It seems to me that you're critical of people that use strategies other than "try harder" to accomplish their goals. You are essentially opposed to the use of tools here.
You've admitted that you aren't a stranger to procrastination - is it the case that you never procrastinate or get distracted now, because you just found more willpower? That sounds unlikely to me.
At any rate, if you accept that willpower is a finite resource (I haven't seen you dispute this), the real issue is simple. You think strategies to conserve willpower use more of it than they give back, I think that the effort they consume is outweighed by the effort they save throughout a working day. It depends on the strategy, of course - I tried the pomodoro approach for a while and found that the complexity and overhead of using it was too much of a burden to maintain. However, there are some other things that I have found which "pay for themselves" consistently.
Lacking a useful way to quantify willpower, it would be hard to test this objectively, but it really isn't difficult to test it subjectively in life. Try a day (or week,or month) using a strategy, and see how it works. If you are happier and/or feel more productive in one scenario, go with it. In my experience, I get a lot more done when I focus on a few simple techniques that limit distraction, so it suggests that these efforts to conserve willpower are worth it. You might experience the opposite, but if you haven't really tried it, your arguments are baseless conjecture.
My claim is that it takes basically the same amount of willpower not to open a browser as it does not to click on a bookmark or link and saying "have the willpower to close your browser so you won't go to facebook" is no better and less useful than saying "have the willpower not to go to facebook", because if you can do the latter, it means you can still use your browser for productive things.
Thanks for being clear about what you are saying. I think that your claim is fundamentally neglects all the things we know about human behavior. Willpower is a finite resource (lots of research supports this) and we know that different kinds of tasks use more or less of it.
Sometimes I have surplus willpower, and these indirect strategies and tricks to keep myself focused are unnecessary. Those times are usually when I'm well rested, have an interesting project in front of me, and meaningful deadlines that give me a sense of urgency. If I've got boring work, distant or nonexistent deadlines, or I'm exhausted because of outside commitments or because my kids kept me up much of the night, then I need to conserve willpower and find ways to get myself to work on things when my "short term gratification" impulse is harder to ignore.
Sure, it is more parsimonious to just use the willpower directly, but that is sort of like questioning the point of a bicycle when walking is simpler and can, in principle, get the job done. Additional complexity can be more effective and efficient, and I'd argue that's the case here as well. Using our understanding of the human mind and how it operates seems to be a better approach than expecting everyone to brute force their way to perfect discipline.
I tried closing my browser down entirely when I need to get work done, for instance. Leaving it minimized proved too distracting, as the temptation to click over to email or slashdot is too strong. Having it closed all the way down makes it marginally more inconvenient, enough so that I don't indulge my distraction nearly as often.
I can give you lots of specific examples of my approach to beating distraction. You haven't given me a single one yet for your version. It still sounds to me like nothing more than "try harder".
The PICTURE of the dress is in fact a very pale blue color, with a brown/dark gold color. The PICTURE itself (at least on CNN) is not blue/black.
The point is, this doesn't help us solve the problem. Because very pale blue color (on the monitor) could be gotten by capturing an image of white in the shade, or washed out dark blue. Or lots of other more obscure and less likely ways.
Trying to "analyze" this with photo editors misses the point - this is an optical illusion borne out of artifacts in human vision processing. It isn't a physics or technology problem.
I use a color sensor to calibrate my screen for any production work, which I do occasionally (although not as much as I once did) as a professional photographer. Our brains lie to us, and the "actual" color displayed on screen is next to meaningless. That's what this whole illusion is about - regardless of the color on the screen, we can interpret it to be dramatically different "real" colors, based an the assumptions we make subconsciously about the context of the image.
By the way, I can see it both ways. Just look at it and imagine the dress is in a shaded alcove with incandescent lighting. Then, imagine that it is a shiny dress with bright yellow light on it. All I have to do is tell myself one or the other of these scenarios and I can see it blue/black or black/gold.
