> Recently, as I reached for the play button out of habit, I stopped. I thought: what if I just do this chore in silence today?
It seems most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
I just love silence.
I can't work in anything but complete silence. In open spaces I wear earplugs. (If I'm not wearing earplugs it means I'm not doing much of anything ;-) That's one of the main benefits of remote work: at my home there is complete silence most of the time.
I need silence for many other activities too. Cooking, reading (of course), even driving.
In fact, I think my problem is the opposite: I just can't do two things at once. If I'm listening to something, then I can't be doing anything else.
For me, my life has gotten so stressful and awful, I just need to get away from my anxiety and the best way is through distraction. Music, podcasts, and audio books help me maintain some semblance of normalcy. I can't even fall asleep without some distraction. I'll stay up all night stressing about not being able to find work, my kid's futures, my piling up of bills, inflation, ever expanding war, etc.
have you considered seeking treatment? I personally have had some spells like you are describing, and generally white knuckled through. I tried medication for the last one, and I'll be darned if it didn't work pretty well.
>most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
I can't generalize for everyone and maybe some of those people you observe are just listening to music all day long.
In my circle, we have earphones all the time because we're listening to podcasts of news, tech industry commentary, macroeconomics and finance, etc. If one is working in an area where you're professionally rewarded by being curious about the changing world and being "plugged in", having "headphones on all the time" can help with staying up-to-date. Even with all that headphone time, there are still many hours in the day in personal silence. Laying in bed consolidating various thoughts before falling asleep. Standing in the shower. Reading blogs, etc. Before podcasts, we'd have to "waste time" sitting in front of the computer to catch up on the same material. Podcasts help us multitask.
Of course, not everybody needs (or wants) to have headphones on all the time. The mathematician Andrew Wiles pursued Fermat's Last Theorem for 30 years before finally solving it. He doesn't need a random podcast that talks about the Iran war and its downstream economic effects on manufacturing computer chips. That type of "useless" news would probably bore him.
>, even driving. In fact, I think my problem is the opposite: I just can't do two things at once. If I'm listening to something, then I can't be doing anything else.
It just depends on the threshold of mindless activity. If I'm driving in an unknown city with confusing one-way streets, I don't want a podcast voice yapping in my ear while I'm concentrating on reading the traffic signs. On the other hand, driving through 100 miles of monotonous corn fields on a highway means I can catch up on a backlog of podcasts.
The multitasking I was talking about was combining a mindless repetitive task that has low cognitive demands such as walking on a treadmill, yardwork raking leaves, driving on non-descript boring roads ... with listening to a podcast about whatever topics are interesting. The mind is engaged while the hands and feet doing the work are on autopilot. In those cases, it can be a "free lunch" in the sense that the curiosity-seeking mind got fed while whatever physical task that needed to get done also got done with less procrastination and dread.
I wasn't talking about trying to edit a Excel spreadsheet while listening and concentrating on a podcast about the politics and protests of datacenter buildouts.
It’s also under appreciated that its good to have the brain be bored and doing nothing. While you are being curious you aren’t thinking or contemplating or creating or imagining, just consuming that dopamine sink.
I was a professional glass artist and auctioned all of my work. When you've done it for years, molten glass keeps the hands busy, but seems to leave the mind free - very easy to listen to a podcast or music while working.
But... if I didn't... I made substantially more money per hour. Partially by being faster, but mostly by being better.
On the surface, it felt like nothing was going on, simple as driving to work, but just having that headspace for intuition to happen made a big difference. Also, probably worth mentioning that I never did production work, only explorative, so perception/intuition was maybe overweighted.
I half suspect that it's true for all of life, though. It's just a lot harder to tell when you don't have the market telling you the value of how you spent your hours each week.
There is indeed quite a rich literature on the importance of boredom too. Basic links can be found on Wikipedia, Buddhism generally confronts it as well, and even research in psychology generally sees it as an important cognitive or emotional process. Sadly I feel we are losing sight of this.
>its good to have the brain be bored and doing nothing. While you are being curious you aren’t thinking or contemplating or creating or imagining, just consuming that dopamine sink.
Those 2 sentences are based on 2 misconceptions/assumptions that need to be clarified.
1) That being bored is better than ingesting information. There seems to be a bias that self-dialogue and introspection is "superior" to external information. That depends on the person and so it's not always true. For some, when left to their own thoughts, they get into negative loops replaying past mistakes, or anguish about upcoming dilemmas ("Should I quit my job?", "Should I put mom in a nursing home?" etc) to which they don't have answers for. This is what some call "getting stuck in a rut" or "beating yourself up". It's inflicting self-harm. You can try to tell people "just don't think of negative thoughts and just sit there thinking of nothing". That doesn't work because it's like the joke of instructing people, "Don't think of an elephant!" -- which causes people to immediately think of an elephant. Instead of destructive loops, maybe a steady diet of external voices can help reframe things or just give the mind other ideas that are more productive and healthier to think about. To improve the quality of introspection, maybe look for quality external ideas.
2) My comment gave the impression I do nothing else but listen to podcasts and have no silent contemplative time. That's not what happens. For the first ~8 hours after I wake up, that's when my mind is most alert and mentally sharp. I do not "waste" this energy on listening to podcasts at all. That's when I do my contemplations, coding, etc. However, after the morning when my mind starts to drag... that's when it's ok to listen to audiobooks. Since I have to go outside to spread several cubic yards of mulch (mindless unpleasant housework), I queue up several podcasts to feed the mind while the work gets done. At that later point in the day, the brain is too fried to have deep introspection but it can still handle a lightweight podcast talking about trends in AI. Hopefully pick up some new ideas to bounce around the next morning's contemplative session. It's optimizing the schedule of activities to match the ups and downs in mental energy throughout the day. For neighbors who observe me, they just see that "he has headphones on all the time". Yes, because they don't shadow me at my desk in the morning when I don't.
I think there are some in this thread that assume the audiobooks/podcasts are "junk food" and the silent introspection is the "good and pure nourishment". That's not necessarily true. The opposite may be the case.
With the right kind of music, it's not multitasking. A soothing repetitive beat with no lyrics (lofi or trance for me) is perfect for me to work with, without getting an overwhelming sensation.
Yes, or the question is how much of both are you really engaged with and will remember at all. And then if you do, maybe the information was crap and not worthy of your attention anyway. I think anything really worth doing is worth doing at your 100%.
I love listening to audiobooks and such because it’s hard to find time to read. I mostly pick “fun” light to medium grade stuff like the stormlight archives, things that don’t demand my constant attention but aren’t as surface level as 90% of podcasts.
What does not being able to stand listening to your own thoughts mean, to you? This feels like a very 'kids these days' comment but I don't feel like I actually understand what people are talking about when they say this.
For me music helps me concentrate with some tasks (especially in a more noisy environment where there are more distracting sounds), distracts for others, and for some just makes it a little less boring. I don't really find that I want it for the sake of displacing my own thoughts, if I'm bored doing something it's because there aren't any particularly interesting thoughts involved (and full disclosure, I have ADHD so my mind doesn't really need any encouragement at all to wander).
Introspection is the act of looking inward to examine your own thoughts, feelings, and motives. It is a personal process of self-reflection that helps you understand why you act and feel the way you do.
Pretty much everyone can benefit with some time for introspection. This is considerably easier to do if you have silence and boredom. Music, podcasts, television all hinder the practice of introspection. It takes practice though and that means being okay with silence and constantly keeping your mind on the task of examining your thoughts and feelings.
I think the poster was perhaps expressing that it doesn't look like enough people are comfortable with this process and seem to do anything they can to avoid it.
> Music, podcasts, television all hinder the practice of introspection.
For you. It hinders the process for you. Some people think better when not in complete silence.
Anyone that tries to speak broadly and paint everyone with the same brush when talking about neurological phenomena is clearly completely out of touch with the subject. The mind is a wonderfully complex and wholly unique thing. What works for one might not work for another.
> What does not being able to stand listening to your own thoughts mean, to you?
Just being yourself with no external stimuli. A lot of people go through the whole day listening to podcasts, books and music, from morning commute to falling asleep
> It seems most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
Depends on the location maybe too? I think in big cities I see more people with headphones on when they're out and about (which makes sense, cities tends to be noisy and not in the interesting way like nature is), compared to in the small town I live in now, where most people aren't wearing headphones, except if they exercise.
I guess it also depends on what you listen to. I've found certain types of electronic music to essentially put me in a "trance of focus and clarity" and as long as I keep it going, that can give me enough energy for hours to do all the chores of the day + end it all with a swim, all while listening to liquid drum & bass and forgetting about everything else in the world.
I see a lot of people walking around in the city with headphones, and I always find it concerning. These people have huge issues with situational awareness: they can't hear faster walkers approaching from behind, often don't notice suspicious or erratic behaviour from the local flavour until far too late, and IMO are simply incapable of properly anticipating things like increased engine roars as a driver guns it trying to make it by on a yellow.
As long as people realize they are making this tradeoff, fine, I guess. But I wouldn't.
For one: headphones are a nonstarter for me. Even earbuds… I don't want anything attached to, hanging off of me. Speakers only.
But for me it's music playing in the background. Podcasts I have to listen to, background music just… goes—my thoughts are free to wander.
I find that when the music is not on, I start up a song in my head—and usually an annoying one for some reason—and it will be on an endless loop until I put on something external.
I haven't found noise cancelling headphones that don't cause pressure. And with Bose it's like some weird negative something sensation - like disturbingly quiet. I presume it's what those sound proof rooms feel like from what I've heard described.
I wear headphones about 80% of my waking day. Super comfy, wireless, noise-cancelling ones. The funny thing is, I rarely play anything through them, and am almost always just listening to silence.
I try and listen to other things, podcasts or music, sadly nothing compares to that golden silence.
In open plan offices there is no silence. Working at home there's no silence.
Headphones offer the only escape. They're also a sign that you are trying to concentrate to discourage those "just a quick word" moments which could easily be covered by an instant message.
For you I'd recommend some ear protectors that one might use when operating power tools :-).
I actually think ear protectors with some bluetooth headphones built in might be the ideal solution :-)
> They're also a sign that you are trying to concentrate to discourage those "just a quick word" moments which could easily be covered by an instant message.
This is the reason I wear headphones, I don't even switch them on.
It seems to be less broadly understood than before and my work is often disrupted.
Silence during driving is not really a good thing, you should be aware of the surroundings and other participants, hear your car for weird noises, etc.
I am the same when I am doing deep work that I am interested in. I need absolute silence.
My day-to-day mundane work is a bit different, but I still cannot listen to music with lyrics. I have found to my surprise that the soundtrack of 8-bit games (SNES et al) really helps.
I now have a playlist full of those, with soundtracks from Star Fox to A Link to the Past. Really helps with the mundane stuff.
You should try foam earplugs, if they are comfortable for you. Far more effective and discreet, you have a range of dB ratings to choose from for degree of muting, they are cheaper and stay in place better, and are more portable.
Ditto this. Getting better thanks to therapy but at my worst podcasts were a welcome endless noise to stop me from spiralling. As I heal the balance is leaning back to music and occasionally my unaided imagination, but it’s still uncomfortable to be alone.
