
I'm Giving Up Reading for a Year - easonchan42
http://curiousrat.com/home/2012/5/2/im-giving-up-reading-for-a-year.html
======
bdhe
This is as good a place and thread as any to write out some questions that
have been bothering me. Maybe HN can help out.

I've seen over the past several years several such posts (leaving facebook,
leaving the internet, etc.) and they have a very raw emotional appeal to me.
Some sort of a fast or a ritual quality to the entire idea.

Do others here constantly wonder about their internet habits? I may be
generalizing, but being uncomfortable or suspicious of gradual habits we
develop, does that show characteristics of "getting old" and "conservative"?
The get-off-my-lawn type of mentality?

The same argument extends to smartphones, and "new fangled" tools such as
twitter/foursquare/etc. Do others also perceive some _tension_ in embracing a
new lifestyle.

Or am I overthinking it, and it is just a general equilibrium-maintaining
feedback mechanism we develop through life. Because, with the internet
(especially reddit and HN) and ubiquitous access to email/information through
the smartphone I find myself, for the first time, cautious about embracing new
technologies in a way I never felt before (not even when I got my first
computer, or the first time I had cable TV ... of course, I was a kid back
then).

/end rant

~~~
bad_user
I do not think we are "getting old" and "conservative".

I am 29 years old, certainly not a teenager anymore, but I am also without
doubt not old. That we even have to ask ourselves this question goes to show
there's something really fucked up about our world, probably because we are
losing respect for the elderly.

I love technology and I think it's the answer to most of our problems, but its
perseverance also scares me. That teenagers embrace it more than I do, that's
only because teenagers are by definition raw and stupid, lacking the
experience to foresee long-term problems ahead.

When I was in highschool I used to spend hours playing games such as
Starcraft, Age of Empires, Quake 2 and Counter Strike. I was doing that
instead of going out to play soccer or to have barbecues with friends. I was
logging frequently to local IRC channels, instead of going to the beach. Now I
regret waisting my time in highschool.

It's also easy for me to see how intense Facebook usage is actually removing
friends from my life. That's because I don't have the curiosity necessary to
see how friends are doing, since I find out from their Facebook stream, so one
big incentive for asking them out simply disappears. And it is great that with
Facebook I got connected to many primary school colleagues, but once past the
thrill of seeing how they look like, I simply don't care anymore, as those
people are actually strangers to me.

You're definitely over-thinking it ... as we grow older, we start realizing
that the important things in life are the same as ever: sex, good food,
family, friends, building stuff, earning money, living comfortably, going out,
relaxing on a beach somewhere with a tequila, etc... anything that distracts
us from doing those and we start seeing it as dangerous to our mental health.

E.g. I love my smartphone, I love how I receive my emails on it, but at night
when I'm home with my son or on weekends when I'm taking walks in the park, I
turn it off with no regrets.

~~~
s8qnze982y
> I love technology and I think it's the answer to most of our problems

I'd be curious to know which are the problems that technology solves, because
I'm actually of the opposite opinion - technology is the answer to all the
wrong problems.

~~~
andrewfelix
A stone knife is technology. We as a species are intrinsically linked to
technology.

~~~
peejaybee
Exactly. This is our evolutionary leg up on a world that would otherwise eat
us alive.

------
tdfx
Most of the "general public" that I encounter have already made this
commitment, but for a much longer duration.

------
switz
Unfortunately, the person who this post is directed at won't see it for at
least a year.

~~~
dkuntz2
Someone could print it out for him to read...

~~~
ifewalter
He won't see it either. "No reading" remember?

~~~
cocoflunchy
switz was writing about Paul Miller
([http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-
year-w...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-year-without-
internet))

~~~
vl
Ah, this explains it.

Original piece manages to be even more hilarious than the parody!

------
padobson
I love this piece. The Verge has become the philistine's Rolling Stone. It has
all the pretentiousness, and none of the cultural value. Everytime I read
something on the Verge, I can't help but feel like there's an air of timeless
importance being attributed to things that will be forgotten a year from now.

This might also simply stem from frustration over a systemic failure of
technology writers to do their material any justice, or the press in general
failing to keep people properly informed over the last 25 years.

But maybe I'm curmudgeonyly. Maybe there is value in knowing about a bamboo
phone[1] while SOPA and CISPA threaten to turn it into a weapon against us.
There could be some good reason for me to know that Kanye is banging a
Kardashian while our President is allowed to assassinate US citizens with a
simple say-so.[2]

I guess if I get a nice piece of satire like this every now and again, I'm
good with it.

[1] [http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/2/2/2766670/adzero-bamboo-
ph...](http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/2/2/2766670/adzero-bamboo-phone-
university-student-design) [2] [http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/obama-
lawyers-citizen...](http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/obama-lawyers-
citizens-targeted-war-
us-154313473.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=US&.lang=en-US)

~~~
cafard
I thought that Rolling Stone _was_ the philistine's Rolling Stone, but then
nobody ever mistook me for Matthew Arnold.

------
TheBiv
I understand the satire, I just would rather see this in the comments of the
original article. This feels more like a slap rather a thoughtful critique.

