Comment by IrishTechie
6 days ago
When you use your phone to surf the Internet you’re often doing it to just fill time, rather than it being an activity you really want to do (like those things you list). You often tend to come out of a long phone reading session feeling a bit hungover and possibly guilty at the time you’ve spent, compared to say building a model boat where you’ll generally feel positive and refreshed afterward. Using your phone is also generally not one activity you’re paying close attention to, you’re hoping from one thing to the next never really getting a sense of flow.
To be clear I’m talking about the mindless scrolling many of us do, if you’re reading a dissertation on battery chemistry or something on your phone I find that’s a different story.
I think it is not really possible to fill all your time with "productive" activities, so to speak. I mean we are on HN, which is in general mostly a fun social network.
It is not a bad thing, just all about balance. If you are focused and consistently dedicate even little time to some activities you can achieve incredible results.
Most of the time you'd be better off sitting in silence for 10 min rather than reading the latest news cycle or doomscrolling on social media.
Sometimes doing nothing is more productive than attempting to fill the gaps with meaningless noise
But doing nothing doesn't fulfill the required function, which is distraction from existential dread.
Watching TV does. People do a lot of that too. Anything to save observing things as they are or reflecting on them.