- Starting my career during the beginning of and through the peak of the open floor plan office trained me to use headphones as a signal to others that I wanted to be left alone / needed to focus on my task. Now I catch myself doing it in other contexts subconsciously, like the gym, and have to stop myself sometimes to make sure I am doing it intentionally. I am at the age now where like you, I either prefer silence, or reminisce about the bygone days where people struck up conversations, past the usual pleasantries - just deep conversation with a total stranger that you may or may not ever see again, which wearing headphones takes away that possibility.
- silence is generally, in my opinion, for content people and/or people not struggling with a mental illness. I'd venture a guess that our field skews towards people who have negative internal voices. Having something playing as a distraction can take you away from those destructive thoughts. I had to do a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy and soul searching to be content with silence.
Recently, I've stopped carrying my headphones when I leave home and also stopped having them on after around 2pm. Somedays, I don't wear them at all.
This means, no music when working out, on public transit, when grocery shopping etc.
The reason I did this was because I was noticing that the music was getting me too hyped and that was interfering with my sleep. Sometimes, it was even stuck in my head while I was lying on my bed trying to sleep.
I agree. Most of the time, silence. Sometimes, white noise to block other's people voice. And when I don't need to do something intellectual, just listening to the buzz of life around
It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored. It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it. One passable option is to take a 20 minute walk with no stimulus beyond the scenery. Journaling regularly. Meditation provides a similar experience but feels like a different lane.
For me I do find a similar experience to the OP. It’s easy to feel yourself going a little crazy getting sucked along the current of modern life. Flowing from one activity to the next, looking at one’s phone in the between, never any chance for an extended thought except when laying down for bed. If you don’t break out of this mode it’s easy to let weeks go by without noticing or taking much conscious impulse to shape your day.
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
Today as a software developer I think it's easier than ever. We're already past the "the compiler is building" excuse, but now you can just claim "The agent is thinking/working", and sit and do nothing.
You don't have to switch window/tab as the agent is working, you can just sit there and stare at what it is doing, marvel that this stuff works at all, and let your mind wander if it wants, until the terminal bell goes off.
I go for 2-3 walks a day. Might be temperamental but I kind of go insane being in one place all the time.
When I was staying with a friend, he had a big house, and I'd constantly go downstairs to get coffee. I didn't even need the coffee, it was just a little change of scenery.
It’s always fun to excuse myself out with “i’m gonna go for a walk” and explain “no, like i’m not bored or angry, or anything, i just want to walk around, come join me!”. Especially when i’m staying at my friends’ places.
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
I have headphones present constantly for the opposite reason. When doing tasks that fail to provide interest (housework, some work tasks) the external stimulus stops me distractedly finding something else (posting on HN for instance!) to do instead of completing the task. Also when running in town, though I don't need it when out on the trails as the scenery is more than enough to sooth my mind into a pleasant state.
I've found that swimming helps me to do that. When I walk, it's too easy to take my kindle and read but swimming, it's a relaxing and repetitive movement where I can only focus on thinking.
Same! Although nowadays our sea is hitting record temperatures (28C [~82F] in the water today), and the jellyfish seems to be enjoying it a lot, so swimming is now 50% "relaxing and letting my mind wander" and 50% "shit, that's too many fried egg jellyfishes, lets swim this direction oh no another one"
I don't think you need to find time to be bored, the times have always been there and we didn't search them out before. Just don't mask them with multitasking.
Waiting for a bus, waiting in line at a post office, waiting for your wife to get ready for bed. Those moments are still there and if you don't pull your phone out the boredom is still there
> It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it.
While this is true, I'd word it differently:
It's sort of the opposite of an activity, and we've conditioned our brains to hate it.
Boredom used to be absolutely normal in our society for pretty much ever, and the urge to do something about it when it occurred was a lot weaker than it is now.
The aversiveness of boredom is not conditioning, but part of its essence and generally is proposed to be its (presumably evolved) function. Boredom is arguably the negative emotion or cognitive mode that drives (or opens up the space for) creativity, exploration, play, and introspection, and this is broadly how it is seen in existential writing and in modern cognitive science and/or psychology.
I disagree. I remember when I was a kid and didn't have access to smartphones (didn't exist) or other sources of constant entertainment. My days were basically just kindergarten and dicking around with other kids.
But I remember I absolutely dreaded going to the doctor's office, taking a long distance train, or any other kind of "activity" that involved long periods of waiting around. I would find it extremely boring and would try to negotiate with my parents in whatever way I could to avoid going.
I wouldn't necessarily draw any conclusions about our attitudes around this as children. I was exactly the same as you: I hated waiting for anything. Even waiting a few minutes in a grocery store checkout line with one of my parents was absolute torture.
As an adult, it's just not the same. Children's brains are not fully developed, and their desire for stimulus seems very different than an adult's. I think the closest I've come to experiencing this as an adult is in the early '00s. I didn't get my first smartphone until I was nearly 30. I suppose back then I didn't love waiting or being bored, but it wasn't an awful, terrible thing that I just had to fix all the time.
Nowadays I try to avoid filling the quiet times with my phone or some other stimulus. If I'm doing dishes or cleaning up around the house, I let it be quiet, and let my mind wander. If I'm on a train or a bus, I'll do my best to put away my phone and stare out the window, and get lost in my thoughts. If I'm in a waiting room at a doctor's office, I'll people-watch, or just close my eyes and think. It's really nice.
Judging by your name, I presume your Romanian. I think it’s very much ingrained in eastern European culture that sitting around this bad whereas more western cultures do not condemn it so much.
So part of your hating the boring activities might be a cultural thing as well, even as a child. Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office.
However, I have the same experience with hating it, but I don’t think I had the balls to try to negotiate myself out of it.
> Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office.
I remember waiting for an hour or so at the doctor's office in France. The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came. Had that with multiple doctors so doesn't seem to be unique to Eastern Europe.
> The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came.
I have a doctor like this, and it's totally worth the wait as she actually listens to people and provides useful information. I do generally try to get a morning appointment with her though, as otherwise it can take a loooooonnnnngggg time.
Yes, the wait is annoying but I do love doctors like this. It's a sign of a great doctor. Just always found it funny that they don't just adjust their appointment time given that the estimate they have is never actually attained in practice.
I typically show up an hour late at the doctors office if my appointment is in the afternoon. It gives the doctor some time to catch up on patients and when I show up I’m the next in line. It benefits both of us.
Yep. When I think of my childhood, I think of intensely uncomfortable boredom. Church, school, rainy days with nothing to do, waiting at the dentist's office, I've always thought boredom is one of the worst things you can possibly do to me. I hated it so deeply that those are some of my most vivid memories of being a young lad.
Clothes shopping with Mom. I remember how torturous it was. How my brain felt like it was on fire with boredom, and how all-consuming the pain of it all was.
I'm not convinced boredom was normal per se - people find stuff to do. It's just that the nature of stuff has changed, as has the availability. 20 years ago it was browsing the internet for hours. Before that it was watching TV. Before that there was Other Stuff, like going exploring with a friend (for me). But the 2000s changed things, people got mp3 players and an infinite library of music, smartphones and an infinite amount of activities to do on them at any point of day, internet on the go instead of going to The Space With The Computer, streaming / binging programs instead of having a fixed moment in the day, looking up what's on tonight in the TV guide, or renting a film as a weekend activity.
It's all more instant and always available. I mean books were too (at some point people were complaining about kids these days always reading), but it's different.
Am I worried? A little, because at the same time I keep reminding myself that every generation was worried about what people are up to this time. In 20 years people will probably be nostalgic for today in some way.
You're very right, back in the day a lot of people would complain about people reading newspapers on trains/buses and why these people "just can't let their mind wander" or whatever the argument was. Today you'll instead see people telling others they should put down their phone and read something "physical" instead, I don't think a single person today would complain about others reading books/newspapers on public transport.
In the future some people will surely feel the same about "Device X" and smartphones, and ask themselves "Why can't they be old school and just sit with their smartphone instead?"
I'm not sure it was, at least growing up country-side, it usually meant "getting up to no good" one way or another, because there is literally nothing else to do, eventually you've done all the "normal" stuff. Going to scare/play with the cows, find an axe and cut some trees down, throw branches at the neighbor kid without them seeing you, build snow-walls to fuck the cars, among other things were common activities, and I don't think a single adult appreciated any of us doing these things.
Eventually the computer appeared though, which did well in keeping us more inside, at least in the non-summer.
Go live in the country side, unplug internet and you'll find plenty of boring things to do, of coure if you live in the hellscape of modern cities that smell like shit, piss and car fumes, are noisy as fuck 24/7 and ugly as sin the only natural conclusion you can reach is that you need distraction all the time
The way I write my novels is by reviewing a chapter I'm stuck on and its context, then going on a long run, and 20 minutes out, shutting my music off. I have, at that point, at least 20 minutes, if not 60+, where I'm easily thinking about and brainstorming for the chapter. It's wonderful. It sort of "compresses" the ambient sounds in the same way eating pancakes with syrup temporarily destroys your ability to taste slightly less sweet things.
The journaling seems like the right direction, but it's still too passive.
If there are three mental modes, two out of three are passive. Let's call this third mode "creative mode". Instead of consuming or meditating, do something else offline that requires developing a skill with your undivided attention.
Even when you're inspired, the interpretation is still your own. There's no way it could ever feel like wasted time because the intrinsic value of experience is so much higher than the other two states.
With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control.
There is still IMO a way that "creative mode" can be wasted time, and that is when it is being used as a distraction from proper reflection / introspection. The pursuit of creativity / learning can be its own unhealthy obsession too.
Your ending paragraph: "With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control." also reads as something that could probably also be seen as potentially bad / delusion, in spiritual contexts as well (real control is mostly illusion, you actually do often want other people's ideas to dominate the mind, lest you fall into solipsism / narcissism, etc). Not to pick at your short comment here or presume that though, but it definitely sets off a red flag of some kind.
This hits home so hard (did I write this?). I'm curious how many are afflicted with this. I don't hear enough people talk about the powerful addiction of "podcasts + headphones". There is an endless amount of content, so if you're not careful, the majority of the voices in your head will not be your own.
This happened to me. I justified it because "I was learning", and "it's like listening to the radio, but better", or "this content is good for me", but when every moment alone is filled with someone else's words and thoughts, you stop having any of your own.
> I don't hear enough people talk about the powerful addiction of "podcasts + headphones"
I have headphones on everywhere I go. If I’m outside I have them on, while I’m doing work in the office I have them on, when I’m doing sport I have them on. When I don’t have them on, I’m usually at home and I’m playing stuff via speakers.
I’m not playing stuff only when I’m out with friends, of course.
To be honest I think it’s one of the reasons why I feel very good and comfortable being on my own alone. But I definitely agree that there might be some kind of addiction in all of this.
> but when every moment alone is filled with someone else's words and thoughts, you stop having any of your own
I don’t necessarily agree with this, especially because I think about the thing that is being discussed and agree/disagree for different reasons. I might argue that podcast give you a reason to think about “unusual” things sometimes?
> I have headphones on everywhere I go. If I’m outside I have them on, while I’m doing work in the office I have them on, when I’m doing sport I have them on
Back in about 2007 I realized I was doing this. At the gym, snowboarding, walking to work, at the supermarket.
I realized it closed me off from meeting new people and living in the now. Music encouraged me to drift away and think about some other time in my life when I saw that band, or was at a great party or something.
So I put the iPod away and have never done it since. I don’t own headphones now, have not done for 20 years. Really happy I made the correction not to get sucked in.
