The title of this article is "How the internet
ruins productivity by design" and maybe it should be called how the internet ruins your
CAPACITY for productivity by design. Anyways. The age of mental âpeak performanceâ
âPeak Performanceâ is a term thatâs being used not only for athletesâ physical
performance, but for people just trying to get ahead at their work place, and more so
for those working on their entrepreneurial endeavors. With a lot of popular books like âThe Four
Hour Work Weekâ by Tim Ferris, people are becoming more aware of the fact that doing
a 9AM to 5PM job for 40 years is a shitty deal. One way to get ahead is by using cognitive
enhancers, known as âSmart Drugsâ or Nootropics. Nootropics are âare drugs, supplements,
or other substances that improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions,
memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals.â In the aggressively competitive world of silicone
valley, Nootropics are seen not just as a pick me up, but sometimes as a necessity. Tim Ferris painted a good picture of the situation
in his interview with CNN Money âLetâs just say youâre a 24 year old start up co
founder, just got a seed round of funding from a big venture capitalist. and you feel
intense pressure to compete against the half a dozen other companies that are trying to
do the same thing. Youâre gonna think about what pills and
potions you can take because the difference between completely failing, losing all your
money , making a million dollars and making a billion dollars is right up hereâ Some silicone valley folk have gone as far
as taking very small doses of Lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, or "Acid"
to enhance their productivity and creativity at work. These âMicrodosesâ of acid are having
very profound effects on the userâs output without any hallucinatory distractions. Now, Most of us arenât at the level of seeking
out illegal substances to amp up our game. For myself and a lot of people I know, itâs
not so much of âHoly shit I need to write 20,000 lines of code by tomorrow morning or
Iâm fuckedâ, but something more like âUh OK I woke up 45 minutes ago, I'm still in
bed looking at reddit. What the hell is wrong with me?â There are some days where I wonder if Iâm
hitting even average performance, much less peak performance. The internet and our brains
Itâs being suspected that some peopleâs inability to concentrate or lack of willpower
is caused by the internet and the near constant stream of novel information theyâre accessing
all the time. In Gary Wilsonâs TEDx Talk he explains that
several studies about âInternet Addictionâ and its detriments have been popping up since
2009. Gary says âSo far, all brain research points
in only one direction: Constant novelty at a click can cause addictionâ. It wasnât until after I saw Garyâs talk
that I thought the way I use the internet could be harming my productivity. Until recently, I was a recruitment consultant
in đľSunrise Landđľ for 3 years. This was one of the most educational, exciting
and competitive times of my life. I met all kinds of fantastic people, but this
environment really makes you start to evaluate yourself as a person based on how much you
can output in as little time as possible. I wanted be at the top of the scoreboard,
and some times I was five times as productive as I ever was in college, but sometimes I
couldnât focus for more than 20 minutes. I was always looking for the magic pill or
trick that could improve my performance, but I didnât know that how often I checked my
Facebook feed could be affecting my performance in a bigger way than just the time I lost
by opening up the app. Unsurprisingly, this addictive nature is actually
designed into most apps. Nir Eyal explains in his book âHookedâ
how many websites, apps, platforms et cetera need to be designed in such a way that the
product is addictive for the user or the company wonât have a competitive edge. This technique to magnetize users to the content
is called âThe hookâ. The hook is an âexperience designed to connect
the users problem to a companyâs solution with enough frequency to form a habitâ. The hook has 4 parts- a trigger, an action,
a reward and an investment. All the hooks start with an external trigger
like âClick here!â or âSwipe right!â or an internal trigger. The internal triggers are what is critical
to the user of forming the habit of using the companyâs service. âInternal triggers are things that tell
us what to do next, but where the information is not contained in the trigger but instead
formed through an association or a memory in the userâs brain. So what we do when weâre in a certain place,
situation, around particular people, taking part in a routine and most frequently when
we experience certain emotions dictates what we do next. The action that we turn to with little or
no conscious thought. It turns out that the most frequent internal
triggers are these emotions, but not just any emotions but theyâre specifically negative
emotions. So what we do when weâre feeling bored or
lonesome or lost or fearful or uncertain or confused dictates the technology that we turn
to next with little or no conscious thought.â As I wrote out the previous paragraph, I experienced
this first hand. I couldnât quite think of how to phrase
one sentence and I felt a slight sense of uneasiness as I struggled to think of what
words to use. Right away I opened a new tab and typed in
âreddit.comâ. This all happened in under two seconds without
any deliberation. Actions are influenced by triggers, but what
constitutes an action? Behavioral scientist BJ Fogg describes an
action as âthe simplest behavior in anticipation of a reward,â which for me was a click on
reddit, but it could also be a swipe on imgur or imager (whatever you wanna call it) or
tinder, or even a scroll on Facebook or twitter. Pretty simple process then: A trigger [I feel
bored] arises, so I take a simple action [open up reddit] in anticipation of a reward [a
funny image or video]. When discussing human behavior, most of us
have an inkling that the neurochemical dopamine influences our actions. This, for the most part is correct. However, dopamine is widely misunderstood
as the neurochemical that makes you feel good BECAUSE you did something. Actually, as Standford lecturer Robert Sapolsky
explains in this excerpt, dopamine rises in anticipation of a reward - "Dopamine doesn't
go up after the reward, it goes up at this point" Not only does it rise in anticipation
of a reward, but it spikes when you are uncertain of whether or not you will get the reward. Dr. Sapolsky talks about an experiment in
which they had monkeys pull a lever in anticipation of a reward. When the situation went from âYou will get
