Aaron Swartz wrote a blog post about the news[1] and just how terrible it is for the brain. Reading his post had a major impact on meâsince then I have always thought differently about the time I spend online.
Itâs interesting how people, including myself, try to justify various addictions. How am I supposed to stay informed about important topics without the news? How do I know how to help people in need without knowing whatâs going on? There are much, much better ways than reading CNN/NYTimes every day. Also, there really is nothing new about the human condition today compared to a hundred years ago.
Turning off all notifications on my personal phone was a life changer. No longer I feel like I'm wearing an electronic collar. Giving everyone who has your contact information access to your attention is poison to the ability to concentrate. Another big thing for me was cutting down on infinite scrolling, blogs and videos and spending a lot more time with long form content (mainly books). Attention is our most precious resource and we should guard fiercely against attempts to monetize it.
Isnât it funny how much attention these anti-procrastination posts are getting on essentially a procrastination site?
(Tongue in cheek! I love HN. I just know that I sometimes do abuse it as a procrastination device.)
Block websites will help definitely.
another "threat" is when you have a few kids, your daily life is cut into pieces with random and sometimes strong background noises 24x7x365, not much you can do there.
personally, that impacts my focus the most and there is no cure, and it usually lasts for about 20 years when kids are finally into colleges.
obviously there are many good stuff out of raising kids, and I enjoyed it, but focus-on-tech-advancement is not one of them.
Did he regain concentration and focus? It's more like he just reduced distractions. That's not the same.
What if being distracted is not a bug but a feature and his mind doesn't want to continue the path of constantly writing books? Instead of eliminating distractions, it could be more helpful to find the activities that don't create the desire for distractions.
If youâre looking for a âleanâ source of news (just the facts, no commentary) try Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
(RSS feed available)
My distraction is from all the family stuff I have to deal with. My lack of concentration is because I lack motivation - I don't see any reason to try hard at work since it's all politics and BS.
I stopped watching 24-hour news channels in 1991 when I saw how the Gulf War coverage was turning so many into zombies. By 2010 I had stopped regularly reading a list of news web sites I'd constructed. HN is about the only thing I read regularly online, and I'm getting less regular with that. I watch local news sometimes but only to sneer at the local weatherman who's job here in central Texas could be performed by one of my pugs. If I'm going to starve to death pushing a pleasure lever it ain't gonna be one connected to the infotainment industry.
I see that Rolf Dobelli has a book on avoiding news now. But he made his point crystal clear in an article he wrote in 2010 already, and put as a freely downloadable PDF on his website. I can't find it there now, but here's a link to that PDF on some other site: https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf
If you want to get your life back, read Stolen Focus. It has all these tips and tricks but it does a lot more - it explains why our focus is shot, and dissects the forces behind it.
It's much more sinister than most people suspect.
https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/d...
I was spending hours per day on Twitter, and then I learned that overusing social media rewires your brain, and you essentially unlearn to digest information in bigger chunks. This book will horrify you, and that's exactly what needs to be done.
And if a book (to listen to) is too much for you to focus on - listen to Ezra Klein's interview with the author, at least: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/its-not-your-fault-you...
It is said that Napoleon did not open his mail for 3 weeks after it arrived. His belief was that most issues would resolve themselves and were therefore unimportant for him to attend to.
If you go back and watch the news from 2-3 weeks ago it is amazing how much of it is just nonsense. It's especially hard to go back and watch covid discussions from a year ago and hear just how wrong most information was.
The HN forum pushes through many "articles" around improving "productivity", while all the solutions are in plain sight. We justify our bad habits-social media because work colleagues are there (so as not to miss the water cooler conversations) and YouTube because there is a lot of "educational content".
We forget that our actions determine outcomes. The imperative to act lies solely on the individual. Most notifications systems have been designed based on UI/UX dark patterns to "maximise" interaction. Instead, I see the younger generation slipping into a complete lack of concentration.
My way to handle the onslaught of notifications is to keep them switched on for family instead. Work colleagues get a different tone (I use Telegram) because it's cross platform and inherits notification settings from the main applications.
This way, it helps boost my interaction. It offers me tabs to organise my intake, and all high post channels are archived, which I rarely check. I use Inoreader extensively; use Twitter lists to follow specific accounts (that add to my knowledge base) instead of following futile "success stories" or "collaboration" or "publications".
As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.
I try to keep my productivity improvements secret, because any time I announce one -- especially if I also explain why it happened -- I immediately falsify whatever I just said by losing all focus and producing nothing of interest for a while.
I think routers should have more fine grained settings, so I can block social media during weekdays, HN on weekdays except lunchtime and evening, and allow my children only to access their 5 websites that they need for homework/study during a few hours in the afternoon. This would help me a lot.