Really, the whole point here is that efforts to "analyze" this with photo editors misses the point - this is an optical illusion borne out of artifacts in human vision processing. It isn't a physics or technology problem.
It isn't about the camera's white balance. It is about the light on the dress, and the lack of sufficient context to determine exactly which light the dress is in. Is the dress in the shade, with a blown out background from a different light source? Or is the dress in the same blown out golden light as the background? The brain can choose one way or the other - if it prefers to think the dress is in the shade, you see white and gold. If your brain thinks it is washed out by the yellow-ish light, you see black and blue.
If you REALLY understand photography, you are well acquainted with the fact that outdoor light (shade especially) is dramatically more blue than incandescent light. If you've got both in the same scene, you get problems like this, and there's no good choice for the camera to make. This is why there are things like gels for flashes, because it isn't a problem with the way the photons are processed by the camera, it's the fact that physics delivers very different photon wavelengths from on object depending on the incident light source.
The GIMP doesn't really mean anything, because what's at play here is our mental perception of color. White snow in the shade has a distinct blue tone if you look at it in a photo editor, but that doesn't mean that it is blue. Really, we've got that exact phenomena going on here - the colors could be adequately described two different ways, white and gold dress in the shade (blue-ish light) or blue and black dress in incandescent light (gold-ish). It's really a matter of interpretation.
Of course you could, but what's more likely - some elaborate scheme to create a viral controversy that's tied to no obvious material benefit, or a picture that just happened to be taken with a shitty cellphone that gets interpreted differently by different viewers? What's more, lots of people looking at exactly the same image, at the same time, on the same device (for instance, my wife and I) came to opposite conclusions.
The summary and linked xkcd comic do a completely accurate job explaining the phenomena, no conspiracy theories required.
That's the point - apparently some amount of people DO listen to the advice in the astrology column. Dispensing useful, data-driven advice would certainly be better than dispensing random advice, yes?
Training yourself not to be distractable (as opposed to training yourself to avoid distractions), is in my opinion a better investment, because you get the added benefit of being able to use computers.
How do you do such a thing? I'm not aware of any reliable way to develop such a skill - it sounds to me like saying "learn to have unlimited willpower".
There was a study a while back that suggested that placebo effect worked even if people were fully aware it was a placebo. So you tell people it is bullshit, but tell them to keep doing it anyway because it will still make them feel better.
See, I was thinking (hoping) this was a brilliant move by the national health system. Embed actual, good advice based on medical statistics but do it through the astrology column in the paper. For instance, encourage people to stay in at night when there's a new flu strain sweeping around, or on a night prone to partying and drunk driving. Discourage people from eating unhealthy foods, or encourage extra exercise. Suggest saving money, or suggest avoiding a traditional but injury-prone activity.
There are a lot of social phenomena that are undesirable yet predictable as clockwork, statistically speaking. If you have a significant portion, even a few percent, of the population that listens to and enacts astrological advice, you could sneak in a real and tangible public benefit that way.
One piece of advice I heard with respect to productivity is this: Decrease the number of steps between you and good habits, increase the number of steps between you and bad habits. Take Facebook, for instance. It offers enough value to me to maintain it, but despite the subconscious urgency I feel to check it, it offers very little benefit if looked at more than once per day. Reading a book on a tablet means I am at most two button presses away. Reading a book the old-fashioned way means that I have to get up, navigate towards the nearest tablet/computer/phone, unlock it, and open the Facebook app. The inconvenience means I'm less likely to give in when a momentary impulse strikes.
There's also plenty of research to support this, and on some level it is unquestionably true. What takes more willpower: avoiding the warm chocolate chip cookies sitting on a plate in front of you, or avoiding the warm chocolate chip cookies at the store 5 miles away?
The point being, I enjoy pursuing activities with distraction minimized. Reclining with a paper book and a glass of bourbon is infinitely more relaxing than squinting at a screen and pushing buttons. My focus is maintained because the device I am holding performs a single primary function which I am singularly devoted to.
