
Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? - Ardit20
Although this might be a rather controversial question, I think it is a very interesting and maybe important self reflecting question. Of course there is no right or wrong answers, as my lecturers sometimes like to emphasise.<p>I usually wake up every morning and read the guardian, specifically its comments section which is a particular interesting section (most days)<p>Thinking about it though, I realise that most of the things I read on it are not relevant to myself. They speak of wars, problems society in general is facing, there are calls for mobilisation in regards to recycling, civil rights or some new found scandal.<p>These things are important to know of course and certainly interesting. Nonetheless I am reading the opinion of someone else. Someone who I have no reason to believe has a better or more righteous opinion than myself. I can not help it sometimes but think, in reflection, that they are maybe even influencing my own opinion, whether for good or bad.<p>I do not like my opinion to be influenced not based on facts, but words someone wrote without giving it too much thought. If their opinions are not based on facts or superior knowledge why should I give them the opportunity to influence myself, especially when bearing in mind that most of them have an agenda.<p>The guardian newspaper is of course very different from hacker news. Hacker News is a community which besides trying to take advantage of the fact that there is strength in numbers, i.e someone likes a story, others decide whether they like it or not, if many like a story, then there is a good chance that it is a good story, it also has a certain "code of conduct". Going further, as far as the website itself is concerned, the signal to noise ratio is high. There is a lot of good and interesting content.<p>The question though is whether interesting is good enough.<p>This particular website seems to appeal to the above average intellect crowd who require intellectual stimulation, but is it a waste of time?<p>I have mentioned the guardian, one of UK's leading newspapers, and compared it somewhat on this particular point to hacker news. Therefore I do not mean whether hacker news per se is a waste of time, I am speaking of the activity itself.<p>The activity can be defined as spending time reading fragmented material which is interesting to know, but not necessarily relevant to yourself. Material which is not relevant to yourself might not mean practically useless or that it does not indirectly effect your thinking and ability to perform. Nonetheless it does seem to mean in the context of this particular activity that it is knowledge somewhat remote with no use besides some mental ejaculation.<p>I do not wish to come accross as someone who would rather be isolated to his own enclave without wishing to know what goes on in the world, or find out interesting things such as the finding of a study about psychopathy. I am naturaly interested on many things and believe they have contributed to some extend towards my perception of the world.<p>The question is whether those 4 hour or so in the morning reading the guardian newspaper and then the articles on hackers news are worth it.<p>What do you think?
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pg
It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been
wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas?

I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people
disliked that idea than liked it

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593>

but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

~~~
lliiffee
An alternative to fully shutting down the site would be to "freeze" it. The
site is available, but nothing changes. (This could even happen 24 hours per
day: updates only happen every 6 hours or something.)

To me, the alarmingly addictive thing about HN is that something interesting
could happen _at any time_. Removing this real-time aspect, HN would still be
interesting, but no more addictive than a good issue of the New Yorker or
whatever.

~~~
fendale
But what about all those in different time zones? Freezing the site for
periods may make it tricky for people in some places to contribute at all.

~~~
lliiffee
I was thinking that anyone can access the site and do anything that they would
do now. The only difference is that what you do doesn't affect other people
until the freeze interval is over.

~~~
lief79
Freezing the content of the main page to update at a fixed rate makes sense.

The comments won't work as well if they aren't done in real time in the
current format. One possible solution would be to add a separate section for
active comment threads. This might serve as an acceptable way to slow them
down, or keep them visible longer. However, the real time comments are a large
part of what makes this site addictive, but it's also what provides a fair
amount of the value.

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bayareaguy
It doesn't necessarily start out as a waste of time but it can become one if
you spend too much time on it. I try to restrict myself to reading YC when
recompiling stuff on my powerbook. At the beginning of the build I use

    
    
      open -a Opera http://news.ycombinator.com
    

and at the end I have

    
    
      open -a Opera make.out
    

That way the browser automatically takes me to the build output when it's time
to get back to coding.

~~~
gruseom
That is brilliant.

But you're still replacing one waste of time with another!

