FYI: Title of website reads: "A Call To Minimize Distration", should be: "A Call To Minimize Distraction"
A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
101–110 of 285 posts
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#102All I've heard for the past 12+ years is "engagement". The singular focus on that one word to the exclusion of everything else is astounding to me. As if it is some magic incantation on the part of BizDev (or whatever they're called these days) that instantly transmogrifies users into profits. At one company I worked at, we had a digital product that was part of a suite of services our company provided. It was useful…
We got to pitch a bunch of top VCs for a (wellness/health) consumer app that we were building and it made me really sick that the only thing that they cared about was engagement. DAU/MAU, time spent in app and growth were the only things that mattered.
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#103For other readers: this seems to be an internal google presentation made public to tell engineers to respect users' attention. I guess as a user of the website it didn't respect my attention enough to make me want to click through the whole thing. I dropped out after twenty or so clicks, having read less and less stuff after a few slides.
If anyone wants the plain text transcription of the slides, this site appears to have that:
https://digitalwellbeing.org/googles-internal-digital-wellbe...
>"A Call to Minimize Distraction and Respect Users’ Attention."
>"by Tristan Harris."
>"I’m concerned about how we’re making the world more distracted. And my goal with this presentation is to create a movement at Google to create a new design ethic that aims to minimise distraction and I’d like to get your help."
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#104I think the first thing they could do is make ALL notifications on Android opt-in.
Most notifications that I get are SPAM.
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#105This presentation is wonderful for its PR value "people here care" but naïve bordering on malicious in its approach and understanding of Google's business. 11 years ago PG called the iPad the "hip flask" of the internet (1) and it's 10x worse today than it was then. The incentives of every major ad-supported tech platform are the same - maximize engagement to maximize profit. Every dollar of profit, every promotion,…
Your comments make no sense to me in relation to Google. Google of all companies seems to follow this rule of no distractions. which of their apps/services does anything to distract and waste your time? At least for me gmail, photos, docs, Android, maps, are all good stewards of not distracting me. Compare to Twitter that's always trying to get me to follow people they want me to follow ans giving me no way to opt ou…
Youtube?
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Presentations like these assume people are dumb animals not being able to control their lives You're vastly underestimating the potential to exploit human nature. Just by being here ranting like this shows that the topic bypassed your rational executive function and fired up your sympathetic nervous system.
> You're vastly underestimating the potential to exploit human nature. Human nature were exploited for thousand years, and humans are still doing fine. I didn't see strong arguments why current megacorp mind control is worse than usual. > Just by being here ranting like this shows that the topic bypassed your rational executive function and fired up your sympathetic nervous system. I didn't get it. Are you stating th…
> Human nature were exploited for thousand years
"Collective behavior provides a framework for understanding how the actions and properties of groups emerge from the way individuals generate and share information. In humans, information flows were initially shaped by natural selection yet are increasingly structured by emerging communication technologies. Our larger, more complex social networks now transfer high-fidelity information over vast distances at low cost. The digital age and the rise of social media have accelerated changes to our social systems, with poorly understood functional consequences. This gap in our knowledge represents a principal challenge to scientific progress, democracy, and actions to address global crises. We argue that the study of collective behavior must rise to a “crisis discipline” just as medicine, conservation, and climate science have, with a focus on providing actionable insight to policymakers and regulators for the stewardship of social systems." - Stewardship of global collective behavior https://www.pnas.org/content/118/27/e2025764118 [emphasis added]
> Are you stating that commenting here is irrational? Or that my arguments are irrational?
Neither. Just that your attention is here, not on your work, your family, your hobbies, or literally anything else that deserves your attention.
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#107A shameless-because-related plug: https://www.reddit.com/r/patient_hackernews/ A Hacker News mirror biased in favor of thoughtful discussion, by enforcing that you cannot comment on something in less than 24 hours. This might help you spend less of your attention on Hacker News, by: 1. Showing you a subset of hot posts 2. Enforcing high response delays (thus suppressing the impulse to frantically refresh for new comm…
I've been dying for a tool like this. Just want to sort hacker news by week / months. So I could stop checking everyday. Will give feedback
"Just want to sort hacker news by week"
HN has hidden functionality for that:
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#108This was made in 2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Harris
thanks for this info. I recognize him now from the Social Dilemma movie.
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#109(2013)? come on
plenty of discussion more recently than that about the topic:
The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098847
We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26207184
My year with a distraction-free iPhone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251334
The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643928
GhostWriter is a distraction free Markdown editor https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26252472
Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)
#110Off topic: Snakes creep the hell out of me and I can't even look at my computer if there is an image and these slides have 4 or 5 of them.