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The distraction society
- patio11 16y agoDisable email notifications and check your email on a defined schedule. It is one of the quickest ways to improve your productivity. (I do it when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep -- this tends to minimize wait times for customers in America.)
- driekken 16y agoAlso, doing customer support before going to sleep serves as a wonderful soporific :)
- nooneelse 16y agoShining a light in your eyes (the basis of many a type of screen) isn't, though. It can muck with your circadian rhythm (that is the basis of bright light therapy). There are some timer programs that automate turning down screen brightness in the evening..
- amix 16y agoB.F. Skinner has done a lot of research in reinforcement and one of his findings is that intermittent rewards beat predictable rewards - both for animals and humans. It's the basic principle of why slot machines are addictive and why we get addicted on getting the next "email fix". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement Kathy Sierra has written on how this theory applies to Twitter, which is worth a read: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/is_twitter_too_.html http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/0... Solving this issue is probably hard since it's followed by humans and animals... So it must be programmed deep into us.
- nooneelse 16y agoAside from the old-school methods for developing willpower and prudence, I suppose we could try some pharma paths to altering behavior and the reward pathways. What about something like a low dose of Ritalin (low enough to just encourage focus, not force it) and then a time released reward circuit promoter to positively reinforce the focused behavior pattern that the Ritalin helped bring about. Tie the focused behavior to some sensory stimulus (Pavlov's Buddhist attention bell) by association. Then, over time, make the positive reinforcement a bit random and intermittent to exploit that same hook you mention and back down the Ritalin dose to zero as the behavior pattern takes good root. (In retrospect, maybe I learned the wrong lessons from Brave New World. :-)
- gwern 16y agoSerendipitously: http://lesswrong.com/lw/27o/antagonizing_opioid_receptors_for_prevention_of/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/27o/antagonizing_opioid_receptors_fo...
- amix 16y agoI think there is a simpler solution than using drugs. Like noted above Skinner found out that random rewards are much more addictive than predictable rewards. So to make something less addictive you need to make rewards more predictable. So the tip about checking email (or whatever) a few times each day or in specified intervals is generally good as this will make rewards more predictable and less addictive.
- jamesbritt 16y ago"What about something like a low dose of Ritalin (low enough to just encourage focus, not force it) " One, finding the right dosage is a trick all by itself; two, Ritalin does not force focus. It ups the level of dopamine available to the brain. An improved ability to focus may be one of the results, but (sadly) it's not so predictable.
- nooneelse 16y agoRitalin was just a stand-in that had the right connotations for the discussion. Something that plays the role of enabling/encouraging focus. The real point was surrounding that state of focus with a turned-up reward system, and then using the random rewards to get the person hooked on getting and staying in the desired focus state.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- driekken 16y agoAccording to a 2007 study by Loughborough University academic, Thomas Jackson, most of us reply to e-mails immediately - many within six seconds. Then it takes at least a minute to recover our thoughts. Not long after, more e-mails arrive, with more checking, and so on. While reading the article I caught myself not remembering for a while what it is that I am currently working on :)
- boredguy8 16y agoAny discussion on this topic really should include Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" (1985), in which he argues Huxley's "Brave New World", rather than Orwell's "1984", more accurately portrays the future dystopia against which we must be on guard. http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourse...
- adulau 16y agoGood point, Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is really a good reference about our "entertaining society" and especially his concept "Information-Action" ratio. As our society is evolving into fast/ephemeral information and often really distanced from our reality. The effect of this irrelevant information which is limiting our real actions. Another good reading on this topic is the work of Guy Debord especially "The Society of the Spectacle" where is explaining the degradation of social life due to the spectacular media.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoFirst person that types tl;dr gets a pie in the face
- epochwolf 16y agotl;dr
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoAll out, drat you. All I have left is this this sucky golden ratio doohickey, something Euler sent over, and a stack of these things from Feigenbaum. Hard to make a pie with any of that.
- realitygrill 16y agoniiiice. Though I'm pretty sure I'm missing something here.
- anamax 16y agoMmm, pie.... What kind?
- robryan 16y agoThe worrying thing is this isn't the first time I've though about the irony of getting distracted from what I'm doing by reading an article on distraction.
- rosshudgens 16y agoI'm getting distracted by the sheer number of people talking about how they got distracted while writing a distraction article. We get it. Added irony, reading this article instead of working. Subtracted irony, writing that sentence after writing the above paragraph.
- kirill_blazhko 16y agoThis problem strongly influences people who try to start a business. Unfortunately many of them tend to be distracted heavily due to the fact that building a new business is a tough task and they irrationally avoid it. The more hard (or mind intensive) work you have to complete the more willpower you have to use to not to be distracted.