As to this question:
Do you get rid of all your phones and computers?
No, because I find these things to be very useful and often enjoyable, but they can sometimes present distractions that prevent me from doing more useful, more enjoyable things. Technology is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. A variety of strategies are out there for making sure that you aren't mastered by it, and I don't think that one kind should be more highly regarded than another.
What the climate will do then is still anybody's guess, because we cannot predict climate and do not understand climate and the climate is perfectly capable of starting an ice age with CO_2 several (as many as 10 to 20) times as high as it currently is (it has done so in the past, in the Ordovician-Silurian transition).
You know what defines transition periods between eras in geology? Extinction events, typically. This particular one was the second-worst in known history. Dramatic changes in the environment are typically thought to cause these extinction events, as is the case here. So, the fact that an extreme event can counter gradual changes does not in any way lend support to your belief that global warming is not a problem. We would see sudden and dramatic cooling if we suffered an asteroid impact that clouded the atmosphere with dust - this doesn't negate that global warming is occurring, it means a dominant effect happened to counteract a more subtle and slow-acting one.
It's like saying you should quit your job and buy a lotto ticket because you know somebody who won the lottery. Just because we've seen someone become stupendously rich without effort doesn't mean that working for a paycheck is pointless. Similarly, just because we've seen a time period where the greenhouse effect was overwhelmed by dominant cooling effects doesn't mean we can count on the same thing happening and disregard CO2 levels.
There is good discussion to be had about global warming and what our response to it ought to be, but this particular example is not a valid objection.
Here's the thing: avoiding distraction while using a medium full of distraction requires constant vigilance. On the other hand, you can make a good decision once, when you decide to pursue an activity, to cut out distraction and then you require no more willpower. This is useful for people who have more willpower at certain times than others, which is all of them as far as I can tell. Set things up well when you are motivated, so that you won't falter when you are tired/stressed or otherwise have your discipline compromised.
I think it would be great to just maintain 100% willpower all the time and just succeed at things because I want it bad enough, but I've tried that many, many times and it doesn't work for me. Instead, creating an environment that subtly promotes the activities I truly value and makes the impulsive but unsatisfying time-wasters inconvenient seems to reliably help me do more of the things I care about long-term.
I agree - I fit in the generation that most people would consider "digital natives", but many or most of my peers are pretty clueless about technology (just like most people in all generations). Proficiency with technology doesn't come from using foolproof user interfaces, particularly with entertainment devices. It comes from using technology to do productive work efficiently, and understanding the tools available to you to that end. Very few people are very advanced in this, when you consider how ubiquitous digital tech really is.
Perhaps. Or you could say that perhaps these people are more aware of distraction and take specific measures when they don't want it to intrude. Or do you think that procrastination and distraction are unique to the 30 and under crowd?
In the last month I read 3-4 novels, which is pretty typical. No e-reader here. Although, I don't disparage people who prefer e-readers, I just find plain old paper books work for me. One big reason is that I really enjoy trips to the library. I enjoy browsing physically because I get exposed to a greater variety of books I might be interested in (Amazon recommendations, for instance, seem to repeat themselves), and because checking out 3-4 books in a trip gives me just the right level of urgency to help me stay motivated to read books instead of leaving them sitting on the shelf.
As a counterexample, I got a tablet and one of the first things I did was load up the Kindle app and all sorts of interesting public domain and free books, and I've made it through half of one book before getting frustrated with the format and giving up. I also have no sense of urgency for any of it because there are thousands of books available to me but no deadline.
Just saying - I read quite a bit and I really enjoy doing it the old-fashioned way.
"Digital Native" is one of the dumber buzzwords I've heard recently. It seems to amount to nothing much more than knowing how to use an iPod. I know plenty of people who grew up with technology and still use it like novices, and 70-year-olds that know all the shortcuts and use computers productively all day long. Being able to use an interface that was explicitly designed to be foolproof isn't something to be proud of. Understanding the real potential of digital technology (like automation and information processing) and being able to leverage it is something that most generations seem to be equally bad at.
