Noisy Deadlines

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams

Erasing facebook

I've been thinking a lot about social media lately.

Actually, I've been thinking about it for a long time. And I've taken action to minimize my exposure: I deleted my Instagram and Pinterest account, I used extensions to eliminate Facebook's annoying timeline, I unfollowed hundreds of profiles on Twitter. But I still use social media a little.

I still check Twitter for local weather and traffic news or alerts. And I like to check the latest tweets from some cool authors I follow. I connect with people using the Facebook Groups platform. I have a LinkedIn account. I occasionally go check Reddit.

And after all this time reflecting, tweaking and observing my behavior I still think that the minimum amount of social media usage is not that beneficial. Maybe the benefits do not completely outweighs the downsides.

I can list at least 5 books I've read in the past that made me rethink the way I engage with social media and with the Internet in general:

And now I'm reading Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. And just like Tristan Harris saying that social media apps today are like slot machines, Cal Newport says they are the “new smoking”:

“The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.” ― Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Which, in the end, is saying that they are extremely addictive, no doubt.

And I worry about it. Have I become addicted without even knowing? How did those websites and apps changed my behavior? Is my mind being hijacked? Am I aware?

I don't have answers right now but I am feeling that after reading Cal Newport's new book I'm gonna have a radical change on how I use social media and the Internet.

#socialmedia #digitalminimalism #noisymusings #attentionresistance

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Attention Wars

Who owns our attention? Are you paying attention?

This Braincraft series is a nice discussion about the #attentionwars.

There are 6 episodes discussing persuasive design, the psychology of attention and how to use technology more intentionally.

I love that in the end of each episode Vanessa Hill (the presenter) tells us to watch the series at our own pace and at our time 😊.

Recommended!

#socialmedia #attentionresistance #braincraft

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Digital Minimalism cover on my Kindle

So, Cal Newport's new book just arrived on my Kindle today 🤗.

I am reading 2 other books right now, but I really want to pick this one up (and maybe change my readings plan for this month a little bit).

But the thing is: I feel more and more overwhelmed by the so called “social media”. I already maintain the few accounts I have with the bare minimum of feeds. Well, my Facebook is totally blank now because I use a News Feed Eradicator and the Nudge extension to practically mute it.

And this book seems to be a sane reflection on how to use digital technologies today. I like minimalism and I like digital tools. Perfect combination.

From the author:

Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It’s the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world.

Can't wait to read his ideas on this topic!

#book #digitalminimalism #noisymusings #socialmedia

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Read books Jan 2019

  1. The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu, 417

    • This was my first audio book ever. Although I got tired of the narrator's voice, the book is a fascinating story of advertisements.

  2. The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, 272p

    • Another audio book and I must that this is probably better experienced with a written version. There were some tables and graphs descriptions that did not quite work while listening to it. But the book is great and convince us that almost everything is random and we don't really have control of the outcomes. Just let it be.

  3. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, 224p

    • I am a huge fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson. His podcast StarTalk Radio is one of my favorites but curiously I've never read one of his books. And this one is narrated by himself and it's excellent! It's very accessible and it's filled with fascinating facts about the Universe. I loved the chapter about the cosmic Periodic Table. The last chapter is absolutely beautiful giving us a brilliant cosmic perspective.

  4. enough by Patrick Rhone, 96p

    • This one is a collection of essays from the author's blog that basically encourages us to think about what is enough in our lives. It's a quick read full of interesting insights.

  5. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, 313p

    • Weird and interesting book. You can read my thought about it here.

Reading plans for February:

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

It's that time of the year (middle of winter in the northern hemisphere) when I start to hear lots and lots of people complaining about winter. They say: “It's too long, it's too cold, it's too much snow, it's horrible.”

So here's a message to leave those negative feelings behind:

“If you choose not to enjoy snow, you will have less joy in your life, but the same amount of snow.”

So, let’s choose to enjoy!

Winter view

#winter #quote

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

by Charlie Jane Anders

All the birds in the sky

This was a surprisingly weird book. It's a mix of urban fantasy, light science fiction, nonsense and disastrous near futures. There's an AI, witches and mad scientists (sort of...). There is romance. Childhood adventures. Nerdy hipsters. Birds and trees talking. There are philosophical discussions about life, universe and everything. A clash of magic and science.

It's one of those books that can't really fit in one genre box. It's multi-genre (if such a classification exists). I enjoyed reading it mostly because of the unusual dialogues and crazy ideas. It reminded me a little bit of Douglas Adams's style (like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

The AI Peregrine was my favorite character. And in my head I was sure the AI was a female. But then later in the story I realized they actually called her with a masculine noun. Anyway, the genre doesn't matter at all, the AI was cool. I thought the best portions of the story were when Patricia and Laurence were having some existential discussion, like the end of the world.

At around 70% I thought the story dragged a little bit and it became a little depressing. But then the story picks up and extraordinary things happen.

It's an interesting mixed bag of magic and “sciency” near future story.

To be read with an open mind.