~~~
NoBSWebDesign
Is it really a waste of time if it entertains you and stimulates your
thoughts, when used judiciously?

~~~
gruseom
I don't know. You could post the question to HN :)

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sam_in_nyc
I'm going to admit that I barely read any of your post. I'm just going to
answer: Your question is like asking "Is the Internet a Waste of Time?" It
really depends.

The stories are generally titled in such a way that I ignore stuff that I
already know, don't need to know, don't care about, etc.

Conversely, I read the stories that seem interesting or relevant. There's a
lot of cutting edge stuff discussed here and I like that. I haven't been here
long enough for any one particular thing about HN to piss me off yet, either.

So, yeah.. it's a waste of time if you waste your time. And it's not a waste
of time if there's a takeaway. So make a point to learn something each time
you go on HN.

~~~
likpok
HN is a /timesink/. It is easy to dump a v. large amount of time there,
without a great deal of energy expended. Much like heatsinks, this comes with
advantages (less free-unthinking time) and disadvantages (can suck time away).

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zenocon
4 hours reading The Guardian every day -- holy lord...are you independently
wealthy? Try just reading The Economist on the weekends. Maybe you'll feel
less guilty about all the time you also spend on HN.

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mkn
First, only your post is a waste of time. (Zing!) But seriously, that all
depends on what your goals are when you come here, how you use the site, and
_whether or not the site meets your goals_.

Second, some meta-advice about the "Trollish question? Although question might
be trollish, it isn't because..." meme: Don't do it. If you have a question
like that, then it really is trollish. If you think it isn't trollish, then
you need to think about it some more, because you're missing something
obvious. When you figure it out on your own, you're going to be so glad you
didn't embarrass yourself by asking the smart people on HN such a--let's be
frank about it--dumb question.

I normally don't respond to posts of this kind, but it has become a line-in-
the-sand issue for me because this meme, and so many others like it, seem
recently to be running rampant through an otherwise useful site. We get
replies of the form, "I'm obviously unqualified to talk about X, but here's my
opinion on X," the afore-mentioned "Trollish Q? Not so because _I_ think it's
interesting," and so on.