> I’m a slow thinker, like really slow. It takes a few minutes just to get my thoughts moving in a direction. But once they pick up momentum, I can easily spend fifteen or thirty minutes exploring an idea, weighing different options
Thank goodness for asynchronous communication! I would have hated to work back when phones were the primary method of communication. I still get phone anxiety whenever I have to make a call.
For me, I'm not sure if "slow" is the right word. I think "delayed" or "sporadic" is more accurate.
Thoughts for me are like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, but you can't think of it right away. Often you'll think of the word later: you weren't actively thinking about it, but the thought was simmering in your mind and just randomly pops up.
I’ve been trying to start this “I don’t need any distraction for this task” challenge, but honestly it’s been REALLY tough for me. I’ve even noticed apprehension to start a particular chore like folding laundry if I don’t have something to distract me. Its like… because folding laundry takes so long, without a distraction it feels like I’m wasting my time, or just running out of time in the day?
Doing dishes, mowing the lawn, even just waiting for agents to finish, this need for distraction has really taken a hold of me, and it’s even getting in the way of me wanting to do things that I feel would motivate me again.
I can’t help but wonder if agentic development has exacerbated this problem for me. There are so many more times where I just have to wait for things now. Sometimes I can multitask, and work on two things at once, but often that ends with me doing both things with less craft. So I end up consuming content more, which feels addictive too… and I’m not even talking about TikTok or Instagram or Youtube Shorts (and i don’t judge those who do consume there). I mainly consume longer form Youtube, Podcasts or honestly, TV shows that I’ve seen multiple times before.
It’s like the agentic tools incentivize NOT thinking very hard, and so I do it less, making it more intimidating to start thinking hard about a problem because it feels like a waste of time. Which, paradoxically, is why I think I am consuming much more content than I used to, filling up space with intellectual junk food.
Yea this is a good one but it can be so hard. Seems obvious that constant information streaming outside of silencing your own thoughts also makes the moments where you do have to sit in silence lower quality.
I recently listened to the Hammock Driven Development talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc) and it raises the very interesting point that it's not really the concious mind that makes big breakthroughs on hard problems, it's mainly the subconcious mind synthesizing information. It seems obvious to me that constantly intaking information will ruin this synthesization.
Sadly for some reason our brain loves filling the silence with junk...
> constantly intaking information will ruin this synthesization.
I don't find that it does, for me. If I'm chewing on a hard technical problem, then I actually need the surface-level distraction of a podcast or a news article or a ballgame to keep it from dominating my conscious thoughts and let my subconscious get to work.
Where I agree with the author, and you, is that I can't do creative work - mainly writing, now, but back when I did this sort of thing professionally: coming up with approaches to a text, or ideas for sets and costumes, or exercises to get my actors where I wanted them to be - without time spent in "silence".
N=1, and all that, but I'm always intrigued by how different people's brains work, well, differently.
> for some reason our brain loves filling the silence with junk
Natural selection might pick for this trait because if you can gather and evaluate and otherwise process a large volume of information you might be able to better find food, avoid getting eaten, and finding a mate to mate with.
executive function and intuition filter, but you need a bunch of data to feed on.
There in lies the problem. The environment these days is evolving far faster than our species. Just because our biological programming is no longer fit for purpose, doesn't mean we've evolved beyond said programming.
Even if we could completely rewrite our programming with each new generation, think about how much the world changes in a single lifetime these days.
Interesting, I started to actually do this for about two weeks ago. Calling it "doing one thing at the time" If I eat, I eat. If I walk somewhere, I'm walking. If I'm listening to music, I'm just listening to the music. As far it's been good to me. More energy throughout the days and less things left half done or procrastinated. Though I have noticed I feel bored a lot more often.
At the start of this year I wrote down "Get rid of your Airpods" as a New Years Resolution. This was basically my proxy for "stop filling every spare moment with audiobooks and podcasts".
I still haven't done it, and my reflex for listening to something - even after my listening backlogs emptied a few months back - suggests I'm essentially addicted. Especially considering how much better I feel when I don't take my airpods out with me.
So, time to deal with that I guess. Thanks for the push.
I find that if I'm driving or doing a chore or something, listening to nothing can sometimes be boring, but if I listen to a podcast I'll sometimes get distracted by my own thoughts and miss 5 minutes of it. Music tends to be the sweet spot in the middle where if my mind wants to wander then I'm not missing anything important, but if my mind doesn't want to wander then I still have something for it to focus on.
Similar for me but I actually like podcasts in the car for this reason. Listening to podcasts sometimes triggers me thinking about issues I care about. When I realize that I’m no longer following the podcast, I just turn it off and let my thoughts go wild.
Being bored is kind of the point though. You should let yourself be bored sometimes. It's a relatively new phenomenon where we have completely avoided any minute of boredom.
I've done several solo multi day hikes in the last 6 months, mostly ones where I stayed in a hut or campground at night and socialized around dinner, but hiked solo during the day. No podcast or music, no cell service. It's amazing how quickly I get used to having no input once it's the only thing to do, yet also how quickly I go back to always having a podcast on in the car and for my runs.
A bit surprised at the focus on auditory stimuli here. There is a deeper point about our need for distraction in contemporary society which I think is with thinking about a bit.
You can scroll Twitter / read Hacker News or other sources of comments online, scroll TikTok / YouTube shorts slop-spam, read books, or constantly pipe in music / podcasts in any free moment (and these are very different and all can be good and bad in different ways), but if you are constantly fleeing boredom by grasping for whatever distraction is immediately available (even if this activity is typically seen as good, like "learning" or "reading books", or benign, like listening to music), this constant distraction has negative long-term consequences for personal growth.
There is a reason boredom comes up as crucial and important in spiritual practices (most meditation practices broadly involve forcing you to confront and learn to be comfortable with boredom, to some degree) and existential philosophy, and it is because boredom (especially existential boredom) is one way the mind tells you might not be being properly challenged, or that certain aspects of your life might not be truly fulfilling at the moment.
And sure, sometimes it isn't clear how to fix these issues, so distraction isn't inherently bad. But if all you do is distract, you'll flounder. So be wary IMO of habitually reaching for distraction (even if mild, like music / podcasts).
I've had a similar experience but more specifically with music. I decided a couple years ago to take a break from listening to music for 3 months. The first afternoon of this experiment showed to me that I was addicted to music and that I hated silence.
I now realize that taking moments to walk, eat, clean the house with nothing to listen to can be really productive and beneficial.
This hits home for me. If I have spare time without other peopled my headphones are in. If I'm walking the dog, doing the dishes, mowing my tiny lawn, driving home after dropping kids off I have a podcast or audiobook in my ears.
I read an interview from a musician I'm a fan of where they were responding to "what do you listen to when you are driving?" and they responded along the lines of "I like to listen to the engine and my thoughts". I winced a bit thinking how little time I allow my brain to just do its thing.
I have a habit of going for a daily walk of about one hour and intentionally avoid bringing headphones to just be with my thoughts.
But I've noticed that if I have something on my mind, I just tend to ruminate and spin in circles. Not sure how constructive or useful at all that is. At least listening to a podcast or similar can provide new things to think about.
I prefer to work in silence. But by that I mean actual silence. However, I live in a city where there's construction going on I can hear through my window. If I have to work from the office, there'll be colleagues yapping around (helps with creativity or whatever the sugarcoating is for the open office). Bonus points for one of the offices being next to a different construction site.
In these situations, I tend to prefer having some kind of "ambient" music on, instrumental only, so I can be isolated from the distracting environment. Noise cancelling doesn't work well enough against voices, although I do enjoy the reduction of random ambient noise (A/C hum and the like).
I'm similar except idk about silence, My preference would be natural local sounds, wind,bugs, birds (not mockingbirds lol) but have to settle for music pretty often.
What I want is something that isn't distracting. Most natural sounds are fine. The main exceptions that come to mind are some birds that are extremely annoying, such as seagulls, and, for some reason, fast-flowing water.
You're not unusual. Constant need for something in your ear is a very new phenomena and for some reason a lot of people have gotten in the habit of isolating themselves from the world around them and stopped being in presence of the reality. Sad.
> Constant need for something in your ear is a very new phenomena and for some reason a lot of people have gotten in the habit of isolating themselves from the world around them and stopped being in presence of the reality. Sad.
Convenient narrative, but not at all a new phenomenon. I had friends like this in the 90's. And I'm not seeing more people like this than in those days.
I know we're kind of used to rapid societal change at this point, but I'd still consider the 90s or even the 80s recent enough that I could call things that arose in those times as "new phenomena"... from a broader societal standpoint at least.
Not even just the 90s. This is self-stimming behaviour. People have been doing this for as long as there’ve been entertainment. This is just normal human behaviour. People using technology to aid them in this is just the modern day version of it. It’s normal. And it’s frankly quite ridiculous to see adults thinking this is ye old “people are soooooo into tech nowadays, them junkies!!!111!!!11!1!”. C’mon now.
It is a problem of degree, not of kind, in contemporary society. The degree today to which people require / can seek out distractions today is not likely "normal" compared to what we know of past human history, although the desire to do so is likely the same old desire that has always been there.
I used to have the MSDN Library installed on my computer, from a CD, and it was reasonable to program offline. We should bring that model back. (Not for Windows - Windows sucks now. But for whatever we're doing)
I need media to cope with stressful situations - office politics and other difficult situations at work that seem more than I can manage. Audiobooks help me to get my mind off the things that gnaw at me and make it difficult to sleep.
They also make boring work bearable. Terry Pratchett is a huge favorite :-)
I was unemployed for about half a year recently and I got a much less stressful job after that. It's strange because I felt and still feel humiliated about it all and yet actual life has become much better. My behavior at home improved - as noted by my wife. I've got some DIY projects done at home which were pointless (could have paid for them) but very satisfying.
My kid is delightful and although nothing has changed I realised that I am living through one of the golden periods in life - where one doesn't think too much about it but the important things are really good. Stressful work wasn't allowing me to see it and I was numbing life out to try to cope. There have been some very very un-golden times in the past and it is unfortunate not to be able to enjoy the good when it is there.
In the past, whenever doing something that didn't require concentration, I would always listen to an audiobook, and sometimes music.
The moment I bought land it stopped. I wanted to be present, to hear the sounds, appreciate the changing seasons. Music and audio books got in the way.
I cancelled spotify and audible and haven't looked back.
Nowadays, I find I am getting back into sitting still and doing nothing, and I have zero desire to give my attention to music of audio books.
Contet is created like 1000h every day. You can't consume it all.
and it does not change your life. really.
I stopped listening all the podcasts, yt-videos and also most times music.
I have started my days with an old ipad in the kitchen playing affirmations with subtle background music. Oh boy, it is different momentum! instead of crazy in my head, i get positive thinking loop right from the start of each day. I think the app was manifestyourdreams.app or something like that
why?
because if you had been meditating, you would start to notice your own thought.
They run automatically, you cannot control them. Almost all the time. And the part that you control usually does not even notice them, just succumbs.
so...maybe you just don't see your inner dialogue, or the "monkey mind" ? and are unaware of this, yet a slave to it.
I too try to practice stillness, through silence and meditation.
I agree that it is challenging. In stillness, uncomfortable feelings will come up, before they can leave.
Imo, better than the alternative of avoidance. Yet somehow, it is marketed as relaxing. The relaxing part comes after one deals with the unrelaxing part.
