I actually asked myself if I had some kind of social shortcoming in my inability to filter all the information from media like Facebook and Twitter. It didn’t take long for me to neglect my Facebook account and eventually disable it, this was some years ago. There was this constant feeling of social inability until I read ‘Deep Work’ by Cal Newport some months ago.
Deep Work is written to give tips on creating your (work) focus, something I had increasing trouble with. He describes several ways to disable the amount of distractions around you when you strive to focus. One of these things is reducing the use of social media for entertainment. Others are clustering menial tasks together to create opportunities for longer stretches of focused work.
During my work I often hear colleagues and students complaining that it is hard to focus. Something I completely understand; our schedules often don’t support deep work. However, I am a bit surprised that so little people realize the influence of their social media addiction. Smartphones are abundantly in sight during my lessons and sadly often get more attention than the teaching material. It is my opinion these small black mirrors take way to much of our time.
I would like to recommend Cal’s book to anyone, some things are a bit obvious but I’m glad he put it to paper…there are a lot more social media critics out there than I realised. Something which has become abundantly clear since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Somehow, I can’t stop wondering if there is a Bond villain lurking in the shadows of Cambridge Analytica.