Ask HN: Are you still an information addict? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are you still an information addict?

26 pointsghotli23 comments

About a month ago quite a few of you identified yourselves as information addicts. Do you feel as if you've been doing better? What strategies have you adopted to curb your information addiction?

Previous thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293262

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Hamas used that picture for their own propaganda purposes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gilad_Shalit_on_Hamas_post... :-O

First, as long as I am living a healthy life and following through with my responsibilities, I fail to see how being a major purveyor of information is a negative trait.

At this time, as a great team has finally gotten my cancer, after six years of work, into remission, I find that I have to be on disability for a number of years. It is time to fix all that we damaged on my body over the past years.

Well, with this time I have really jumped into gathering and wanting to absorb more information. And, I want to understand how the information affects my life, this world, or those I love. I use Evernote (www.evernote.com) to collect so much data, then find the back-up data that I had no choice but to find such a system to manage it all. And, I now enjoy finding the information which can help others. So, I have designed Evernote notebooks for them. They can just access it, and they will find a very well organized "notebook" of information which they may be able to use now or later, or they may be able to add to and come up with a solution to some issue they were working on.

Now, when I am in the hospital, as I was last week, and I did not have my computer with me, I was a bit testy. However, my phone has an Evernote phone program on it and I was able to do just enough gathering and learning (I never add something to a notebook without first reading it through, top to bottom.). Sure, a nurse or two thought I was a might over the top, but, I did what I was supposed to do, heal from a surgery, and, then, was released with no medical issues. The information I gathered helped make the stay just a bit better.

Is there something wrong with being addicted to information?

Is that not the single thing that ties us together? Knowing this and that; then using that knowledge to connect to others? Maybe I'm missing something, but is there ever too much information?

Is there something wrong with being addicted to information?

http://pyxelated.deviantart.com/art/Reality-1440x900-7886180...

Your brain takes in information 100% of the time.

You just decide which information you put in.

I have found that as I become more 'addicted' to information, my life has become more scatterbrained. I find it harder to remember things and my attention span slowly grew shorter and shorter. I hate to admit this as it makes me sound inferior, but it's true.

I've been combatting this by not checking my email/twitter on the subway and just focusing on the book I'm reading, and watching videos in full screen.

Also using Tweetdeck has helped alot because I no longer check Twitter compulsively. I wait for a tweet to come in then respond.

I'm inclined to think that having perfect information (or as close to it as possible) can lead to "analysis paralysis". Generally speaking, the more information you have, the more you can see all the possible upsides and downsides that might occur as the result of a given choice. This makes everyone prone to not making a choice at all -- some people manage this tendency better than others -- and this can be worse than making even a bad choice. While you were trying to optimize an outcome, the opportunity passes you by.

In this respect, imperfect information can make a difficult choice easier to make. So yes, so there is such a thing as too much information. Some people just manage it better than others.

The first major mathematical calculation, which is augmented by information, as babies, is the taking of our first step. The math and physics the brain must use to control what is essentially a fall is massive for such a young being. But, as noted by others, our minds are always taking in information. It is, as we get older, more of our choice in what we take in and what we find as "good" information.

I found that when my God Daughter, now 21, was but 4, she wanted to sit on my shoulders and walk around outside so she could feel the different colors on the signs. It makes so much sense, her mind was looking for more information to better understand what she saw. Though, when she did not feel a difference between the red on the stop sign and the yellow of the yield sign, her mind took in more information and she moved on to the shapes of the signs. Yes, as was said, our minds are always taking things in and working with them to see how they fit with our understanding of the world we find ourselves in. And, for me, and for my God Daughter, I pray the day never comes when I am not interested in information of any form.

Poor color-blind child.

Poor, color-blind child.

For me, information consumption is a substitute (in the economic sense) for television. It's a leisure activity. It fills the gap when I'm not doing Real Work. When I get bogged down, I just declare RSS bankruptcy and start over. shrug

I'm an information dependent (not an addict). It's important to distinguish between dependency and addiction[1]. For example, a diabetic is dependent on insulin. It would be stupid to call a diabetic an insulin addict. In the same respect, I'm dependent on information because guess what? I'm a knowledge worker. Knowing things is my job.

[1] http://health.discovery.com/centers/pain/medicine/med_addict...

I blocked Reddit, Slashdot, OSNews, Cracked, Facebook, Twitter - everything except HN - for a month. Now I don't feel like going back to any of those timesinks. In fact, I've unblocked pretty much all of those websites in the last week, and I still don't spend any time on them (except short trips to /r/GoneWild :p).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: /etc/hosts is your friend.

Yeah, blocking works well. I removed 90 out of 95 RSS feeds I followed and I don't miss them.

I'd say I'm an "addict" in the common "enthusiast" meaning of the word, but information is what keeps me ahead and what has kept my family fed for the last few years. It's only a true "addiction" if it damages your life and it certainly doesn't for me.

About a week ago, I decided to cancel my ISP bill at home. The support technician was very confused when I answered him that I would not be switching to another provider. The most noticeable result from the experiment thus far is that I sleep much better and longer--making me more relaxed. Also my eyes don't burn and I can even go outside without sunglasses. I surf less (obviously this comment got here somehow) and actually program more. The necessary stuff gets done, the unnecessary crap doesn't (at least not on my watch). I see more, and look at less. I'm beginning to think I'm more of a feedback junkie than information addict.

Do I still follow HN....yes

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Yes I am an information addict, however like workaholism, abstinence is not an option. I've set a limit on how much time I spend reading interesting information (as opposed to stuff I need to read for work). To make better use of that time, I wrote a Web app for RSS feeds that learns from my reading and ranks other posts accordingly. It's available in beta form at http://AmethystRSS.net/. It's useful and getting better.

This is going to sound sad but.. I have been fullscreening videos and forcing myself not to press escape and check email/hnews/etc.

It really helps and I'm trying to find something similar with webpages and Balsamiq Mockups.

I've found that watching movies on my iphone helps me with that.

Wrote a block-hosts file and a free-hosts file. Wrote a script to copy the appropriate host file onto /etc/hosts as needed. I run the script when I want to start work and when I'm finally done work.

I missed the initial thread, so thanks for bringing this up. It's interesting stuff. I'd say I'm definitely an information addict. :-(

YES I AM/CANT LIVE WITHOUT IT

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