It's hard for me to think > 5mins if I'm in front of my laptop after the the age the ai now. I used to close my eyes and let things run in my head trying to find a solution. but now i will ask the ai if I can figure it out myself in 5 mins.
I always tell myself to stop listening to media and give myself space, but it's like an automatic process that I turn on some music because it lowers my stress level when initiating a task. But I should probably try this at least when I journal to fully digest any intakes throughout the day and put them into words.
Reigniting a blog after 14 years should be more common!
A trick I used when I restarted my blog in 2017 after stopping publishing in 2010 was to backfill it with a bunch of content imported from other places - mostly my answers to questions on Quora and Ask MetaFilter.
That's the great thing about having a self-hosted blog: it's your site, you make the rules.
I have a lot of dead blogs in my RSS reader I don't remove for this reason. Maybe they'll start writing again. They've survived many opml exports/imports between different readers over the years.
Backfilling it with content from other sites is such a good idea, I'm stealing that for when friends say it's been a bunch of time since they published
My version of this was getting rid of my smartphone 6 years ago. Creates a forcing function to be in my own head a lot more often, and I feel like this has given me thinking and attention span superpowers.
I’m over the hill, and I’ve found I just can’t handle the distractions of music or podcasts most of the time. I need silence when working, cooking, reading, etc. There are few situations where I feel I can listen to things i.e. driving so long as I don’t need to focus on them. I’m not sure what changed or if it’s a good thing. Music used to be a huge part of my life, played at all times. Now I have to deliberately do nothing but listen, which gives me a weird sensation of boredom or fidgety anxiety, so I don’t do it very much anymore. I suspect an attention disorder worsened by years of overstimulation.
For things that don't require that much focus like housework I really enjoy this. For things that do require focus (but not necessarily internal monologue) I prefer external stimuli to prevent my mind from wandering.
But I certainly agree that not giving myself the space to explore is detrimental.
Can relate. Though I was never that big into podcast/earphones etc., I had gotten into the habit of instinctively reaching out to play something while driving. However, I stopped doing that and it's so fun to be with myself again, me and my own voice in my head.
There's a researcher at Harvard, Arthur C. Brooks, who wrote a book on this, the importance of the default mode network of the brain that is engaged when you do nothing or are bored.
People who drown out boredom or silence tend to eliminate wandering thoughts, introspection, autobiographical thinking, pondering of relations, effectively the kind of internal reflection that's necessary from time to time. It's pretty common now to hear people say that they're uncomfortable with silence exactly for that reason.
I recently bumped into default mode network as a concept and started noticing the constant aversion I have for "doing nothing". Now I try to take more of my breaks without constant barrage of external stimuli.
> I find it odd that others need music or talking to focus. most of the time I prefer silence.
I need music otherwise my brain starts playing music instead of ruminating on thoughts. I also need to keep my body occupied. At least doing the dishes or something, going for a run or walk even better.
Background talking is fine but it has to be from strangers. If there's a tiny little chance someone might say something where I can contribute (like in an office), that ruins any and all ability to think. Brain goes on high alert listening for cues
But silence is a luxury; right now I have the window open to try and cool the house down a bit so car noises, there's people doing stuff downstairs, etc.
But I also get restless when it's too quiet. Everyone has their own preferences, but ultimately I think the key point is whether you have control. Like, I hate chaotic spaces, but love chaotic music sometimes.
I’m the same, I think better in silence. It’s the only way I can really hear my own thoughts and let them run without being interrupted by music or conversation. That’s also one of the reasons I prefer working from home to working in an office.
For it's mainly how familiar I am with the music. I have a playlist that I've listened to hundreds of times so regardless of the style it doesn't become distracting. It all becomes 'as ignorable as it is interesting', as Brian Eno said ambient music should be.
The deeper the concentration, the fewer words I want - or at least words I understand. Classical music with words I don't understand can also work quite well. There also seems to be a vague point where I have heard the lyrics so many times they stop being distracting.
Funny. For me, instrumental music is just as distracting. If I don’t know the music I listen to well enough, my attention will go there and make any coding or reading impossible.
It's probably a function of how your brain works whether or not you prefer music or silence. For me, a middle-aged man with ADHD, my brain is constantly wandering off to some other thought that isn't what's in front of me. That's not wholly under my control (though stimulant medication does help reduce the effect). BUT... if I have headphones on and am listening to something (wordless music usually works best, but music with words in a language I don't speak is often just as good), then that gives me some partial control over my brain wandering off. Because when my brain wanders off in the middle of a coding session, it usually will wander off into suddenly paying a bit closer attention to the music I was listening to. And then, since that's not something that requires the verbal-processing part of my brain which is the primary part I use for programming, that part of the brain "gets bored" and looks for something to do, sees the code on my screen, and goes "ooh, that's something interesting" and my attention is back where I wanted it to be in the first place.
ADHD, I've often said, is mis-named. It's not attention deficit, it's uncontrollable attention. Although there are many factors that go into the thing labeled ADHD, a large part of it is usually that the "control center" of the brain (the part that controls "executive function", deciding what to do next and so on) is underpowered compared to most people. (Which, I'm told, is why stimulant medication often has the seemingly-paradoxical effect of "calming down" hyperactive kids: because it helps stimulate the executive-function part of the brain, thereby giving them more control over their own thought processes. Certainly that's how it works for me, though as a middle-aged man I'm no longer hyperactive the way I was when I was a boy). So I manage my ADHD brain in two ways: one, I take medication that gives me more ability to control my attention (though not as much as a non-ADHD person usually has), and two, I play tricks on myself. I know that when my attention wanders, it'll usually wander off to something within the range of my immediate senses: my line of sight, or something I'm hearing. So I give myself things that will catch my attention but not hold it for very long... and wordless music is one of the ones that works best for me.
So really, it all depends on how your particular brain functions.
I work in psychometric testing, and it really isn't that strange. Just as many people need that music or communication as those who cannot have it. It's quite fascinating how different brains are on these ostensibly random traits.
Ummm... even with the podcast, video, or audiobook running. Don't you just zone out sometimes because you're busy thinking about something else? Isn't that just the same thing?
Not necessarily, everyone's got their own preferences and sensitivities, it's just how brains work and how it works differently for everyone.
It's too simplistic to just apply a label like ADHD to people. Preferring distraction or silence is only a small part of the diagnostic criteria, and modern diagnostics are more about "how well do you function / how much / what help do you need" than applying a label.
Yeah, I'm convinced humanity is hitting a wall of sorts. For most of my life, the voices in my head were very, very unpleasant, and downright mean and evil a lot of the time. I was never enough, everything I did was wrong, unworthy, disgusting, etc, etc.
I know I was not alone in being wired that way, obviously not a conversation you have with random strangers, but in conversation with people I know well, it would appear it's fairly common in the world we live in. Or perhaps I've just got a uniquely disfunctional group of friends hah. But, work on the Meaning Crisis as John Vervaeke calls it, increases in mental health issues, and declining birth rates, lead me to believe this is endemic.
I've been fortunate to have been able to spend the past 15 months fucking off and looking inside to wrestle with this and I'm fairly convinced our HumanOS or whatever you want to call it, the ego, is no longer fit for purpose for a lot of people in modernity.
Before I go further, I'll acknowledge that our ego has served us well for most of human history, it's driven progress to this point that has, for a large swath of the population, eliminated hunger, and we're much more secure than we've ever been generally.
But, I'd argue it's become increasingly problematic since somewhere around The Enlightenment / Scientific Revolution, very problematic in the past 100 years or so, and quite frankly, supercharged since the advent of the internet, smart phones, and social media.
Our ancient ancestors were influenced by people in their immediate orbit, and it was a symbiotic relationship of sorts, everyone had a vested interest in the success of those around them and vice versa. As our society has evolved, this alignment has dwindled, and with the advent of the internet, we're constantly being blasted by attempts to influence us, that no longer have our best interest at heart, but our programming hasn't caught up.
So now, this programming that once provided a stable sense of self, is now constantly being blasted with conflicting ideas of the self, it's increasingly difficult to keep the inner and outer world in alignment, and well, the ego is an engine that is burning up. For a lot of us, this manifests with the negative self talk that we'll all do anything we can to avoid, and one of the most effective ways to do so, is to avoid being idle, anything we can do to keep the mind focused outward rather than inward.
Those of us that are alive today don't have the luxury of waiting for evolutionary pressures to 'solve' this problem for future generations. In my personal experience, the solution seems to be waking up to these machinations of ego. Don't fully understand how it works, but it seems that awareness of said machinations can act as a recursive loop to silence them.
> Recently, as I reached for the play button out of habit, I stopped. I thought: what if I just do this chore in silence today?
It seems most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
I just love silence.
I can't work in anything but complete silence. In open spaces I wear earplugs. (If I'm not wearing earplugs it means I'm not doing much of anything ;-) That's one of the main benefits of remote work: at my home there is complete silence most of the time.
I need silence for many other activities too. Cooking, reading (of course), even driving.
In fact, I think my problem is the opposite: I just can't do two things at once. If I'm listening to something, then I can't be doing anything else.
For me, my life has gotten so stressful and awful, I just need to get away from my anxiety and the best way is through distraction. Music, podcasts, and audio books help me maintain some semblance of normalcy. I can't even fall asleep without some distraction. I'll stay up all night stressing about not being able to find work, my kid's futures, my piling up of bills, inflation, ever expanding war, etc.
have you considered seeking treatment? I personally have had some spells like you are describing, and generally white knuckled through. I tried medication for the last one, and I'll be darned if it didn't work pretty well.
No job, no money, no healthcare.
>most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
I can't generalize for everyone and maybe some of those people you observe are just listening to music all day long.
In my circle, we have earphones all the time because we're listening to podcasts of news, tech industry commentary, macroeconomics and finance, etc. If one is working in an area where you're professionally rewarded by being curious about the changing world and being "plugged in", having "headphones on all the time" can help with staying up-to-date. Even with all that headphone time, there are still many hours in the day in personal silence. Laying in bed consolidating various thoughts before falling asleep. Standing in the shower. Reading blogs, etc. Before podcasts, we'd have to "waste time" sitting in front of the computer to catch up on the same material. Podcasts help us multitask.
Of course, not everybody needs (or wants) to have headphones on all the time. The mathematician Andrew Wiles pursued Fermat's Last Theorem for 30 years before finally solving it. He doesn't need a random podcast that talks about the Iran war and its downstream economic effects on manufacturing computer chips. That type of "useless" news would probably bore him.
>, even driving. In fact, I think my problem is the opposite: I just can't do two things at once. If I'm listening to something, then I can't be doing anything else.
It just depends on the threshold of mindless activity. If I'm driving in an unknown city with confusing one-way streets, I don't want a podcast voice yapping in my ear while I'm concentrating on reading the traffic signs. On the other hand, driving through 100 miles of monotonous corn fields on a highway means I can catch up on a backlog of podcasts.
My non expert and personal opinion is that multitasking for a long time is not a free lunch and could lead to burnout for most people
>multitasking for a long time is not a free lunch
The multitasking I was talking about was combining a mindless repetitive task that has low cognitive demands such as walking on a treadmill, yardwork raking leaves, driving on non-descript boring roads ... with listening to a podcast about whatever topics are interesting. The mind is engaged while the hands and feet doing the work are on autopilot. In those cases, it can be a "free lunch" in the sense that the curiosity-seeking mind got fed while whatever physical task that needed to get done also got done with less procrastination and dread.
