Probably not a popular figure on HN, but legendary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky had a good message on this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeUvB-KXQZk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeUvB-KXQZk</a><p>"I think I’d like to say only that they [young people] should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to be spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view."<p>This is from decades ago. It's easy to suspect we live in the age of noise, but I feel it's likely the perception is exaggerated much like the notion our times are particularly turbulent - in reality the past was plenty turbulent too.
> <i>When I look at my children, I see that they hardly pause anymore. They are always accessible, and almost always busy. The three of them tend to sit in front of a screen — usually alone. I do it sometimes too. Become engulfed in my smartphone, enslaved to my tablet — as a consumer and at times as a producer. I am constantly interrupted on my tablet, interruptions engendered by other interruptions. It is stupid.</i><p>Sadly, I've noticed this with myself and friends.<p>We'll be playing a game together on PS4 and instead of just naturally carrying a conversation during a loading screen, a friend will pick up their phone and check their messages. A break in between plays, and yes, they'll check their messages. Check the score. Check a webpage. Sometimes my friends will literally be distracted from playing the game by checking his phone.<p>It's not until we're sitting at a table eating food for which all distractions are off the table.<p>Even when I'm tackling a tough problem like a programming challenge or trying to type a detailed reply, instead of sitting with the problem in my head I find myself trying to quickly distract myself. Instead of giving myself 10 minutes to struggle and think, I'll open a new tab and take a quick break to YouTube or HN.<p>I have noticed that I'm in that very distracted state, one thing I find helpful is to meditate for 10-20 minutes. Just accept the fact that I'm being 'inefficient' for that time and slow down. Reset. Breathe and let my mind kind of settle. I find that if I keep doing that over a course of a day, I'll find that I'm more productive and able to think about things instead of constantly demand to be distracted.
> It is difficult only to sit there.<p>The above quote reminds me of this quote by the mystic poet, Rumi: "Deafened by the noise of wanting and desire you are unaware the beloved lives in the core of your heart. Allow the noise to silence and you will hear her voice."<p>I have this quote written in the first page of my Moleskine planner, where it states "In case of loss, please return to:". I think what this quote means is that we often experience the world through our perceived identity. But it’s not a definite perception, it’s more of a changing figment. Its sometimes difficult to just sit back and relax, we have all these wants and desires. But beyond this noise, there lies in the core of our heart what some refer to as our natural state, unmodified and unbound by the mind. We all have moments when we forget about ourselves like when we sense something of beauty: when we cry for ten minutes in the dark of our room and the neck of our shirt becomes soaked with tears and then we go to our backyard and look at the night sky, or when we see an authentic interaction, true forgiveness, natural compassion, warm understanding. A state where we feel at an effortless ease. This state is the ‘open secret’, readily and always available to us, unfortunately, all too often we are "deafened by the noise".
This topic is gaining momentum rapidly! The following discussion (of a more recent article specifically focused on how immediately available overwhelming choice has impacted music listening habits) was on the front page today:<p>Too Much Music: A Failed Experiment in Dedicated Listening | <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16158888" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16158888</a><p><i>The diluvial [flood] nature of modern media leaves us little time to pause. The challenge, then, is to cultivate the patience and the discipline necessary to engage more deeply than the modern world allows. Just because we are flooded doesn't mean we have to drown.</i><p>HN user kenning summarized it this way (talking about Facebook specifically, but I believe the comment applies):<p><i>I think cigarettes are a great comparison. I heard it a few years back.<p>When popular, a huge amount of the population used cigarettes despite growing research showing that it had a slight but consistent harmful effect. A hooked individual is unlikely to stop using even when given this evidence, as the product is addictive and gets stronger with network effects. Younger generations understood the harm better and had to avoid regular temptation to engage.</i><p>source: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784708" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784708</a>
Modern society requires us to endure the daily grind and push our deepest thoughts and urges away. We are taught to fear our inner demons more than anything.<p>We need accomplishment, entertainment and distraction because we're supposed to live like we have no choice. But we have, and nobody can save us from ourselves.<p>Changing jobs, leaving your family, moving to another city.. we all have some deep urges we keep suppressing, ranging from trivial to life-changing, and to keep them away, we cover them with fears that unearth when the distraction pauses and make us seek more distraction before we notice our real issues.
