How the Internet hurts your sleep schedule, productivity and personal life

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/22/heres-how-much-the-internet-hurts-your-sleep-schedule-productivity-and-personal-life/

by Libertatea • 13 years ago

77 38 13 years ago

washingtonpost.com

tokenizer4• 13 years ago

Could be titled, "How [thing] hurts your [other things]".

Of course a newer, more utilized tool eats into your other activities that don't revolve around that tool.

Less time spent driving to the store, walking around the store, and purchasing the items, and driving back home? More time spent on Amazon.com?!?!

What about less time spent socializing offline, but more time spent playing MMOS?

IMO this is all about one major sociological/technological device eating into our other habits. Depending on the person, it could eat into bad habits, or good ones.

They mentioned 2.7 minutes less working, but what about the productivity gains from the internet?

Karunamon2• 13 years ago

Indeed. This article seems like they started with a premise, and then got the data to support that premise. (I.e. the completely wrong way to go about any kind of data collection).

bgilroy262• 13 years ago

This is a puzzling comment. Every hypothesis is a premise.

Every schoolchild in America is told experiments begin with hypotheses.

Granted that isn't how things work in the real world, but it isn't categorically untrue either.

gordaco• 13 years ago

Reminds me of certain TV network from my country airing alarmist "news" circa 2005, about how people who spent more time in the internet also spent... less time watching TV! How dare they!

tokenizer4• 13 years ago

Exactly. I don't take things like this serious. Given your example, one could look at studies of watching TV and spending time on the computer, and postulate that one would be exercising the brain more.

The catch? The computer is just a tool. Some people use it 24/7, only consume sedentary media, and can skew these results. While some other folks utilize the device to save time on their shopping, social communication, taxes, personal growth, hobby development, and professional networking device.

A computer is a tool. If studies show that more people choose to use it in a reckless and hedonistic manner, then that's more telling of us humans than the effects of the internet. If those same people can't ruin their lives on computers, they'd do so at a bar, or at a casino, or in front of their TV all day.

blakesterz• 13 years ago

Maybe this title should be more like... "How having internet access changes the way people choose to spend their time". It's not like The Internet is attacking people, we choose to do this.

DenisM2• 13 years ago

Well, crystal meth is not jumping out of its container to do a facehug either, but we do talk about it ruining people's lives.

Sagat3• 13 years ago

People can choose things but that doesn't mean you should sometimes try to steer them in an other direction. That's the whole point of morality and other coercive measures which all have a different place on the scale of subtleness.

mbesto• 13 years ago

And thus furthering the internet's arms war for grabbing people's attention.

I see this playing out two ways:

1. The "productivity" apps will continue to grow as more people become less productive. (the tools aren't lacking, but their attention spans are) We'll continue to see to-do list apps, CRM apps, and project management tools rolled out week after week.

2. Internet based companies (everything from publishers to web apps) will have to increasingly find more ways to ensure user engagement. This means more email notifications, more smartphone notifications, more SMS's, and more ways of people trying to annoy you.

onedev• 13 years ago

#2 is what's killing me, so these past few weeks I've deactivated all social network services (Facebook, Twitter, etc), deleted all of those apps off my phone, and the result has been refreshing. I feel so....free...my mind is more clear and more able to focus. Sure the messaging situation is a bit broken up right now (a mix of iMessage, SMS, and Hangouts, whereas before I only used FB), but I don't even mind.

We'll see how long it lasts before I feel the need to switch them all back on, but so far I haven't been missing them one bit! I might just give them up for good because I really do feel great not having to check up on my Twitter/Fb/etc. I'm no longer being pummeled with a sea of content that I then inadvertently consume. I spend more time looking around my environment in my moments of free time (like when standing in line) instead of automatically opening up Fb or Twitter like a cruel nervous twitch.

The only social network app that I kept is Instagram because I like taking pictures a lot and Instagram is just fun for that purpose :) Plus it doesn't notify me too much or require too much of my attention even when it does.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

Neat! Lately I've been trying to just ponder, soak in the moment or just do nothing if I'm waiting in line or something, rather than reach for my smart phone. But the biggest timesink for me is my laptop, or rather my Internet powered laptop. I remember when I didn't have WiFi (or was it electricity...) in my apartment. I thought I would be bored to tears, but it was actually a nice change of pace. Definitely more serene. Now I just need to find some self discipline and use the Web less, or maybe turn it off completely, and when I do use the laptop to be less obsessive with Facebook, email etc.

shubb• 13 years ago

People can ignore these things when they really want to do something. For example, most people won't check for emails while watching an interesting movie. Similarly, if I'm working up awesome code that needs to be ready for tomorrow, I'm going to forget to sleep, never mind email.

