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Drowning in a Sea of Information

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Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#51

Post by nextos »

50CNT wrote: post #26
peff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid I actually agree with your list; I think the inverted pyramid is really about prose construction in an age where print space was at a premium. We can be a lot more free with formatting or redundant information (if it is clearly marked as such) on the web. I mostly wanted to point out that the concept is not new, but as far as I can tell, it has been pretty much forgotten…

I've been reading some academic papers recently and taking notes in org-mode. What I find is that a lot of information expressed in solid paragraphs becomes a lot easier to parse once you convert them into an appropriate list, tree or graph structure. A surprising amount of the text I've been reading is lists that have some relation ("x is used in x_1,...","x consists of x_1,..."). This ties in to authors deciding to…

Great idea. With the flexibility of org-mode, you could even turn those notes in spaced repetition flashcards using org-drill.

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#52

Post by graeme »

Posting as this may be of use to others. The article led to me reorganizing my phone.

The author recommends something called Infomagical, which is a five part podcast aimed at reducing digital distraction.

Haven't tried that yet, so I can't comment. But day two is phone reorganization. You can see a preview of the process here (not my site):

http://www.kennethbills.net/blog/infomagical

Basically, you move all your apps to folders, move them off the home screen, and then open them with spotlight (I think Ok Google would be the android equivalent?)

I've tried a few different distraction reduction methods, and none stuck. But this one appealed to me because that's actually exactly how I use my computer. And it works well. I just never thought to apply it to my phone.

So I:

  1. Moved all apps to folders, on the second page
  2. Identified the four apps with the highest signal to noise. For me, that was whatsapp, messages, google now (I use it logged out), and calendar. Choose whatever you like – the important bit is that none of those have proven compulsive for me
  3. I set my background to a nice nature scene near where I live
  4. I also turned off most notifications, except those for messages and whatapp. None of the other phone notifications were actually important. For things like Slack and Trello, I usually see those on my computer.
One guiding principle is that I should not be doing most things on my phone. I'm significantly more productive, say, answering email on my computer. So I should mostly do it there. I don't have the kind of work where I need to respond to anything within 1-2 hours, so this works.

Obviously, I just tried this, so I can't know if it works long run. But it's what I already do on my computer, so I suspect it will work better than past attempts. My phone already feels calmer.

Link to infomagical itself: http://project.wnyc.org/infomagical/

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#53

Post by [deleted] »

overcast wrote: post #28
karpodiem wrote: post #24

Recently quit twitter other than to @ at people directly. Was never a heavy user a Facebook, but came to conclusion that checking it once a day was sufficient. No more RSS - just typing in HN, The Register, and TheVerge a few times a week to catch up. I listen to music instead of podcasts; Apple's Beats 1 station and some local jazz/classical stations. This has worked wonders for my latent anxiety. I finally feel fre…

I took it a step further, and just closed the majority of my social network accounts. The main culprit being Facebook. I also put away the phone on the charger before bed, and don't pick up until after my day has started. Now I read more books, go on long hikes, and have more time for my personal projects.

[deleted]

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#55

Post by rdiddly »

"You got played, son."

The people who profit from your attention have tried like hell to insert themselves in your life and to make the experience as addictive as possible. "Surprisingly," this turns out not to be in your best interest.

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#56

Post by tunap »

VLM wrote: post #37
welanes wrote: post #14

One of the best articles I've read on this topic is here: https://next.ft.com/content/009050e4-75ea-11e2-9891-00144fea... "we overvalue new writing, almost absurdly so, and we undervalue older writing. I feel this market failure keenly each day when I recommend a fine piece of writing that deserves to be read for years to come and yet will have at most two days in the sun. You never hear anybody say, “I’m not going t…

Generally I don't watch the nightly network news. Experimentally I've tuned in. It lives in a parallel universe, very weakly connected to reality. One has to invest many hours in its fictional narrative to make any sense of it, much like you don't tune into episode 50 of a pop culture TV show and understand any of it. You're no better educated given one episode of the nightly news than you are when given one episode…

If you think that's bad, do not read USA Today. It reads like the target audience is the 5th grader bracket... only more naive & gullible.

