Hacker News Reader

Comment by fn-mote | Hacker News Reader

You're ignoring the engineered addiction to the games on phones. Loot boxes, 2 free hours of play with double bonuses, etc.

There is no engineered addiction to reading the New York Times, so people just put it down when something else wants their attention.

Looking at a phone is a problem to the extent that it cuts you off from real interactions in society. It is a problem to the extent that the attention you pay to the phone does not go toward solving real problems.

It can be a problem because it allows kids to escape from uncomfortable situations like struggling to learn something, and the Instagram-perfect view of the world makes their own lives feel inferior.

View on HN

But the New York Times on a phone is not particularly more or less addictive than the same content on a piece of paper. Nor does reading it on a phone cut anyone off from the rest of society any more than focusing on the printed paper or a book or a Walkman.

If the problem is games, social media, or porn, why don't we identify those as social problems and try to fix them? Rather than blaming the device.

Oh! It definitely is, and it was engineered to make it more. The comments make sure of that, then you've got the alerts for Breaking News, the sense of urgency in animated visuals with shiny colors. Of course, the NYT in a phone is far more addicting.

I’m confident that people watching porn on suburban trains isn’t the problem.

Naming the device where we consume addictive content is just a convenient shorthand.

If we just stuck to the same NY Times articles we would have read in the paper that would be fine. But very few of us have the will power to pick up our device and not wonder into social media apps.

    > Looking at a phone is a problem to the extent that it cuts you off from real interactions in society.

I am confused here. Is reading the New York Times in paper form, on an e-reader, or a mobile phone different? If you are reading on a mobile phone, can you "just put it down when something else wants their attention"? Also, I was a subscriber to NYT for about 15 years, but quit about 10 years ago when the content got more and more click/rage-baity. (This is probably true of most large US newspapers.)

Final comment about paper vs digital newspapers: I much prefer paper because the adverts are print-only (no motion/animation) and there are no auto-play videos. It is much less distracting.

That would be fine but it’s not how people use phones. It’s far more time spent on addictive social media and games.

> There is no engineered addiction to reading the New York Times, so people just put it down when something else wants their attention.

Tell that to all the absolute news addicts out there. News is very clearly addicting, just like loot box games.

News doesn't get created that fast.

There's a lot of commentary addicts and such. Cable "news" started this, the internet has magnified it even more. "Screens" wouldn't be the problem if we all used them for mental enrichment, but instead they've been taken over by "engagement"-hunters trying as hard as possible to get you to see just one more ad... and then another one... and another one...

>News doesn't get created that fast.

They are repeated many times with slightly different wording to create appearance of many news, since they aren't limited by print.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com