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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

#271

Post by behnamoh »

mohsinr wrote: post #232
ricardobeat wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN offers this functionality itself. Go to your profile, enable 'noprocrast' and customize the intervals.

Didn't know this. Thanks a ton for this. Awesome I just enabled it. Oh funny thing I found I was wrong about showdead setting there... I had assumed if I wanted myself to be declared dead/offline I could set my profile to show dead.. lol

> Oh funny thing I found I was wrong about showdead setting there... I had assumed if I wanted myself to be declared dead/offline I could set my profile to show dead.. lol

What's its functionality?

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

#272

Post by jccalhoun »

The general message is good: stop procrastinating and actually work (which is what I should be doing instead of mulling over the wording of this comment). The way it is written, however, is less than ideal because it has entirely too many unsupported claims. Without evidence it isn't a solid argument.

For example: "My second objection concerns the idea that social media is harmless. 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 of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom."

I know it is a newspaper article and not an academic paper but I still need evidence to make me believe these claims are true. I've read people claiming that we are becoming more distracted but I haven't read that the ability to not be distracted is becoming more valuable. Similarly, while I've read claims that social media is addictive but not that it is engineered to be so.

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

#273

Post by erikbye »

A sensationalist headline... The article actually read more like: stop wasting time. Sure, if you spend too much time on social media, reduce the time spent.

As someone who, years ago, implemented a lot of change to improve my life; here are some thoughts:

If you want a better, and more meaningful life, figure out what (and who) in your life is detrimental to your quality of life. Then rid yourself of those elements.

Second, enumerate everything (and everyone) you spend time on that adds no value--eradicate those elements from your life.

Make no mistake, these can be two very big, strenous and time-consuming tasks; which might need to be planned out in detail--as in how you will rid yourself of each element. The hardest part will usually be to "quit" detrimental people. But once you are done, boy, will your life improve.

When these two steps are done, you have been rewarded more time, not simply given, but earned. In the case of social media, I think I read that the average (globally) time spent is at something like 2 hours per day! If social media is one of those things either detrimental to you, or that adds no value, and you are an average user--then you just freed 14 hours per week.

Imagine if you took up a new hobby (do you even have one? many don't), something that actually improved quality of life, 14 hours a week learning a new instrument, or learning to draw, or write, or ski. That is a lot of time. Novel activities are good for your brain!

Another thing I have observed, especially in the age of social media--but it's not new, just seems worse now--is that a lot of young people need to learn how to be alone. Some people are hardly never alone. They have to learn this before they can learn to concentrate.

If you are like me, an introvert, you are probably alone a lot (if you are not, that can drain you of energy), but one thing you probably need to learn is to cut down on multitasking. It's not good for your brain (learning, memory) or body (stress), it's not good for productivity.

Sorry for rambling.

For the record: I barely use social media; I have inactive accounts here and there.

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

#274

Post by tedmiston »

Reedx wrote: post #178
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.

Same here. Although I never got pulled in by Facebook and only a little with Twitter, I did with Reddit and especially Hacker News. HN is the one where I find myself checking several times/day and I constantly have 20+ HN tabs. The pattern is something like this: 1) "Oh, interesting topic!" 2) Open in a tab 3) Read existing comments & the link (I don't always do the latter, admittedly) 4) Come back N hours later, rea…

I have replaced (2) with Shift-Click, which is Add to Reading List on a story link in Safari. It works better to preserve attention for me. I end up not reading 90%+ of what sounded interesting from the front page on first glance.

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

#276

Post by echelon »

kraftz wrote: post #236
tinbucket wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Lobsters? I'm curious about the thing that's helped you wean yourself off tech news, but googling it hasn't helped.

https://lobste.rs/

If someone has an invite, may I have one? No worries if not. (Sorry for the off-topic spam.)

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

#277

Post by tedmiston »

dalbasal wrote: post #264
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…

Makes me think of this: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

The very last sentence really resonated with me.

> Sounds pretty eccentric, doesn't it? It always will when you're trying to solve problems where there are no customs yet to guide you. Maybe I can't plead Occam's razor; maybe I'm simply eccentric. But if I'm right about the acceleration of addictiveness, then this kind of lonely squirming to avoid it will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things done. We'll increasingly be defined by what we say no to.

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

#278

Post by nickpsecurity »

tinbucket wrote: post #213
sotojuan wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About half an hour on Sunday mornings and 10~ mins the second session, but I'm slowly making that as close to 0 as possible. One thing that's helping is Lobsters. Lobsters is super slow so if I do make a full switch from HN to that I only need to check it a handful of times a week. But to me, it's not so much about how much time I spend on the time but rather the why . I simply don't get as much value out of HN as I…

What is Lobsters? I'm curious about the thing that's helped you wean yourself off tech news, but googling it hasn't helped.

I'm on both. HN has a more diverse community and array of content. There's just a ton of stuff on here. That can up the noise for many people but one must simply filter it in their head more effectively. I only click on a few links on the front page with occasionally looking at New and 2nd-3rd pages to see if readers and I would benefit from me bumping one up.

Now, Lobste.rs is different. They're a small community with a narrower focus on mostly tech stuff. They have relatively low noise with a preference for deeper insight on tech. You'll see more writeups on algorithms than product releases for instance. They also have an open-source website and open moderation log. A bit radical on occasion like where owner JCS just got rid of downvotes to experiment if upvote-only would keep quality without total censorship.

Definitely check out the articles over there on top of the ones here. The comments especially as people often say something there that someone here overlooked or vice versa.

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

#279

Post by skybrian »

There are browser extensions to block websites, but I think a more subtle approach might help: add latency.

Social networks spend a lot of time optimizing performance because they know how much it increases traffic. So it seems like a browser extension that adds a bit of latency and gradually ramps it up for the websites you choose could help to reduce the impulse to check too often.

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

#280

Post by grzm »

eternalban wrote: post #246
grzm wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Will wearing a t-shirt with "I heart America" get you fired at GrubHub? It's on Matt's list of no-nos: nationalist." Nationalism and expressing love or pride in one's country (patriotism) are two different things, I think. They can be felt simultaneously but can also be expressed separately. Nationalism focusses more on cultural background, language, and heritage, which "I ︎ I don't know how all of this will shake o…

> Nationalism and expressing love or pride in one's country (patriotism) are two different things I would agree that they are distinct, but very much related. > Nationalism focusses more on cultural background, language, and heritage, which "I ︎ Ok, then, how about this t-shirt of Mickey/Heart/Flag: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/155866837074483117/

"I would agree that they are distinct, but very much related."

Sure. If they weren't, you wouldn't have put forth the example you did.

"how about this t-shirt of Mickey/Heart/Flag:"

I don't understand what you're getting at (nor am I interested in defining the working attire policy of GrubHub). My point was that there can be a meaningful distinction between nationalism and wearing a "I <3 America" T-shirt, which it looked like you were equating. If you have a point, please make it.

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