However, I cannot have been as simple as that. I think if I scratch deeper, I could find old methods. The issue is often not being written down.
It was also a radically different environment. Computers provide for new distractions. People used to feel bored and have nothing to do.
I never feel like I don’t know what to do and there are always multiple options.
I have a sample size of 1 that it is possible today :) Screwing around on Reddit can be boring (and yet addictive). It is not that straightforward to find interesting content online. Maybe I am just unusually bad at it—or maybe because literally zero of my IRL friends and relatives reads Reddit, LW or any interesting blog, so I never get “hey this is cool check this out”emails. They just don’t have much free time. This is probably atypical.
Yet, it is very easy for a child to be distracted from homework at any level of technology. It is called daydreaming. You familiar with Karl May novels, I suppose? Old Shatterhand and Winnetou stories caused me huge amounts of daydreaming when I was a child and so did they for my friends.
Imagination always fills the void that entertainment doesn’t. Of course you need books because without adventure stories there is not much to daydream about, but that is solved problem since about, 1800-1850? I mean, that was roughly when books were cheap enough that children could have romantic novels. And vice versa—probably this is why experts say watching TV, even perfectly healthy educational shows retards the development of toddlers. Not enough exercise of imagination.
I never feel like I don’t know what to do and there are always multiple options.
I do. It is hard work for me to race with boredom and not always win. I fill my tablet, Instapaper, FBreader with saved articles and ebooks to read but the activity itself can be get boring, and there is not much left then, I used to be a gamer since 1987 (Commodore...) but grew to be bored with most games except currently the best mods for Mount & Blade Warband (such as A Clash of Kings or Brytenwalda). I have a family now so that fills out my weekends nice, still I sometimes get bored. The way I break it down, there is almost nothing outside our apartment that would be interesting in a random weekend in Vienna, just people drinking in bars or yet another kind of artsy music festival. Inside the apartment, it is each other, and that is great, and the computers, which largely mean stuff to read, and that gets tiresome, or stuff to play with, which already got.
The world feels a lot like a prison, except having my lovely family and the books and games in my computer. What else is out there? Oh, I do some sports too...
Sometimes I almost wish for some kind of social collapse just to be more energized through a survival instinct. But that wish would be incredibly selfish. Still, I am even contemplating writing an “ethics for a boring world” article where I argue it is better to cause others 10 units of pleasure and 2 units of pain rather than 8 units pleasure only, because it makes the world less fucking tediously comfortably dull and more challenging / adventurous.
I have a sample size of 1 that it is possible today :) Screwing around on Reddit can be boring (and yet addictive).
It’s not the same kind of boring that people had 100 years ago. It fills your brain with information that has to be processed.
Yet, it is very easy for a child to be distracted from homework at any level of technology. It is called daydreaming.
I think daydreaming is qualitatively much different than outside input for the purpose of this discussion. Daydreaming allows you to process old information instead of adding new information.
Books also don’t have the constant change of focus.
It was also a radically different environment. Computers provide for new distractions. People used to feel bored and have nothing to do. I never feel like I don’t know what to do and there are always multiple options.
I have a sample size of 1 that it is possible today :) Screwing around on Reddit can be boring (and yet addictive). It is not that straightforward to find interesting content online. Maybe I am just unusually bad at it—or maybe because literally zero of my IRL friends and relatives reads Reddit, LW or any interesting blog, so I never get “hey this is cool check this out”emails. They just don’t have much free time. This is probably atypical.
Yet, it is very easy for a child to be distracted from homework at any level of technology. It is called daydreaming. You familiar with Karl May novels, I suppose? Old Shatterhand and Winnetou stories caused me huge amounts of daydreaming when I was a child and so did they for my friends.
Imagination always fills the void that entertainment doesn’t. Of course you need books because without adventure stories there is not much to daydream about, but that is solved problem since about, 1800-1850? I mean, that was roughly when books were cheap enough that children could have romantic novels. And vice versa—probably this is why experts say watching TV, even perfectly healthy educational shows retards the development of toddlers. Not enough exercise of imagination.
I do. It is hard work for me to race with boredom and not always win. I fill my tablet, Instapaper, FBreader with saved articles and ebooks to read but the activity itself can be get boring, and there is not much left then, I used to be a gamer since 1987 (Commodore...) but grew to be bored with most games except currently the best mods for Mount & Blade Warband (such as A Clash of Kings or Brytenwalda). I have a family now so that fills out my weekends nice, still I sometimes get bored. The way I break it down, there is almost nothing outside our apartment that would be interesting in a random weekend in Vienna, just people drinking in bars or yet another kind of artsy music festival. Inside the apartment, it is each other, and that is great, and the computers, which largely mean stuff to read, and that gets tiresome, or stuff to play with, which already got.
The world feels a lot like a prison, except having my lovely family and the books and games in my computer. What else is out there? Oh, I do some sports too...
Sometimes I almost wish for some kind of social collapse just to be more energized through a survival instinct. But that wish would be incredibly selfish. Still, I am even contemplating writing an “ethics for a boring world” article where I argue it is better to cause others 10 units of pleasure and 2 units of pain rather than 8 units pleasure only, because it makes the world less fucking tediously comfortably dull and more challenging / adventurous.
It’s not the same kind of boring that people had 100 years ago. It fills your brain with information that has to be processed.
I think daydreaming is qualitatively much different than outside input for the purpose of this discussion. Daydreaming allows you to process old information instead of adding new information.
Books also don’t have the constant change of focus.