<story><title>I&apos;m Giving Up Reading for a Year</title><url>http://curiousrat.com/home/2012/5/2/im-giving-up-reading-for-a-year.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>s8qnze982y</author><text>&amp;#62; I love technology and I think it&apos;s the answer to most of our problems&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d be curious to know which are the problems that technology solves, because I&apos;m actually of the opposite opinion - technology is the answer to all the wrong problems.</text></item><item><author>bad_user</author><text>I do not think we are &quot;getting old&quot; and &quot;conservative&quot;.&lt;p&gt;I am 29 years old, certainly not a teenager anymore, but I am also without doubt not old. That we even have to ask ourselves this question goes to show there&apos;s something really fucked up about our world, probably because we are losing respect for the elderly.&lt;p&gt;I love technology and I think it&apos;s the answer to most of our problems, but its perseverance also scares me. That teenagers embrace it more than I do, that&apos;s only because teenagers are by definition raw and stupid, lacking the experience to foresee long-term problems ahead.&lt;p&gt;When I was in highschool I used to spend hours playing games such as Starcraft, Age of Empires, Quake 2 and Counter Strike. I was doing that instead of going out to play soccer or to have barbecues with friends. I was logging frequently to local IRC channels, instead of going to the beach. Now I regret waisting my time in highschool.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s also easy for me to see how intense Facebook usage is actually removing friends from my life. That&apos;s because I don&apos;t have the curiosity necessary to see how friends are doing, since I find out from their Facebook stream, so one big incentive for asking them out simply disappears. And it is great that with Facebook I got connected to many primary school colleagues, but once past the thrill of seeing how they look like, I simply don&apos;t care anymore, as those people are actually strangers to me.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;re definitely over-thinking it ... as we grow older, we start realizing that the important things in life are the same as ever: sex, good food, family, friends, building stuff, earning money, living comfortably, going out, relaxing on a beach somewhere with a tequila, etc... anything that distracts us from doing those and we start seeing it as dangerous to our mental health.&lt;p&gt;E.g. I love my smartphone, I love how I receive my emails on it, but at night when I&apos;m home with my son or on weekends when I&apos;m taking walks in the park, I turn it off with no regrets.</text></item><item><author>bdhe</author><text>This is as good a place and thread as any to write out some questions that have been bothering me. Maybe HN can help out.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve seen over the past several years several such posts (leaving facebook, leaving the internet, etc.) and they have a very raw emotional appeal to me. Some sort of a fast or a ritual quality to the entire idea.&lt;p&gt;Do others here constantly wonder about their internet habits? I may be generalizing, but being uncomfortable or suspicious of gradual habits we develop, does that show characteristics of &quot;getting old&quot; and &quot;conservative&quot;? The get-off-my-lawn type of mentality?&lt;p&gt;The same argument extends to smartphones, and &quot;new fangled&quot; tools such as twitter/foursquare/etc. Do others also perceive some &lt;i&gt;tension&lt;/i&gt; in embracing a new lifestyle.&lt;p&gt;Or am I overthinking it, and it is just a general equilibrium-maintaining feedback mechanism we develop through life. Because, with the internet (especially reddit and HN) and ubiquitous access to email/information through the smartphone I find myself, for the first time, cautious about embracing new technologies in a way I never felt before (not even when I got my first computer, or the first time I had cable TV ... of course, I was a kid back then).&lt;p&gt;/end rant</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NickPollard</author><text>A few problems Technology solves:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    Starvation (better agriculture, distribution, storage)
    Pathogens and illness (medicine)
    Environmental hazards (heating, shelter)
    Lack of human contact (transportation + communication)
    Censorship (distributed networks)
    Entertainment (media creation, reproduction, storage)
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Now, if you define technology as &apos;The internet-focused startup world of social media and marketing that the buzzword &quot;technology&quot; often refers to&apos;, of which Instagram is the current poster-child, then you might have a point. Might. Slamming all technology because of that is to be willfully ignorant of what modern life relies on.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ll take a world full of pop-up adds, viral marketing videos and spam email over a world in which my parents both died of Malaria in their 30&apos;s and I can barely get enough clean water to live on in my dirt-brick house.</text></comment>
