Observation: looking at computer screens causes a feeling like the “burning” of “burning out”: a tenseness, buzziness, thirsty, strained, insomniac. But it stops doing that if I switch from looking at computer screens, to looking at computer screens *in order to do some particular thing that I care about*.
[I use plenty of blue-blocking.]
Hypothesis: screens are bad not intrinsically, but because they are “activating” (maybe because they’re glowy and colorful and super-responsive and connect you to everything and make every activity and stimulating content instantly available). Because they are “activating”, but in some way other than by being deeply motivating, they Goodhart apart activation from deep caring. So your brain is highly activated without caring, so it’s put in a high-time-preference mode, because there’s nothing deeply guiding your activity but you still have a lot of local energy that wants to execute actions or be stimulated with content to process.
Observation: looking at computer screens causes a feeling like the “burning” of “burning out”: a tenseness, buzziness, thirsty, strained, insomniac. But it stops doing that if I switch from looking at computer screens, to looking at computer screens *in order to do some particular thing that I care about*.
[I use plenty of blue-blocking.]
Hypothesis: screens are bad not intrinsically, but because they are “activating” (maybe because they’re glowy and colorful and super-responsive and connect you to everything and make every activity and stimulating content instantly available). Because they are “activating”, but in some way other than by being deeply motivating, they Goodhart apart activation from deep caring. So your brain is highly activated without caring, so it’s put in a high-time-preference mode, because there’s nothing deeply guiding your activity but you still have a lot of local energy that wants to execute actions or be stimulated with content to process.