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- Hacker News
- You can do so many different things with a computer. If you spend hours watching AI generated YouTube shorts instead of playing outside with your kids, then yeah, that's too bad.
But if you spend all those hours building a retro/modern sim city game pair programming with your 12yo, designing the artwork, crafting the story arc, writing the music, finding and fixing bugs, building new levels -- you don't need to regret that you weren't idling around at the park all that time.
by montroser - I hesitate to repeat it, but I've seen reels where a woman has remarked that she realized her husband spent more time inside of his mom than inside of her. That's a pretty weird mountain to climb if you ask me.
In my view, putting a number to some things profanes or perverts it. I don't think relationships or meaning is an equation that you solve by having the right number of hours allocated to them. I only think the numbers should come up when they are close to zero.
When I have free time, I think to myself I should try to do something with friends, especially going over to their homes. Playing games remotely is fun too, but being with someone in person I think ultimately has a bigger impact. Everyone has to find a balance that works for them.
But if you did get the real numbers, I've spent more time pooping, showering, sleeping, or chilling in utero than spending time with friends.
People in my family who have spent a ton of time with me get sick of me. I'm glad my friends mostly haven't gotten sick of me. I think there's a happy medium.
by Validark - Given that I got my first computer at 12, given all the screen time with video games and programming in my youth + my day-job in software I absolutely guarantee I've clocked more hours on a computer than "with my family". I'm OK with that.
Computers have consolidated work, media, and entertainment all within the same "box" and even a good deal of close friend interactions are now mediated "on the screen".
I'm certain early hunter/gatherers would've been equally as shocked seeing factory workers "leave the home" and "constantly meet strangers".
Different praxis for different eras.
by calmbonsai - > Computers have consolidated...
Yes! Thank you for making this distinction. The problem is that some people's perceptions have not kept up, not that screens are inherently bad. Not all screen time is equal, and everyone chooses how to spend it.
This constant purity testing needs to end already. The thinly veiled politics on HN is getting more absurd by the day.
by sublinear - I agree with this take. When I add up all the films and shows I've watched, music I've listened to, books and articles I've read, games I've played, silly projects I've made, and whatnot else, it's hard to come to the conclusion I should have done something completely different for most of that time. I enjoyed myself for quite a lot of that time. I've learned quite a lot.
Sure, I can rot away and do things on the computer that doesn't really bring me joy beyond the Skinner box it can be, but that's at least somewhat on me if I fall into that trap (although we probably don't need to make more Skinner boxes for people to feel trapped by). There's a lot of things I really want to do on the computer, and I don't really see an inherent problem with that.
by Telaneo - Valid point. Using a screen for your daily work is one side. Another is sitting with family members together who are staring on a screen like zombies. I guess it’s the latter part that the author claims to be different than 10 years ago. I feel it.by sebst
- Some parents seem to believe that quality family time would spontaneously happen, if not for all those darn screens taking away all our attention and free time.
There's a tiny bit of truth in that, but sometimes parents need to actually do parenting and force their family to put down the phone or stop watching the tv and do things together.
by jerlam - Yes, thankfully so. Computers probably got me out of my teens alive.by jesse_dot_id
- Music for me.
- Exactly this. That would probably not have been a good ending without the donated PC and shared ADSL connection between neighbors.
God bless Debian.
by bragh - Why is this front page? This is just a strangely framed ambiguous question. Here's more of the same: Will you have spent more of your life sleeping than with your family? Will you have spent more of your life walking than with your family? Will you have spent more of your time working than with your family? Will you have spent more of your time blinking than with your family?by 1970-01-01
- I think you’re missing the point, which is that screen time is (or, the implication is that it is) an unhealthy waste of time.
It’s uncontroversial that sleep is necessary and healthy, walking is necessary and/or healthy, working is (mostly) necessary (regardless of whether it’s healthy), and blinking is necessary and healthy.
The implication is that there’s almost zero about screen time that is healthy or necessary, with some exceptions.
And that this has become recently common. Prior to the Information Age, it was less common that we spent this much time on screens.