Think of it as being like farting loudly in an elevator. It doesn't matter if
you have really bad gas, you wait until you're alone. Similarly, if you've got
a vacuous question or opinion so unjustified that you have to qualify it by
saying so, just don't air it in a public forum. You're wasting people's time.

~~~
Ardit20
I see your point. I started with although this might be a controversial
question.......because the question is Is HN a waste of time, from that
question you might get the idea that I am speaking of HN only.

It seems that you have come up with a sentencing formula which is bad in all
circumstances. Maybe you should write a research report upon it, it certainly
might be interesting. My academic training has taught me though that one
should be weary of generalising.

I personally do not agree with your line of thinking that if you have an
embarrassing question keep it to yourself. There might be many smart people
here, but I do not usually refrain myself from asking a dumb question if I
feel that it might shed some light regarding some issue.

Am I or this post wasting peoples time? I did think a bit about that before I
posted it and concluded that if it was a waste of peoples time it would not
attract comments or upvotes.

Thanks for your comment anyway, an interesting way of saying that the post was
a waste of time without actually saying so, and further, an interesting way of
wasting other peoples time while saying that my post was a waste of time. :P

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tokenadult
_The question is whether those 4 hour or so in the morning reading the
guardian newspaper and then the articles on hackers news are worth it._

Learning is generally worthwhile. Four hours each morning puts a lot of
pressure on your schedule to be efficient in other activities, like running
your start-up or caring for your family.

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puzzle-out
HN is the closest thing to communicating with like-minded people since leaving
university. As long as it retains its diligent, unpretentious and insightful
membership, it is a good use of time, so long as you don't overdo it.

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xenophanes
> Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

> The question though is whether interesting is good enough.

In my words:

"Is interesting stuff worth doing, and is using my own judgment OK, or should
I stick to what tradition and authority and culture says is important?"

His best defense of reading Hacker News is not that he likes it. It is:

> I do not wish to come accross as someone who would rather be isolated

Being social is an approved activity.

Paul Graham says:

> [Hacker News is] certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a
> newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that.

He has the common attitude that problems should be solved by an authority
Doing Something, and that his judgment should trump the individual judgment of
each reader. And he has the attitude that if people spend a lot of time doing
something, that is prima facie evidence that it's a _bad_ thing. That is
backwards.

All this is a direct result of parents who educate their kids with principles
like:

\- it doesn't matter if you like it, do something important (aka, approved by
an authority like a text book manufacturer or a tradition)

\- if you like it a lot, then it's probably bad. TV, video games, ice cream,
playing in preference to doing homework, etc

\- your judgment can't be trusted

\- if you have a problem, don't do anything, tell an authority who will fix
it. e.g., self defense is banned at school, only defense by teacher is
allowed. even solving an "i need to use the bathroom" problem on one's own
initiative is banned.

\- you have to share and socialize or you're a bad person. Ayn Rand is the
devil.

------
GHFigs
If you have to ask, you've passed the point where it is.

Reading the news is the kind of thing you do to fill in interstitial time that
is not fungible with other activities, not something you do for its own sake,
or should ever "make time" for, or that is ever inherently important. There
may be important news, but the defining property of news is not importance,
but newness.

I think that many here (and elsewhere) likely suffer from (to some degree) a
kind of information-age malaise akin to scrupulosity (obsession over
sinfulness). It's a condition where people feel anxiety over not being
completely informed, or at least informed enough to have an opinion on every
subject.

How often do you read an article (or bookmark it, or InstaPaper it, or tag it
"toread", etc.) not because you want to read _that_ article, but you feel like
you _should_ know more about that subject? How many unread items do you have
in your RSS reader that you keep thinking you're actually going to read
someday? That's what I mean.

It's an impossible task, but trying can very easily consume all of your time.
You "just" have to learn to flip the switch from input to output without ever
feeling "done".

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pwoods
Yes, but so is working for a living.

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otoburb
A few points: 1\. 4 hours in the morning reading anything is quite a long
time. Perhaps if you were to reduce the number of hours, this would force you
to reduce your intake and be more productive. This is based on the assumption
that you have a vague feeling after morning reading periods that you have
'wasted' your time, possibly due to the numerous other things you could have
accomplished in half that time.

2\. Certain interests (e.g. awareness of a recession and industry news) may
help you to prepare yourself in case war, famine or other problems that may
appear to be global start to affect your neighborhood, job, family or friends.
This point is based on the assumption that you, your family and/or friends you
care about could be affected by these issues.

For me, interesting is good enough. I'd like to point out that my interests
have been changing recently as I think more and more about scenarios involving
a loss of income, and taking appropriate investment/skills actions.

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drawkbox
It goes at the core of human development. Trial and error and results feedback
loop, competition and community.

