There are various religious perspectives on this effect. My Buddhist teachers from back when I was a Buddhist would likely say that the latter—books, documentaries, and uitwaaien “bathing in the outdoor energy”—are somewhat “closer” to true lasting happiness than just clips and news articles, but still have a “mark of impermanence” and the enjoyment you get from them is still fleeting. Better, but not best.

I have heard a Hindu man I used to go to grad school with describing that, in his view, the point of his Hindu faith is to live a “satisfied” life, and that the book/documentary/uitwaaien stuff is objectively more satisfying. I don’t know to what extent his take is general and what I do know is that “Hinduism” is kind of just one blanket term that tries to wrap together dozens or more religious practices that do not have very much to do with each other, so it is likely that this is just one person’s take?

I am still trying to work out the authoritative Christian message here. (Christianity similarly lacks a central human authority and has a million denominations with different beliefs.) Several parts of the story are well-stated by some top-notch theologians, so I can say that a lot of this chaos is a result of having the wrong view of the purpose of life. The Reddit/YouTube thing chases short term happiness chemicals in your brain, whereas the book/documentary/uitwaaien paths lead potentially to developing your relationship with God, which is held to be the top thing. Crucially I have seen some really substantial arguments that say that in Christianity, this drive to produce something memorable—to be productive and ‘change the world,’ say—are a mistake; that this redirection of focus from status to relationship also means that Christianity does not value that sort of immortalization-in-history as it would be another status rather than a relationship. It’s the mindset of a developer who hears an intern say “hey I’m sorry to bug you but I have this question” and they stop coding and say “there is literally nothing more important that I could be doing right now than helping you with your question.” But I feel like while I understand some of these things I just have more questions than I have answers? Like I am not sure how this would fit with a Kantian categorical imperative; would it potentially mean that we all stop working and have genuine conversations with each other instead? Like part of the Protestant reformation was the rediscovery of work-as-value, as the Shakers said, “hands to work—hearts to God”... it is kind of an open question in my head how all of that balances.

I found it interesting that you are saying that HN and reddit are comparable things. I recently turned off both my FB and Twitter account (never been a user of reddit or I would have done the same thing to it), but still enjoy the time here and probably will keep browsing interesting news/opinions here.

English is not native to me. Even though I can read and write English article, the speed is just slow. To me, the short-term entertaining part of HN almost doesn't exist. I always have to be dedicated to some interesting but hard article to understand it in some degree.

I am the same; what helps me is being very cognizant of how I feel after over-indulging in Reddit or HN and how I feel after some exercise/time spent outside/watching a good documentary.

Some journaling and/or a quick meditation in the morning help me keep in mind these things - and consequently more grounded.