I find all this anti-screen stuff kinda weird. Why avoid screens one day week? Do you also avoid electricity? Running water and sanitation? Refuse to use a wheel or mechanical advantage? It's almost Amish to me. Where do you draw the line, and why? Why a screens but not e.g. electromagnetism?
I have young kids. There is A LOT of this sort of pressure and sentiment - that using a computer/tablet/phone is somehow inherently bad and harmful. My kids love watching TV but I am fortunate that they also love imaginative play with traditional toys (teddy bears, Lego, cardboard boxes etc) more and they only watch shows maybe 1 or 2 hours a month. I think it is because we don't have a physical TV in the house - there is no looming huge black rectangle in the corner reminding them all their waking time (we adults just watch netflix/whatever on a laptop after bedtime for the kids).
I think this is part of the problem. It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.
Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction.
But I do not understand why on earth you would not use these amazing, life-improving, wondrous tools? Like if you needed to hammer in a nail you refuse to use a metal hammer "because technology" and what? you just bludgeon it in with your fists instead? I do not understand this rejection of hugely beneficial tools and technology that has made our lives so much easier.
>Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction.
That part is precisely the problem. "Just get help for your addiction" is not how anything works.
It's incredibly hard for an addict to stop using the brain rot stuff. A lot of very smart people make a lot of money making it as hard as possible.
Yep no one said it would be easy. It's hard for a smoker or drinker to get over their addiction too.
That's why you need help.
But you don't need to eliminate all forms of fermentation or combustion from your life to get over an alcohol or cigarette addiction. You don't need to eliminate all screens from your life to get over your tiktok addiction.
Because what works for you does not work for everybody, and different people may have different propensities, impulses etc.
You put some spatial restrictions (no tv screen visibly standing permanently in the house). Some people put time restrictions because that works for their case. It does not mean that they do not want to use these "wondrous technologies", they just want to spend some amount of their time doing something else. Saying "this works for me, everybody should do that" is absurd, something that works for you could work for some, but there is no reason to think it may work for everybody. And you just overlook how certain stuff are built to be addictive/attention grabbing, through A/B testing and research and tons of high-end specialised human capital in order to increase profit from advertising.
Why do you need to hammer that nail in every moment of downtime? If someone close to me pulled out a hammer to hammer in nails 5 hours a day with no visible beneficial result I would be worried that this person is pretending not to have an addiction
His house (website), his rules. They can be weird but as he doesn’t hurt anyone, it is his choice.
Well, I don’t get why I can’t discover his writings if I have still Saturday :) but it is his website not mine… so if he wants me to visit it on Monday to Saturday his time, I will. Or will not…
This is a form of unchecked privilege. He's saying he can spend time during the week reading a blog, and because of that he advocates taking a day a week away from screens. That's fine for him but someone working a manual job all week doesn't that luxury if they want to do interesting tech things on a weekend.
People have different ways of dealing with overuse of technology. For some, one day a week off works for some notification off, for some using dumb phones. It is perfectly normal for people to tryout and share anything that works. And it is also perfectly normal to ignore it.
> There is A LOT of this sort of pressure and sentiment.
There’s absolutely no pressure that can’t be ignored. Just because you feel the pressure there’s no need to call everyone else’s way of dealing with overuse nonsensical.
> It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.
“Medium is the message” is a highly recommended reading.
You just pick a place and draw it. Being anti-screen and taking a recurring break are not the same thing. You don't have to go full Amish. It's like the weekend. It gives you time and space to do other things, and encourages variation in how you interact with other humans and yourself. We picked Friday evenings to Saturday afternoons, not even a full day, and have been doing it for about 10 years. Easily one of the best quality of life choices we made as a family.
Why don’t you buy a TV and put it in your kids’ bedroom then? It might alert them before a natural disaster happens or something — it’s useful technology, after all.
My point was it's how you decide to use them. Do you have a TV/screen as a constant visible physical presence in your life spewing content design to attract and hold attention, or do you have a screen as a damn-useful tool that you choose and decide to use to your own benefit?
I get what you’re saying, but my satirical comment was the clearest thing I could come up with to illustrate that your argument is all over the place and basically incoherent. You answer a lot of your own rhetorical questions in your own comment.
People who choose not to use screens one day a week are “deciding” not to use them for one day a week, for many reasons including some you mentioned yourself. But then you say “do you avoid electricity?”
You avoid putting a tv in your kids’ room tuned permanently to the news. Why? It would be damn-useful for them to learn what’s going on in the world. You literally let your kids use the screen way less than this guy allows himself to. You’re in agreement with him…
My kid is in primary school, and there is one parent who did not give their child a mobile phone. In the WhatsApp group, they also keep promoting books and videos about how others also should do the same. The thing is, my kid doesn't seem to have the propensity to abuse their mobile phone and I bet most don't.
1. Maybe because making life easier isn't always a good thing? That there are certain things which benefit from being difficult, or at least not as easy as possible. Especially for children.
2. There aren't billion-dollar corporations, staffed with teams of PhDs in psychology, whose sole purpose 24/7 is to get me to use a hammer more. That's a false analogy.
I have never understood addiction either. My whole life I’ve been told that I am addicted to “computers” or video games, because I spent so much time on it. But frankly there wasn’t much better to do and it’s just a hobby, passion that now pays my bills…
Only until I started smoking cigarettes and later stopped I realised what addiction really means, and how hard it is to kick it.
Essentially what you’re saying is “if you’re addicted, why not choose to not be addicted?” and… yeah…
Personally my biggest complaint is not necessarily screen time in itself, it’s that the tech giants are dedicated to maximising your (and your children’s) watch time by showing a stream of addictive slop.
