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Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

amirsharif.com

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Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#11

Post by jampa »

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.

That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.

I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#12

Post by milofeynman »

androng wrote: post #5

I invested in META stock because I have an addiction to instagram and the tracking is so good that the ads are actually tailored to me and my desires so my CTR is i think 7% on average. contrast with YouTube and Google and Twitter where I block all the ads because the CTR is 0.00% because they are all garbage. Instagram keeps showing me ads for expensive stuff I don't need but I do want, like meal kits and fancy clot…

I've found the same. I actually enjoy Instagram ads. I despise almost every other ad I can think of.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#13

Post by candiddevmike »

bcoates wrote: post #3

The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore. Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up. Likewise, the reaction…

I wish Chrome had timers for specific websites on mobile. I hate the all-or-nothing Chrome timer, it's ridiculous and so counter intuitive.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#15

Post by candiddevmike »

jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

Most MFA solutions can use a FIDO token these days (unless the admins are masochists), which you could keep plugged into your device

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#16

Post by sothatsit »

fnord77 wrote: post #4

> Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster. this contradicts thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng

This is a stat from a pretty interesting study: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44522772

I quite like it actually because although I do use AI, I think you really do have to be careful about how you use it to avoid wasting more time than it saves when you run into a problem and insist on getting the AI to fix it instead of doing it yourself. It is very easy to fall into this trap of trying to get AI to do everything, because our brains are hardwired to avoid effort, and so we use it even when AI is not appropriate.

The biggest time saver for me with AI is to really try to avoid the round-and-round with AI and instead just get AI to take the first pass, maybe some small follow-ups, and then I take it from there and complete the task manually. AI can be a significant time-saver in that first pass at the problem, but after that you can waste so much time trying to get AI to fix something small that you could fix yourself in 5 minutes. And this can be especially damaging because it is less effort to use AI, so we don't necessarily notice when we are wasting time due to our own cognitive biases, which I think this study does a good job of pointing out.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#17

Post by robotic »

jimbob45 wrote: post #2

I can’t abide by that last claim. AI has been able to fetch some dead Microsoft documentation for me that I was not able to otherwise find through the regular channels. The code would have had to have looked very differently if not for AI.

Mixed bag for me. I spent a day running in circles working on a github action based on lots of very bad info from chatGPT. I also just reviewed a PR that allowed for remote function execution. The dev that wrote the code has been very open about their use of AI. He thought it was good because he wasnt thinking.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#18

Post by satvikpendem »

jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

This might defeat the purpose of MFA but I use an authenticator like Ente that works on the desktop and syncs to and from your phone.

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#19

Post by [deleted] »

bcoates wrote: post #3

The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore. Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up. Likewise, the reaction…

[deleted]

Re: Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival

#20

Post by jampa »

candiddevmike wrote: post #15
jampa wrote: post #11

> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours. I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one…

Most MFA solutions can use a FIDO token these days (unless the admins are masochists), which you could keep plugged into your device

Most banking apps here only allow their own app as a 2-factor authentication, not even TOTP is allowed. (I think they make it to increase user engagement.)

The worst one is Mercado Libre, which also requires you to use your phone to "scan" your face every time you log in with a new device. My friends were locked out due to having an allergy or growing a beard. Nowadays, I don't even bother with them... I just shop elsewhere.

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