>Since about 2020... There were no external causes, even the pandemic didnât affect me, thanks to a nice home office and online work options â so no excuses
It seems strange to disregard the pandemic merely because it didn't impact your work environment. It very likely impacted the ability to do any of their usual activities that took place outside of their home. And even if it didn't, having the entire world go through such a disaster is a reasonable possibility for a subtle or subconscious reactions.
This may not at all have been the cause, but neither is it inconsistent with their eventual solution of drastically reducing news/media consumption. If the awful things going on in the world were in some way impacting motivation & productivity then it certainly makes sense that turning them off might help.
Chalking up the mere possibility of that as "bogus excuses" is extremely dismissive for a global crisis as well, and a bit insulting to people who probably had identical issues that were very much linked to society shutting down combined w/ awful news creeping into any glance towards the outside world. The author's next statement of "âYouâve got to do something about that,â is the right attitude to take when faced with a problem of this sort, but a reason for a problem only becomes a "bogus excuse" if it's used to avoid trying to find a solution, not for its own sake.
Does anyone know how to block websites at something like the router level? I find myself able to get around normal browser-level blockers fairly easily. I'd love to use some parental controls against myself from like 6-5pm on weekdays
Removing social medias reclaimed lots of my life, the absolute peak of my happiness was when I stopped following any news at all.
There's some sort of stigma agaiinst people who don't follow the news but I ask, what positives doesfollowing the news brings to your lifes?
I realized none and there is a huge proven link between following news and anxiety/depression.
Sadly I felt back to watching news with the war in Ukraine.
I've managed to consolidate all my distracted news consumption to HN but indeed I need to break myself from this reflexive habit.
Ironically this page is a great example of why itâs hard to focus. Unnecessary images, stylization and colors. Unnecessary links to other distracting websites. Flashy flash.
To me, mindfulness meditation helped me a lot with concentration because it was like learning mental aikido, in the sense of not trying to remove invasive information, but redirect it in a way that doesn't affect my focus. Everything stops being so important by default
Switching to text only [1] browsing changed my relationship to information and vastly improved my focus while using computers. I highly recommend it.
[1] Text mostly (90+%). Those few occasions I want to see images as part of a web page it's possible to turn that on.
may sound stupid... I recently started to test around with vitamin B supplements, inspired by some NMN interview, refined Vitamin B seemingly turns back age #inmice. Decided to play around with the real thing first... B3 itself helps me sleep better, Yeast tablets feel like coffee, a full vitamin B complex seems to aleviate focus issues. For the first time in a while I'm able to actually work on something without getting distracted much.
Suffering from some adhd-like symptoms I used to be happy to be distracted. Now I'm even unhappy when a coworker wants something. AND I don't enjoy gaming... which is weird and frustrating because I consider myself addicted to video games.
For me, reddit was a big hurdle. It was such a time hole I didn't realise but I finally got sick of my reply when my partner asked about what I was reading, it was always: "Nothing"
I deleted facebook years ago for the same reason, but I convinced myself that reddit was different in some capacity, and it is in ways, but after one too many evenings of looking at "Nothing", I'm happy I've kicked it to the curb. Even at work now, I have a ublock rule to block reddit. Occasionally, I find the need to temporarily allow it due to searches on a particular topic, but it's gone as a pastime.
Well intended article that is a long winded recommendation to turn off your phone notifications and stop reading news. It could be a lot shorter. Aaronsw had similar thoughts about the news, back in 2006: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
It is advice worth following, I think, though not so easy a lot of the time. My main trick for online distraction avoidance is to use separate computers for goofing off and for getting work done. Needless to say, reading HN or posting on it = goofing off.
I don't think there is a silver bullet or a tick box solution. You have to want to stop. Change your behaviour.
Quitting news had a huge positive effect of my live. Besides the benefits of better focus I'm much less (if at all) angry and anxious. The papers and news on TV that once did neutral coverage now act like the rainbow press. Every click is measured, so the boring stuff vanishes. FUD and politics everywhere.
I'm still too much on HN, but since I strictly browse to https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=200 it's much better.
I really enjoyed reading this post as I experimented with something similar 3 months ago which has drastically changed my mood/attention span:
- removed all social media apps from phone
- lock down all access to apps (screen time) and not know the password (give it to someone else)
- only allow photos, podcasts, spotify, navigation and the dial/SMS app
Screentime went from a few hours per day to about 15 minutes or so. But it has also changed my mood for the better. I still have to find a way to do the same thing on my desktop which is a lot harder (I need a browser)
This is very surface level. These tips can help for periods of time, but they won't last forever.