It’s a shame, there’s good content for kids on YouTube but the algorithm always biased towards addictive crap. And they’re cornering the market to the extent that other operators producing good kid-friendly content (like the BBC in the UK) get sidelined.
It's not the screens, it what you do with the screens.
We do not need to reduce our lives to that of Luddites - we do not need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and avoid all screen use - just because people are addicted to social media or short-form video content.
They're not addicted to the screens, they're addicted to YouTube/tiktok/twitter/whatever.
> It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.
Congrats on being a good parent, but there's a lot of people out there who put much less conscious effort into it than you apparently do.
Read some of the news URLs about "AI slop children's videos" for example, and try to imagine what happens when people give a 3 to 6 year old a tablet and unrestricted use of youtube to keep clicking on recommendations.
I'm not saying that having a day without screens or going completely no-screen is the best and absolute solution, but that it's a very real category of problem to grapple with and decide for yourself what's most appropriate.
This is an incoherent mess of statements. I don't understand the point you are trying trying to make.
> My kids love watching TV...we don't have a physical TV in the house
What do they watch "TV" on? Or do you mean they watch their shows on your laptop? Their tablets? What are the black rectangles that show them the shows? Without this it's hard to understand why you are patting yourself on the back so much about the lack of a TV. If the solution is to give the kids tablets 24/7, then the looming black rectangle with parental control might be preferable. If you're showing them the shows on your laptop and taking it away later; congratulations, you are just "taking technology away".
> there is no looming huge black rectangle in the corner reminding them all their waking time (we adults just watch netflix/whatever on a laptop after bedtime for the kids)...I think this is part of the problem.
What is part of the problem? That there is no looming black rectangle? There is no obvious phrase that corresponds to "part of the problem".
> Get help for your addiction...I do not understand this rejection of hugely beneficial tools and technology that has made our lives so much easier.
You are acknowledging that there is addiction, but then saying you don't understand why people would choose to "get help" for it by avoiding said technology 1/7th of their week (incidentally on a rest day when they get to decide what they do)?
I appreciate that not everyone is fluent in English and may not fully follow the fil conducteur as a result: the point is don't blame screens, blame what you actively and consciously chose to put on the screen.
> I appreciate that not everyone is fluent in English and may not fully follow the fil conducteur
Using obscure French words while talking about English comprehension...you really might be overestimating your own fluency and clarity of communication in English.
Just because it's your native language doesn't mean that you're automatically fluent.
Maybe he practices using obscure French words on Sunday instead of using banal English words.
Don't tell me you're one of those "If English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for the rest of American!" people...
Your performative insistence that you're incapable of comprehending his point is a tired and ineffective way to make your own.
Edit:
Yes! That's exactly the fil conducteur: "It's how you use them" and "I control how they're used in my own house" reinforce each other. The latter is a concrete example of the former, not a contradiction.
I strongly agree with mattlondon, and made essentially the same point here:
Maybe consider that "Why is everyone saying screens are bad? It's how you use them" "Oh by the way I control them quite tightly in my own house." is quite contradictory and not making any particular point?
It's a fool's errand trying to see patterns in clouds where there aren't any. Or pareidolia, if you want a fancy word.
I think it's more the technology, not the substance.
Alcohol addiction is bad. But no one is saying we should have "bottle free days" or "try not to use a glass until you've been outside" or whatever - no one is saying "bottles and cups cause addiction! We should not allow children to use liquid containers until they are 16!" just because they could conceivably contain alcohol. That is obviously absurd. You are not addicted to the glass or bottle, you are addicted to the alcohol.
Yet we as a society are basically doing that for screens. Screens/bottles are not in themselves bad, but it's what you as an individual actively chose to put in it that leads to the problem. Don't use tiktok or whatever, but do use the screen.
> Alcohol addiction is bad. But no one is saying we should have "bottle free days" or "try not to use a glass until you've been outside"
The original author isn't trying to ban all screens from public life (e.g. screens that show bus information) or religiously avoiding them, it is obvious that by "screens" they specifically mean the "addictive entertainment that is usually delivered via screens". This does not mean they will run screaming from a screen at the doctor's that's displaying their vitals.
Actually, there's an analogy right there in your argument! We often say "he's been hitting the bottle" as a metaphor, that doesn't literally mean someone is hitting a bottle, it means that they are addicted to the alcohol in it.
I am gross and perverted, I'm obsessed and deranged
I have existed for years but very little has changed
I'm the tool of the government and industry too
For I am destined to rule and regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious but you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get, have you guessed me, yet?
I'm the slime oozin' out from your TV set
[1] The drinking toast, not the television sitcom.
There is also a baby products online store in the Netherlands that for religious reasons is closed on Sunday. You can browse the site but you can't buy anything.
That was the reason I bought a lot of stuff at their competitor baby-dump.nl. Until BP bought BD, and instituted the same policy there...
It's their site, they can do what they want. And as long as there's competition I can even admire them for making a sacrifice for something they believe in.
This kind of stuff becomes a problem when it starts arguing that others must do this too. If someone argues that all shops must be closed because their religion forbids working on that day, then that's an issue. But as far as I know, the Baby Park people haven't done that. They made a personal moral choice and sacrifice. Good for them.
We have similar e-commerce sites in Israel that close on Saturdays for religious reasons.
As someone living in a relegious country with religious parties in parliament, I see this as a slippery slope.
It's a way for religious groups to normalize forcing their lifestyle on the rest of society.
Religious mandates always tend to expand: what starts as "I don't care if you close your site on Sunday" can quickly escalate to "Why are you telling my wife and daughter how they should dress in public?"
