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Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

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Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#151

Post by douche »

philipodonnell wrote: post #61
jdietrich wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I agree with the sentiment elsewhere in these comments that the solution isn't to completely delete your accounts (I think they can have some value when used in moderation) If social media really is addictive, then moderation might not work. Most alcoholics aren't capable of having just one drink, most smokers aren't capable of having just one cigarette. Absolute prohibitions are cognitively much easier than moderat…

You may find this article interesting that criticizes the abstinence-based approach of Alcoholics Anonymous. Research has shown that cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing and medication to control withdrawal symptoms is more effective for a large population than absolute prohibition. In fact, I wonder if there are medications that address withdrawal symptoms from social media? https://www.google.com…

The weirdest thing about AA, to me, is that it is supposed to be about not letting alcohol control your life, but then it prescribes that you devote every free waking minute to thinking about not thinking about alcohol.

I met a number of people that had just traded one addiction for another. They were AA-meeting-addicts.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#152

Post by neom »

Veen wrote: post #35
hashtagMERKY wrote: post #31

This part really resonated with me: > Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit…

> I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.

+1 - Deleted everything else but HN is sooo good and I can trick myself into it being relevant because it's mostly about the future. :\

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#153

Post by dcposch »

hashtagMERKY wrote: post #31

This part really resonated with me: > Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit…

> Maybe deleting the native apps and using the webapps will raise the barrier to entry high enough that I'll only use them when there's actually something I want to do on them.

That's worked pretty well for me. Also check out Kill News Feed and Kill Tweet Stream to avoid distraction if you need to use eg Facebook events or Twitter DMs.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-tweet-stream/...

--

> Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive.

Absolutely. App companies like FB and Twitter are on a constant quest to eat up as much of your time as possible, in pursuit of metrics like "daily active users" (they want you there daily) and "average session time" (they want you there as long as possible).

Ultimately, they're maximizing ad revenue. An hour of your time spent feed scrolling is worth about 10 cents to Facebook.

https://blog.dcpos.ch/the-distraction-industrial-complex

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#154

Post by gurkendoktor »

hashtagMERKY wrote: post #69
Veen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.

If I'm honest, I'm exactly the same: I'm on HN right now to avoid my matlab coursework. While HN doesn't feel like it's designed for distraction in the same way FB and Twitter are, it does seem to have the same effect: there's a reliable, constant stream of content that's vaguely stimulating. I think this is the combination that's so addictive. It feels as though your brain enters a lower energy state where content i…

HN also has the noprocrast settings. I've set the parameters to enforce an optional habit of reading HN once a day (usually after work). It works quite well.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#155

Post by pault »

mysterypie wrote: post #103
Veen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.

The actual inventor of Hacker News, Paul Graham, hasn't commented for over a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg Considering that he was very very active on HN in the past (karma 155077), I wonder what his reasoning is to cut back?

He was active, but the reason his karma is so high is that everyone has an upvote spasm when they see PG comment.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#156

Post by pault »

fabiandesimone wrote: post #113
mysterypie wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual inventor of Hacker News, Paul Graham, hasn't commented for over a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg Considering that he was very very active on HN in the past (karma 155077), I wonder what his reasoning is to cut back?

Well, the quality of the discussions on HN have taken a dive dramatically since about a year and a half. So maybe he just doesn't feel theres much to comment these days.

People have been saying that for the entire 6 years I've been reading HN.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#157

Post by dorfsmay »

CydeWeys wrote: post #33

I sort of agree, but at the same time, I don't use social media to advance my career. I use it to keep in touch with friends, which is important because I moved away from most of them two years ago.

I agree with you but find it hard to use social media for that, because people mix personal news with politics, religion, jokes etc...

The worse being twitter, a lot of people retweet so much junk.

The best being reddit, because by picking subreddits you can read about specific topics with a very low noise ratio.

What we need is a social media that is only about personal news.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#158

Post by erichocean »

hashtagMERKY wrote: post #31

This part really resonated with me: > Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit…

> Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive.

Might as well add (modern?) gaming to the list—it has the exact same property.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#159

Post by djsumdog »

Veen wrote: post #35
hashtagMERKY wrote: post #31

This part really resonated with me: > Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit…

> I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.

I use Google/FB just for the IM. I rarely ever read status updates.

But when I get frustrated on a problem or am knee deep in technical debt, you can be I'll flip over to Hacker News.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#160

Post by djsumdog »

erichocean wrote: post #158
hashtagMERKY wrote: post #31

This part really resonated with me: > Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit…

> Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. Might as well add (modern?) gaming to the list—it has the exact same property.

..and movies, books and TV?
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