6 ms·

This ignores mountains of evidence that shows realtime, synchronous communication makes you less productive due to reducing (or eliminating) your ability to foc

by melted 11y ago

This ignores mountains of evidence that shows realtime, synchronous communication makes you less productive due to reducing (or eliminating) your ability to focus.

wesleyy 11y ago
Do you have any sources? Not trying to be a dick but this sounds interesting.
- acjohnson55 11y ago
  As an anecdote, this has definitely been my experience. And it's compounded by having numerous different media: phone, text, GroupMe, Slack, email, Facebook, Hangouts, and so on. At this point, there's not a single service anybody can use to immediately reach me, because I've pretty much conditioned myself not to read anything until I feel ready to be distracted. It's a mess.
- gregcoombe 11y ago
  There are some interesting links in this recent Economist article: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21688872-fashion-making-employees-collaborate-has-gone-too-far-collaboration-curse http://www.economist.com/news/business/21688872-fashion-maki... Example quote: "... interruptions, even short ones, increase the total time required to complete a task by a significant amount." Including a book I'm going to check out, "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World"
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
morgante 11y ago
It seems to be built primarily around asynchronous communication, not synchronous.
- melted 11y ago
  It's only asynchronous is you have willpower, which is finite and easily exhausted, and if there's no expectation of realtime response on the other end, which there nearly always is these days. Whoever comes out with a viable system that is explicitly async (like mailman, or a good secretary) will really benefit humanity.
  - morgante 11y ago
    It's like normal Facebook, which I don't think even the biggest of addicts treat as a synchronous system. The entire structure of the application is for you to post and consume updates at different times. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that Facebook is synchronous when the entire power of News Feed (and what makes Facebook so much more powerful than Facebook) is its ability to keep you updated without requiring constant real-time attention.
    - spinchange 11y ago
      It does not require constant attention, but in fact it is addictng for users and people do sit and refresh their feeds for extended periods of time, watch the live activity stream on the side, or engage in chat, etc. Facebook wants you to spend a lot of time on Facebook and optimizes for this. They do not expect people to quickly check the site and leave and I would suggest most people don't do that. Or they they do, but they do it so repeatedly (continuous partial attention) it's even worse. Edit: I would just add that in an environment where every site action has some kind of real time notification tied to it, the async nature/expectation is greatly diminished. Especially in a work context. And so now you have to add 'good job!' and water cooler type notifications to that cognitive overhead too.
  - tmail21 11y ago
    Check out TMail21 ("Power Threads for Teams". It is explicitly designed as an asynchronous communication platform. Furthermore, it is being integrated into all of the chat services like Slack, Hipchat etc. to avoid balkanization between chat and asynchronous communication.
afarrell 11y ago
I actively block Facebook at work with /etc/hosts and I would continue to do so if my workplace installed this.
- melted 11y ago
  And so do I, along with Reddit and a few other sites. Should probably add HN to the list as well.
  - afarrell 11y ago
    two recommendations: - Momentum for Google Chrome fixes the 'new tab' page so that it shows you what you want to focus on today rather than what you frequently get distracted by. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfknpbbblfpciffpaejjkokdgca?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn... - SelfControl for OSX blocks sites for a specified period of time. https://selfcontrolapp.com/ https://selfcontrolapp.com/
    - melted 11y ago
      Whoa, a Chrome extension that doesn't require a permission to read everything everywhere. That's something I haven't seen before.
  - halviti 11y ago
    I would recommend RescueTime so you can see exactly where your time goes and how much time you spend on certain websites, etc.
- bertil 11y ago
  I’ve used RescueTime and Freedom at work before joining Facebook, and Facebook at Work when I worked there, and you can filter between the work and the personal services quite effectively with a basic filter.
ljk 11y ago
this is targeted towards people who like open-office ;)
raverbashing 11y ago
Absolutely. The biggest offenders which are: people talking on the phone or talking directly to other people when there are other tools for the job or even worse, synchronously engaging several people at the same time (meetings)
bertil 11y ago
Facebook at Work actually allows for longer-term communication that are still fairly dynamic and contextual. There is a chatting system (Messenger) but most of the interactions happen through threaded comments in groups.