I find the idea of cleverly outsmarting God with Shabbat elevators and ovens difficult to reconcile with taking one's religion seriously, respecting God, and following the spirit rather than merely the letter of its laws. But what believers arrange for themselves is their own business. The danger begins when they arrange everyone else's lives too.
I happened to want to order something there last Sunday. While digging into it, I notice that their closure seemed to be implemented only on the frontend using JS. By disabling some scripts, I was able to add products to my cart, which normally isn't possible on Sundays.
In the end, I didn't proceed to place my order on Sunday. It felt a bit disrespectful, and it was already late. (So I ordered half an hour later, which was technically Monday.)
I don't need to imagine. This is how government and bank websites work in Japan. It's maddening how frequently online services are closed in the evening and weekends.
Example: the government e-tax service's operating hours schedule
When you visit my site you are visiting my timezone. Same as if you tried to call me on the phone in the middle of your day but I was asleep during my night.
What attracted me to computers as a kid in the 90s was the promise of an always-on, never moody, deterministic machine. That was magic and finally a fixed reliable point in life, forever. Plus, with the internet, suddenly the world came closer, no matter timezone, things are always there.
We are already killing the deterministic part with LLMs. I can't trust the machine anymore to do tomorrow what I told it yesterday.
Now we also want to remove the always-on aspect? Arbitrarily? Because it's ...cool? I don't get it.
I remember some people doing this maybe 15 years ago, I think these types of hipster-ish trends recycle every generation or so.
I don't see it as harmful, but it's not for me either. My personal stuff goes down when my DDNS script fails or I accidentally trip the breaker, that's enough.
B&H Photo's website can be browsed on the Sabbath but you can't order anything. The company is owned and operated by observant Orthodox Jewish members of the Satmar Hasidic community.
If you visit the B&H retail store in NYC they sell all kinds of stuff for basically everything that is more "pro" level which is beyond what you can achieve with a regular smartphone with its built in lenses. Particularly for video production. Highly worth the visit if you're ever in NYC and have never been to it.
Lighting, audio stuff, equipment cases, backpacks, tripods, battery packs, that sort of thing. It's also stuff in the category of "Accessories" that have much profit margin built into them, much like how a Trek or Specialized branded road bicycle store makes much more profit from selling lights, bottle cages, shoes, than the bicycle itself.
Additionally they sell tons of the accessories that can be used to turn a modern $1500 2160p60 video capable smartphone into something more useful for amateur/youtuber level videography, like smartphone gimbals, bluetooth lap mic/receiver setups, extra batteries, cases... Stuff like what the 'smallrig' phone cages do.
They are also competitively priced for computer stuff and you are sure they are not counterfeit which is not the case on amazon (especially but not only sdcards).
In the US state of New Jersey some counties restrict the sales of tools and hardware (like something you might need to urgently buy for a home repair from Home Depot) on Sundays:
As a person from the west coast it is always funny to me to encounter places with "blue laws" for no product sales on Sundays, or "dry counties", primarily in the US south/southeast.
Visitor’s Sunday or owner’s Sunday? It seems to be the former as the stated purpose suggests a PSA function and less about reducing owner’s burden in maintaining uptime.
If that’s the case, you could consider using pre-render JavaScript to detect what day it is in the browser. Then temporarily redirect Sunday-identifying browsers to a “Closed On Sunday” page.
off topic but I wonder why client is the first query parameter in that URL. I guess there's some stuff on the search page that changes based on what you are browsing from? they already have the user agent data so I can't imagine it's for marketing data tracking needs
I'm using the main line firefox release on MacOS here, and yeah it does seem to do that... Clearly google already knows what browser I'm on from useragent as the most rudimentary ID and other browser fingerprinting measures as well.
(edit: one theory would be they're tracking how many URLs are copy/pasted and shared by firefox users to non-firefox users and then loaded by people with different browsers, there has to be some value to them in that data in the aggregate of millions of search page loads).
I figured leaving it into the copy and pasted URL is harmless and ultimately mozilla derives the bulk of its revenue from its search deal with google, so it's also a way of supporting continued firefox development in the most minuscule way.
Most non-restaurant stores are closed in Poland on Sundays. At first I found it a bit inconvenient, but as I've lived here longer (going on ten years) I really appreciate it. It's a forced "slow down" day that's society-wide. It also helps push back against the constant desire to inject money and capital into every aspect of life.
It would never be allowed in the US, but I do think a designated "don't buy stuff" day once a week would be a really good idea, as well.
Long before that, a known religious zealot used to close his online store on Sundays and put out a very in-character lecturing note if you tried to visit it anyway.
I try not to reply to snarky comments, but - it's not noticeably worse than other days, unless you want to go shopping in the biggest mall in the center of the city.
On Sundays, you can send packages via paczkomats (outdoor lockers) and convenience stores (Zabkas) but the post office, DHL, UPS, etc. offices are closed.
It's their site and they can do whatever they like, but it's pretty silly. If you want to avoid screens, avoid screens. Don't make your addiction my problem
I'm reminded of the type of recovering alcoholic who impetuously accuses anybody who they know has consumed alcohol of being slaves to the sauce themselves.
"Trump is your president, don't make his problems to mine. If you vote for a shit president then keep him for yourselves and don't let him escape his sandbox."
I spent a while trying to figure out why the site was open and working perfectly. Turns out uBlock keeps the site open on a Sunday and it's so splendidly written that it works like one of those old-time websites; the links work when you click them.
It contrasts with times before, when we actually had to wait for a monthly magazine, and even if we wanted to watch a movie, it was aired (say) the next Tue 7PM.
