I agree with you, it’s a superstimulus. Nowadays information is cheap and abundant(Internet) and since we are wired to seek information we are constantly chasing after the next bit. It’s a coincidence, but before reading this article I was thinking about how the internet was supposed to make life easier since it makes all this information available for everyone. But the contrary has become true: now people waste countless hours chasing after meaningless(as in not applied in practice) stuff. The solution? Purposeful disconnect yourself and choose to practice whatever skills you want to improve. This is also advocated in some books, Tim Ferriss in his “4 hour work week” advises on minimizing email time etc…
I know, I know, it’s easier said than done.
I’ve read Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week, and his proposal of a low-information diet made me think. I cut down my newspaper-reading to zero. Not even online. And I am very grateful that I did — I don’t miss it at all.
...and then I’ve run across this quote from Thomas Jefferson:
“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”
I laughed out loud. The idea wasn’t so new.
Then I leveraged the time I earned by overindulging in Lesswrong, Overcomingbias, Wikipedia and other precious sources. And reading more books.
Still propositional knowledge, but clearly more enlightening than the daily fix of murders and gossips.
There’s a good point: part of the general issue is whether the information we’re acquiring is relevant. Feedback from doing (whether procedural or propositional) is probably more relevant to the task you’re trying to accomplish than information gleaned from a broad search, like reading newspapers, etc—and experience can greatly help to establish just how important the information is.
I agree with you, it’s a superstimulus. Nowadays information is cheap and abundant(Internet) and since we are wired to seek information we are constantly chasing after the next bit. It’s a coincidence, but before reading this article I was thinking about how the internet was supposed to make life easier since it makes all this information available for everyone. But the contrary has become true: now people waste countless hours chasing after meaningless(as in not applied in practice) stuff. The solution? Purposeful disconnect yourself and choose to practice whatever skills you want to improve. This is also advocated in some books, Tim Ferriss in his “4 hour work week” advises on minimizing email time etc… I know, I know, it’s easier said than done.
I’ve read Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week, and his proposal of a low-information diet made me think. I cut down my newspaper-reading to zero. Not even online. And I am very grateful that I did — I don’t miss it at all.
...and then I’ve run across this quote from Thomas Jefferson: “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”
I laughed out loud. The idea wasn’t so new.
Then I leveraged the time I earned by overindulging in Lesswrong, Overcomingbias, Wikipedia and other precious sources. And reading more books.
Still propositional knowledge, but clearly more enlightening than the daily fix of murders and gossips.
There’s a good point: part of the general issue is whether the information we’re acquiring is relevant. Feedback from doing (whether procedural or propositional) is probably more relevant to the task you’re trying to accomplish than information gleaned from a broad search, like reading newspapers, etc—and experience can greatly help to establish just how important the information is.
And information gained through feedback is probably also actionable unlike a lot of the stuff we read.