I wasn't talking about trying to edit a Excel spreadsheet while listening and concentrating on a podcast about the politics and protests of datacenter buildouts.
It’s also under appreciated that its good to have the brain be bored and doing nothing. While you are being curious you aren’t thinking or contemplating or creating or imagining, just consuming that dopamine sink.
I was a professional glass artist and auctioned all of my work. When you've done it for years, molten glass keeps the hands busy, but seems to leave the mind free - very easy to listen to a podcast or music while working.
But... if I didn't... I made substantially more money per hour. Partially by being faster, but mostly by being better.
On the surface, it felt like nothing was going on, simple as driving to work, but just having that headspace for intuition to happen made a big difference. Also, probably worth mentioning that I never did production work, only explorative, so perception/intuition was maybe overweighted.
I half suspect that it's true for all of life, though. It's just a lot harder to tell when you don't have the market telling you the value of how you spent your hours each week.
Yeah. We have limited capacity to use every day. So I try just keep the brain away from stimulation as much as I can and use it only on useful stuff.
There is indeed quite a rich literature on the importance of boredom too. Basic links can be found on Wikipedia, Buddhism generally confronts it as well, and even research in psychology generally sees it as an important cognitive or emotional process. Sadly I feel we are losing sight of this.
>its good to have the brain be bored and doing nothing. While you are being curious you aren’t thinking or contemplating or creating or imagining, just consuming that dopamine sink.
Those 2 sentences are based on 2 misconceptions/assumptions that need to be clarified.
1) That being bored is better than ingesting information. There seems to be a bias that self-dialogue and introspection is "superior" to external information. That depends on the person and so it's not always true. For some, when left to their own thoughts, they get into negative loops replaying past mistakes, or anguish about upcoming dilemmas ("Should I quit my job?", "Should I put mom in a nursing home?" etc) to which they don't have answers for. This is what some call "getting stuck in a rut" or "beating yourself up". It's inflicting self-harm. You can try to tell people "just don't think of negative thoughts and just sit there thinking of nothing". That doesn't work because it's like the joke of instructing people, "Don't think of an elephant!" -- which causes people to immediately think of an elephant. Instead of destructive loops, maybe a steady diet of external voices can help reframe things or just give the mind other ideas that are more productive and healthier to think about. To improve the quality of introspection, maybe look for quality external ideas.
2) My comment gave the impression I do nothing else but listen to podcasts and have no silent contemplative time. That's not what happens. For the first ~8 hours after I wake up, that's when my mind is most alert and mentally sharp. I do not "waste" this energy on listening to podcasts at all. That's when I do my contemplations, coding, etc. However, after the morning when my mind starts to drag... that's when it's ok to listen to audiobooks. Since I have to go outside to spread several cubic yards of mulch (mindless unpleasant housework), I queue up several podcasts to feed the mind while the work gets done. At that later point in the day, the brain is too fried to have deep introspection but it can still handle a lightweight podcast talking about trends in AI. Hopefully pick up some new ideas to bounce around the next morning's contemplative session. It's optimizing the schedule of activities to match the ups and downs in mental energy throughout the day. For neighbors who observe me, they just see that "he has headphones on all the time". Yes, because they don't shadow me at my desk in the morning when I don't.
I think there are some in this thread that assume the audiobooks/podcasts are "junk food" and the silent introspection is the "good and pure nourishment". That's not necessarily true. The opposite may be the case.
With the right kind of music, it's not multitasking. A soothing repetitive beat with no lyrics (lofi or trance for me) is perfect for me to work with, without getting an overwhelming sensation.
Yes, or the question is how much of both are you really engaged with and will remember at all. And then if you do, maybe the information was crap and not worthy of your attention anyway. I think anything really worth doing is worth doing at your 100%.
I love listening to audiobooks and such because it’s hard to find time to read. I mostly pick “fun” light to medium grade stuff like the stormlight archives, things that don’t demand my constant attention but aren’t as surface level as 90% of podcasts.
> maybe some of those people you observe are just listening to music all day long.
Is that supposed to be better? Modern humans can't stand listening to their own thoughts
What does not being able to stand listening to your own thoughts mean, to you? This feels like a very 'kids these days' comment but I don't feel like I actually understand what people are talking about when they say this.
For me music helps me concentrate with some tasks (especially in a more noisy environment where there are more distracting sounds), distracts for others, and for some just makes it a little less boring. I don't really find that I want it for the sake of displacing my own thoughts, if I'm bored doing something it's because there aren't any particularly interesting thoughts involved (and full disclosure, I have ADHD so my mind doesn't really need any encouragement at all to wander).
Introspection is the act of looking inward to examine your own thoughts, feelings, and motives. It is a personal process of self-reflection that helps you understand why you act and feel the way you do.
Pretty much everyone can benefit with some time for introspection. This is considerably easier to do if you have silence and boredom. Music, podcasts, television all hinder the practice of introspection. It takes practice though and that means being okay with silence and constantly keeping your mind on the task of examining your thoughts and feelings.
I think the poster was perhaps expressing that it doesn't look like enough people are comfortable with this process and seem to do anything they can to avoid it.
> Music, podcasts, television all hinder the practice of introspection.
For you. It hinders the process for you. Some people think better when not in complete silence.
Anyone that tries to speak broadly and paint everyone with the same brush when talking about neurological phenomena is clearly completely out of touch with the subject. The mind is a wonderfully complex and wholly unique thing. What works for one might not work for another.
Ah, fair. I do often listen to music but I don't find myself short of time for introspection, in fact I probably spend too much time on it overall.
> What does not being able to stand listening to your own thoughts mean, to you?
Just being yourself with no external stimuli. A lot of people go through the whole day listening to podcasts, books and music, from morning commute to falling asleep
What?
> It seems most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
Depends on the location maybe too? I think in big cities I see more people with headphones on when they're out and about (which makes sense, cities tends to be noisy and not in the interesting way like nature is), compared to in the small town I live in now, where most people aren't wearing headphones, except if they exercise.
I guess it also depends on what you listen to. I've found certain types of electronic music to essentially put me in a "trance of focus and clarity" and as long as I keep it going, that can give me enough energy for hours to do all the chores of the day + end it all with a swim, all while listening to liquid drum & bass and forgetting about everything else in the world.
I see a lot of people walking around in the city with headphones, and I always find it concerning. These people have huge issues with situational awareness: they can't hear faster walkers approaching from behind, often don't notice suspicious or erratic behaviour from the local flavour until far too late, and IMO are simply incapable of properly anticipating things like increased engine roars as a driver guns it trying to make it by on a yellow.
As long as people realize they are making this tradeoff, fine, I guess. But I wouldn't.
For one: headphones are a nonstarter for me. Even earbuds… I don't want anything attached to, hanging off of me. Speakers only.
But for me it's music playing in the background. Podcasts I have to listen to, background music just… goes—my thoughts are free to wander.
I find that when the music is not on, I start up a song in my head—and usually an annoying one for some reason—and it will be on an endless loop until I put on something external.
You sound way too judgemental and proud of being ok with silence (?). I mean, what?
> I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice?
No, some people just like to do things listening to music or similar things.
> In open spaces I wear earplugs.
Noise canceling headphones do the trick for me, I just don’t play anything through them. I don’t like the feeling of something in my ears.
I haven't found noise cancelling headphones that don't cause pressure. And with Bose it's like some weird negative something sensation - like disturbingly quiet. I presume it's what those sound proof rooms feel like from what I've heard described.
I wear headphones about 80% of my waking day. Super comfy, wireless, noise-cancelling ones. The funny thing is, I rarely play anything through them, and am almost always just listening to silence.
I try and listen to other things, podcasts or music, sadly nothing compares to that golden silence.
In open plan offices there is no silence. Working at home there's no silence.
Headphones offer the only escape. They're also a sign that you are trying to concentrate to discourage those "just a quick word" moments which could easily be covered by an instant message.
For you I'd recommend some ear protectors that one might use when operating power tools :-).
I actually think ear protectors with some bluetooth headphones built in might be the ideal solution :-)
> They're also a sign that you are trying to concentrate to discourage those "just a quick word" moments which could easily be covered by an instant message.
This is the reason I wear headphones, I don't even switch them on.
It seems to be less broadly understood than before and my work is often disrupted.
Earplugs work very well for me. I can't hear anything with them on.
Some put headphones on because you want silence. So much noise outside.
> It seems most people today have headphones on all the time.
I don't know about other people, but for me, if I'm using my earbuds it is because someone around me is being distracting and/or annoying.
I usually prefer silence for work, but often that isn't an option.
Silence during driving is not really a good thing, you should be aware of the surroundings and other participants, hear your car for weird noises, etc.
Same with walking in the city IMO.
I am the same when I am doing deep work that I am interested in. I need absolute silence.
My day-to-day mundane work is a bit different, but I still cannot listen to music with lyrics. I have found to my surprise that the soundtrack of 8-bit games (SNES et al) really helps.
I now have a playlist full of those, with soundtracks from Star Fox to A Link to the Past. Really helps with the mundane stuff.
I wear ANC headphones most of the time and especially in public because people are too loud. I have nothing playing, it’s just quieter ambient noise.
You should try foam earplugs, if they are comfortable for you. Far more effective and discreet, you have a range of dB ratings to choose from for degree of muting, they are cheaper and stay in place better, and are more portable.
> but it would seem people hate their own voice?
Hell yes. And the other bits of me hate me and each other. Being alone with my own thoughts can be a dangerous situation.
Ditto this. Getting better thanks to therapy but at my worst podcasts were a welcome endless noise to stop me from spiralling. As I heal the balance is leaning back to music and occasionally my unaided imagination, but it’s still uncomfortable to be alone.
Alia?
Two reflections from me:
- Starting my career during the beginning of and through the peak of the open floor plan office trained me to use headphones as a signal to others that I wanted to be left alone / needed to focus on my task. Now I catch myself doing it in other contexts subconsciously, like the gym, and have to stop myself sometimes to make sure I am doing it intentionally. I am at the age now where like you, I either prefer silence, or reminisce about the bygone days where people struck up conversations, past the usual pleasantries - just deep conversation with a total stranger that you may or may not ever see again, which wearing headphones takes away that possibility.
- silence is generally, in my opinion, for content people and/or people not struggling with a mental illness. I'd venture a guess that our field skews towards people who have negative internal voices. Having something playing as a distraction can take you away from those destructive thoughts. I had to do a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy and soul searching to be content with silence.
Recently, I've stopped carrying my headphones when I leave home and also stopped having them on after around 2pm. Somedays, I don't wear them at all.
This means, no music when working out, on public transit, when grocery shopping etc.
The reason I did this was because I was noticing that the music was getting me too hyped and that was interfering with my sleep. Sometimes, it was even stuck in my head while I was lying on my bed trying to sleep.
I agree. Most of the time, silence. Sometimes, white noise to block other's people voice. And when I don't need to do something intellectual, just listening to the buzz of life around
It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored. It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it. One passable option is to take a 20 minute walk with no stimulus beyond the scenery. Journaling regularly. Meditation provides a similar experience but feels like a different lane.
For me I do find a similar experience to the OP. It’s easy to feel yourself going a little crazy getting sucked along the current of modern life. Flowing from one activity to the next, looking at one’s phone in the between, never any chance for an extended thought except when laying down for bed. If you don’t break out of this mode it’s easy to let weeks go by without noticing or taking much conscious impulse to shape your day.