While now we have all convenience, there is no anticipation - or rest.
It's not been the case for probably more than 20 years, but I remember that in the past the official website of the Italian Postal Service [1] used to be closed out of office hours.
Japanese websites still do this. If you buy shinkansen tickets between 23:00-05:00 you get:
* JR central - you can buy, but not reserve seats, as the system actually registers your ticket at 5am
* Jr east - you cannot buy.
Some banks/government sites also simply don't want to work at night.
Very frustrating. To me it spells incompetence, but maybe there's some non-technical stakeholder who made a stupid rule once. For JR its probably some nightly accounting system - not 100% sure but I assume all the modern systems are just plugged on top of the ancient ones just like the airline industry does it.
I remember back in the days a Car Insurance website which only allowed you to use it during working hours. Never understood the mechanism, surely they weren't getting quotes live from actuaries or anything.
> I’m trying to avoid screens at least one day out of the week, and this is my way of encouraging others to consider doing the same.
Sorry but I find this incredibly paternalistic.
What if I am avoiding screens one day out of the week—on Saturday? Heck, maybe I avoid screens Monday—Saturday and Sunday is my only screen day?
It's great that you're avoiding screens on Sunday! Really! Blocking pages for everyone else just makes the world a very slightly worse place for no benefit.
I first thought it was a neat idea, but the exception for his shop makes the closure look a little hypocritical.
"This site is closed on Sundays -- except the shop of course, the actual type of thing that is usually open or closed in the physical world, because when money comes into play, there is no pretending it wasn't just for show."
Love it. I started a fun side project this weekend to also reduce my screen time: turning articles I bookmark online into a personal printed magazine that I can then read offline [0]. I just printed the first personal edition that I will read on my flight next week, including a few articles I found on HN :)
Sunday is my day for boycotting religion's effects on society, so I take a break from observing any form of worship, abstinence, or superstition on Sunday, just as I do every other day of the week.
Mitch Hedberg would appreciate my internal consistency:
If screen time is bad for you, why not reduce your own screen time every day? That would be seven times as effective. And why go out of your way to eliminate other people's screen time instead of your own?
You don't have to turn off your server to keep yourself from opening your own web page. In fact, the server isn't off at all: it remains online all Sunday to serve a paternalistic sermon telling everyone to go away, complete with a link to a swag shop that remains open for business, like a church with a gift shop.
None of this prevents you from reading a cached copy, working on the site locally, or watching stand-up comedy and cat videos on YouTube.
There is a purely client-side, and far more effective, solution: just don't open your own website, or anything else on your screen. Withholding it from everybody else substitutes access control for self-control.
Obviously this is nowhere near as malicious or consequential as opposing same-sex marriage. But it follows the same logic on a much smaller scale: "I choose to abstain from this, therefore you must abstain from it too."
The bigots aren't satisfied with simply not marrying someone of the same sex themselves; they feel compelled to make love illegal for everyone else, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 1/4 days a year, for an entire lifetime.
He owns the site and is entitled to close it whenever he likes. But calling the inconvenience "encouragement" doesn't make it any less paternalistic.
If he practices what he preaches, it's a pity he won't see or engage with this discussion of his Sunday closure while it's still open -- or at least while it's still fresh.
But if I love his website, I can read it on archive.org any day of the week.
I find all this anti-screen stuff kinda weird. Why avoid screens one day week? Do you also avoid electricity? Running water and sanitation? Refuse to use a wheel or mechanical advantage? It's almost Amish to me. Where do you draw the line, and why? Why a screens but not e.g. electromagnetism?
I have young kids. There is A LOT of this sort of pressure and sentiment - that using a computer/tablet/phone is somehow inherently bad and harmful. My kids love watching TV but I am fortunate that they also love imaginative play with traditional toys (teddy bears, Lego, cardboard boxes etc) more and they only watch shows maybe 1 or 2 hours a month. I think it is because we don't have a physical TV in the house - there is no looming huge black rectangle in the corner reminding them all their waking time (we adults just watch netflix/whatever on a laptop after bedtime for the kids).
I think this is part of the problem. It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.
Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction.
But I do not understand why on earth you would not use these amazing, life-improving, wondrous tools? Like if you needed to hammer in a nail you refuse to use a metal hammer "because technology" and what? you just bludgeon it in with your fists instead? I do not understand this rejection of hugely beneficial tools and technology that has made our lives so much easier.
>Just turn notifications off. Just don't look at twitter/Facebook/tiktok. It's not hard to just not use the brain rot stuff. I get it you are addicted - I guess just be thankful it's not alcohol or cigarettes. Get help for your addiction.
That part is precisely the problem. "Just get help for your addiction" is not how anything works.
It's incredibly hard for an addict to stop using the brain rot stuff. A lot of very smart people make a lot of money making it as hard as possible.
Yep no one said it would be easy. It's hard for a smoker or drinker to get over their addiction too.
That's why you need help.
But you don't need to eliminate all forms of fermentation or combustion from your life to get over an alcohol or cigarette addiction. You don't need to eliminate all screens from your life to get over your tiktok addiction.
Because what works for you does not work for everybody, and different people may have different propensities, impulses etc.
You put some spatial restrictions (no tv screen visibly standing permanently in the house). Some people put time restrictions because that works for their case. It does not mean that they do not want to use these "wondrous technologies", they just want to spend some amount of their time doing something else. Saying "this works for me, everybody should do that" is absurd, something that works for you could work for some, but there is no reason to think it may work for everybody. And you just overlook how certain stuff are built to be addictive/attention grabbing, through A/B testing and research and tons of high-end specialised human capital in order to increase profit from advertising.
