HN has the word “news” in its name, but I think that’s where most of the similarities end.
Looking at the front page right now, I count maybe 4 items that are attempts at journalism. The rest are interesting subjects resurrected from 6+ years ago, tech guides, user-submitted questions/content, etc. The ones that seem like news items don’t really pertain to today’s hot news, they’re press releases from NASA etc.
HN is a discussion board, and the topics are almost always relevant to my career and interests. I mostly read the comments though. HN informs discussions I have with people at work and tech-related decisions in and out of work. I think it’s worthwhile.
For me, HN counts too. Yes, the quality is different compared to classical news pages, but I think it serves the same desire to find something new.
From my perspective, giving in to this desire is part of the problem. When I start my day consuming content, the whole day becomes a lot less productive (concentrating becomes very hard). But if I start the day engaging my brain in a concentrated mode, the first few hours become very productive.
So my solution for avoiding to constantly visit HN in the search for something new, is that I have a new tab page in my browser, that lists, the top 3 HN news from the best list, if I haven't read them already. That way I fight the fear of missing out.
Maybe I should add that it always shows an empty list for the first 12 hours of the day ;-)
Looking at the front page right now, I count maybe 4 items that are attempts at journalism. The rest are interesting subjects resurrected from 6+ years ago, tech guides, user-submitted questions/content, etc. The ones that seem like news items don’t really pertain to today’s hot news, they’re press releases from NASA etc.
HN is a discussion board, and the topics are almost always relevant to my career and interests. I mostly read the comments though. HN informs discussions I have with people at work and tech-related decisions in and out of work. I think it’s worthwhile.