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
Today as a software developer I think it's easier than ever. We're already past the "the compiler is building" excuse, but now you can just claim "The agent is thinking/working", and sit and do nothing.
You don't have to switch window/tab as the agent is working, you can just sit there and stare at what it is doing, marvel that this stuff works at all, and let your mind wander if it wants, until the terminal bell goes off.
I go for 2-3 walks a day. Might be temperamental but I kind of go insane being in one place all the time.
When I was staying with a friend, he had a big house, and I'd constantly go downstairs to get coffee. I didn't even need the coffee, it was just a little change of scenery.
It’s always fun to excuse myself out with “i’m gonna go for a walk” and explain “no, like i’m not bored or angry, or anything, i just want to walk around, come join me!”. Especially when i’m staying at my friends’ places.
This is me, but for smoke breaks at work. Half the time I don't need the cigarette, I just need the change of scenery to break up the day.
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
I have headphones present constantly for the opposite reason. When doing tasks that fail to provide interest (housework, some work tasks) the external stimulus stops me distractedly finding something else (posting on HN for instance!) to do instead of completing the task. Also when running in town, though I don't need it when out on the trails as the scenery is more than enough to sooth my mind into a pleasant state.
I've found that swimming helps me to do that. When I walk, it's too easy to take my kindle and read but swimming, it's a relaxing and repetitive movement where I can only focus on thinking.
Same! Although nowadays our sea is hitting record temperatures (28C [~82F] in the water today), and the jellyfish seems to be enjoying it a lot, so swimming is now 50% "relaxing and letting my mind wander" and 50% "shit, that's too many fried egg jellyfishes, lets swim this direction oh no another one"
I don't think you need to find time to be bored, the times have always been there and we didn't search them out before. Just don't mask them with multitasking.
Waiting for a bus, waiting in line at a post office, waiting for your wife to get ready for bed. Those moments are still there and if you don't pull your phone out the boredom is still there
> It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it.
While this is true, I'd word it differently:
It's sort of the opposite of an activity, and we've conditioned our brains to hate it.
Boredom used to be absolutely normal in our society for pretty much ever, and the urge to do something about it when it occurred was a lot weaker than it is now.
The aversiveness of boredom is not conditioning, but part of its essence and generally is proposed to be its (presumably evolved) function. Boredom is arguably the negative emotion or cognitive mode that drives (or opens up the space for) creativity, exploration, play, and introspection, and this is broadly how it is seen in existential writing and in modern cognitive science and/or psychology.
I disagree. I remember when I was a kid and didn't have access to smartphones (didn't exist) or other sources of constant entertainment. My days were basically just kindergarten and dicking around with other kids.
But I remember I absolutely dreaded going to the doctor's office, taking a long distance train, or any other kind of "activity" that involved long periods of waiting around. I would find it extremely boring and would try to negotiate with my parents in whatever way I could to avoid going.
I wouldn't necessarily draw any conclusions about our attitudes around this as children. I was exactly the same as you: I hated waiting for anything. Even waiting a few minutes in a grocery store checkout line with one of my parents was absolute torture.
As an adult, it's just not the same. Children's brains are not fully developed, and their desire for stimulus seems very different than an adult's. I think the closest I've come to experiencing this as an adult is in the early '00s. I didn't get my first smartphone until I was nearly 30. I suppose back then I didn't love waiting or being bored, but it wasn't an awful, terrible thing that I just had to fix all the time.
Nowadays I try to avoid filling the quiet times with my phone or some other stimulus. If I'm doing dishes or cleaning up around the house, I let it be quiet, and let my mind wander. If I'm on a train or a bus, I'll do my best to put away my phone and stare out the window, and get lost in my thoughts. If I'm in a waiting room at a doctor's office, I'll people-watch, or just close my eyes and think. It's really nice.
Judging by your name, I presume your Romanian. I think it’s very much ingrained in eastern European culture that sitting around this bad whereas more western cultures do not condemn it so much. So part of your hating the boring activities might be a cultural thing as well, even as a child. Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office. However, I have the same experience with hating it, but I don’t think I had the balls to try to negotiate myself out of it.
> Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office. I remember waiting for an hour or so at the doctor's office in France. The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came. Had that with multiple doctors so doesn't seem to be unique to Eastern Europe.
> The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came.
I have a doctor like this, and it's totally worth the wait as she actually listens to people and provides useful information. I do generally try to get a morning appointment with her though, as otherwise it can take a loooooonnnnngggg time.
Yes, the wait is annoying but I do love doctors like this. It's a sign of a great doctor. Just always found it funny that they don't just adjust their appointment time given that the estimate they have is never actually attained in practice.
Mine told me that this always happens, so I schedule my appointments appropriately.
I typically show up an hour late at the doctors office if my appointment is in the afternoon. It gives the doctor some time to catch up on patients and when I show up I’m the next in line. It benefits both of us.
If you did that in the USA, you would lose your appointment and possibly be billed for a no-show.
A bill for healthcare? Foreign concept in Europe.
I stand corrected
No, I grew up in a western culture and I also hated riding a train for 5 hours without entertainment.
Yep. When I think of my childhood, I think of intensely uncomfortable boredom. Church, school, rainy days with nothing to do, waiting at the dentist's office, I've always thought boredom is one of the worst things you can possibly do to me. I hated it so deeply that those are some of my most vivid memories of being a young lad.
Clothes shopping with Mom. I remember how torturous it was. How my brain felt like it was on fire with boredom, and how all-consuming the pain of it all was.
I'm not convinced boredom was normal per se - people find stuff to do. It's just that the nature of stuff has changed, as has the availability. 20 years ago it was browsing the internet for hours. Before that it was watching TV. Before that there was Other Stuff, like going exploring with a friend (for me). But the 2000s changed things, people got mp3 players and an infinite library of music, smartphones and an infinite amount of activities to do on them at any point of day, internet on the go instead of going to The Space With The Computer, streaming / binging programs instead of having a fixed moment in the day, looking up what's on tonight in the TV guide, or renting a film as a weekend activity.
It's all more instant and always available. I mean books were too (at some point people were complaining about kids these days always reading), but it's different.
Am I worried? A little, because at the same time I keep reminding myself that every generation was worried about what people are up to this time. In 20 years people will probably be nostalgic for today in some way.
You're very right, back in the day a lot of people would complain about people reading newspapers on trains/buses and why these people "just can't let their mind wander" or whatever the argument was. Today you'll instead see people telling others they should put down their phone and read something "physical" instead, I don't think a single person today would complain about others reading books/newspapers on public transport.
In the future some people will surely feel the same about "Device X" and smartphones, and ask themselves "Why can't they be old school and just sit with their smartphone instead?"
"Going exploring with a friend" sounds infinitely more constructive than doomscrolling.
I'm not sure it was, at least growing up country-side, it usually meant "getting up to no good" one way or another, because there is literally nothing else to do, eventually you've done all the "normal" stuff. Going to scare/play with the cows, find an axe and cut some trees down, throw branches at the neighbor kid without them seeing you, build snow-walls to fuck the cars, among other things were common activities, and I don't think a single adult appreciated any of us doing these things.
Eventually the computer appeared though, which did well in keeping us more inside, at least in the non-summer.
Go live in the country side, unplug internet and you'll find plenty of boring things to do, of coure if you live in the hellscape of modern cities that smell like shit, piss and car fumes, are noisy as fuck 24/7 and ugly as sin the only natural conclusion you can reach is that you need distraction all the time
The way I write my novels is by reviewing a chapter I'm stuck on and its context, then going on a long run, and 20 minutes out, shutting my music off. I have, at that point, at least 20 minutes, if not 60+, where I'm easily thinking about and brainstorming for the chapter. It's wonderful. It sort of "compresses" the ambient sounds in the same way eating pancakes with syrup temporarily destroys your ability to taste slightly less sweet things.
The journaling seems like the right direction, but it's still too passive.
If there are three mental modes, two out of three are passive. Let's call this third mode "creative mode". Instead of consuming or meditating, do something else offline that requires developing a skill with your undivided attention.
Even when you're inspired, the interpretation is still your own. There's no way it could ever feel like wasted time because the intrinsic value of experience is so much higher than the other two states.
With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control.
There is still IMO a way that "creative mode" can be wasted time, and that is when it is being used as a distraction from proper reflection / introspection. The pursuit of creativity / learning can be its own unhealthy obsession too.
Your ending paragraph: "With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control." also reads as something that could probably also be seen as potentially bad / delusion, in spiritual contexts as well (real control is mostly illusion, you actually do often want other people's ideas to dominate the mind, lest you fall into solipsism / narcissism, etc). Not to pick at your short comment here or presume that though, but it definitely sets off a red flag of some kind.
> you actually do often want other people's ideas to dominate the mind
I don't think this tug of war is necessary. You do, however, make a great point about people who are stressed out.
I wouldn't turn to "creative mode" as a stress management technique. Stress can ruin anything.
The thought has crossed my mind before that the lies and manipulation of a narcissist are a waste of talent.
This hits home so hard (did I write this?). I'm curious how many are afflicted with this. I don't hear enough people talk about the powerful addiction of "podcasts + headphones". There is an endless amount of content, so if you're not careful, the majority of the voices in your head will not be your own.
This happened to me. I justified it because "I was learning", and "it's like listening to the radio, but better", or "this content is good for me", but when every moment alone is filled with someone else's words and thoughts, you stop having any of your own.
> I don't hear enough people talk about the powerful addiction of "podcasts + headphones"
I have headphones on everywhere I go. If I’m outside I have them on, while I’m doing work in the office I have them on, when I’m doing sport I have them on. When I don’t have them on, I’m usually at home and I’m playing stuff via speakers.
I’m not playing stuff only when I’m out with friends, of course.
To be honest I think it’s one of the reasons why I feel very good and comfortable being on my own alone. But I definitely agree that there might be some kind of addiction in all of this.
> but when every moment alone is filled with someone else's words and thoughts, you stop having any of your own
I don’t necessarily agree with this, especially because I think about the thing that is being discussed and agree/disagree for different reasons. I might argue that podcast give you a reason to think about “unusual” things sometimes?
> I have headphones on everywhere I go. If I’m outside I have them on, while I’m doing work in the office I have them on, when I’m doing sport I have them on
Back in about 2007 I realized I was doing this. At the gym, snowboarding, walking to work, at the supermarket.
I realized it closed me off from meeting new people and living in the now. Music encouraged me to drift away and think about some other time in my life when I saw that band, or was at a great party or something.
So I put the iPod away and have never done it since. I don’t own headphones now, have not done for 20 years. Really happy I made the correction not to get sucked in.
> I’m a slow thinker, like really slow. It takes a few minutes just to get my thoughts moving in a direction. But once they pick up momentum, I can easily spend fifteen or thirty minutes exploring an idea, weighing different options
Here's to the slow thinking! Cheers!!
Thank goodness for asynchronous communication! I would have hated to work back when phones were the primary method of communication. I still get phone anxiety whenever I have to make a call.
When this was posted to HN, a lot of people could relate: https://sive.rs/slow
For me, I'm not sure if "slow" is the right word. I think "delayed" or "sporadic" is more accurate.
Thoughts for me are like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, but you can't think of it right away. Often you'll think of the word later: you weren't actively thinking about it, but the thought was simmering in your mind and just randomly pops up.
Wow Sivers a decade ago! Thanks for bringing it up.