Why do you need to hammer that nail in every moment of downtime? If someone close to me pulled out a hammer to hammer in nails 5 hours a day with no visible beneficial result I would be worried that this person is pretending not to have an addiction
His house (website), his rules. They can be weird but as he doesn’t hurt anyone, it is his choice.
Well, I don’t get why I can’t discover his writings if I have still Saturday :) but it is his website not mine… so if he wants me to visit it on Monday to Saturday his time, I will. Or will not…
This is a form of unchecked privilege. He's saying he can spend time during the week reading a blog, and because of that he advocates taking a day a week away from screens. That's fine for him but someone working a manual job all week doesn't that luxury if they want to do interesting tech things on a weekend.
People have different ways of dealing with overuse of technology. For some, one day a week off works for some notification off, for some using dumb phones. It is perfectly normal for people to tryout and share anything that works. And it is also perfectly normal to ignore it.
> There is A LOT of this sort of pressure and sentiment.
There’s absolutely no pressure that can’t be ignored. Just because you feel the pressure there’s no need to call everyone else’s way of dealing with overuse nonsensical.
> It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.
“Medium is the message” is a highly recommended reading.
You just pick a place and draw it. Being anti-screen and taking a recurring break are not the same thing. You don't have to go full Amish. It's like the weekend. It gives you time and space to do other things, and encourages variation in how you interact with other humans and yourself. We picked Friday evenings to Saturday afternoons, not even a full day, and have been doing it for about 10 years. Easily one of the best quality of life choices we made as a family.
Why don’t you buy a TV and put it in your kids’ bedroom then? It might alert them before a natural disaster happens or something — it’s useful technology, after all.
You missed the entire point.
My point was it's how you decide to use them. Do you have a TV/screen as a constant visible physical presence in your life spewing content design to attract and hold attention, or do you have a screen as a damn-useful tool that you choose and decide to use to your own benefit?
I get what you’re saying, but my satirical comment was the clearest thing I could come up with to illustrate that your argument is all over the place and basically incoherent. You answer a lot of your own rhetorical questions in your own comment.
People who choose not to use screens one day a week are “deciding” not to use them for one day a week, for many reasons including some you mentioned yourself. But then you say “do you avoid electricity?”
You avoid putting a tv in your kids’ room tuned permanently to the news. Why? It would be damn-useful for them to learn what’s going on in the world. You literally let your kids use the screen way less than this guy allows himself to. You’re in agreement with him…
My kid is in primary school, and there is one parent who did not give their child a mobile phone. In the WhatsApp group, they also keep promoting books and videos about how others also should do the same. The thing is, my kid doesn't seem to have the propensity to abuse their mobile phone and I bet most don't.
Why does a kid in primary school need a phone in the first place?
1. Maybe because making life easier isn't always a good thing? That there are certain things which benefit from being difficult, or at least not as easy as possible. Especially for children.
2. There aren't billion-dollar corporations, staffed with teams of PhDs in psychology, whose sole purpose 24/7 is to get me to use a hammer more. That's a false analogy.
On one hand, I agree; on the other hand, that was the most succinct formulation of European culture that I've ever read.
I have never understood addiction either. My whole life I’ve been told that I am addicted to “computers” or video games, because I spent so much time on it. But frankly there wasn’t much better to do and it’s just a hobby, passion that now pays my bills…
Only until I started smoking cigarettes and later stopped I realised what addiction really means, and how hard it is to kick it.
Essentially what you’re saying is “if you’re addicted, why not choose to not be addicted?” and… yeah…
Personally my biggest complaint is not necessarily screen time in itself, it’s that the tech giants are dedicated to maximising your (and your children’s) watch time by showing a stream of addictive slop.
It’s a shame, there’s good content for kids on YouTube but the algorithm always biased towards addictive crap. And they’re cornering the market to the extent that other operators producing good kid-friendly content (like the BBC in the UK) get sidelined.
This was my entire point.
It's not the screens, it what you do with the screens.
We do not need to reduce our lives to that of Luddites - we do not need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and avoid all screen use - just because people are addicted to social media or short-form video content.
They're not addicted to the screens, they're addicted to YouTube/tiktok/twitter/whatever.
> It's not screens that are bad, it's what you do with them and how you use them.
Congrats on being a good parent, but there's a lot of people out there who put much less conscious effort into it than you apparently do.
Read some of the news URLs about "AI slop children's videos" for example, and try to imagine what happens when people give a 3 to 6 year old a tablet and unrestricted use of youtube to keep clicking on recommendations.
https://www.google.com/search?&q=ai+slop+children%27s+videos...
I'm not saying that having a day without screens or going completely no-screen is the best and absolute solution, but that it's a very real category of problem to grapple with and decide for yourself what's most appropriate.
This is an incoherent mess of statements. I don't understand the point you are trying trying to make.
> My kids love watching TV...we don't have a physical TV in the house
What do they watch "TV" on? Or do you mean they watch their shows on your laptop? Their tablets? What are the black rectangles that show them the shows? Without this it's hard to understand why you are patting yourself on the back so much about the lack of a TV. If the solution is to give the kids tablets 24/7, then the looming black rectangle with parental control might be preferable. If you're showing them the shows on your laptop and taking it away later; congratulations, you are just "taking technology away".
> there is no looming huge black rectangle in the corner reminding them all their waking time (we adults just watch netflix/whatever on a laptop after bedtime for the kids)...I think this is part of the problem.
What is part of the problem? That there is no looming black rectangle? There is no obvious phrase that corresponds to "part of the problem".
> Get help for your addiction...I do not understand this rejection of hugely beneficial tools and technology that has made our lives so much easier.
