Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#171

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #155

jacobkg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming's Closed Door Paradox: I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do i…

[deleted]

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#172

Post by sdfmxiid1 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #79

lkrubner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" This struck me as humble-braggy, and not particularly enlightening. " But it is true. I'll save my criticism for things that are false, or utterly banal. And people at the beginning of their career might not fully realize how much things change when their career takes off. It's worth saying.

The thing that's false is the implication that careers will certainly / deterministically take off. Especially in academia there are more people who both want a certain role and are qualified for it than roles. If you happen to stumble into the right path - maybe some particular research interest of yours in graduate school happens to line up with someone who just retired at a good university, and so there's an openi…

I had a similar reaction. It strikes me a bit as part of the rampant survivorship bias that happens all the time in contemporary society. As in, I worked hard and things worked out, therefore if you work hard things will work out, and if you didn't, you weren't doing something valuable or working hard enough.

I don't know that I disagree with the author so much about social media platforms like Facebook per se, but I disagree with some implicit premise they're making.

The reason why things like blogs and social media presence are advertised so much is precisely because "value" really means something like perceived value, which depends on things like awareness. That is, it's not really so much whether or not what you do has value, its whether or not people are aware of you and perceive it as having value. So to get eyeball time, you need to put yourself out there.

I'm also a tenured professor, and what I increasingly see is popularity driving things, rather than value. That is, the rigor of academic work seems less and less important than the splashiness of it. The colleagues I know whose careers have taken off have done so precisely because they manipulate the social aspect of it--they're politicians more than scientists or mathematicians.

In this regard, there seems to be something disingenuous and dangerous about the general sentiment being expressed. To me, it generally seems to be dismissing the sociopolitical aspect of how we reward work, sweeping it under the rug, which will only worsen our problems.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#173

Post by walshemj » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #18

It advice where the answer is "it depends". Are you a police officer? Trial attorney? Inspector General? You almost certainly should not be on social media, or exclusively posting baby pictures and acting within defined guidelines from your employer. Are you a teacher? librarian? social services worker? union steward? public sector employee not covered by collective bargaining? You should be very cautious about shari…

When I worked at BT a few years ago one of the only rules was don't post on uk.telecom :-) and I assume alt.2600 (SD would have a fit as would the alt.2600 users)

Though at one time I was going to post on behalf of my employer (the press office asked me) on alt.2600 about the MET Police getting VMB'd - but our internal security vetoed that :-(

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#174

Post by walshemj » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #25

amha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have different opinions. There's no homogenous voice of authority that tells people what to do and what not to do.

These aren't "opinion" articles. Their findings are reasoned and presented like facts. If the NYT wrote "Quit eating chocolate, your health may depend on it", would you perceive it as an opinion, or advice based on facts/research?

mm but Newspapers compete with Social Media not the same thing.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#175

Post by kolpa » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #155

jacobkg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming's Closed Door Paradox: I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do i…

1.5% chance of a 5-20years cancer-induced loss is an expected gain of at most 4months of life, in exchange for giving up not just bacon but all "processed meat" for an entire lifetime, while also taking care not to replace that meat with any other carcinogens such as sugar.

It's not a "single disrupted morning"

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#176

Post by walshemj » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #11

as a millennial its almost impossible to apply for a job that doesnt quietly scan through social media trying to find you. My last job sent a linkedin request from the HR director, but after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the internet. My current job went so far as to browse the TLD for my email address for clues to any seditious or non-conforming behaviors.

Which is treading on very thin ice legally even in the USA a professional HR person would advise against it.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#177

Post by kolpa » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #165

jacobkg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

We all convinced Grandma and Uncle Phil to stop sending those emails that end with "forward this email to 5 people today, or you will have bad luck". Unfortunately, they now put the exact same amount of thought into resharing some crap they find on Facebook about government conspiracies, and whatever political party is opposite of theirs.

And Cousin Nancy and Brother Mohammed and Daughter Svetlana. It's not an 'old people' disease, it's an anyone disease.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#178

Post by 9889095r3jh » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

zombieprocesses wrote: post #157

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

> Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? You are confusing a propaganda campaign against social media with actual news. Also keep in mind that the author of the Op-Ed was pushing a book he was writing. Billions of people have a healthy relationship with social media. Just like billions of people have a healthy relationship with alcohol, food, working out, tv, sports, cars, etc. But it…

Why would the elites try to reign in social media? If I were an "elite" I'd want everyone to be on social media, except me. I'd want them revealing all the intimate details of their life, so I can better manipulate them with targted advertising.

You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain the recent uptick in articles about social media's negative effects. It's called a news cycle. People write stories about things people are talking about. All year, Social Media has been in the spotlight for privacy blunders and news that nation states spread propoganda with bots. So people like Cal Newport are talking about it.

Remember when lead was discovered in Flint, MI's water supply? And then there was an uptick in stories about lead poisoning? That's how news works, for better or worse.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#179

Post by ovao » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #126

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

> If I wouldn't do something in public, I wouldn't post it to social media. Not everyone has that freedom. Gay people in rural Alabama, women in the UAE, undocumented immigrants in Arizona. People fleeing abusive spouses. > Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? Doubtful, but you are a person who doesn't face serious consequences for existing.

Employers should already know whether an Arizona employee’s status is illegal or not, as this is required by law.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#180

Post by snarfy » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #62

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

> I can keep my dad updated to what I've been doing without having to call him.

I can't. Some algorithm at Facebook has deemed my posts not worthy enough for his feed. If I could keep up with life events on it I would still use it. But I can't. My news feed looks like chain mail from grandma.