I like this poster.
https://xcancel.com/pinkerhero/status/1877163466168922473
>Good morning
>I'm moving a bit slow today but... I plan on having a good day anyway!
With age, this is becoming my default setting.
I’ve been trying to start this “I don’t need any distraction for this task” challenge, but honestly it’s been REALLY tough for me. I’ve even noticed apprehension to start a particular chore like folding laundry if I don’t have something to distract me. Its like… because folding laundry takes so long, without a distraction it feels like I’m wasting my time, or just running out of time in the day?
Doing dishes, mowing the lawn, even just waiting for agents to finish, this need for distraction has really taken a hold of me, and it’s even getting in the way of me wanting to do things that I feel would motivate me again.
I can’t help but wonder if agentic development has exacerbated this problem for me. There are so many more times where I just have to wait for things now. Sometimes I can multitask, and work on two things at once, but often that ends with me doing both things with less craft. So I end up consuming content more, which feels addictive too… and I’m not even talking about TikTok or Instagram or Youtube Shorts (and i don’t judge those who do consume there). I mainly consume longer form Youtube, Podcasts or honestly, TV shows that I’ve seen multiple times before.
It’s like the agentic tools incentivize NOT thinking very hard, and so I do it less, making it more intimidating to start thinking hard about a problem because it feels like a waste of time. Which, paradoxically, is why I think I am consuming much more content than I used to, filling up space with intellectual junk food.
Yea this is a good one but it can be so hard. Seems obvious that constant information streaming outside of silencing your own thoughts also makes the moments where you do have to sit in silence lower quality.
I recently listened to the Hammock Driven Development talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc) and it raises the very interesting point that it's not really the concious mind that makes big breakthroughs on hard problems, it's mainly the subconcious mind synthesizing information. It seems obvious to me that constantly intaking information will ruin this synthesization.
Sadly for some reason our brain loves filling the silence with junk...
> constantly intaking information will ruin this synthesization.
I don't find that it does, for me. If I'm chewing on a hard technical problem, then I actually need the surface-level distraction of a podcast or a news article or a ballgame to keep it from dominating my conscious thoughts and let my subconscious get to work.
Where I agree with the author, and you, is that I can't do creative work - mainly writing, now, but back when I did this sort of thing professionally: coming up with approaches to a text, or ideas for sets and costumes, or exercises to get my actors where I wanted them to be - without time spent in "silence".
N=1, and all that, but I'm always intrigued by how different people's brains work, well, differently.
> for some reason our brain loves filling the silence with junk
Natural selection might pick for this trait because if you can gather and evaluate and otherwise process a large volume of information you might be able to better find food, avoid getting eaten, and finding a mate to mate with.
executive function and intuition filter, but you need a bunch of data to feed on.
Picture yourself in a location where getting eaten is problem.
Now intersect those locations with internet coverage.
Your statement didn't make much sense anymore
There in lies the problem. The environment these days is evolving far faster than our species. Just because our biological programming is no longer fit for purpose, doesn't mean we've evolved beyond said programming.
Even if we could completely rewrite our programming with each new generation, think about how much the world changes in a single lifetime these days.
Now picture yourself being just a smart monkey, shaped by evolutionary traits that focused on reproduction and survival.
Now give this monkey tiktok and sensory overload.
The other thing is that (speaking as a software developer) most work is not hard.
Interesting, I started to actually do this for about two weeks ago. Calling it "doing one thing at the time" If I eat, I eat. If I walk somewhere, I'm walking. If I'm listening to music, I'm just listening to the music. As far it's been good to me. More energy throughout the days and less things left half done or procrastinated. Though I have noticed I feel bored a lot more often.
At the start of this year I wrote down "Get rid of your Airpods" as a New Years Resolution. This was basically my proxy for "stop filling every spare moment with audiobooks and podcasts".
I still haven't done it, and my reflex for listening to something - even after my listening backlogs emptied a few months back - suggests I'm essentially addicted. Especially considering how much better I feel when I don't take my airpods out with me.
So, time to deal with that I guess. Thanks for the push.
> So, time to deal with that I guess.
So, time to deal with that.
I find that if I'm driving or doing a chore or something, listening to nothing can sometimes be boring, but if I listen to a podcast I'll sometimes get distracted by my own thoughts and miss 5 minutes of it. Music tends to be the sweet spot in the middle where if my mind wants to wander then I'm not missing anything important, but if my mind doesn't want to wander then I still have something for it to focus on.
Similar for me but I actually like podcasts in the car for this reason. Listening to podcasts sometimes triggers me thinking about issues I care about. When I realize that I’m no longer following the podcast, I just turn it off and let my thoughts go wild.
This is how I write my novels. It works incredibly.
Being bored is kind of the point though. You should let yourself be bored sometimes. It's a relatively new phenomenon where we have completely avoided any minute of boredom.
I've done several solo multi day hikes in the last 6 months, mostly ones where I stayed in a hut or campground at night and socialized around dinner, but hiked solo during the day. No podcast or music, no cell service. It's amazing how quickly I get used to having no input once it's the only thing to do, yet also how quickly I go back to always having a podcast on in the car and for my runs.
A bit surprised at the focus on auditory stimuli here. There is a deeper point about our need for distraction in contemporary society which I think is with thinking about a bit.
You can scroll Twitter / read Hacker News or other sources of comments online, scroll TikTok / YouTube shorts slop-spam, read books, or constantly pipe in music / podcasts in any free moment (and these are very different and all can be good and bad in different ways), but if you are constantly fleeing boredom by grasping for whatever distraction is immediately available (even if this activity is typically seen as good, like "learning" or "reading books", or benign, like listening to music), this constant distraction has negative long-term consequences for personal growth.
There is a reason boredom comes up as crucial and important in spiritual practices (most meditation practices broadly involve forcing you to confront and learn to be comfortable with boredom, to some degree) and existential philosophy, and it is because boredom (especially existential boredom) is one way the mind tells you might not be being properly challenged, or that certain aspects of your life might not be truly fulfilling at the moment.
And sure, sometimes it isn't clear how to fix these issues, so distraction isn't inherently bad. But if all you do is distract, you'll flounder. So be wary IMO of habitually reaching for distraction (even if mild, like music / podcasts).
I've had a similar experience but more specifically with music. I decided a couple years ago to take a break from listening to music for 3 months. The first afternoon of this experiment showed to me that I was addicted to music and that I hated silence.
I now realize that taking moments to walk, eat, clean the house with nothing to listen to can be really productive and beneficial.
This article also reminds me of a recent video by Simple Lucas: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NZD5IFpyDcE
This hits home for me. If I have spare time without other peopled my headphones are in. If I'm walking the dog, doing the dishes, mowing my tiny lawn, driving home after dropping kids off I have a podcast or audiobook in my ears.
I read an interview from a musician I'm a fan of where they were responding to "what do you listen to when you are driving?" and they responded along the lines of "I like to listen to the engine and my thoughts". I winced a bit thinking how little time I allow my brain to just do its thing.
I have a habit of going for a daily walk of about one hour and intentionally avoid bringing headphones to just be with my thoughts.
But I've noticed that if I have something on my mind, I just tend to ruminate and spin in circles. Not sure how constructive or useful at all that is. At least listening to a podcast or similar can provide new things to think about.
I’m not able to do my work with music, or even noise-canceling headphones. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t work.
I know that I’m unusual, in that sense, but there you have it.
I do listen to music, on my morning walks, though. That’s the only time, during the day, when I do.
I prefer to work in silence. But by that I mean actual silence. However, I live in a city where there's construction going on I can hear through my window. If I have to work from the office, there'll be colleagues yapping around (helps with creativity or whatever the sugarcoating is for the open office). Bonus points for one of the offices being next to a different construction site.
In these situations, I tend to prefer having some kind of "ambient" music on, instrumental only, so I can be isolated from the distracting environment. Noise cancelling doesn't work well enough against voices, although I do enjoy the reduction of random ambient noise (A/C hum and the like).
I'm similar except idk about silence, My preference would be natural local sounds, wind,bugs, birds (not mockingbirds lol) but have to settle for music pretty often.
What I want is something that isn't distracting. Most natural sounds are fine. The main exceptions that come to mind are some birds that are extremely annoying, such as seagulls, and, for some reason, fast-flowing water.
You're not unusual. Constant need for something in your ear is a very new phenomena and for some reason a lot of people have gotten in the habit of isolating themselves from the world around them and stopped being in presence of the reality. Sad.
> Constant need for something in your ear is a very new phenomena and for some reason a lot of people have gotten in the habit of isolating themselves from the world around them and stopped being in presence of the reality. Sad.
Convenient narrative, but not at all a new phenomenon. I had friends like this in the 90's. And I'm not seeing more people like this than in those days.
I know we're kind of used to rapid societal change at this point, but I'd still consider the 90s or even the 80s recent enough that I could call things that arose in those times as "new phenomena"... from a broader societal standpoint at least.
I can agree with that. Cable TV, Walkmans, and well, even just TVs in general are to blame.
Not even just the 90s. This is self-stimming behaviour. People have been doing this for as long as there’ve been entertainment. This is just normal human behaviour. People using technology to aid them in this is just the modern day version of it. It’s normal. And it’s frankly quite ridiculous to see adults thinking this is ye old “people are soooooo into tech nowadays, them junkies!!!111!!!11!1!”. C’mon now.
It is a problem of degree, not of kind, in contemporary society. The degree today to which people require / can seek out distractions today is not likely "normal" compared to what we know of past human history, although the desire to do so is likely the same old desire that has always been there.
Isn't this like self-stimming or self-regulatory behavior?
Have you tried brain.fm?
Thanks!
I’ll check it out, but it’s still likely that I won’t listen.
Cheers. Let me know.
It's always seemed strange to me that it's so common for people to feel the need to have continuous ... radio/podcasts/tv.
It turns out there is a fair amount of research done on this, look into:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_partial_attention
I used to have the MSDN Library installed on my computer, from a CD, and it was reasonable to program offline. We should bring that model back. (Not for Windows - Windows sucks now. But for whatever we're doing)
That’s how Von Neumann did his thang, with a tv blaring in the background
The more things change the more they stay the same I suppose
I have this thought everytime I'm at the beach...
I need media to cope with stressful situations - office politics and other difficult situations at work that seem more than I can manage. Audiobooks help me to get my mind off the things that gnaw at me and make it difficult to sleep.
They also make boring work bearable. Terry Pratchett is a huge favorite :-)
I was unemployed for about half a year recently and I got a much less stressful job after that. It's strange because I felt and still feel humiliated about it all and yet actual life has become much better. My behavior at home improved - as noted by my wife. I've got some DIY projects done at home which were pointless (could have paid for them) but very satisfying.
My kid is delightful and although nothing has changed I realised that I am living through one of the golden periods in life - where one doesn't think too much about it but the important things are really good. Stressful work wasn't allowing me to see it and I was numbing life out to try to cope. There have been some very very un-golden times in the past and it is unfortunate not to be able to enjoy the good when it is there.
In the past, whenever doing something that didn't require concentration, I would always listen to an audiobook, and sometimes music.
The moment I bought land it stopped. I wanted to be present, to hear the sounds, appreciate the changing seasons. Music and audio books got in the way.
I cancelled spotify and audible and haven't looked back.
Nowadays, I find I am getting back into sitting still and doing nothing, and I have zero desire to give my attention to music of audio books.
so we have to buy land? We're fucked.