> According to a much-referenced study, we humans are worse at concentrating than a goldfish.<p>So, I decided to fact-check that nonsense.<p>Found an article from the Telegraph [1] which links to an older article [2] which supposedly supports that claim. But it isn't mentioned there. It only says that Golfish “can remember where they found food up to 12 days previously.”. The university itself explains the “media feeding frenzy” around the research [3] but does not actually dispute it. Also, the Microsoft study seems to have been reported without context [4]. The article says that, “it turns out that there is no evidence that goldfish - or fish in general - have particularly short attention spans or memories, despite what popular culture suggests.” Finally, I found another article which did some in-depth research into proving these misleading claims false [5].<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smart/" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-sh...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10937888/Memory-of-a-goldfish-Actually-fish-can-recall-events-12-days-ago.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1093788...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://www.macewan.ca/wcm/MacEwanNews/RESEARCH_INTO_FISH_MEMORY" rel="nofollow">https://www.macewan.ca/wcm/MacEwanNews/RESEARCH_INTO_FISH_ME...</a><p>[4]: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790</a><p>[5]: <a href="https://www.ceros.com/blog/no-dont-attention-span-goldfish/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ceros.com/blog/no-dont-attention-span-goldfish/</a>
It will be interesting to see how VR/AR plays out.<p>On the one hand, if say Tibetan prayer gongs, or trees swaying in the wind, are your Pavlovian triggers for relaxed centering, with VR, zing, you're there. And with eye tracking and other biometric and task monitoring, you might even autotrigger them upon need.<p>On the other hand, checking you're phone? How last decade. With AR, you can <i>immerse yourself</i> in your phone 24x7. Your friends are all around you - the open office^H <i>life</i> plan. And Bubblegum Troll is playing with your cat.
I performed poorly at my last two jobs and eventually got laid off. I think the main reason is my constant net surfing from one news site to another. It started like this. I would issue the build and it would take few minutes. I used to go to a news site during that time. More builds and more surfing followed. Now I find it hard to focus. I need help. Can someone please suggest me some remedies. I don't have the resources to go to net addiction camps.
Well, we need to do something constantly, we human beings cannot be bored, but what you can do to avoid boredom is not only to check your phone, but also do something meaningful, what could make you happy/healthy, like learning/hiking/traveling. The point is, just concentrate on something useful. Life is not just a phone, and for most of the time, checking your phone can bring you nothing but the slight comfort for a second.
> users in rich countries touch their phones 2,600 times a day — once every 33rd second.<p>I touch my computer 400 times a minute, it doesn't mean I'm addicted, just means I'm typing.<p>Seems like a strange factoid that's just there to shock/scare us.<p>This whole article seems to be a strange mix of not knowing what point it's trying to make and random quotes.<p>>To shut out the world — to sometimes experience silence — is, as I write in my book, not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is about searching for your own South Pole, seeing the world a bit more clearly, and trying to love your life.<p>What does that even mean? I guess it would make sense if he had covered any of those points already but he didn't really.
That's why of the reasons why I've implemented "quiet time" for my kids.. Every day after they do homework, they can play for as long as they want with legos or other toys.. But at 6pm they have one hour of quiet time where they have to be in their room, by themselves with all electronic devices off. Only after that they can play on a computer for one hour. Of course I would rather have them play on a computer first and have quiet hour right before the bed, but for various reasons that's harder to implement.. For now this will have to do.
I do agree that boredom can be seen as a lack of purpose. When you're fullfilling a role or you're passionately sunk into an activity, or train of thought, not much can take you away from it; and most people would describe you as being in the zone, or in the clouds.<p>With a growing family, I find it's about getting some 'me' time. I've found it tricky to even just shut the door.
People are scared of their own minds. Scared if they shut off everything that they'll find out that their mind is full of terror, depression, loneliness, fear, or just plain junk. Scared that if they had to think their way out of a problem they couldn't do it. Being alone, being quiet, being without distraction is a test. Will I go insane?<p>Well, by <i>people</i> I mean <i>me</i>. YMMV.
silence is golden, except for people with tinnitus.<p>I had a lovely ride in a glider, but its hardly silent up in the sky either: air is noisy moving over your flight surfaces.<p>I think silence is a manufactured state: noise is a subjective qualitative thing. As I lay in an MRI recently I found myself counting time-beats as the head rotated, groups of four, groups of eight (its very noisy btw)
Internet makes use of one part of our brain. When I stop I can feel the blood rush somewhere else. When I solder something, or play music, I feel very differently. Interaction with the physical world isn't to be abandoned.