If it were somehow formalized, I’d be 0% surprised to see that HN is particularly bad from a distraction point of view. Other sites, I know with perfect certainty that I am going there to waste time. Here, there is a chance that I’ll actually come across something legitimately useful.

It is like Pavlov’s bell—the important part being the randomness, of course.

I always find it funny to see, on any social media site, “I’ve quit almost all social media sites, except this one.” Well, we have successfully identified which one was most addictive I guess.