#bookreview #reading #books

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I started listening to audio books recently. The first month of 2019, to be exact.

So far I've listened to 23 hours distributed between 3 books.

Audible total listening time

And I have mixed feeling about audio books... I mean, it's a great way to squeeze in more reading hours in moments when you can't actually sit down and hold a book (or a Kindle, in my case).

And that's the point: 99.99% (*)  of my listening happened while I was:

  • Running on a treadmill at the gym
  • Exercising/stretching at the gym
  • Folding laundry
  • Preparing food
  • Doing the dishes
  • Eating breakfast
  • Commuting
  • Cleaning the house

(*) Note: the 0.01% was due to 5 minutes today that I was actually sitting down and listened until I reached the end a chapter before I started something else at the same time.

Focus?

So I was never fully focused on the “reading act” the way I am when I'm with my Kindle.

It's...different. Different levels of focus.

I know that I could sit down and just listen to a book. But somehow that didn't seem an attractive option for me. And probably that's because I'm used to listening to podcasts while doing all the activities I pointed above.

So I replaced podcasts with books.

I concluded I don't immerse myself and assimilate information the same way when I'm listening. And that's probably because I've multitasked while listening to Audiobooks.

I'm not saying I can't remember what I read. I just feel that I might have missed small pieces of information. A quick-witted phrase. A savvy detail. A stirring revelation I wanted to note down and muse over. I got the overall message, no problem. But the act of listening wasn't conducive to reflection while I was receiving the information.

Distraction?

And that brings me to my wandering mind...

Our minds wander, that's normal. From moment to moment it gets filled with random thoughts and to-do's for an undetermined future date. When that happens with my Kindle I just pause, acknowledge, take a breath and find the last sentence I remember processing and continue reading from there.

With Audiobooks, my mind got lost in not only my internal thoughts but also with all the things going on around me (remember: I was multitasking).

So the combination of my inner musings and external stimuli kept me not paying attention to the audio for what? 30 seconds? 2 minutes? 5 minutes? I really don't know. When I realized I was distracted I just paused the audio feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

And eventually I would come back to listening when the situation I was in felt less distracting.

Wrapping it up...

I don't hate Audiobooks. I actually enjoyed it most of the time and I'm sure I would not be able to read 3 books as fast as I did if I was reading.

I will continue to listen to Audiobooks. At least 1 per month, that's part of my Reader Goals for 2019.

But I'll choose wisely which books to listen to. If it's a more contemplative reading that I know I would like to take notes and assimilate slowly, I will probably not choose the audio version.

And I will experiment with just sitting (or lying) down to listen, distraction free.

#audiobooks #reading #noisymusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

The other day I was watching this TED talk on “Mindfulness, Technology and Attention Activism” by Jay Vidyarthi and he mentions this quote from Herbert A. Simon back in the 60'/70's.

Simon, a Nobel prize winner, was onto something here and I wonder what he would say about the world today... 🤔

“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” —Simon, H. A. (1971) “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World” in: Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore. MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 40–41.

#attentionresistance #quote

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

My good old Kindle

I challenged myself to read 52 books this year. And I have a plan... 🧐

...Read more “Hell, Yeah!” books.

The past few years I was experimenting a lot and reading books I would not really pick up at first glance. And looking back I saw that my average rating for all the books I read was 3.9. I think that's low. That means I didn't read enough books that I thought were really exciting. I read lots of “meh” books. You can see a list of all my read books here.

This year I want to read books that have been on my “to be read list” for some time because they are sequels to stories I already love.

Also, I was inspired by the Reading Glasses challenge (great podcast about Book Culture, BTW) and borrowed some of their ideas to my Reader Goals:

  • Read a graphic novel (or two...)
  • Read more of authors I already know and love
  • Read a book by a trans author
  • Listen to 1 audiobook per month (non-fiction)
  • Listen to 1 fiction audiobook [never tried it before!]

  • Read sequels of the Series I already love:

  • The Expanse by James S. A. Corey (#4 to #7)

  • Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (#3)

  • Old Man's War by John Scalzi (#2 to #6)

  • Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger (#2 to #5)

  • The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

  • Start Reading The Dresden Files Series by Jim Butcher [never read it before! Wanna try!]

  • Read books I've already have purchased/pre-ordered:

    • The Armored Saint by Myke Cole
    • Paladin of Souls (World of the Five Gods #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold
    • Changeless (Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger
    • Enough by Patrick Rhone (Kindle Unlimited)
    • Drive by Daniel H. Pink
    • Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport [pre-ordered]
    • Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff [pre-ordered]
    • Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier

  • Read some picks from The Sword and Laser Bookclub and Vaginal Fantasy Bookclub throughout the year, because they are awesome (love their podcast)!

  • Also read some picks from Vaginal Fantasy

I am sure I'll keep adding titles to this list but I will try to consider this my priority list for 2019 😎

#reading #books #readinglist #ReaderGoals

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Window frost patterns at my window this morning.

Window frost Window frost

#winter

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

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