This article will focus on the impact of social. networks on our ability to be productive and how to protect ourselves from this influence.
Step 1: Acceptance
At some point, I realized that among the web of notifications on my smartphone from various sources, I have problems finding really important messages. Moreover, I began to receive notifications about those things that I didn't even want to know about. Combining these facts with the high-pitched sound of incoming notification, I can safely call this the top 1 workplace distraction.
Since a smartphone is a thing that is with us almost all the time, it is the biggest “window” from the brand to us.
However, the providers of media applications cannot get attention when our phone is turned off. More often than not, we fall into the bonds of social media voluntarily. On average, people spend 144 minutes a day on social media . That's almost 34 days a year.
Why is this happening and what can be done to shorten this time?
The people behind the user interface of multimedia apps and notification algorithms are cognitive psychology experts . Their two main goals are:
- Inside the app: keep us engaged as long as possible.
- Outside the app: return us to the app as soon as possible.
This is not surprising, because the social media monetization model is based on the engagement rate (ER) of its users. In simple terms, this means the following:
The more time we spend in the application, the more $$$ the publisher earns
That is why all these notifications (which are always magically enabled by default) are constantly inviting us to check out a new post from a school friend, a new video with kittens, or get a “free gift” that awaits us in the application.
Based on my observations, I decided to make some changes to my routine interaction with my smartphone to see how it will affect my life.
Step 2: Action
I think everyone will agree that aimless climbing in social. networks hurts our productivity. But usually we don't go there on our own, do we? Most often, something triggered us at the beginning , and only then we can catch ourselves scrolling the tape for 30 minutes in a row.
To prevent this from happening, first of all, we can turn off notifications on social networks. Seems such an obvious solution, right? However, many people ignore this powerful feature; they almost seem to secretly want to be constantly distracted.
This can be done in 3 ways:
- Change notification preferences in the settings of the application itself
Allows you to configure which notifications to receive and which not -
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The next thing to do is dose social media. Set aside separate blocks of time during the day, within which you will watch the latest updates from your friends and reply to all messages. Thus, you will not be constantly distracted while working.
After making these small changes to my daily life, I noticed that I began to be able to complete long-term tasks (~ 4 hours) with greater ease due to the higher level of immersion and focus. And in fact, the article you are reading now is one of his results.
Please note that I do not recommend deleting social media accounts. On the contrary, support them or turn them on if you don't have them.
Nowadays, social media is the calling card of the 21st century. People can browse your accounts for a first impression. Recruiters are constantly using social media. networks for data validation in the selection process. They can also serve as a source of useful connections and sometimes clients.
Conclusion
In the end, this decision must be deliberate - to get the maximum benefit from a particular thing and limit its negative impact.
Social media is no exception.
Social media is a great tool to learn how to use correctly. On the one hand, you can lose yourself in the endless newsfeed content. On the other hand, you can easily and conveniently maintain existing social ties and develop new ones.