I read quite a bit, and while I've got some interest in picking up an real e-reader some time, the fact that the pages aren't really typeset (the layout changes based on font size) and there's no physical/spatial reference for the place in the book is a big turnoff for me. I've also found that having access to too many things at once (as in, basically everything that was published before ~1930) can ultimately damp my enthusiasm for reading. Having 5 or 6 real books that I've checked out from the library or used book store is enough for me.
I do fit into the Millenial generation, and honestly it seems to me that when I compare myself to my parents or grandparents, I'm more aware of and sensitive to the negative impacts of technology. I find that it is much easier for me to focus on writing with a pen and paper, for instance. I was talking with my grandpa recently, and he was talking about how he hardly had any time in the day because it takes him so long to keep up with email throughout the day. When I told him I opened up my schedule by ditching TV, he seemed like he had never even considered such a thing. As another example, my stepdad's mom is one of the worst people I know with phone etiquette - she's on her iPhone continually playing free-to-play games, even in the midst of family gatherings. Many people I know in the millenial generation will go out of their way to remove apps on their phones that are too time consuming.
The point being, I think millenials are more attuned to the negative aspects of technology, or rather, place more emphasis on the benefits (often intangible) of older technologies and will pick from the era that suits them. Or perhaps they just reject the notion of unidirectional progress, such that newer is always better. Consider the resurgence of vinyl albums, or the surging interest in "retro" gaming, or the entire steampunk movement - all of these things are driven by millenials, and are at least somewhat anachronistic. It's an interesting trend, and I think this apparent e-reader aversion is just one more example.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that you're critical of people that use strategies other than "try harder" to accomplish their goals. You are essentially opposed to the use of tools here.
You've admitted that you aren't a stranger to procrastination - is it the case that you never procrastinate or get distracted now, because you just found more willpower? That sounds unlikely to me.
At any rate, if you accept that willpower is a finite resource (I haven't seen you dispute this), the real issue is simple. You think strategies to conserve willpower use more of it than they give back, I think that the effort they consume is outweighed by the effort they save throughout a working day. It depends on the strategy, of course - I tried the pomodoro approach for a while and found that the complexity and overhead of using it was too much of a burden to maintain. However, there are some other things that I have found which "pay for themselves" consistently.
Lacking a useful way to quantify willpower, it would be hard to test this objectively, but it really isn't difficult to test it subjectively in life. Try a day (or week,or month) using a strategy, and see how it works. If you are happier and/or feel more productive in one scenario, go with it. In my experience, I get a lot more done when I focus on a few simple techniques that limit distraction, so it suggests that these efforts to conserve willpower are worth it. You might experience the opposite, but if you haven't really tried it, your arguments are baseless conjecture.
Note: Is anyone aware of a term for photos taken with electrons (or anything that isn't photons) ?
Electrographs?
My claim is that it takes basically the same amount of willpower not to open a browser as it does not to click on a bookmark or link and saying "have the willpower to close your browser so you won't go to facebook" is no better and less useful than saying "have the willpower not to go to facebook", because if you can do the latter, it means you can still use your browser for productive things.
Thanks for being clear about what you are saying. I think that your claim is fundamentally neglects all the things we know about human behavior. Willpower is a finite resource (lots of research supports this) and we know that different kinds of tasks use more or less of it.
Sometimes I have surplus willpower, and these indirect strategies and tricks to keep myself focused are unnecessary. Those times are usually when I'm well rested, have an interesting project in front of me, and meaningful deadlines that give me a sense of urgency. If I've got boring work, distant or nonexistent deadlines, or I'm exhausted because of outside commitments or because my kids kept me up much of the night, then I need to conserve willpower and find ways to get myself to work on things when my "short term gratification" impulse is harder to ignore.