Contet is created like 1000h every day. You can't consume it all. and it does not change your life. really. I stopped listening all the podcasts, yt-videos and also most times music. I have started my days with an old ipad in the kitchen playing affirmations with subtle background music. Oh boy, it is different momentum! instead of crazy in my head, i get positive thinking loop right from the start of each day. I think the app was manifestyourdreams.app or something like that
Replaced sounds, not with silence but with a different type of sound?
I believe anyone that can listen through affirmations with a straight face is either a psychopath or wants to be one.
why? because if you had been meditating, you would start to notice your own thought. They run automatically, you cannot control them. Almost all the time. And the part that you control usually does not even notice them, just succumbs.
so...maybe you just don't see your inner dialogue, or the "monkey mind" ? and are unaware of this, yet a slave to it.
Man, between noticing your own thoughts and listening to affirmations there's a gap that would fit the world.
I too try to practice stillness, through silence and meditation. I agree that it is challenging. In stillness, uncomfortable feelings will come up, before they can leave.
Imo, better than the alternative of avoidance. Yet somehow, it is marketed as relaxing. The relaxing part comes after one deals with the unrelaxing part.
It's hard for me to think > 5mins if I'm in front of my laptop after the the age the ai now. I used to close my eyes and let things run in my head trying to find a solution. but now i will ask the ai if I can figure it out myself in 5 mins.
> it’s my voice. Nobody else has access to it. And it’s an important part of my life.
Beautiful articulation.
I always tell myself to stop listening to media and give myself space, but it's like an automatic process that I turn on some music because it lowers my stress level when initiating a task. But I should probably try this at least when I journal to fully digest any intakes throughout the day and put them into words.
Reigniting a blog after 14 years should be more common!
A trick I used when I restarted my blog in 2017 after stopping publishing in 2010 was to backfill it with a bunch of content imported from other places - mostly my answers to questions on Quora and Ask MetaFilter.
That's the great thing about having a self-hosted blog: it's your site, you make the rules.
I have a lot of dead blogs in my RSS reader I don't remove for this reason. Maybe they'll start writing again. They've survived many opml exports/imports between different readers over the years.
Backfilling it with content from other sites is such a good idea, I'm stealing that for when friends say it's been a bunch of time since they published
My version of this was getting rid of my smartphone 6 years ago. Creates a forcing function to be in my own head a lot more often, and I feel like this has given me thinking and attention span superpowers.
But don't you ever find yourself needing a smartphone for just one little thing?
If I listen to music and then do something else, I no longer hear the music. So I hardly ever listen to music because I’m always doing something else!
I’m over the hill, and I’ve found I just can’t handle the distractions of music or podcasts most of the time. I need silence when working, cooking, reading, etc. There are few situations where I feel I can listen to things i.e. driving so long as I don’t need to focus on them. I’m not sure what changed or if it’s a good thing. Music used to be a huge part of my life, played at all times. Now I have to deliberately do nothing but listen, which gives me a weird sensation of boredom or fidgety anxiety, so I don’t do it very much anymore. I suspect an attention disorder worsened by years of overstimulation.
For things that don't require that much focus like housework I really enjoy this. For things that do require focus (but not necessarily internal monologue) I prefer external stimuli to prevent my mind from wandering.
But I certainly agree that not giving myself the space to explore is detrimental.
Can relate. Though I was never that big into podcast/earphones etc., I had gotten into the habit of instinctively reaching out to play something while driving. However, I stopped doing that and it's so fun to be with myself again, me and my own voice in my head.
Sometimes I put my headphones on, just to forget to also put music on. Hours later I realize that it helped me focus anyhow.
Great article, I wondered wether there is an existing tool on the market to solve this (generate quizz to make sure devs understand their code).
Apparently some guys made a nice POC during a hackathon: https://devpost.com/software/bananaduck
This has absolutely nothing to do with the article.
yup sorry indeed, I had two hacker news tab opened and wrote this at wrong place
There's a researcher at Harvard, Arthur C. Brooks, who wrote a book on this, the importance of the default mode network of the brain that is engaged when you do nothing or are bored.
People who drown out boredom or silence tend to eliminate wandering thoughts, introspection, autobiographical thinking, pondering of relations, effectively the kind of internal reflection that's necessary from time to time. It's pretty common now to hear people say that they're uncomfortable with silence exactly for that reason.
I recently bumped into default mode network as a concept and started noticing the constant aversion I have for "doing nothing". Now I try to take more of my breaks without constant barrage of external stimuli.
Been talking about it for a while now. U need to let ur brain absorb all of the things you are consuming. Let it marinate.
https://www.unsungnovelty.org/posts/04/2025/you-dont-need-ai...
wow. yeah, can confirm. for me, no podcasts really, no videos on phone, no audiobooks except to fall asleep.
and being forced to be alone with my thoughts is awesome because i am optimized to seize the opportunity.
Is it an AI self-realizing its own existence?
I find it odd that others need music or talking to focus. most of the time I prefer silence.
> I find it odd that others need music or talking to focus. most of the time I prefer silence.
I need music otherwise my brain starts playing music instead of ruminating on thoughts. I also need to keep my body occupied. At least doing the dishes or something, going for a run or walk even better.
Background talking is fine but it has to be from strangers. If there's a tiny little chance someone might say something where I can contribute (like in an office), that ruins any and all ability to think. Brain goes on high alert listening for cues
But silence is a luxury; right now I have the window open to try and cool the house down a bit so car noises, there's people doing stuff downstairs, etc.
But I also get restless when it's too quiet. Everyone has their own preferences, but ultimately I think the key point is whether you have control. Like, I hate chaotic spaces, but love chaotic music sometimes.
I’m the same, I think better in silence. It’s the only way I can really hear my own thoughts and let them run without being interrupted by music or conversation. That’s also one of the reasons I prefer working from home to working in an office.
I prefer silence but generally use music to focus. My choices aren't usually music or silence in practice, but music or office background noise.
Since my ordered ranking is Silence, then Music, with Office Noise last, music it is.
But music as instrumentals, yes ? Words are very distracting.
For it's mainly how familiar I am with the music. I have a playlist that I've listened to hundreds of times so regardless of the style it doesn't become distracting. It all becomes 'as ignorable as it is interesting', as Brian Eno said ambient music should be.
The deeper the concentration, the fewer words I want - or at least words I understand. Classical music with words I don't understand can also work quite well. There also seems to be a vague point where I have heard the lyrics so many times they stop being distracting.
Funny. For me, instrumental music is just as distracting. If I don’t know the music I listen to well enough, my attention will go there and make any coding or reading impossible.
Yup this. While working I love instrumental-only electronic music: no voices.
It's probably a function of how your brain works whether or not you prefer music or silence. For me, a middle-aged man with ADHD, my brain is constantly wandering off to some other thought that isn't what's in front of me. That's not wholly under my control (though stimulant medication does help reduce the effect). BUT... if I have headphones on and am listening to something (wordless music usually works best, but music with words in a language I don't speak is often just as good), then that gives me some partial control over my brain wandering off. Because when my brain wanders off in the middle of a coding session, it usually will wander off into suddenly paying a bit closer attention to the music I was listening to. And then, since that's not something that requires the verbal-processing part of my brain which is the primary part I use for programming, that part of the brain "gets bored" and looks for something to do, sees the code on my screen, and goes "ooh, that's something interesting" and my attention is back where I wanted it to be in the first place.
ADHD, I've often said, is mis-named. It's not attention deficit, it's uncontrollable attention. Although there are many factors that go into the thing labeled ADHD, a large part of it is usually that the "control center" of the brain (the part that controls "executive function", deciding what to do next and so on) is underpowered compared to most people. (Which, I'm told, is why stimulant medication often has the seemingly-paradoxical effect of "calming down" hyperactive kids: because it helps stimulate the executive-function part of the brain, thereby giving them more control over their own thought processes. Certainly that's how it works for me, though as a middle-aged man I'm no longer hyperactive the way I was when I was a boy). So I manage my ADHD brain in two ways: one, I take medication that gives me more ability to control my attention (though not as much as a non-ADHD person usually has), and two, I play tricks on myself. I know that when my attention wanders, it'll usually wander off to something within the range of my immediate senses: my line of sight, or something I'm hearing. So I give myself things that will catch my attention but not hold it for very long... and wordless music is one of the ones that works best for me.
So really, it all depends on how your particular brain functions.
I work in psychometric testing, and it really isn't that strange. Just as many people need that music or communication as those who cannot have it. It's quite fascinating how different brains are on these ostensibly random traits.
I had to make my own focus music. What most other people call focus music puts me to sleep.
Ummm... even with the podcast, video, or audiobook running. Don't you just zone out sometimes because you're busy thinking about something else? Isn't that just the same thing?
ITT: a lot of undiagnosed ADHD
Not necessarily, everyone's got their own preferences and sensitivities, it's just how brains work and how it works differently for everyone.
It's too simplistic to just apply a label like ADHD to people. Preferring distraction or silence is only a small part of the diagnostic criteria, and modern diagnostics are more about "how well do you function / how much / what help do you need" than applying a label.
headphones block nature
take off and take in the stream
living room and screens
Your post doesn't even have any info or make sense? Jfc I hate the internet... Lol
How does it not make sense?
Yeah, I'm convinced humanity is hitting a wall of sorts. For most of my life, the voices in my head were very, very unpleasant, and downright mean and evil a lot of the time. I was never enough, everything I did was wrong, unworthy, disgusting, etc, etc.
I know I was not alone in being wired that way, obviously not a conversation you have with random strangers, but in conversation with people I know well, it would appear it's fairly common in the world we live in. Or perhaps I've just got a uniquely disfunctional group of friends hah. But, work on the Meaning Crisis as John Vervaeke calls it, increases in mental health issues, and declining birth rates, lead me to believe this is endemic.
I've been fortunate to have been able to spend the past 15 months fucking off and looking inside to wrestle with this and I'm fairly convinced our HumanOS or whatever you want to call it, the ego, is no longer fit for purpose for a lot of people in modernity.
Before I go further, I'll acknowledge that our ego has served us well for most of human history, it's driven progress to this point that has, for a large swath of the population, eliminated hunger, and we're much more secure than we've ever been generally.
But, I'd argue it's become increasingly problematic since somewhere around The Enlightenment / Scientific Revolution, very problematic in the past 100 years or so, and quite frankly, supercharged since the advent of the internet, smart phones, and social media.
Our ancient ancestors were influenced by people in their immediate orbit, and it was a symbiotic relationship of sorts, everyone had a vested interest in the success of those around them and vice versa. As our society has evolved, this alignment has dwindled, and with the advent of the internet, we're constantly being blasted by attempts to influence us, that no longer have our best interest at heart, but our programming hasn't caught up.
So now, this programming that once provided a stable sense of self, is now constantly being blasted with conflicting ideas of the self, it's increasingly difficult to keep the inner and outer world in alignment, and well, the ego is an engine that is burning up. For a lot of us, this manifests with the negative self talk that we'll all do anything we can to avoid, and one of the most effective ways to do so, is to avoid being idle, anything we can do to keep the mind focused outward rather than inward.
Those of us that are alive today don't have the luxury of waiting for evolutionary pressures to 'solve' this problem for future generations. In my personal experience, the solution seems to be waking up to these machinations of ego. Don't fully understand how it works, but it seems that awareness of said machinations can act as a recursive loop to silence them.