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#57

Post by sochihi »

hrc2 wrote: post #50
henrik_w wrote: post #9

I can recommend "Deep Work" by Cal Newport. Made me realize how distracted I am, and how much can be gained by focusing on "deep" work. A quick read, but describes the problem and coping-strategies well.

A great companion to "Deep Work" is "Hooked". The second is more of a how-to guide to developing products that become habit-forming. But in seeing how it's done, there's the potential to free yourself from it's grasp. After reading these books, OP's article feels a little under-researched. Content aggregators like HN, Reddit, Pinterest, and Twitter are essentially using reality as a content generation algorithm. The…

Who's the author of "Hooked"?

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#58

Post by 50CNT »

mbrock wrote: post #41
50CNT wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been reading some academic papers recently and taking notes in org-mode. What I find is that a lot of information expressed in solid paragraphs becomes a lot easier to parse once you convert them into an appropriate list, tree or graph structure. A surprising amount of the text I've been reading is lists that have some relation ("x is used in x_1,...","x consists of x_1,..."). This ties in to authors deciding to…

I've been thinking similar things. Also, diagrams are underrated. Maybe "reading" is a low tech invention that we just don't have the patience for anymore. Instead we want to "explore" a theory or network of statements or social graph. It's pleasant to click around in Wikipedia and get a sense for how different topics relate, but reading the (often turgid and boring) prose seems like work.

I have to admit, diagrams are a bit harder to do in text, especially interconnected graphs. That said, I could imagine something that uses triples to define a rendered graph, similar to how RDF for the semantic web works. Say

     #BEGIN_GRAPH
     'Paul Graham' founded YC 
     'Sam Altman' leads YC 
     YC funded AirBnB
     YC funded Reddit
     AirBnB  Accommodation
     #END_GRAPH
Leads to a graph like

      [Paul Graham]----founded----->[YC]------funded----->[AirBnB][Accommodation]
      [Sam Altman]-----leads------->[  ]            `---->[Reddit]
Now that could be prettier, but I am too lazy to copy and paste box drawing characters. With a simplified form like that, all the data is in the form of subject predicate object sentences, which makes for easy parsing. The data could also be fed into a diagram making application like yED for pretty graphical output.

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#59

Post by Bartweiss »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #45
Bartweiss wrote: post #39

First, I would note that this is one of the better pieces about attention problems and information overload. Far, far better than a work like Shallow , which weighs down a handful of actual insights with a vast collection of grumpy "good old days" rhetoric. Having said that, I think the piece misses one key motivation for "TLDR culture": most online content is terrible. It is very bad and often non-obviously bad. If…

I totally agree. I've noticed this in my own reading pattern - when I'm linked to an on-line article, I first skim it very fast to identify if there's even anything worth reading in it , and if I determine that there might be, I go back to beginning and start reading. It's a pattern born from experience - I've wasted way too much time reading through articles only to discover half-way that they could (and should ) be…

I first noticed that when I realized that I wasn't doing it with familiar authors. If Bruce Schneier posts something, I'll dive right in without skimming, but if "random Medium user" posts something it gets a TL;DR treatment first.

Re: Drowning in a Sea of Information

#60

Post by zodPod »

sosuke wrote: post #2

I think that if there were a clear outline at the beginning of articles, essays or blog posts like this I might waste less time trying to skim them for the point. I didn't read nearly enough of it to find the author's point but personally I've started skipping over content that doesn't present clear goals up front. If I want suspense, mystery and surprise endings I read fiction. I would think that "Deep Reading" isn'…

I'm with you! I complain about this a lot. You go to an article looking for say "A recipe for Kombucha" and, instead of a recipe for Kombucha, you find 6 paragraphs about how great Kombucha is and how the writer's kids love helping them make it and how easy and fun it can be and why it's good for you and stuff.

NO. I came here for a Kombucha recipe not to read this fluff crap.

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