Sure, it is more parsimonious to just use the willpower directly, but that is sort of like questioning the point of a bicycle when walking is simpler and can, in principle, get the job done. Additional complexity can be more effective and efficient, and I'd argue that's the case here as well. Using our understanding of the human mind and how it operates seems to be a better approach than expecting everyone to brute force their way to perfect discipline.
I tried closing my browser down entirely when I need to get work done, for instance. Leaving it minimized proved too distracting, as the temptation to click over to email or slashdot is too strong. Having it closed all the way down makes it marginally more inconvenient, enough so that I don't indulge my distraction nearly as often.
I can give you lots of specific examples of my approach to beating distraction. You haven't given me a single one yet for your version. It still sounds to me like nothing more than "try harder".
The PICTURE of the dress is in fact a very pale blue color, with a brown/dark gold color.
The PICTURE itself (at least on CNN) is not blue/black.
The point is, this doesn't help us solve the problem. Because very pale blue color (on the monitor) could be gotten by capturing an image of white in the shade, or washed out dark blue. Or lots of other more obscure and less likely ways.
Trying to "analyze" this with photo editors misses the point - this is an optical illusion borne out of artifacts in human vision processing. It isn't a physics or technology problem.
I use a color sensor to calibrate my screen for any production work, which I do occasionally (although not as much as I once did) as a professional photographer. Our brains lie to us, and the "actual" color displayed on screen is next to meaningless. That's what this whole illusion is about - regardless of the color on the screen, we can interpret it to be dramatically different "real" colors, based an the assumptions we make subconsciously about the context of the image.
By the way, I can see it both ways. Just look at it and imagine the dress is in a shaded alcove with incandescent lighting. Then, imagine that it is a shiny dress with bright yellow light on it. All I have to do is tell myself one or the other of these scenarios and I can see it blue/black or black/gold.
Really, the whole point here is that efforts to "analyze" this with photo editors misses the point - this is an optical illusion borne out of artifacts in human vision processing. It isn't a physics or technology problem.
It isn't about the camera's white balance. It is about the light on the dress, and the lack of sufficient context to determine exactly which light the dress is in. Is the dress in the shade, with a blown out background from a different light source? Or is the dress in the same blown out golden light as the background? The brain can choose one way or the other - if it prefers to think the dress is in the shade, you see white and gold. If your brain thinks it is washed out by the yellow-ish light, you see black and blue.
If you REALLY understand photography, you are well acquainted with the fact that outdoor light (shade especially) is dramatically more blue than incandescent light. If you've got both in the same scene, you get problems like this, and there's no good choice for the camera to make. This is why there are things like gels for flashes, because it isn't a problem with the way the photons are processed by the camera, it's the fact that physics delivers very different photon wavelengths from on object depending on the incident light source.
The GIMP doesn't really mean anything, because what's at play here is our mental perception of color. White snow in the shade has a distinct blue tone if you look at it in a photo editor, but that doesn't mean that it is blue. Really, we've got that exact phenomena going on here - the colors could be adequately described two different ways, white and gold dress in the shade (blue-ish light) or blue and black dress in incandescent light (gold-ish). It's really a matter of interpretation.
For another great example of just how confounding this effect can be: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
Of course you could, but what's more likely - some elaborate scheme to create a viral controversy that's tied to no obvious material benefit, or a picture that just happened to be taken with a shitty cellphone that gets interpreted differently by different viewers? What's more, lots of people looking at exactly the same image, at the same time, on the same device (for instance, my wife and I) came to opposite conclusions.
The summary and linked xkcd comic do a completely accurate job explaining the phenomena, no conspiracy theories required.
That's the point - apparently some amount of people DO listen to the advice in the astrology column. Dispensing useful, data-driven advice would certainly be better than dispensing random advice, yes?
I'm getting a hint of sarcasm. What objections do you see?
Training yourself not to be distractable (as opposed to training yourself to avoid distractions), is in my opinion a better investment, because you get the added benefit of being able to use computers.
