Joe Kraus on how we are creating a culture of distraction and the repercussions.

Three Themes:

1. We are creating and encouraging a culture of distraction where we are increasingly disconnected from the people and events around us and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking. People now feel anxious when their brains are unstimulated.

2. We are losing some very important things by doing this. We threaten the key ingredients behind creativity and insight by filling up all our “gap” time with stimulation. And we inhibit real human connection when we prioritize our phones over our the people right in front of us.

3. What can we do about it? Is this path inevitable or can balance be restored?

Are you happy with your relationship with your phone?

"If I let it, it fills up every gap in my day."

And yet, the more we multitask, the worse we get at multitasking.

i love this video

I love this video too, Kevin.

Every Sunday reminds me of it.

Addiction to mobile devices is an ongoing theme on PandaWhale.

"We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We expect more from our technology and less from each other." ~Sherry Turkle, MIT

Visit the TED site for more: http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html

At first I was disappointed to see this video was fifteen minutes long.

But I'm glad I sat through it all.

Putting down the smartphones and the tablets -- all the technology -- has to be a conscious decision.

The reward for successfully doing so, is FOCUS.

Worth watching again.

I'm pretty sure I will be unable to take a day a week off from the devices since my livelihood depends on them right now.

Seems like a good future goal.

To stop "rubbing glass" so much, steps I had already taken on my android:

* disabled push mail for gmail and exchange, settings sync times to 1hr

* disabled notification for any email

* removed all annoying push-based apps (such as voxer)

This removes a lot of the need to check for updates.

With Joe's talk as inspiration I'm making an effort towards starting the day with mindful habits instead of spending the first 15-30 minutes of each morning glued to my phone.

A couple years ago I went without a smart phone for a few months. Not having camera, maps and turn-by-turn was frustrating enough to go back to android.

The key is to eliminate notifications.

Only check email/texts/voicemails twice a day, and otherwise steer clear of notifications.

And then there are actual productivity rituals.

@bakadesuyo says one 18 minute ritual every day can make you more productive.

See also my productivity stash.

Really? Think again Adam... (-:

Adam while it does seem impossible, that's the whole point of the talk I think.

At any point in our careers we can always convince ourselves that that specific point in time in your career / 'livelihood' depends on being hyper connected and you just don't have a day or half a day you can unplug.

Now it is the critical pre-funding stage of the start-up, later it is the critical launch, still later it is the critical growth phase and then in some time hopefully you have taken it public and are dealing with even larger problems... (-:

So this is our classic excuse and frankly I don't think it is good enough. (-:

And yes, I am well aware, I am point a finger at you and the remaining four are pointing back at me. :-P

No startup lasts a long time in the grand scheme of things.

So to give your startup your primary focus is a good thing, I believe.

When you're not in "startup mode" I totally agree, Ashish.

Your Smart Phone is giving you brain damage:

http://pandawhale.com/post/22182/digital-dementia-your-smart-phone-is-giving-you-brain-damage

Google Glass reinforces -- and encourages -- the culture of distraction:

http://pandawhale.com/post/34682/i-glasshole-my-year-with-google-glass

I find that physical activities which make it impossible to use my phone are very helpful.

Bicycling, hiking, water sports, and climbing are my favorites. 

It's a practice.

Oh - but the secret key is recognizing my own sense of scarcity vs surplus (blessed Shiva, my apologies for mentioning the Secret). I'm clear that there is a surplus of email, IMs, Tweets, Status Updates, and other digital shards. Such a surplus that even trying to recognize the volume is a waste of my time. 

No-one died from missing an email. 

And I still struggle to not read every post in PandaWhale.....

Damn you dopamine!!

I myself have not read every post in PandaWhale. There's too much good stuff here!

I like your line "no one died from missing an email".

Going outside without the phone is a good idea. I will try that more, Bill.