Regarding the idea that online discussion hurts attention span and productivity, I agree for the reasons you say. The book Deep Work (my review) talks more about it. I’m not too familiar with the actual research, but my mind seems to recall that the research supports this idea. Time Well Spent is a movement that deals with this topic and has some good content/resources.
I think it’s important to separate internet time from non-internet time. The author talks about this in Deep Work. He recommends that internet time be scheduled in advance, that way you’re not internetting mindlessly out of impulse. If willpower is an issue, try Self Control, or going somewhere without internet. I sometimes find it useful to lock my phone in the mailbox downstairs.
I’m no expert, but suspect that LW could do a better job designing for Time Well Spent.
Remove things on the sidebar like “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments” (first item on Time Well Spent checklist). They tempt you to click around and stay on longer. If you want to see new posts or comments, you could deliberately choose to click on a link that takes you to a new webpage that shows you those things, rather than always having them shoved in your face.
Give users the option of “only be able to see things in your inbox once per day”. That way, you’re not tempted to constantly be checking it. (second item on checklist; letting users disconnect)
I think it’d be cool to let people display their productivity goals on their profile. Eg. “I check LW Tuesday and Thursday nights, and Sunday mornings. I intend to be working during these hours.” That way perhaps you won’t feel obligated to respond to people when you should be working. Furthermore, there’s the social reward/punishment aspect of it—“Hey! You posted this comment at 4:30 on a Wednesday—weren’t you supposed to be working then?”
These are just some initial thoughts. I know that we can come up with much more.
Tangential comment: a big thought of mine has always been that LW (and online forums in general) lead to the same conversation threads being repeated. Ie. the topic of “how to reduce internet distractions” surely has been discussed here before. It’d be cool if there was a central place for that discussion, it was organized well into some type of community wiki. I envision there being much less “duplication” this way. I also envision a lot more time being spent on “organizing current thoughts” as opposed to “thinking new thoughts”. (These thoughts are very rough and not well composed.)
Regarding the idea that online discussion hurts attention span and productivity, I agree for the reasons you say. The book Deep Work (my review) talks more about it. I’m not too familiar with the actual research, but my mind seems to recall that the research supports this idea. Time Well Spent is a movement that deals with this topic and has some good content/resources.
I think it’s important to separate internet time from non-internet time. The author talks about this in Deep Work. He recommends that internet time be scheduled in advance, that way you’re not internetting mindlessly out of impulse. If willpower is an issue, try Self Control, or going somewhere without internet. I sometimes find it useful to lock my phone in the mailbox downstairs.
I’m no expert, but suspect that LW could do a better job designing for Time Well Spent.
Remove things on the sidebar like “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments” (first item on Time Well Spent checklist). They tempt you to click around and stay on longer. If you want to see new posts or comments, you could deliberately choose to click on a link that takes you to a new webpage that shows you those things, rather than always having them shoved in your face.
Give users the option of “only be able to see things in your inbox once per day”. That way, you’re not tempted to constantly be checking it. (second item on checklist; letting users disconnect)
I think it’d be cool to let people display their productivity goals on their profile. Eg. “I check LW Tuesday and Thursday nights, and Sunday mornings. I intend to be working during these hours.” That way perhaps you won’t feel obligated to respond to people when you should be working. Furthermore, there’s the social reward/punishment aspect of it—“Hey! You posted this comment at 4:30 on a Wednesday—weren’t you supposed to be working then?”
These are just some initial thoughts. I know that we can come up with much more.
Tangential comment: a big thought of mine has always been that LW (and online forums in general) lead to the same conversation threads being repeated. Ie. the topic of “how to reduce internet distractions” surely has been discussed here before. It’d be cool if there was a central place for that discussion, it was organized well into some type of community wiki. I envision there being much less “duplication” this way. I also envision a lot more time being spent on “organizing current thoughts” as opposed to “thinking new thoughts”. (These thoughts are very rough and not well composed.)