How do you do such a thing? I'm not aware of any reliable way to develop such a skill - it sounds to me like saying "learn to have unlimited willpower".
There was a study a while back that suggested that placebo effect worked even if people were fully aware it was a placebo. So you tell people it is bullshit, but tell them to keep doing it anyway because it will still make them feel better.
See, I was thinking (hoping) this was a brilliant move by the national health system. Embed actual, good advice based on medical statistics but do it through the astrology column in the paper. For instance, encourage people to stay in at night when there's a new flu strain sweeping around, or on a night prone to partying and drunk driving. Discourage people from eating unhealthy foods, or encourage extra exercise. Suggest saving money, or suggest avoiding a traditional but injury-prone activity.
There are a lot of social phenomena that are undesirable yet predictable as clockwork, statistically speaking. If you have a significant portion, even a few percent, of the population that listens to and enacts astrological advice, you could sneak in a real and tangible public benefit that way.
One piece of advice I heard with respect to productivity is this: Decrease the number of steps between you and good habits, increase the number of steps between you and bad habits. Take Facebook, for instance. It offers enough value to me to maintain it, but despite the subconscious urgency I feel to check it, it offers very little benefit if looked at more than once per day. Reading a book on a tablet means I am at most two button presses away. Reading a book the old-fashioned way means that I have to get up, navigate towards the nearest tablet/computer/phone, unlock it, and open the Facebook app. The inconvenience means I'm less likely to give in when a momentary impulse strikes.
There's also plenty of research to support this, and on some level it is unquestionably true. What takes more willpower: avoiding the warm chocolate chip cookies sitting on a plate in front of you, or avoiding the warm chocolate chip cookies at the store 5 miles away?
The point being, I enjoy pursuing activities with distraction minimized. Reclining with a paper book and a glass of bourbon is infinitely more relaxing than squinting at a screen and pushing buttons. My focus is maintained because the device I am holding performs a single primary function which I am singularly devoted to.
As to this question:
Do you get rid of all your phones and computers?
No, because I find these things to be very useful and often enjoyable, but they can sometimes present distractions that prevent me from doing more useful, more enjoyable things. Technology is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. A variety of strategies are out there for making sure that you aren't mastered by it, and I don't think that one kind should be more highly regarded than another.
What the climate will do then is still anybody's guess, because we cannot predict climate and do not understand climate and the climate is perfectly capable of starting an ice age with CO_2 several (as many as 10 to 20) times as high as it currently is (it has done so in the past, in the Ordovician-Silurian transition).
You know what defines transition periods between eras in geology? Extinction events, typically. This particular one was the second-worst in known history. Dramatic changes in the environment are typically thought to cause these extinction events, as is the case here. So, the fact that an extreme event can counter gradual changes does not in any way lend support to your belief that global warming is not a problem. We would see sudden and dramatic cooling if we suffered an asteroid impact that clouded the atmosphere with dust - this doesn't negate that global warming is occurring, it means a dominant effect happened to counteract a more subtle and slow-acting one.
It's like saying you should quit your job and buy a lotto ticket because you know somebody who won the lottery. Just because we've seen someone become stupendously rich without effort doesn't mean that working for a paycheck is pointless. Similarly, just because we've seen a time period where the greenhouse effect was overwhelmed by dominant cooling effects doesn't mean we can count on the same thing happening and disregard CO2 levels.
There is good discussion to be had about global warming and what our response to it ought to be, but this particular example is not a valid objection.
This sounds like a pretty cool system to play around with. Do you need a HAM license? I assume you can use it sans smartphone?
Here's the thing: avoiding distraction while using a medium full of distraction requires constant vigilance. On the other hand, you can make a good decision once, when you decide to pursue an activity, to cut out distraction and then you require no more willpower. This is useful for people who have more willpower at certain times than others, which is all of them as far as I can tell. Set things up well when you are motivated, so that you won't falter when you are tired/stressed or otherwise have your discipline compromised.
