
Feeds addiction - teohgh
https://medium.com/@teo.hoaghea/why-are-you-reading-this-7f8d12fb6e2f#.7ha7sujbt
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Broken_Hippo
There are virtual piles of bad curated lists. And I have a deep dislike for
the promoted "news" stories. But I like suggestions at times, especially in
some of my weirder topics. "People also read"... or links to other related
articles, or sometimes just random interesting links. It isn't always that I'm
looking for something specific, just wanting something little to read.

This isn't a new behavior: People buy newspapers and magazines with a variety
of content. Even if they bought it for one article, they tend to read other
bits. My grandmother kept readers digests in the bathroom when I was a
child... a captive audience will read about anything.

The bigger difference is that instead of making money selling the articles and
traditional ads, places are making money if you click on the article via ads
and other means. Some of the stuff out there is absolute poppycock - but we
had tabloids well before the internet. And people believed them. Seems that
people should just be advised to use some discernment when they click and read
those articles, because of the poppycock that now easily proliferates.

~~~
teohgh
There are plenty of articles, books and videos from which you can gather the
needed information. I also like suggestions, but you can not focus on your
personal interests if you always get distracted with news from other fileds.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
See, that's the thing I'm trying to get at. If you are getting distracted by
links while trying to focus on personal interests, that isn't a problem with
the internet nor internet culture. The simple answer is that if you find you
are clicking through links instead of being productive - and you have a
problem with that - then simply stop doing it, limit your time, etc. The
internet and the links simply replaced some of the distractions of old, and it
is really no different than reading a bit too long on the toilet instead of
doing your daily grind already.

There can be a problem with people not handling distractions well. ADD can do
that, as well as anxiety, depression, and simple poorly trained concentration
skills. All of which are solvable to an extent.

