Skip to main content
Post a Comment

Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain

Some of us have a different form of affliction, the opposite of what you describe, I code. Unlike your problem, it is based on an intense focus. The upside is that it pays well, and I tend to think of it as rewarding. There was a time that my work role was more of a team lead or project manager but wrote code as part of my work. At some point, the pull of solving problems and developing solutions was so at odds with my need to reach out to others, I had to choose, code or lead. I chose to code.

I won't claim to only focus since there are times that once I finish a block of some work, or get involved with something like a forum post, that I make a quick run through my social pages and news feed. To your point though, I still read books but tend to do it in a Pomodoro-style rotation, spending 20 to 25 minutes on each item. No longer can I find the intensity to read into the late hours, engrossed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/business/cell-phone-addiction.html?comments#permid=30770990

Some of us were lucky, as it relates to this problem, to have acquired our tech skills before the arrival of the mobile phone. Boomer focus tends to be more on internet-as-information, not entertainment, nor socialization. I do not mean this an absolute, but it is enough to explain why some of us have no issues with mobile phones and distraction since many of us are simply older and not mobile tech-savvy. Besides, designers and marketers have likely gotten smarter in their techniques, and many, maybe most, younger people get hooked on the behaviorist manipulation, reward and punishment, notification and withdrawal, that come with the always-on aspects of modern apps.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/business/cell-phone-addiction.html?comments#permid=30771753

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Meanings of Ender's Game

In response to an Ender's Game discussion (Goodreads), with a link from Reddit, I posted the following: Much of the Reddit stream seems to focus on military tactics, or the lack thereof, used by the Ender, but who reads Ender and thinks it about military tactics, except the 20-year old grunt that started the thread? For a book written in the 80's, then edited in the early 90's, it seems more prophetic, with its use of game immersion, remote military operations and portable computing. Then when you think about the use of children in military games, one can think somewhat more deeply about sociopolitical indoctrination.  The series itself becomes a broader exploration of empathy and foreign culture.  The criticism seems more like the problem of a man with a hammer, who thinks every problem is solved by hammering, but even worse, every problem is about hammering. An additional post, regarding suspension of disbelief: Some people commented on the suspension of disbelie...
Post a Comment
Read more

Accomplishments of Mayor de Blasio (as of December 2014)

I realized that de Blasio's accomplishments go unnoticed, primarily because affluent white people do not benefit from them. The benefits the mayor has brought are often corrections to the abuses of Bloomberg's, along with prior mayors', policies: Policing The NYPD conducts fewer stop-and-frisks. The city dropped its stop-and-frisk appeal. NYPD officers are starting to use body cameras. New York police officers are being retrained. Carrying a small amount of weed will probably result in a ticket, not an arrest. Teenage inmates are no longer put in solitary confinement at Rikers Island. The city has settled with the “Central Park Five.” Poverty There are 23 new homeless shelters in the city There's a new rent subsidy program for homeless families. More public housing units are available to homeless families. Traffic Pedestrian deaths are at a record low. The speed limit was lowered from 30 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour. There are harsher ...
1 comment
Read more

The Right to Write - NYTimes.com

In an article,  The Right to Write - NYTimes.com , I commented on the right to write, since writers are sometimes questioned on the validity of their writing, e.g., Harriet Beecher Stowe with Uncle Tom's Cabin: One, people always have the right to write, but readers concurrently have the right to reject said writing. Much personal criticism of depictions from writers is whether the depiction seems valid or plausible, but even that is an exercise in empathy, since it requires one to experience that depiction ideationally.  Two, there is a streak in Americans, and maybe anyone, that states that you cannot understand 'my pain', usually the death of a child or some horrific personal lose. Over a longer term I have sensed that people most easily accept empathy if it is expressed by someone with similar experiences, an aspect I believe is part of human nature. I find both irksome, since they deny empathy.
Post a Comment
Read more