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I think that a lot of serendipitous moments created by social media have actually helped me move towards my goals. Not directly, but by giving me new perspecti

I think that a lot of serendipitous moments created by social media have actually helped me move towards my goals. Not directly, but by giving me new perspectives and ideas that bounce off my current perspective and ideas to create new ways of thinking about things. My perspective now is that too much focus is a bad thing because it comes at the expense of broadening your perspective. Reddit I agree is low signal, but I think Twitter is high signal depending on who you're following.

alecco 5y ago
> Twitter is high signal depending on who you're following. The signal might be good but is it the signal you should be focusing on? There is an amazing amount of interesting stuff being discovered all the time. But is it helping you achieve concrete goals? With Twitter I see a trap. Say you work on implementing/using <Knowledge Domain X> and follow exclusively people doing similar work. They will also share things outside this domain. Since 2016 almost all science twitter users became highly political. And there is no way to filter this out. This is a feature for Twitter and the like. They profit by making you emotional and going a rabbit hole of impulsiveness.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  > The signal might be good but is it the signal you should be focusing on? There is an amazing amount of interesting stuff being discovered all the time. But is it helping you achieve concrete goals? My point is that putting everything through the filter of "does this directly help me achieve my goals?" isn't the best way to pursue your goals, assuming we're talking about big goals where the path to achieving them isn't clear. I recommend checking out this podcast episode called "Why Greatness Cannot be Planned". It really changed my perspective on achieving my long term goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E Also on Twitter, yeah some people don't only tweet things in their domain. But I've found that some people do reliably stick to a single domain. Though I don't really follow science people on Twitter.
thealig 5y ago
I think even Reddit can be "high SNR" depending on the sub reddit. Some subreddits dedicated to specific topics like (eg. compilers, webdev, machinelearning etc) provide updates on industry trends/practices, interesting projects/ideas/papers and you can ask for help for issues you face. Though I do agree that it can be a time sink and not really productive as much as browsing makes you feel.

alecco 5y ago

> Twitter is high signal depending on who you're following. The signal might be good but is it the signal you should be focusing on? There is an amazing amount of interesting stuff being discovered all the time. But is it helping you achieve concrete goals? With Twitter I see a trap. Say you work on implementing/using <Knowledge Domain X> and follow exclusively people doing similar work. They will also share things outside this domain. Since 2016 almost all science twitter users became highly political. And there is no way to filter this out. This is a feature for Twitter and the like. They profit by making you emotional and going a rabbit hole of impulsiveness.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
> The signal might be good but is it the signal you should be focusing on? There is an amazing amount of interesting stuff being discovered all the time. But is it helping you achieve concrete goals? My point is that putting everything through the filter of "does this directly help me achieve my goals?" isn't the best way to pursue your goals, assuming we're talking about big goals where the path to achieving them isn't clear. I recommend checking out this podcast episode called "Why Greatness Cannot be Planned". It really changed my perspective on achieving my long term goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E Also on Twitter, yeah some people don't only tweet things in their domain. But I've found that some people do reliably stick to a single domain. Though I don't really follow science people on Twitter.

thealig 5y ago

I think even Reddit can be "high SNR" depending on the sub reddit. Some subreddits dedicated to specific topics like (eg. compilers, webdev, machinelearning etc) provide updates on industry trends/practices, interesting projects/ideas/papers and you can ask for help for issues you face. Though I do agree that it can be a time sink and not really productive as much as browsing makes you feel.