More Preprandial Ruminations
By Kevin Pointer Sr.
Hey there! Content providers and consumers … it has been precisely said that if you can get at least one or two nuggets from a speaker, report, or article then your time investment could be worth it. I know that has been precisely said because I just said it! Per my “editor’s” direction and in the spirit of a more bite-size offering my preprandial ruminations for this review will delve — a bit — into the value of four articles and will also continue our review of Cal Newport’s book Deep Work, (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World) — this time chapter 2. Our continuous goal will be to enlighten, to offer insights and colorful Gecko triangulations, and to propose our cold-blooded truth as only a cold blooded Gecko could. Hopefully, you will at least get one or two of the aforementioned nuggets from this review! With any luck if your stick with me, you might also glean my point of view as your personal curator of all things digital in a distracted world.
Our first article reviewed, What is “brain hacking”? Tech insiders on why you should care is based on the famous reporter Anderson Cooper’s interviews with former and current some silicon valley managers, workers, and programmers — think Google, Snapchat, and Instagram for example. The basic idea here is — you guessed it — that big tech companies are hacking our brains with their products and services because their revenue business model is to get attention at all costs. Verdict? Picking up where our first blog post left off this article is a rather predictable and a continued uninspiring bashing of big tech!. Not that big tech doesn’t sometimes need bashing on various societal levels. My point is nothing particularly new here. I had predicted the dopamine enlightenment “insights” long before the word was actually introduced in the article.
Whew! Our second article reviewed, The perils of monopoly, How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality for me was definitely more intellectually stimulating, interesting, and a little less predictable: To our peril Facebook, Microsoft and Apple are in a race to become our “Personal assistants.” Point made. To our peril rhetorically, these tech companies gesture toward individuality – to the empowerment of the “User” – but their worldview rolls over it. Ok … rings true!. We are in the era of a man-machine merger to the peril of the individual. Check! Verdict? Check! One nugget here is the author gives you a behind-the peek at the machinations and thoughts of some of the tech giant’s leaders and, if you’re like me, you’re left to really ponder the deeper implications.
Our third article and fourth articles reviewed, 22 Examples of the Positive Impact of Social Media, and #COVID19: Social media both a blessing and a curse during coronavirus pandemic respectively actually “vaccinate” some positivity — for a refreshing change — as it pertains to the relationship of technology and media within our changing, distracted world. Of course the premise of the 22 Examples article can be inferred within its very title. A couple of positive technology examples? Within the current Covid environment virtual communities can help teens feel supported and connected. Social media can also be used by students to develop critical thinking by using it for school projects. In the beyond-the-text book world of deep diving there are world Facebook groups, we are informed, such as “Teens from ____ (a specific city)” for the young whippersnappers to experience other cultures in real time! Who knew after reading our first ruminations blog post — tech ain’t all bad!
Speaking of deep diving and in wrapping up, one of the threads of key points that Cal Newport in chapter 2, Deep Work is Rare, unravels is that deep work is rare among knowledge workers because a “metrics black hole” of job clarity exists and therefore in this internet-centric” technopoly it’s simply easier for knowledge workers to follow the “path of least resistance” and embrace the overt affordances of busy work. While Cal’s point here is well researched, definitely thought provoking, and sprinkled with credible examples I might push back a little in the other direction sometimes. For example although hard — and I’ll grant it may be more rare than not — it is possible to develop meaningful metrics for knowledge workers such as myself. My goals of within my appraisal seem and metrics offered within my discipline of technical writing seem to be evidence of that. Also Cal I wanted to say, not to get randomly distracted, that perhaps its ok for a refrigeration truck to have “like us on Facebook” sign no matter how historically complicated the refrigeration business might be — seems to me to be a necessary function of modern marketing professor!
References
Ali, S. H., & Kurasawa, F. (2021, January 14). #Covid19: Social media both a blessing and a curse during coronavirus pandemic. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://theconversation.com/covid19-social-media-both-a-blessing-and-a-curse-during-coronavirus-pandemic-133596
Cooper, A. (2017, April). What is “brain hacking”? Tech insiders on why you should care. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brain-hacking-tech-insiders-60-minutes/
Foer, F. (2017, September 08). The perils of monopoly – How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-silicon-valley-is-erasing-your-individuality/2017/09/08/a100010a-937c-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html
Newport, C. (2016). Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York City, New York: Grand Central Publishing.
Smart Social. (2021, January 21). 22 examples on the positive impact of social media. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://smartsocial.com/positive-impact-of-social-media/
