abustamam on Thursday September 04, 2025 @04:49PM (#45132040)

That's interesting. I really enjoy playing video games, when I have time. There are games that I objectively find fun, like recently, Clair Obscur Expedition 33. But oftentimes I'd play with my full attention, trying to absorb the beauty of the world and the music, and then I take my phone out during a loading screen and now I'm "second-screening" with my news feed or HN. And I'm still enjoying the game itself, but I feel like I'm robbing myself of the experience because I am not giving it my full attention.

I try not to second-screen when watching movies or TV, and I'm pretty good at it. I know it's a very common thing for people to do these days and it honestly kinda bugs me because at least for me, TV and movies are a shared experience, but video games, at least the ones that I play, are almost always solo experiences.

Anyway, I feel like I just diagnosed myself with ADHD in writing this comment.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by vachina on Thursday September 04, 2025 @05:30PM (#45132439)

If you’re second screening a movie you need to stop that movie and delete it from your library.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by causal on Friday September 05, 2025 @02:32PM (#45141985)

I think there's something uniquely distracting about the constant availability of phones. We have muscle-memory now that can reflexively open a little hit of reward anytime we're in an idle moment.

Now instead of choosing to open our phones, we have to actively choose NOT to let that muscle memory spring into the action of unlocking the phone. Seems bad.

[ Parent | on HN ]