Here there are a collection of pieces of information that possibly contain
valuable trial and error results; filtered by what might be a very interesting
group of people. Also, competitors ways of thinking. Not to mention the other
side of that the community aspect, so you aren't alone in your adventures.

So naturally you are attracted to it as it is an attractor, simple due to the
possible trial and error results you might also be looking for. Anything that
can touch on that natural instinct of trial and error result feedback loop,
competition, community or other embedded biologically binded behaviors will
win. Video games for instance hits all these for instance, nearly recession
proof in the sense that they will always be played, and attract people.

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TomOfTTB
Information is as useful as you make it. It’s really a questions of "are you
just reading to entertain yourself?" vs "are you reading to learn and allowing
your worldview to be shaped based on what you are reading?" Almost every piece
of information is useful if you pick it apart and actively seek out the
lessons to be learned from it.

I mean, Henry David Thoreau spent his time wandering around the wilderness, an
activity that most would call a waste of time, and yet the lessons he learned
about simplicity and its impact on life are still being quoted nearly 150
years after his death.

Wisdom is everywhere the trick is to hang around places where you can find it
while enjoying yourself. If HN provides that for you than it’s far from a
waste of time.

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vaksel
Everything is good in moderation. If you spend 24/7 on HN then yes its a bad
idea. But if you spend 1-2 hours per day its really not that bad.

\+ with HN you get to read a lot of stuff that you yourself wouldn't have
found otherwise.

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pasbesoin
"Info porn"

I can't find how I came across the term -- I think it was via a link on HN,
maybe even in turn from this thread. My apology to whomever I may be
shortchanging from appropriate credit for the reference.

The term, and its definition here:

[http://tools-for-thought.com/2009/01/05/curbing-info-porn-
wi...](http://tools-for-thought.com/2009/01/05/curbing-info-porn-with-batched-
reading/)

capture a lot of my concern.

Just using the term in my own head is helping me to re-evaluate my behavior in
this regard.

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jodrellblank
I hang around a lot of websites (passing the time), and websites like HN are
full of entertainment ... but if I was honestly seeking self-improvement I
would _open some study material and study it_.

So, yes, I use it to waste my time. I could be doing better things assuming
you believe in objective measures of such things. The addictive low-cal-
information-firehose nature of the internet is my one weakness, as Miss Lane
never said with a twinkle in her eye.

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abdulhaq
I very quickly gave up reading the comments on the guardian web site. Many,
even a majority, are insulting and regurgitated opinions by people unopen to
changing their mind, they simply want to shout their (often unappetising)
opinion at you.

HN on the contrary is populated by people (like myself, I hope) who wish to
learn. They engage in discussion in order to improve themselves, not to win
arguments.

4 hours is far too long BTW. I'm sure there must be better things you can do.

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carterschonwald
I think its a waste of time only in the trivial sense of time spent at HN
doesnt' translate into work done. On the other hand, hard work requires making
the brain work well, and the brain works best when its you cycle between doing
different activities. So I think in fact having a source of novelty of
consistent quality as HN, is ultimately not a waste of time at all if you are
infact working on something intellectually nontrivial.

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tedshroyer
I don't know about everyone, but I have a limited number of hours that I can
focus on any single task before I need to take a break. If I didn't have this,
then I would find something else to distract me. It is a lot easier for me to
pull away from HN than to stop playing chess games online.

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Alcides
Be informed. Don't rely on YN only. And use it only if you can't get the same
content through easier ways.

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jsmcgd
Great question. I don't have an answer although I do know that reading hacker
news != hacking. I too think I spend far too much time reading all the
interesting topics posted to this site and that I should probably be doing
something more active and less passive. You're not alone.

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pj
HN is entertainment, but it's productive entertainment. Better than playing
solitaire or freecell or something like that.

There are posts here that make our lives better. I come here while I'm
compiling code or uploading code or waiting on something for a short time...

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zacharydanger
I avoid the "check HN every n minutes" addiction by using Google Reader to
give me a static view of what's come to the front page. This way I'm never re-
parsing the entire front page every visit.

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known
I overcame /. addiction by subscribing to its Headlines which arrive every
morning in my mailbox.

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siong1987
noprocrast: maxvisit: minaway:

No one actually uses the above features??? It really helps me to reduce my
visits to YC less than 3 times everyday. My maxvisit is 60 and minaway is 180.
This means that I can only visit HN for a maximum of 60 mins for every 180
mins interval.

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jwesley
Reading that thread opener was a waste of time. Get to the point.

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nx
It isn't. I've come up with a few great ideas in these threads.

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reg4c
Yes, but its awesome so your point is moot.

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enki
TLDR