You are acknowledging that there is addiction, but then saying you don't understand why people would choose to "get help" for it by avoiding said technology 1/7th of their week (incidentally on a rest day when they get to decide what they do)?
I appreciate that not everyone is fluent in English and may not fully follow the fil conducteur as a result: the point is don't blame screens, blame what you actively and consciously chose to put on the screen.
> I appreciate that not everyone is fluent in English and may not fully follow the fil conducteur
Using obscure French words while talking about English comprehension...you really might be overestimating your own fluency and clarity of communication in English.
Just because it's your native language doesn't mean that you're automatically fluent.
Maybe he practices using obscure French words on Sunday instead of using banal English words.
Don't tell me you're one of those "If English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for the rest of American!" people...
Your performative insistence that you're incapable of comprehending his point is a tired and ineffective way to make your own.
Edit:
Yes! That's exactly the fil conducteur: "It's how you use them" and "I control how they're used in my own house" reinforce each other. The latter is a concrete example of the former, not a contradiction.
I strongly agree with mattlondon, and made essentially the same point here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49583842#49584461
Screens are general-purpose tools. Exercise judgment over how you use them instead of blaming the medium or prescribing abstinence to everyone else.
Maybe consider that "Why is everyone saying screens are bad? It's how you use them" "Oh by the way I control them quite tightly in my own house." is quite contradictory and not making any particular point?
It's a fool's errand trying to see patterns in clouds where there aren't any. Or pareidolia, if you want a fancy word.
It's not heroin that's bad, it's what you do with it and how you use it
I think it's more the technology, not the substance.
Alcohol addiction is bad. But no one is saying we should have "bottle free days" or "try not to use a glass until you've been outside" or whatever - no one is saying "bottles and cups cause addiction! We should not allow children to use liquid containers until they are 16!" just because they could conceivably contain alcohol. That is obviously absurd. You are not addicted to the glass or bottle, you are addicted to the alcohol.
Yet we as a society are basically doing that for screens. Screens/bottles are not in themselves bad, but it's what you as an individual actively chose to put in it that leads to the problem. Don't use tiktok or whatever, but do use the screen.
> Alcohol addiction is bad. But no one is saying we should have "bottle free days" or "try not to use a glass until you've been outside"
The original author isn't trying to ban all screens from public life (e.g. screens that show bus information) or religiously avoiding them, it is obvious that by "screens" they specifically mean the "addictive entertainment that is usually delivered via screens". This does not mean they will run screaming from a screen at the doctor's that's displaying their vitals.
Actually, there's an analogy right there in your argument! We often say "he's been hitting the bottle" as a metaphor, that doesn't literally mean someone is hitting a bottle, it means that they are addicted to the alcohol in it.
Cheers! [1] I love your crystal-clear analogy between glass screens containing slime and glass bottles containing alcohol.
It's the slime, not the glass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPFIkty4Zvk
[1] The drinking toast, not the television sitcom.There is also a baby products online store in the Netherlands that for religious reasons is closed on Sunday. You can browse the site but you can't buy anything.
The page is in Dutch, it explains that they're closed because get believe Sunday is a day for rest: https://www.babypark.nl/zondag/info-bp.html
That was the reason I bought a lot of stuff at their competitor baby-dump.nl. Until BP bought BD, and instituted the same policy there...
It's their site, they can do what they want. And as long as there's competition I can even admire them for making a sacrifice for something they believe in.
This kind of stuff becomes a problem when it starts arguing that others must do this too. If someone argues that all shops must be closed because their religion forbids working on that day, then that's an issue. But as far as I know, the Baby Park people haven't done that. They made a personal moral choice and sacrifice. Good for them.
We have similar e-commerce sites in Israel that close on Saturdays for religious reasons.
As someone living in a relegious country with religious parties in parliament, I see this as a slippery slope.
It's a way for religious groups to normalize forcing their lifestyle on the rest of society.
Religious mandates always tend to expand: what starts as "I don't care if you close your site on Sunday" can quickly escalate to "Why are you telling my wife and daughter how they should dress in public?"
Beware
I find the idea of cleverly outsmarting God with Shabbat elevators and ovens difficult to reconcile with taking one's religion seriously, respecting God, and following the spirit rather than merely the letter of its laws. But what believers arrange for themselves is their own business. The danger begins when they arrange everyone else's lives too.
I happened to want to order something there last Sunday. While digging into it, I notice that their closure seemed to be implemented only on the frontend using JS. By disabling some scripts, I was able to add products to my cart, which normally isn't possible on Sundays.
In the end, I didn't proceed to place my order on Sunday. It felt a bit disrespectful, and it was already late. (So I ordered half an hour later, which was technically Monday.)
Same for the SGP, the Dutch fundamentalist Christian party: https://sgp.nl/
I share few of their values but I quite appreciate this one.
Honestly, I don’t mind it. Our lives are so commercialized as it is. If I can’t order a new stroller until Monday, I think I will survive.
I told a friend one time, what if there was a web site that had opening hours.
He said, you can already see the opening hours of all the stores and stuff on Google Maps.
I said, no, not a website like that. I mean, the website itself is open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, and outside of that it’s closed.
My friend looked at me and just said, why?
Idk, I think it would be neat, I said.
My friend didn’t get it. This guy gets it.
I don't need to imagine. This is how government and bank websites work in Japan. It's maddening how frequently online services are closed in the evening and weekends.
Example: the government e-tax service's operating hours schedule
https://www.e-tax.nta.go.jp/info_center/index.htm
There is a full week of maintenance this month, and it's unavailable after midnight on Mondays and Sundays until 8:30am.
> website itself is open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, and outside of that it’s closed.