a reward after every 3 pullsâ to âmaybe youâll get a reward after every couple pullsâ
you see a massive spike in dopamine. As he put it, âIt does this! itâs one
of the biggest rises in dopamine in the brain, short of cocaine.â This is very important because it means that
a companyâs content doesnât even have to be good to get you to keep coming back. It just has to be designed in a manner that
keeps us anticipating and searching for rewards. For example, take a look at the feed on Facebook. Is that cute girl from high school posing
with a Starbucks cup that interesting? How about that picture of someoneâs lunch
that comes next? Neither of those probably interest you, but
the new tech article that your best friend posted that comes maybe four posts down the
line. The feed is taking advantage of that spike
in dopamine that we experience due to the anticipation of a possible reward, so we keep
scrolling and scrolling, excited at the possibility that something good will pop up. âItâs addictive, but Iâm not addictedâ
âAddictionâ is thrown around in contexts like âOh gosh this is so addicting!â all
the time. However, hearing someone say âI need to
get treatment for my addictionâ has a completely different nuance. Using it that way would suggest that the âaddictionâ
is affecting their lives and needs to be fixed. Why people turn to drugs despite the social
and legal repercussions is complicated, but it can boil down to the fact that the users
arenât satisfied with their lives. It may even be that theyâre not satisfied
with the current year, the current month or even the current moment that they are experiencing. People pursue success in business, fitness
or relationships mainly because they are anticipating some reward â usually a good feeling that
comes with achievement. âBut why work towards these types of fulfillment
for so long when you can invest a couple seconds snorting cocaine or taking a pill?â Surely a terrible mindset, but not completely
different from getting the rewarding delicious flavor of a donut immediately, rather than
chasing the great feeling of women complimenting your hard earned six pack? Or even swiping through a couple profiles
on tinder to feel excited when you see a sexy girl versus investing a couple more minutes
to read a chapter of that book that you like. When you look at it like this, the idea of
not just substances, but behaviors being addicting is more plausible. How are we to notice that the internet could
be affecting us? I mean Iâve had high speed internet ever
since I was in High School. David Foster Wallace told a joke at his commencement
speech for Kenyon College class of 2005 that went like this: âThere are these two young
fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods
at them and says âMorning boys, howâs the water?â and the two young fish swim
on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes âWhat the
hell is water?â â Gary Wilson also mentions the fish situation
in his talk to show how hard it is to realize how the internet is affecting heavy users. He explained how the only symptom that did
cause internet porn loving men to realize it was having an effect on them was Erectile
Dysfunction. Young men are being diagnosed with and medicated
for ADHD, Social Anxiety Disorder and depression due to symptoms like less interest in day
to day activities, lowered ability to concentrate and eroded willpower. They are going to psychologists and psychiatrists
to treat these symptoms, but donât realize it could be alleviated by simply changing
their behavior. One study in China shows how Internet Addicts
have impaired executive function control ability. Having an impaired attention control, inhibitory
control and ability to âselect and successfully monitor behaviors that facilitate the attainment
of chosen goalsâ would definitely explain my unfinished to do lists. If you have enough willpower to right away
stop continuously swiping, scrolling and clicking then great. But for myself and a lot of people, itâs
not so simple to get out of the habit. The idea is not to immediately stop using
all these platforms, but to pull yourself out of the âhookâ inherent in their design. Thereâs nothing wrong with taking a 10 minute
break from work when you need to and doing something that you enjoy. When youâre unconsciously spending more
time than you intend to, then thereâs an issue. Getting out of the hook
The good news is that understanding how your brain is being manipulated by this âhookâ
was the first step towards avoiding it. In his TEDMED talk, Judson Brewer describes
a two part technique that several smokers have used to successfully kick their smoking
habit. The idea is for the participants to just be
mindful about smoking. "Yea we said go ahead and smoke, just be really
curious about what it's like when you do. And what did they notice? Well here's an example from one of our smokers. She said "Mindful smoking, smells like stinky
cheese and tastes like chemicals. What she discovered just by being curiously
aware when she smoked was that smoking tastes like shit. She started to be disenchanted with her behavior"
The other part of the technique was to be mindful about what the craving felt like when
it came up. Theyâd crave a cigarette and then notice
their body was a little tense, heart rate maybe sped up a little bit, and some noticed
they were fidgeting in their chair. By simply being mindful about these aspects,
subjects were able to step out of the craving and realize what exactly it was and let it
pass. Next time you feel the urge to check twitter,
take a moment to think why youâre doing that. Maybe youâre a little bored or frustrated
with the task at hand. Maybe youâre hungry so your concentration
has waned. Then, think about the experience of twitter
itself. Scrolling through that feed for more than
5 minutes, is it really engaging you in a fulfilling way? Are you really happy that youâre 10 minutes
in and still spending your time scrolling through all those tweets hoping a good one
will pop up? It will take a bit of time and practice, but
youâll quickly learn to catch yourself and reel yourself back in. Or, You could always Louis C.K.âs method. "Yea like I've been more deliberate about
my life. Uh for instance I'm not on the internet anymore. I like I quit the internet. I gave my daughter my phone and I said 'Make
a restriction code and lock me out of the internet.' We should end it there, we should just fade
to black. If you liked this, make sure to subscribe
for more videos to come.
Good info đ
Thanks for this.
Really well done :-) Worth watching and taking notes.
This is me.
Excellent.
So Happy everyone is digging it! Appreciate the kind words.