DISTRACTION-CONSEQUENCES,CAUSES,REMEDIES

 

Need to know

          You are working on a really important research paper.AND’TING’goes the phone.You rush to find out ‘what’? Required?

Do you  receive messages that have a drop-everything-and-answer urgency to them?

And once u look at one ,aren’t you tempted to read one and all?Fear you will miss out on something you”ought to know”?

FOMO in my view is the biggest cause of distraction.

Nir Eval in his work ‘’indistractable’’ says that ‘’We’re blessed with pocket-sized supercomputers that connect us to anyone and everyone, and a buffet of information. But there’s a dark side: those same gadgets distract us, often at the moments that matter most.’’

‘’We blame the , smartphones-but they didn’t invent distraction . Before that, we blamed television. And before that, it was the telephone, or comic books, or the radio. Go back more than 2,000 years, and Socrates was even criticising the written word, for causing ‘forgetfulness in the learners’ souls’.One study in 2014 showed that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a smartphone resting on a table is enough to change the character of their conversation.’’ ‘digital detox’. – banish all the technology from your life, is not the answer.

Nir tells us we literally CREATE DISTRACTION- the laundry that needed to be folded right now, THE desk that needed to be tidied-up this minute.

Distraction COULD BE DUE TO  boredom, loneliness, insecurity, fatigue and uncertainty. These are the internal triggers –that prompt you to find the comfort of distraction and open a browser tab, Twitter or email, instead of focusing on the matter at hand. Distraction, in other words, is a symptom of a problem – not the problem itself. Those deeper and systemic reasons – such as an inability to cope with fear, anxiety or stress – deserve our concern, because it’s only when we start to address them that we can make real progress. When we begin to understand what we’re trying to avoid by clicking over to Twitter or checking the news for the 10th time today, we can begin to address the issue itself, and not medicate it through more distraction. We also begin to appreciate how habitual the act of avoiding discomfort via distraction can be, and how much it’s become a part of how we work and live.

Writing in 2001, the American psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues observed: ‘If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances.’ If we didn’t feel bad, in other words, we’d never achieve good.But chronic obsession with this can lead to second biggest cause of distraction in my view;FOBO:FEAR OF BETTER OPTIONS.

 

1.Self-explore

Identifying the triggers that made you feel bad in the first place requires self-exploration.

Whatever approach you take to address your inner triggers, it’s encouraging to note that merely recognising uncomfortable feelings and identifying them could be beneficial.

2.Define your priorities

3. ‘Hack back’ against external triggers

It means regaining a measure of control over your work environment and your information inputs – giving yourself the maximum time and room for focused work.

4.Plan ahead

Forethought is the antidote to impulsivity: you can use a ‘precommitment’ to a particular course of action to exert a powerful influence on your future behaviour.

 

Concluding-

Eval does not accept that digital platforms are capturing our attention, wrecking our relationships and hijacking our brains. In my view heavy use of social media reduces attention span’ .

But I agree when he says that ‘’ technology is not inherently good or bad. It has to do with how much tech you use, who is using it, what they are doing, and what they would be doing instead of using it.’’

Thankfully, technology companies are waking up to the need for a more balanced relationship with the devices and services they’ve created. It’s why you’re seeing features such as ‘Screen Time’ as defaults mobile products

Finally, and most importantly,  remember that it’s up to you not them. You don’t have to wait for Apple to release a software update or for Google to change how its browser is built for you to focus on what you ought to focus upon.

 

Ack:Nir Eval and other researches

TECHNO UTOPIA:THE IMMINENT DANGER

 

Techno-utopianism  is any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology could and should bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal.

A techno-utopia is therefore an ideal society, in which laws, government, and social conditions are solely operating for the benefit and well-being of all its citizens, set in the near- or far-future, as advanced science and technology will allow these ideal living standards to exist; for example, post-scarcity, transformations in human nature, the avoidance or prevention of suffering and even the end of death.

Even today, the negative social effects of a technological utopia can be seen. Mediated communication such as phone calls, instant messaging and text messaging are steps towards a utopian world in which one can easily contact another regardless of time or location. However, mediated communication removes many aspects that are helpful in transferring messages. As it stands today, most text, email, and instant messages offer fewer nonverbal cues about the speaker’s feelings than do face-to-face encounters. This makes it so that mediated communication can easily be misconstrued and the intended message is not properly conveyed. With the absence of tone, body language, and environmental context, the chance of a misunderstanding is much higher, rendering the communication ineffective. In fact, mediated technology can be seen from a dystopian view because it can be detrimental to effective interpersonal communication. These criticisms would only apply to messages that are prone to misinterpretation as not every text based communication requires contextual cues.

Large technology companies have come to dominate the online experience, constantly gathering users’ personal data, often without their knowledge, and feeding it through proprietary algorithms to curate search results, recommendations, and news. Propagandists and extremists wishing to conceal their identities fund targeted ads and create armies of social media bots to push misleading or outright false content, robbing citizens of a basic understanding of reality. And authoritarians take advantage of technology to censor information and suppress dissent. The most sophisticated effort comes from China, which, in addition to its Great Firewall, is developing a system of “social credits,” which takes the idea of a credit score to its creepiest extension. The idea is to aggregate information from public and private records to assess citizens’ behavior, generating scores that can be used to determine their opportunities for employment, education, housing, and travel. China is using facial recognition and vast data to exert control over the ethnic Uyghurs in western China in a high-tech update of the mass surveillance and societal control of East Germany’s Stasi and, before that, Hitler’s Germany. Not only has the Internet been used to strengthen authoritarian states; it has also been used to weaken democracies.As detailed in the indictments issued in February by Robert Mueller, the U.S. special prosecutor investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Russian operatives created fake online personas aimed at spreading false information. It was run by the Internet Research Agency, an organization linked to the Russian government that is responsible for online influence operations. A particular goal was to depress African American turnout in order to hurt Clinton’s campaign. As an investigation by CNN found, one social media campaign called “Blacktivist” was actually a Russian troll operation; it had more “likes” on Facebook than the official Black Lives Matter page.

