I was listening to an interesting Ted Talk recently. The talker, Triston Harris, formerly of Google, spoke about the increasingly psychological tactics these companies throw upon us in order for their products to succeed. He alludes to a room filled with a hundred workers, each holding little dials. These people have the ability to shape a billion people's thoughts and feelings. It seems to be something from a Dystopian film. However, Harris admits that he has been apart of this very room.
The picture above is perhaps a good illustration. The vast majority associate fireworks with new beginnings, change and celebration. Placing a firework image at an opportune time in an advertisement could have significant effects. I began to discuss this with my family. Down the windy rabbit hole we went, Morpheus would have been proud. Thinking about the pros and cons of technology, the conclusion was that although there is a tremendous amount of availability for knowledge, the chances of immersion have severely decreased.
Immersion in a subject is the way we learn. Many of my classmates have gone on to forge careers in disciplines that they never studied for. I'm a firm believer that you are your best teacher. Our knowledge is only limited by effort to understand the topic at hand. As Harris proclaims, all technologies are seeking our most valuable of resources, time. Did I mention they're damn good at it? Facebook is designed in such a way that information we did not go looking for, incredulously finds its way into our craniums. YouTube throws us video after video with the auto play feature. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stated that their biggest competitor was the need for sleep.
So what can we do to extend our immersive qualities rather than continue to tumble down the rabbit hole of declining attention capacity? The first item on the agenda must be to adapt our patterns for home we run our lives. Being aware of a cause is one thing, placing barriers between these media outlets and your time is another. I recommend reading, which I discussed last week. In fact, Microsoft released a study in 2015 suggesting that the average human focus length was 8 seconds, less than a goldfish. With mental stamina in such a decline and knowledge immersion suffering as a byproduct, time needs to be spent addressing the methods to best avoid this.
1. Keep the Phone in Lockdown and Shut off Social Media
The basic one. Set aside time either on your morning commute or towards the end of the day to answer anything pressing, especially work related emails. If you struggle to do this, build up slowly overtime. Keep in mind that studies have identified the human brain takes 20 minutes to fully sync into the task at hand. We are suited toward working on something for a duration of time, rather than broken up periods resulting every 5 minutes or so. In addition, working effectively may increase the efficiency of your work and decrease the number of hours needed in office.
2. Recognise the Correct Environment for Your Needs
This is something I've recently been playing around with. I know that I struggle to work in places where I can actively hear discussions taking place. Be that as it may, it also appears that dead silence lends itself to inefficient working habits. For me personally, I perhaps need to settle for the mean (the library seems a good place). Find out what suits you and stick with it.
3. Exercise Body and Mind
Our minds are a tool that if we don't provide information to, like an untrained muscle, it'll go to waste. Engaging discussions, puzzles and crosswords can provide the push up that your mind was after. Additionally, training the body can help increase the attention span. Focussing on a specific goal, something as simple as swimming out to that buoy or running to that post, can help train yourself to sustain focus. The recent study published by Progress in Cardiovascular Disease attributed one hour of running to an increased life expectancy of seven hours! If you need more reason, you're a tough Steemer to please.
For those interested, you can watch the Ted Talk or visited Harris' website for more thoughts on Designer Ethics.