<story><title>I&apos;m Giving Up Reading for a Year</title><url>http://curiousrat.com/home/2012/5/2/im-giving-up-reading-for-a-year.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>s8qnze982y</author><text>&amp;#62; I love technology and I think it&apos;s the answer to most of our problems&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d be curious to know which are the problems that technology solves, because I&apos;m actually of the opposite opinion - technology is the answer to all the wrong problems.</text></item><item><author>bad_user</author><text>I do not think we are &quot;getting old&quot; and &quot;conservative&quot;.&lt;p&gt;I am 29 years old, certainly not a teenager anymore, but I am also without doubt not old. That we even have to ask ourselves this question goes to show there&apos;s something really fucked up about our world, probably because we are losing respect for the elderly.&lt;p&gt;I love technology and I think it&apos;s the answer to most of our problems, but its perseverance also scares me. That teenagers embrace it more than I do, that&apos;s only because teenagers are by definition raw and stupid, lacking the experience to foresee long-term problems ahead.&lt;p&gt;When I was in highschool I used to spend hours playing games such as Starcraft, Age of Empires, Quake 2 and Counter Strike. I was doing that instead of going out to play soccer or to have barbecues with friends. I was logging frequently to local IRC channels, instead of going to the beach. Now I regret waisting my time in highschool.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s also easy for me to see how intense Facebook usage is actually removing friends from my life. That&apos;s because I don&apos;t have the curiosity necessary to see how friends are doing, since I find out from their Facebook stream, so one big incentive for asking them out simply disappears. And it is great that with Facebook I got connected to many primary school colleagues, but once past the thrill of seeing how they look like, I simply don&apos;t care anymore, as those people are actually strangers to me.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;re definitely over-thinking it ... as we grow older, we start realizing that the important things in life are the same as ever: sex, good food, family, friends, building stuff, earning money, living comfortably, going out, relaxing on a beach somewhere with a tequila, etc... anything that distracts us from doing those and we start seeing it as dangerous to our mental health.&lt;p&gt;E.g. I love my smartphone, I love how I receive my emails on it, but at night when I&apos;m home with my son or on weekends when I&apos;m taking walks in the park, I turn it off with no regrets.</text></item><item><author>bdhe</author><text>This is as good a place and thread as any to write out some questions that have been bothering me. Maybe HN can help out.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve seen over the past several years several such posts (leaving facebook, leaving the internet, etc.) and they have a very raw emotional appeal to me. Some sort of a fast or a ritual quality to the entire idea.&lt;p&gt;Do others here constantly wonder about their internet habits? I may be generalizing, but being uncomfortable or suspicious of gradual habits we develop, does that show characteristics of &quot;getting old&quot; and &quot;conservative&quot;? The get-off-my-lawn type of mentality?&lt;p&gt;The same argument extends to smartphones, and &quot;new fangled&quot; tools such as twitter/foursquare/etc. Do others also perceive some &lt;i&gt;tension&lt;/i&gt; in embracing a new lifestyle.&lt;p&gt;Or am I overthinking it, and it is just a general equilibrium-maintaining feedback mechanism we develop through life. Because, with the internet (especially reddit and HN) and ubiquitous access to email/information through the smartphone I find myself, for the first time, cautious about embracing new technologies in a way I never felt before (not even when I got my first computer, or the first time I had cable TV ... of course, I was a kid back then).&lt;p&gt;/end rant</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>csomar</author><text>I&apos;ll begin:&lt;p&gt;1- Since dropping from College, I decided to change friends. Facebook allowed me to get back in touch with older high school friends and also find new friends in the same area as me.&lt;p&gt;2- The Internet allowed me to work remotely to foreign companies. Skype, Github, basecamp... manages my projects and workflow. These technologies made it possible that I make a very good online income while staying at home.&lt;p&gt;3- I bought a Nikon D5100 the last week. I&apos;m taking photos of everyday life and events, re-touching them and saving them (not in Facebook, just plain JPEG in computer) for the future as memories.&lt;p&gt;4- My SmartPhone, Tablet, and TV do a lot for me everyday. (productivity, communication, learning, and entertainment)&lt;p&gt;The issue is not with technology, but with using it. Some BigCorp makes addictive technologies to boost their earnings (online/social videos games). I play video games, but I&apos;m a light player. Few hours a week.</text></comment>