The problem comes when they are doing something they don't want to be doing - they might check them while watching a nourishing NPR documentary, or that 1980s zombie movie He insists is amazing.

So why are I commenting on HN while I am supposed to be working? I think it's because there isn't a strong enough negative consequence. Most people can perform +-20% at anything in their lives, and not see much effect either way. So if they don't like doing an activity, why not give it -20% effort?

In the 70s it would be a cigarette break, now it's reddit. People don't change much.

JacobJans• 13 years ago

This is actually a really good opportunity. For a while now, I've built little web apps designed to increase my ability to focus. NOT productivity, but focus. Maybe one of these days I'll actually focus enough to finish one.

For example, I've built a little time tracker tool that asks you to rate your focus after a work session. That way you KNOW how much time you've spent actually focused, vs. puttering around on the internet.

My current hobby project is a gamification of journaling. The basic idea is to get people addicted writing. My current issue with this app is with testing it. I find myself focusing on playing the game instead of actually coding. Oops.

Nux• 13 years ago

We shall adapt. Or not. :)

DenisM2• 13 years ago

For a very detailed take on the subject I suggest "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr.

A notable fact about this book is that 20% of the entire volume are references to various scientific studies used throughout the text to substantiate the author's position. It's not a fluff piece.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393339750

jeanjq• 13 years ago

^hurts^changes

Headline says one thing; final paragraph says another: "Bottom line? The Internet is quickly changing the way we allocate our time, but there’s no call to panic yet. You might want to stop reading this thing on the Internet and get back to work, though."

ghostfacedbat• 13 years ago

I hope that the irony of this article being posted on the internet isn't lost on anyone.

a3voices2• 13 years ago

So? Even if it's true, you don't get a trophy at the end of your life for being slightly more productive and having a better personal life. The Internet also makes people more literate and understand the world better.

Sagat3• 13 years ago

Not necessarily. If like at least half of users you spend your time watching videos, memes and your facebook feed, you aren't going to become more literate or understand anything.

scrabble• 13 years ago

You also won't necessarily expand your view, since people seem to gravitate towards people who have the same opinions and attitudes you do.

Zancarius3• 13 years ago

I would posit that those people are unlikely to be sufficiently motivated to spend time learning or doing something more constructive anyway regardless of the Internet and nothing is likely to change that. While the Internet has certainly lowered the bar of entry with regards to "entertain me," it has done the same to information access at large.

Segmentation• 13 years ago

Does this sound like you?

Wake up in the morning. You have about an hour to prepare and get to work. While you're eating breakfast, you read Hacker News. Multi-tasking. Now you have finished eating breakfast. Yet you're still reading Hacker News. You just gotta finish those last few links. And maybe check up on your email. Then you realize you've wasted minutes of an already tight schedule and you really got to rush it to make it to work on time. You arrive maybe 5-15 minutes late and a little flustered because you were racing.

Then you realize you could have just left the house quickly and read Hacker News at work, on the clock. Yet you'll make the same mistake tomorrow.

saraid216• 13 years ago

This morning it was archives of Schlock Mercenary. The quality was higher.

gaius• 13 years ago

Yes the reason the Internet is different is this: back in the day, older people might have worried that youngster were spending too much time listening to gramophone records instead of doing their chores, but the youngsters themselves loved it. But we - supposedly the biggest fans of the Internet and all it promised - are worrying about ourselves.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

In my case, I almost have to watch something while I'm eating. I usually stream something and if it doesn't load when I sit down to eat, I will rather wait until the food is cold for it to buffer rather than not have something to watch.

I read Hacker News afterwards, though...

curiouslurker• 13 years ago

Truly the dismal science, if this is the kind of thing that an economist can engage in and have it considered serious scholarship!

Dewie3• 13 years ago

Hi. My name is Dewie, and I'm a Web addict. (but thanks to the obnoxious follow-you-everywhere social media banner that also hovers above the text of the article, I at least didn't indulge myself by reading this article)

adultSwim• 13 years ago

Synecdoche

How the Internet hurts your sleep schedule, productivity and personal life

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