So you want people to read your blog at work because when they are off it's closed?
No, I want them to take time off from work to read the blog. Just as they do when going to the DMV, bank, doctor consultation,etc.
> My friend didn’t get it. This guy gets it.
They laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Plenty of these exist. The biggest I'm aware of is B&H Photo Video.
How does this work with time zones?
When you visit my site you are visiting my timezone. Same as if you tried to call me on the phone in the middle of your day but I was asleep during my night.
Why stop there?
When you visit my website a notification pops up on my phone and I have to set HTTP response manually.
It's also audio-only, because if you called me on the phone you wouldn't see any UI, would you?
What attracted me to computers as a kid in the 90s was the promise of an always-on, never moody, deterministic machine. That was magic and finally a fixed reliable point in life, forever. Plus, with the internet, suddenly the world came closer, no matter timezone, things are always there.
We are already killing the deterministic part with LLMs. I can't trust the machine anymore to do tomorrow what I told it yesterday.
Now we also want to remove the always-on aspect? Arbitrarily? Because it's ...cool? I don't get it.
I remember some people doing this maybe 15 years ago, I think these types of hipster-ish trends recycle every generation or so.
I don't see it as harmful, but it's not for me either. My personal stuff goes down when my DDNS script fails or I accidentally trip the breaker, that's enough.
Exactly :)
In Israel, many sites are "closed" on Sabbath, unfortunately. This was a recent controversy about this: https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/rymwhdedmg (Hebrew)
B&H Photo's website can be browsed on the Sabbath but you can't order anything. The company is owned and operated by observant Orthodox Jewish members of the Satmar Hasidic community.
Any idea how did they survive the switch from digital cameras to everybody taking photos with their smartphones?
If you visit the B&H retail store in NYC they sell all kinds of stuff for basically everything that is more "pro" level which is beyond what you can achieve with a regular smartphone with its built in lenses. Particularly for video production. Highly worth the visit if you're ever in NYC and have never been to it.
Lighting, audio stuff, equipment cases, backpacks, tripods, battery packs, that sort of thing. It's also stuff in the category of "Accessories" that have much profit margin built into them, much like how a Trek or Specialized branded road bicycle store makes much more profit from selling lights, bottle cages, shoes, than the bicycle itself.
Additionally they sell tons of the accessories that can be used to turn a modern $1500 2160p60 video capable smartphone into something more useful for amateur/youtuber level videography, like smartphone gimbals, bluetooth lap mic/receiver setups, extra batteries, cases... Stuff like what the 'smallrig' phone cages do.
https://www.smallrig.com/ca/list/Phone-Rig.html
B&H is much more than just still photo cameras.
They are also competitively priced for computer stuff and you are sure they are not counterfeit which is not the case on amazon (especially but not only sdcards).
They sell professional photo and video equipment.
In the US state of New Jersey some counties restrict the sales of tools and hardware (like something you might need to urgently buy for a home repair from Home Depot) on Sundays:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=new+jersey+blue+laws+tools+...
As a person from the west coast it is always funny to me to encounter places with "blue laws" for no product sales on Sundays, or "dry counties", primarily in the US south/southeast.
The first time I was in Silicon Valley, the most surprising thing was that equivalent of blue laws was every day with how early everything closed.
Still makes me wonder how anyone gets anything done, OTOH it explains how door dash, uber, etc could happen there - other places had less demand...
In the Netherlands there are plenty of websites which close on Sunday for religious reasons.
For example:
https://www.babypark.nl
In India, I remember many government websites that allowed form submission only during office hours.
Visitor’s Sunday or owner’s Sunday? It seems to be the former as the stated purpose suggests a PSA function and less about reducing owner’s burden in maintaining uptime.
If that’s the case, you could consider using pre-render JavaScript to detect what day it is in the browser. Then temporarily redirect Sunday-identifying browsers to a “Closed On Sunday” page.
B&H Photo Video is probably the most well known example, they won't accept an order on the sabbath.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=b%26h+sab...
But the site still functions to browse.
off topic but I wonder why client is the first query parameter in that URL. I guess there's some stuff on the search page that changes based on what you are browsing from? they already have the user agent data so I can't imagine it's for marketing data tracking needs
I'm using the main line firefox release on MacOS here, and yeah it does seem to do that... Clearly google already knows what browser I'm on from useragent as the most rudimentary ID and other browser fingerprinting measures as well.
(edit: one theory would be they're tracking how many URLs are copy/pasted and shared by firefox users to non-firefox users and then loaded by people with different browsers, there has to be some value to them in that data in the aggregate of millions of search page loads).
I figured leaving it into the copy and pasted URL is harmless and ultimately mozilla derives the bulk of its revenue from its search deal with google, so it's also a way of supporting continued firefox development in the most minuscule way.
Most non-restaurant stores are closed in Poland on Sundays. At first I found it a bit inconvenient, but as I've lived here longer (going on ten years) I really appreciate it. It's a forced "slow down" day that's society-wide. It also helps push back against the constant desire to inject money and capital into every aspect of life.
It would never be allowed in the US, but I do think a designated "don't buy stuff" day once a week would be a really good idea, as well.
Long before that, a known religious zealot used to close his online store on Sundays and put out a very in-character lecturing note if you tried to visit it anyway.
I bet the crowds on Saturdays are something to enjoy.
I try not to reply to snarky comments, but - it's not noticeably worse than other days, unless you want to go shopping in the biggest mall in the center of the city.
Unless you can also send packages there
Not sure I understand your comment.
On Sundays, you can send packages via paczkomats (outdoor lockers) and convenience stores (Zabkas) but the post office, DHL, UPS, etc. offices are closed.