by melted 11y ago

This ignores mountains of evidence that shows realtime, synchronous communication makes you less productive due to reducing (or eliminating) your ability to focus.

wesleyy 11y ago

Do you have any sources? Not trying to be a dick but this sounds interesting.

acjohnson55 11y ago
As an anecdote, this has definitely been my experience. And it's compounded by having numerous different media: phone, text, GroupMe, Slack, email, Facebook, Hangouts, and so on. At this point, there's not a single service anybody can use to immediately reach me, because I've pretty much conditioned myself not to read anything until I feel ready to be distracted. It's a mess.
gregcoombe 11y ago
There are some interesting links in this recent Economist article: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21688872-fashion-making-employees-collaborate-has-gone-too-far-collaboration-curse http://www.economist.com/news/business/21688872-fashion-maki... Example quote: "... interruptions, even short ones, increase the total time required to complete a task by a significant amount." Including a book I'm going to check out, "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World"
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

morgante 11y ago

It seems to be built primarily around asynchronous communication, not synchronous.

melted 11y ago
It's only asynchronous is you have willpower, which is finite and easily exhausted, and if there's no expectation of realtime response on the other end, which there nearly always is these days. Whoever comes out with a viable system that is explicitly async (like mailman, or a good secretary) will really benefit humanity.
- morgante 11y ago
  It's like normal Facebook, which I don't think even the biggest of addicts treat as a synchronous system. The entire structure of the application is for you to post and consume updates at different times. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that Facebook is synchronous when the entire power of News Feed (and what makes Facebook so much more powerful than Facebook) is its ability to keep you updated without requiring constant real-time attention.
  - spinchange 11y ago
    It does not require constant attention, but in fact it is addictng for users and people do sit and refresh their feeds for extended periods of time, watch the live activity stream on the side, or engage in chat, etc. Facebook wants you to spend a lot of time on Facebook and optimizes for this. They do not expect people to quickly check the site and leave and I would suggest most people don't do that. Or they they do, but they do it so repeatedly (continuous partial attention) it's even worse. Edit: I would just add that in an environment where every site action has some kind of real time notification tied to it, the async nature/expectation is greatly diminished. Especially in a work context. And so now you have to add 'good job!' and water cooler type notifications to that cognitive overhead too.
- tmail21 11y ago
  Check out TMail21 ("Power Threads for Teams". It is explicitly designed as an asynchronous communication platform. Furthermore, it is being integrated into all of the chat services like Slack, Hipchat etc. to avoid balkanization between chat and asynchronous communication.

afarrell 11y ago

I actively block Facebook at work with /etc/hosts and I would continue to do so if my workplace installed this.

melted 11y ago
And so do I, along with Reddit and a few other sites. Should probably add HN to the list as well.
- afarrell 11y ago
  two recommendations: - Momentum for Google Chrome fixes the 'new tab' page so that it shows you what you want to focus on today rather than what you frequently get distracted by. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfknpbbblfpciffpaejjkokdgca?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn... - SelfControl for OSX blocks sites for a specified period of time. https://selfcontrolapp.com/ https://selfcontrolapp.com/
  - melted 11y ago
    Whoa, a Chrome extension that doesn't require a permission to read everything everywhere. That's something I haven't seen before.
- halviti 11y ago
  I would recommend RescueTime so you can see exactly where your time goes and how much time you spend on certain websites, etc.
bertil 11y ago
I’ve used RescueTime and Freedom at work before joining Facebook, and Facebook at Work when I worked there, and you can filter between the work and the personal services quite effectively with a basic filter.

ljk 11y ago

this is targeted towards people who like open-office ;)

raverbashing 11y ago

Absolutely. The biggest offenders which are: people talking on the phone or talking directly to other people when there are other tools for the job or even worse, synchronously engaging several people at the same time (meetings)

bertil 11y ago

Facebook at Work actually allows for longer-term communication that are still fairly dynamic and contextual. There is a chatting system (Messenger) but most of the interactions happen through threaded comments in groups.