[goatherders]

"Next time someone's unemployed, try doing nothing but social media for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week on a couch and see you'll eventually get bored."

I think this can be true while also further enforcing the point. I was a child in the 80's and would ride my bike all over town just doing stuff. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. Yes, I know that sounds like older guy nostalgia.

But the idea that a full work day is the only reason that adults aren't "bored" seems absurd to me. The world is full of low-cost wonder. We have allowed ourselves to be captured by low agency tasks like watching TV and scrolling through phones.

[hx8]

The classic consumption vs creative use of computation.

I think people underestimate how much consumption there was in the past. For example, TV viewership peaked in 2009[0] before iPhones were widespread. Average viewership in America was almost 9 hours a day.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-...

[mrweasel]

> I think people underestimate how much consumption there was in the past

Sure, but as a child I was limited to initial one TV station, later two. They started broadcasting at 16 - 17 and stopped around midnight. The subtract dinner time, programming after bed time and the stuff I had no interest in watching, That didn't leave many hours for TV.

I don't think it's the hours that's the point, because is it really better to read a book, a magazine or the newspaper? It really depends on the content you consume and the quality of the content has gone rapidly downhill since the invention of reality TV.