<story><title>90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)</title><url>https://www.theonion.com/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-staring-at-glowing-re-1819570829</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>repsilat</author><text>Because this thread always needs someone to say the obvious truth: &amp;quot;Screen time&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t the most useful concept. Maybe it was in the TV days (though with diverse programming it may not have been), but with phones&amp;#x2F;tablets&amp;#x2F;laptops it&amp;#x27;s as broad a label as &amp;quot;technology company&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Are we talking about chatting with friends? Doing work? Watching a show? Playing a game? Reading the news? A novel? Meeting with people? Organising transport? Finding a place to eat?&lt;p&gt;There is a diversity of rectangles, and for each rectangle there is a diversity of uses.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hombre_fatal</author><text>All of us with seldom exception use our glowing rectangles as addictive dopamine drips that exploit our innate desire to scavenge for information that ends up disconnecting us from the world and, likely, things we actually find fulfilling. And we watch our own children suffer the exact same way and wonder what can actually be done about it.&lt;p&gt;There was a submission this morning or yesterday about &amp;quot;if we could live our lives over&amp;quot; where many HNers were lamenting how they felt like they were wasting their precious hours. How many of those people would say that their screen time wasn&amp;#x27;t contributing? Or that it was actually fulfilling?&lt;p&gt;Not sure who here relates to the idea of spending the bulk of their screen time organizing transport and planning dinner parties or whatever. Or the idea of &amp;quot;no, I actually do like how much time I spend on &amp;lt;vice&amp;gt; and I&amp;#x27;m trying to get those numbers up even higher.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For some reason whenever this topic comes up, we have people playing coy with what &amp;quot;screen time&amp;quot; could possibly be referring to. &amp;quot;What, you&amp;#x27;re saying it&amp;#x27;s bad to use my iPhone to Facetime my dying father?&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>90% of Waking Hours Spent Staring at Glowing Rectangles (2009)</title><url>https://www.theonion.com/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-staring-at-glowing-re-1819570829</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>repsilat</author><text>Because this thread always needs someone to say the obvious truth: &amp;quot;Screen time&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t the most useful concept. Maybe it was in the TV days (though with diverse programming it may not have been), but with phones&amp;#x2F;tablets&amp;#x2F;laptops it&amp;#x27;s as broad a label as &amp;quot;technology company&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Are we talking about chatting with friends? Doing work? Watching a show? Playing a game? Reading the news? A novel? Meeting with people? Organising transport? Finding a place to eat?&lt;p&gt;There is a diversity of rectangles, and for each rectangle there is a diversity of uses.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>momokoko</author><text>I think this is a strange thing to hear from being a bit older. 30-40 years ago, most people did not spend their time reading the paper and watching TV.&lt;p&gt;There was vastly more time spent interacting directly with friends and family as well as hobbies and interests that were not consuming media. It was much more common for people to stop by, often unannounced and hang out and talk for several hours. Just talking in person was very popular. Also, people spent much more time on errands and house tasks. It was very rare to have landscapers or housekeepers. This was before dishwashers and people rarely ate out. So cooking and cleaning were common. Super cheap goods from China had not yet arrived so maintenance on things around the house was more common than replacement.&lt;p&gt;This isn’t at all to be taken as things were better, or worse, it is simply to relay that people did a lot more than consume media and communicate electronically.</text></comment>