Weapons of Mass Distraction
Baratunde Thurston disconnected from all social media platforms for twenty-five days as part of a personal experiment. By the end of the first week, he noticed that the quietness of his daily life felt disorienting but he already felt less stressed about not feeling obligated to know as much about current events. After twenty-five days, he claimed the end came far too soon but he needed to reactivate his social media accounts to continue his current works.
Social media and other digital tools splinter our attention which continuously limits our ability to concentrate. More irresistible distractions deplete stores of willpower by wasting your energy fighting against them. To expand your ability to work deeply, you must regain control of your own attention by taking control over distractions.
"Internet sabbaticals" such as Thurston's experiments are extreme solutions to the problem but returning to old habits of constant scrolling only takes a moment. Instead of following extreme withdrawals from a bad habit, change the bad habit by learning to control your personal usage of social media and digital tools. These digital tools can be beneficial to your productivity if you are more considerate and mindful of which sites you allow to consume your time, attention, and energy.
In his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport discusses the value of social media in an "Any Benefit Mindset." In such a mindset, any foreseeable benefit provides just cause for the continuation of service usage for a platform, even if the cons outweigh the potential benefits. Social media is designed to be addictive and eventually wears down your ability to sustain attention.
In addition, most platforms take your attention away from more important tasks. In contrast, he also mentions the "Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection" wherein users only use a particular tool or platform if the benefits outweigh the potential harms. Skilled craftsmen carefully assess a tool before applying it to their trades, much as a knowledge worker should assess digital tools before adapting them. The goal of such an approach is not to undermine the benefits of a tool or make inferences about good and bad technology, but to offer a calculated approach to adopting these tools.
The first step in this approach is to identify your top priorities, both professional and personal. Then, identify and elaborate on activities that will best help you achieve these goals. The final step is to weigh the impact of the digital tools and platforms against these activities, only keeping the tools that are significantly benefits to your goals. All endeavors deplete the same amount of stored willpower and attention, regardless of their benefit, so less important activities take away from your priorities.
Newport suggests the following experiment: disconnect from social media for one month, without announcing that you will be disconnecting on these platforms. During this time, note to yourself if your time would be better spent with these platforms and if people noticed your absence. If you respond with "no" to both, he suggests you delete your accounts permanently from these platforms. If you answered "yes" to both, they probably benefit you in some way. If the answers are unclear, do more research before continuing the use of these programs.
Media companies spend great deals of money and effort to convince us that we will miss out on important events without social media because they rely on our attention for revenue. Social media makes us feel like people want to hear what we have to say and this can be powerfully addicting to most. These platforms offer the positive reward of attention without producing truly valuable work. Further still, entertainment-based sites steal your attention with catchy titles and easy content, usually mined through algorithms to offer us the most attention-capturing content. The consistent use of these minimizes our ability to resist distraction and makes concentration more difficult.
Large tech and media companies market their platforms as a "foundational technology" that everyone should use to fit in. Most users sign into apps without a purpose in mind since social media platforms are designed to be vague, allowing the program's engineers to easily hook your attention. Most tech companies object to users filtering through the most beneficial services of their products. Mobile versions of social media platforms, which offer your attention as revenue, are better at capturing your attention. Forcing yourself to log onto these platforms via a web browser allows you to use only the features you deem most valuable. Compared to Thurston's aforementioned internet sabbatical, Newport recommends beginning with removing social media apps from your smartphone. Many people who did so claimed they stopped using social media entirely while others claim they now use these platforms for specific purposes.