Those who organize disinformation campaigns on social media exploit commercial data-gathering and targeting systems. They sweep up personal data from a host of sources across different devices and categorize people by their behavior, interests, and demographics. Then, they target a given segment of users with ads and bots, which encourage users to like pages, follow accounts, and share information. In this way, disinformation campaigns weaponize digital platforms, whose algorithms seem to reward outrage because that is what keeps users engaged. As the scholar Zeynep Tufekci has found, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm steers viewers toward increasingly radical and extremist videos. Sites like InfoWars – a conspiracy theory site are frightening.

We must act now to prevent the further weaponization of the Internet against democracies and individuals attempting to exercise their human rights – and to do so without sacrificing democratic values such as freedom of expression. Dark money and dark data to undermine democracy are  real threats. Digital platforms should find a way to offer users more context for the news their algorithms present. They might do so through some method of differentiating those news outlets that follow accepted journalistic practices (customs such as having a masthead, separating news from opinion, and issuing corrections) from those that do not. The platforms should be required to take down fake accounts and remove bots unless they are clearly labeled as such. The largest social media companies – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – need to be transparent about their content-moderation rules. Regulation might even require certain platforms to provide due-process protections for users whose content is taken down.

The spectre of 1984 is more real than ever before.

 

Ack:GMF USA.Wiki.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

 

Read a wonderful anonymous piece on whatsapp the other day.I thought of developing the same and carry it forward.In distress and dilemma a human being is a fall back seeker.Friends,family,colleagues,gurus,peers……we seek solace and guidance.

To help you to come out of stress, one friend will ask you to drink and another will ask you to meditate.

To overcome hurt, one will ask you to take revenge and get even, and another will ask you to forgive and get ahead with your life. ‘Who is your fallback’ makes a huge  difference.

Duryodhana’s predicament is defining.He says:, “I know what is right but I am not able to indulge in it. I know what is wrong but I am not able to avoid it.” His fallback was his uncle Shakuni…we know the rest.

Arjuna too was in a predicament . His filial affiliations CREATED AN INERTIA  to dominate his sense of duty, and hence upholding righteousness was seemingly a task beyond him.. He needed a fallback. His fallback was Krishna; and again…we know the rest.

 ‘Who is your fallback’ makes all the difference.The fallback need not be a person….it can be a book,a thought,a story….anything capable of influencing our heart and mind.

A MAN IS KNOWN BY THE COMPANY HE KEEPS,so the saying goes.

Choose Well .

P.S.

As far as people go, people help you the way they know to help you.My favorite is my MENTOR THEORY. Mentoring in Europe has existed since at least Ancient Greek times, and roots of the word go to Mentor, son of Alcimus in Homer's Odyssey. Though the actual Mentor in the story is a somewhat ineffective old man, the goddess Athena takes on his appearance in order to guide young Telemachus in his time of difficulty.

To me,a mentor is A FRIEND,PHILOSOPHER and GUIDE….wisened by experience,enlightened in the subject,success being a mere side product ,competence being his byword,brilliance his signature line,last man standing against adversities,refreshingly unbiased,and hurtfully truthful and committed to you.Professional,personal,emotional…the real fallback guy.THOSE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND SUCH. Else we know the story of Eklavya.Passion,commitment ,innate talent,indistractable…going where none has gone before….driven by just an image of the guru.The man who defeated Arjuna. Just don’t give your right thumb when you meet your  Dronacharya finally!

An idea,a book,a thought,a song,a movie….all give us fallback moments.All you need to do is to create a life library out of it….keep a journal…you will be on your way…if not a fallback guy,you will have a fallback journal.Its priceless.I should know.I have one.

TEACHER'S DAY:A TRIBUTE

It’s true we don’t know what we have until we find it, but its also true, we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives..

I embarked on one such journey 15 years back.The person I refer was a judge in Income tax court we call ITAT.I was a rookie deptt.rep..What he saw in me I don't know but he called me in his chambers one fine day and gave me the firing of my life ...Telling me what a disservice I was doing to the people of India I represented in that Court.And continued thereafter to call and grill me and teach me till he made a man out of me.He was brilliant & His orders are part of tax folklore.I went on to become the DR with biggest success rate in history of IRS..and the longest serving one.
He got shifted to some other place, I went my way.
Years later, in 2019,I saw him in corridor of Bombay tax court full of lawyers.In full public view I ran to him and touched his feet .He had retired and was on some work to the place.He could not place me.I said;: "Sir.Anadi Varma.You made a man out of a boy 12 years back.Aapka ehsaan taajeevan nahi chuka sakta main".
He was so happy to see me.
As for me...in that moment I was the richest man on planet earth.
DC Agrawal sir.
You made this world a better place.
May you live long and healthy.