HN can be addictive, but it’s different in several relevant ways. It has no notifications. Its user base is relatively small and industry specific. It has no infinite scroll. It is plain text so it doesn’t reward semi-mindless scrolling like media rich social networks. It has a dead simple noprocrast feature that doesn’t play games. It virtually never changes its design, unlike social networks that are constantly tweaking things to increase engagement. In fact the people who run and moderate HN seem pretty intent on slowing down growth, so they can keep it focused and stay on top of moderation. Of course it can still be addictive but it’s in a different category from TikTok etc.
HN is also different in that it's full of serious thoughtful discussion about things that matter. It's certainly addictive, but after I get sucked in I don't feel the same regret as with FB because at least I learned something about a variety of topics and saw what some intelligent people's take was on each
I agree. HN reminds me of the early days of reddit (pre-2010) where STEM people were over-represented compared to other popular websites at the time. The comments here often tend to be informative and insightful, and after catching up on the latest posts, there isn't much of an incentive to stick around. It's just how bulletin boards from the early days used to be, and reminds me of some small forums.
Reddit, on the other hand, has been a difficult addiction for me to break. It's gradually been growing into an alternative social media platform, and every new feature addition to reddit indicates such a transition.
It's still funny that redditors seem to be self-aware of their reddit addiction but somehow perceive Facebook et al to be worse. Different strokes for different folks, but at the end of the day, the mechanisms of addiction are similar regardless of the platform.
Agreed, But FOMO home page content can be still be overwhelming as the rate of change of new content is high. Thankfully HN has 'best stories' feature.
So to reduce the addiction by slowing things down further, I started reading best HN stories on my kindle. Apart from sweet e-paper goodness it also allows me to assimilate the knowledge in comments which we all know is the real gold using clipping.
To add to that, Facebook/Instagram shows approx. one advertisement for every three posts you see. It's a constant barrage on your psyche that I'm happy to avoid on HN.