I think the things that do change your perspective forever though are philosophy and even other's philosophies on attention in general.
Reading books like "Four arguments for the elimination of television" and "Amusing ourselves to death" changed how I view our attention.
Reading older books like "tao te ching" or "meditations" gave me perspective into how much my attention matters.
I'm proud of myself for reading the article to the end without distraction. I have been news free since the 2020 US election results were broadcast so I agree that a news diet is an immense boost for productivity. Why worry about things you can't really change. If it's important enough, trust me, you'll find out about it. I also use screen time to limit social media apps, but they are truly the crack cocaine of the the 21st century.
So basically block the entirety of Reddit, which I agree would be good for all humankind.
Great article and important message.
> Lifting the phone should not unlock it. This setting is called âDisplay & Brightness/Activate on Liftâ on the iPhone
On my phone it's called "Raise to Wake". I didn't know that you could turn this off, but I just did so because it's inconsistent and sometimes doesn't work. I like predictable behavior, even at a minor cost to convenience.
It always seems odd to me when it is literally writers or other online content creators who are complaining about being distracted by other writers or online content creators.
I'd love to see someone write a blog post about why they think their own content is good for others to consume while the content that they were willfully consuming was not.
the "zero news diet" should really be done more often. For myself, it would be "zero Twitter diet".
During the aforementioned train ride, I cancelled my subscription to my formerly favorite online news portal (the German âSpiegel-Onlineâ) and deleted the associated app from my iPhone. I used the initial motivation to cancel additional news subscriptions and deleted the related apps from my smartphone and iPad so that I wouldnât be tempted.
Here is what he should have done: replaced his smart phone with a dumb phone if possible. It does not mean he gets rid of the smart phone but deactivate it. And have two computers: one for business and one for leisure and keep in different rooms. If possible disconnect the work computer from the web. That way there are fewer possible distractions. It's not enough to just remove apps. The device itself is addictive.
I collection of links and quotes on stop reading "news"
We are what we read: https://tinygem.org/about#stopnews
Entire TinyGem service was created with the purpose of collecting content worth reading.
One thing thatâs worked for me is going old fashioned and getting my news in a daily 20-minute news video recap, not unlike the âold daysâ of watching the evening nightly newscast of your choice. These are often on YouTube nowadays, so you donât even need a set schedule. Iâve done this with a Spanish language daily newscast (mainly to keep my Spanish sharp), and, unless there is something going on that requires my further investigation, Iâm made aware of the big stories that any informed person should probably be aware of, and then can go about my day being productive. Only a 20 minute sacrifice. Just an idea if you feel youâve let news improperly invade your time!
I think the follow-up needs some more elaborating.
"I won a lot of time back so that I can go back to writing 15 novels" is a little off putting for many.
Start simple with usage of your reclaimed time. Put your phone in another room and watch a 2 hour movie, uninterrupted. That's a thing a lot of people today can't even do, so already an accomplishment.
Even pure boredom, doing absolutely nothing, is healing. The point is that you have uninterrupted time, it doesn't matter if you spent it "productively".
Extra tip for iOS/macOS/iPadOS users: go to Settings / Accessibility / Display & Text Size / Color Filters and enable the Grayscale filter.
I did not see it listed here, so I will mention Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, who, among other things, discusses news in particular, but digital distractions in general and proposes a way to deal with it by changing our relationship with technology.
I am currently going through the steps proposed by him and while not easy, it generally supports the point of the article.
That said, it is not just news.
edit: Just in case. No connection to the author other than being a happy reader.
I recently switched Twitter to strictly timeline and that pretty much fixed Twitter for me. I still use it but it no more doom-scrolling.
I went on a zero news diet a while back and have recently got back on this diet again. Itâs one of the best decisions Iâve made for my productivity.
For those with fear of missing out on current affairs â events are really only worth knowing about if someone has made you aware of it in real life. Otherwise itâs likely not that important.
"...I cancelled my subscription to my formerly favourite online news portal (the German âSpiegel-Onlineâ)..."
Very good. Spiegel Online - unfortunately - became terribly bad over the last years, with click-bait headlines, sensational reporting as well as pushing fear & anxiety throughout their articles.
For me, the zero news diet would be really hard to apply to HN. Any suggestions (in addition to noprocrast)?
I had a similar problem. My solution is to go offline in the evening- 3 hours before going to sleep.
Is there a service that gives thorough but weekly/bi-weekly news and you can select what subjects it's about. Well written, concise, factual (exclude all opinion pieces, celeb/sports news, and shopping stuff.. just tech, science, and business)
I disabled chrome and youtube for most of the time. Unless I am looking for something specific, I keep them disabled. This alone reduced by HN scrolling and YouTube binging by factor of 2-3 hrs/day!