People that did were called “couch potatoes”.
by jader201 - Shouldn’t the title actually be “Will you have spent more of your life AT WORK than with your family”.
For white-collar jobs typically translates to, computer = work.
by alberth - Don't be so hard on yourself. Yes, valid observation and time to curtail it a bit. But I think the 'stare at a screen' thing is a bit oversimplified. A computer is a medium of connection, mostly to other humans, or at least indirectly to human's work, art, etc.. So it's mostly using a tool for 'connection.' With anything, moderation is good, even moderating the moderation. But you're not staring at a brick. Don't oversimplify it.by bariswheel
- But also don’t give yourself a pass.
As you said, everything in moderation. But many people far exceed the level of moderation.
I see couples/families often sitting in restaurants on their phones.
I see people sitting at intersections on their phones.
I see people driving while on their phones.
People often walk from point A to point B but spending much of that walk on their phones.
I rarely see people waiting somewhere without having to jump on their phones.
Again, moderation is fine, but I’d argue many are well beyond that point.
by jader201 - This reminds me of Tim Urban's excellent post The Tail End[1] he wrote a few years ago.
He calculates that when a person reaches age 18, they have spent more than 90% of their in-person parent time. As a parent and a son, that hits pretty hard.
Obviously, YMMV.
by criddell - I like computers more than many members of my family, so...by eqmvii
- This is heavily contingent on one's individual experiences. An uncurated modern web/mobile sounds like a hellscape - ads in one's start menu, autoplaying videos, a flood of promotional notifications from shopping apps, people arguing with bots arguing with people about populist political garbage... blech. The real question is how this compares to your family member having a few cocktails then blaming you for their divorce or getting calls from collection agencies on behalf of somebody you haven't seen in five years.
Both of these problem spaces run the gamut from solvable to intractable. Either way you have to put in some work.
by alexjplant - My father spent more time in the office than with his family. My ancestors spent more time in the field than with family. My distant ancestors probably spent significant family time hunting together.
Is there any way to make the profession a family affair again?
by dotancohen - Open a restaurant?by Apocryphon
- I don't think your ancestors sat around the living room while their kids were playing threshing wheat, though. They put the plowshares down once it got dark.by lr4444lr
- Run a family business, but probably best you don't. Every family business I have worked for was basically walking into an intellectual MMA match of endless bickering amongst them. Apart time can be a good thing in moderation.by ColdStream
- Time in the field would have been spent with family, too. Women used to weave and spin loom for clothing as they walked, and developed tools for it. Families used to include the children in the field work when possible, in rural areas. In addition, families working the fields used to spend less time working than modern adults do, not more[1]
> The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.
One of the reasons why children, teens, and young adults have become so infantalised is because they are socialised mostly around each other, and spend a lot of time being told "no you can't, you are a child". This is not a call for children to enter the mines, and I do not wish to see child labour laws repealed (as they are apparently being in some parts of the USA). But for children to be socialised correctly, they must maintain connections with people of all ages, both older and younger — all benefit from such an arrangement. For them to grow up, they must be treated as people, and given age-appropriate responsibility and inclusion in the tasks that adults do. It is harder to teach a teenager to wash the dishes and their clothes, than it is to ask for a child's help washing the dishes and your/their clothes. The children are happy to help and to be included, you get to teach them rudimentary tasks, and it counts as family bonding time. The alienation of children from adults, and the alienation of children from their parents' work, is a great loss to society as a whole.
[1]: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
by fao_ - The sentiment is valuable but screens <-> family comparison bleeds too much into the polarization camp for shock value. "Time spent doing X" as opposed to Y will always have shock value. We sleep too much. Too much time reading on the toilet.
My main pushback is solitude. I don't actually want to timemaxx family interaction or any human interaction. I don't want to be the only one on the planet either, we need one another. But a life well-lived includes deep experiences in solitude if you ask me.
EDIT: and another thing! human interaction here focuses entirely on the living and the related. Why? Human connection can span all of humanity. And it should.
by apsurd - I agree with most of what you said, however a big point of contention would be that the activities most people tend to spend time doing solo on their computer, do not tend to engender the types of "deep solitude experiences" you talk about