~~~
semisight
Really? It feels fairly well directed to me. The 'no internet' guy (who's name
I've made a point to forget) was really egotistical about it. He even started
an IAmA thread on reddit about it (link:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/t14p6/table_iama_tec...](http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/t14p6/table_iama_technology_journalist_im_leaving_the/)).

~~~
TheBiv
Yeah, that is a very good point. I guess I just wanted to see this
conversation die along with the original article. Because the 'no internet'
guy was no doubt just doing that as link bait. Now this will be the top post
tomorrow and it will have added nothing of real value.

------
pinchyfingers
Written in response to this article:

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-
year-w...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-year-without-
internet)

------
BasDirks
> but being uncomfortable or suspicious of gradual habits we develop, does
> that show characteristics of "getting old" and "conservative"? The get-off-
> my-lawn type of mentality?

Sounds like the opposite.

I have over the past 3 years lived abroad for a total of ~4 months, in Italy
and France. I helped build a house and a shed. I had my laptop with me, but
internet was limited to an hour a day, 56k is still pricey. Once in a while I
flip my world upside down, and it always makes me stronger. Sleeping in a 2x2m
tower with spiders bigger than you've ever seen before is good for you, and
breaks a lot of habits.

------
squiid
I'm also an avid reader, bordering on obsessive. As you described, I read not
only devour books, magazines, and blog posts, but signs, labels, billboards,
and anything else where words are printed. I just spent four months in
South/east Asia, mostly Thailand, and because I can't read Thai script, my
eyes and my brain have had a much needed break. I've been able to focus on
reading only what I've conciously chosen to read and have eliminated all the
'passive' reading I do by habit. I've also been able to focus much more
intensely on my work without distraction. For anyone who has the ability to
work virtually and needs to focus deeply onas project, I highly recommend such
a trip!

------
w1ntermute
Ironically, Paul Miller probably won't see this parody because he's not using
the internet anymore.

------
zobzu
I'm giving up on giving a fuck for a year!

Stay trendy my friends.

(I actually started this one quite a few years ago and it's still going
strong. Allow oneself to think on it's own a little more easily!)

------
callil
A bit over the top. I have hope that his being away from the internet will
force him to report of the personalities of tech by talking face to face or
over the phone. I think in depth personal stories and interviews of tech
founders/engineers/designers etc. are fascinating. It's a great opportunity
for The Verge to set itself miles apart from the competition.

------
SatvikBeri
I actually got a lot of benefit out of seriously cutting back my reading a
couple of years ago. I found that rather than coming up with my own arguments
and using examples from what I'd read to support them, I was just citing
arguments from various books I'd read. It wasn't that I'd lost the capacity
for original thought, but my mental habits had changed from trying to come up
with something on my own to purely synthesizing and citing material I'd read
elsewhere.

Some more extreme but shorter versions of this that I've tried include putting
myself in an environment with no words for a few days, and spending a day
blindfolded.

------
willurd
I was giving up before it was cool.

~~~
dasil003
Yeah, it used to just be "loser-talk"

------
winkerVSbecks
Ah yes the I'm giving up_______ trend. I said the same thing in the post Paul
Miller made. If you want to give up aspects of your life or stop using certain
services – can you even call the Internet a service anymore – good for you. I
will not to judge you but FFS stop making public announcements. If you're
really doing it for yourself. Keep it to your self.

~~~
Sivart13
whoosh

------
obtu
<http://youtu.be/EC0TDci9hqg> — as mocked by Mitchell & Webb (That Mitchell &
Webb Look series 2)

------
ifewalter
RANT ALERT!!! "No reading"? What do you do to SMS, email, parking tickets,
expiry dates on foods, music details, your watch, video games........ Except
you're gonna lock yourself in a room and have a maid do everything, quit
kidding yourself. And please reply all our questions and comments, 'cos I'm
sure you came back to read them.

~~~
NZ_Matt
The article is satire in response to this:
[http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-
year-w...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-year-without-
internet)

Perhaps a mod could add Satire to the thread title to avoid the confusion.

------
QuarkSpark
hilarious stuff! you should also consider logging your last 3 hours of reading
and post it online, like how your targeted audience for this post of yours
just recently did! :D

------
sparknlaunch12
Why? Surely a balance can be made?

I'm giving up reading "giving up" blog posts.

~~~
bsphil
It's satire.

~~~
skeletonjelly
Satire on what?

~~~
bsphil
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3910261>

------
corwinstephen
The Internet is Y-Combinator for sarcastic satire.

------
jezclaremurugan
You should do AMA in reddit.

------
swah
This isn't doable... I'll try to stick with "start your day as a producer, not
a consumer".

------
zhoutong
Giving up reading is just "harder" than giving up the Internet.

~~~
throwaway0003
Take a look at this: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-
year-w...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-year-without-
internet)

~~~
zhoutong
Yes, I'm exactly referring to this.

------
verminoth
Ha ha ha ha, so great.

------
rubashov
I don't find this as quite a ridiculous idea as the satire presumably assumes.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative
pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls
into lazy habits of thinking. --Albert Einstein

------
drivebyacct2
I'm _honestly_ surprised it took this long.

------
lwat
So brave

~~~
marknutter
Hi Reddit, welcome to HN :)

------
bashzor
I think it's laughable what he does for pageviews. If you read all, you'll
notice that's quite the only reason.

Also if you read all, you might have discovered the Readability link at the
very bottom. So just when you're done reading, the site offers to make reading
it more comfortable.