Finally I have free time to relax and do nothing!
I use sites like https://biztoc.com once or twice a day and I'm more or less done with news. Just make sure you only read the headlines ;)
Get one of those browser extensions that limits your use. This at least tells you how much time you've spent. It's easy to get carried away reading one long form article after another.
A book and a half per year? Neither asimov nor herbert could do that. Maybe jules verne? No. Even if tech is different than SF, I strongly doubt the quality of such high book/y delivery
What I did is tell my boss about my difficulty and now they check in on me twice a day to look at my progress. I hate being micro managed, but really helped me to work on delivering.
Ok. So the author tells us that news is bad for us. Isnât that well known since like ten years ago? When opening the article I had been hoping for something new...
...if yâall catch my drift here ;)
Get out and ride a bike or something. More blood to the brain; no digital distraction. Take a shower and bam! productive. That's how it works for me.
Typo: It's Daniel Kahneman and not David Kahnemann.
The one thing I really like after switching from Android to Iphone was the consistent interface to be able to shut off all notifications in one screen.
It should frankly be criminal to predate on user's attention to the extent that most popular apps do.
I keep my phone on DnD 100% of the time and ruthlessly disable notifications, but have a semi-smart watch that vibrates for texts/calls. I'm still addicted to checking my news feeds but at least they aren't literally yanking my attention.
Hard for me since I'm addicted to my own app that I'd have to be productive for.
> Install a swipe keyboard app
iPhone keyboards have built-in swipe typing now.
I'm doomed. Did not read more than the head line.
ăCNN, WSJ, and BBC
That is a news equivalent of junk food. Clickbait partisan outrage generator.
I would suggest some independent podcast with daily or weekly summaries. Much higher information density.
thanx - pragmatic collection of suggestions
Oh irony, a post about overcoming distraction gets 232+ comments.
I realise I'm responding to this far too late for anyone to actually take notice, but I'm gonna do it anyway because there is a major criticism I have of the article: that all news is bad.
I think the issue here is not the problem with news in itself but rather the consumption of news. I think what is problematic is that people are consuming news like they would consume posts on a social media platform in that they're endlessly scrolling few news stories, and keep checking the app to make sure they're on top of everything that is happening. And I completely understand how problematic this is. However, that is not to say that news itself is bad.
There are several reasons that lead me to come to this conclusion. While I'm sure not everything in the news might not be directly relevant to you, I think it helps you make better life choices when you know the state of the economy, and issues others are facing. But, I think, most importantly: it is democratically empowering to be aware of the news. Let's take the UK system of government as an example. Some things are obvious: we vote for our representatives (MPs) every 5 years at the most, and this is one opportunity to influence government but its not the only one. We can: write letters to our MPs; create, and sign petitions; join pressure groups; protest; take industrial action etc. But we can only do this effectively when we have a good awareness of current affairs. Additionally, in the UK we also vote for our local government as well. This can include councillors, and (if your area voted for it) directly elected mayors. I hear many people complain about what their local council are doing, but a lot of these people don't even vote for any councillors. I once went for a coffee, and told the person at the till that I was volunteering at the council election. His response? "I didn't even know there was an election on today." Many of us are fortunate to live in countries with the right to vote amongst other civil liberties. We ought to use them effectively in order to improve living standards for us all.
On the topic of how we consume news, if we feel it is unhealthy to scroll through a constantly updated app, we can turn to bulletins instead. In the UK, the BBC produce half-hour bulletins on weekdays at 1, 6, and 10 o'clock (shorter bulletins also exist at similar times on the weekend). You could watch, say, the 6 o'clock news in the evening, and then be done with news for the day. You could also read a newspaper. This doesn't have to be in print as some newspaper websites are either not updated frequently (e.g. The London Times/Sunday Times which is only updated for major breaking news, or in the evening to give articles for tomorrow's paper), or provide a webpage that just shows you what was printed in that day's edition of the print newspaper (e.g. The Guardian/Observer).
Duh.
"Trivial inconveniences" are a big hurdle when trying to build a habit, but are a great tool for breaking bad ones. Anything you can do to break the dopamine loop helps, however small it may be. I've had success with:
- setting long passwords to social media that aren't autofilled (saved in bitwarden) and logging out after each session
- nerfing addicting parts of webapps (plugins which block the facebook news feed but allow messaging/groups helped a TON)
- forbidding dedicated social media apps and only using "worse" internet sites
- router DNS blockers, even if I can get around them, the act of having to bypass it raises my awareness I'm doing something subpar for myself