I think it would be great to just maintain 100% willpower all the time and just succeed at things because I want it bad enough, but I've tried that many, many times and it doesn't work for me. Instead, creating an environment that subtly promotes the activities I truly value and makes the impulsive but unsatisfying time-wasters inconvenient seems to reliably help me do more of the things I care about long-term.
They do call it "robbing the hive", so at least they are honest about it.
I agree - I fit in the generation that most people would consider "digital natives", but many or most of my peers are pretty clueless about technology (just like most people in all generations). Proficiency with technology doesn't come from using foolproof user interfaces, particularly with entertainment devices. It comes from using technology to do productive work efficiently, and understanding the tools available to you to that end. Very few people are very advanced in this, when you consider how ubiquitous digital tech really is.
Perhaps. Or you could say that perhaps these people are more aware of distraction and take specific measures when they don't want it to intrude. Or do you think that procrastination and distraction are unique to the 30 and under crowd?
In the last month I read 3-4 novels, which is pretty typical. No e-reader here. Although, I don't disparage people who prefer e-readers, I just find plain old paper books work for me. One big reason is that I really enjoy trips to the library. I enjoy browsing physically because I get exposed to a greater variety of books I might be interested in (Amazon recommendations, for instance, seem to repeat themselves), and because checking out 3-4 books in a trip gives me just the right level of urgency to help me stay motivated to read books instead of leaving them sitting on the shelf.
As a counterexample, I got a tablet and one of the first things I did was load up the Kindle app and all sorts of interesting public domain and free books, and I've made it through half of one book before getting frustrated with the format and giving up. I also have no sense of urgency for any of it because there are thousands of books available to me but no deadline.
Just saying - I read quite a bit and I really enjoy doing it the old-fashioned way.
"Digital Native" is one of the dumber buzzwords I've heard recently. It seems to amount to nothing much more than knowing how to use an iPod. I know plenty of people who grew up with technology and still use it like novices, and 70-year-olds that know all the shortcuts and use computers productively all day long. Being able to use an interface that was explicitly designed to be foolproof isn't something to be proud of. Understanding the real potential of digital technology (like automation and information processing) and being able to leverage it is something that most generations seem to be equally bad at.
I read quite a bit, and while I've got some interest in picking up an real e-reader some time, the fact that the pages aren't really typeset (the layout changes based on font size) and there's no physical/spatial reference for the place in the book is a big turnoff for me. I've also found that having access to too many things at once (as in, basically everything that was published before ~1930) can ultimately damp my enthusiasm for reading. Having 5 or 6 real books that I've checked out from the library or used book store is enough for me.
I do fit into the Millenial generation, and honestly it seems to me that when I compare myself to my parents or grandparents, I'm more aware of and sensitive to the negative impacts of technology. I find that it is much easier for me to focus on writing with a pen and paper, for instance. I was talking with my grandpa recently, and he was talking about how he hardly had any time in the day because it takes him so long to keep up with email throughout the day. When I told him I opened up my schedule by ditching TV, he seemed like he had never even considered such a thing. As another example, my stepdad's mom is one of the worst people I know with phone etiquette - she's on her iPhone continually playing free-to-play games, even in the midst of family gatherings. Many people I know in the millenial generation will go out of their way to remove apps on their phones that are too time consuming.
The point being, I think millenials are more attuned to the negative aspects of technology, or rather, place more emphasis on the benefits (often intangible) of older technologies and will pick from the era that suits them. Or perhaps they just reject the notion of unidirectional progress, such that newer is always better. Consider the resurgence of vinyl albums, or the surging interest in "retro" gaming, or the entire steampunk movement - all of these things are driven by millenials, and are at least somewhat anachronistic. It's an interesting trend, and I think this apparent e-reader aversion is just one more example.
5th Edition is actually damn good. D&D is still much more of a household name than Pathfinder is (or probably ever will be).