I meant Żabka and Delikatesy use that loophole to stay open, so thousands of shops are still open
Same in DACH
A well-known Catholic in Poland, he runs his own shop, which is also closed on Sundays.
https://cejrowski.com/sklep/
It's their site and they can do whatever they like, but it's pretty silly. If you want to avoid screens, avoid screens. Don't make your addiction my problem
I'm reminded of the type of recovering alcoholic who impetuously accuses anybody who they know has consumed alcohol of being slaves to the sauce themselves.
"Trump is your president, don't make his problems to mine. If you vote for a shit president then keep him for yourselves and don't let him escape his sandbox."
Spot the five differences.
I spent a while trying to figure out why the site was open and working perfectly. Turns out uBlock keeps the site open on a Sunday and it's so splendidly written that it works like one of those old-time websites; the links work when you click them.
We would warmly welcome him in Germany
Window shopping is still allowed on Sunday in Germany.
But one must limit oneself to only 1 hour of window shopping to avoid falling foul of Reckverhilfplatsteinbedenkt
With Internet, we live in an always-on culture.
It contrasts with times before, when we actually had to wait for a monthly magazine, and even if we wanted to watch a movie, it was aired (say) the next Tue 7PM.
While now we have all convenience, there is no anticipation - or rest.
Hey. We still have TV shows that air once a week (and people loudly complain that it takes too long)
I remember the records query section of the Belgian National Bank website used to be closed outside business hours (weekdays 9-5).
https://www.nbb.be/nl/balanscentrale/raadplegen/consult
They are technically incorrect.
Sundays last about 50 hours globally. From Kiritimati (UTC+14) to Baker Island and Howland Island (UTC-12).
I wish more sites would apply the 50 hours closing window, preferably 3.36 days a week.
It's not been the case for probably more than 20 years, but I remember that in the past the official website of the Italian Postal Service [1] used to be closed out of office hours.
https://poste.it
Japanese websites still do this. If you buy shinkansen tickets between 23:00-05:00 you get:
* JR central - you can buy, but not reserve seats, as the system actually registers your ticket at 5am
* Jr east - you cannot buy.
Some banks/government sites also simply don't want to work at night.
Very frustrating. To me it spells incompetence, but maybe there's some non-technical stakeholder who made a stupid rule once. For JR its probably some nightly accounting system - not 100% sure but I assume all the modern systems are just plugged on top of the ancient ones just like the airline industry does it.
I remember back in the days a Car Insurance website which only allowed you to use it during working hours. Never understood the mechanism, surely they weren't getting quotes live from actuaries or anything.
The shop link is still “open”.
Stuff like this will really break your visibility on search engines like google etc.
Which doesn't really matter anymore as all Google will do is slurp it up and regurgitate it without attribution.
For good reason, lol
"shop" still works
> I’m trying to avoid screens at least one day out of the week, and this is my way of encouraging others to consider doing the same.
Sorry but I find this incredibly paternalistic.
What if I am avoiding screens one day out of the week—on Saturday? Heck, maybe I avoid screens Monday—Saturday and Sunday is my only screen day?
It's great that you're avoiding screens on Sunday! Really! Blocking pages for everyone else just makes the world a very slightly worse place for no benefit.
Turning a static site off is excellent ragebait
I first thought it was a neat idea, but the exception for his shop makes the closure look a little hypocritical.
"This site is closed on Sundays -- except the shop of course, the actual type of thing that is usually open or closed in the physical world, because when money comes into play, there is no pretending it wasn't just for show."
Love it. I started a fun side project this weekend to also reduce my screen time: turning articles I bookmark online into a personal printed magazine that I can then read offline [0]. I just printed the first personal edition that I will read on my flight next week, including a few articles I found on HN :)
[0] https://www.unscroll.ch
There are websites in Japan that are only "open" during Japanese business hours.
Skeuomorpharaseeism
This makes about as much sense as blue laws, and suffers from the same failure mode: controlling other people is not a substitute for self-control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States
Sunday is my day for boycotting religion's effects on society, so I take a break from observing any form of worship, abstinence, or superstition on Sunday, just as I do every other day of the week.
Mitch Hedberg would appreciate my internal consistency:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHA5CIL0fg
If screen time is bad for you, why not reduce your own screen time every day? That would be seven times as effective. And why go out of your way to eliminate other people's screen time instead of your own?
You don't have to turn off your server to keep yourself from opening your own web page. In fact, the server isn't off at all: it remains online all Sunday to serve a paternalistic sermon telling everyone to go away, complete with a link to a swag shop that remains open for business, like a church with a gift shop.
None of this prevents you from reading a cached copy, working on the site locally, or watching stand-up comedy and cat videos on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9oitkXG3Y
There is a purely client-side, and far more effective, solution: just don't open your own website, or anything else on your screen. Withholding it from everybody else substitutes access control for self-control.
Obviously this is nowhere near as malicious or consequential as opposing same-sex marriage. But it follows the same logic on a much smaller scale: "I choose to abstain from this, therefore you must abstain from it too."
The bigots aren't satisfied with simply not marrying someone of the same sex themselves; they feel compelled to make love illegal for everyone else, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 1/4 days a year, for an entire lifetime.
He owns the site and is entitled to close it whenever he likes. But calling the inconvenience "encouragement" doesn't make it any less paternalistic.
If he practices what he preaches, it's a pity he won't see or engage with this discussion of his Sunday closure while it's still open -- or at least while it's still fresh.
But if I love his website, I can read it on archive.org any day of the week.
So what's next -- blocking archive.org?
Related:
2025 What if your website had business hours? (2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43647598