The problem with five stars seems to be illusion of transparency: “here is the system where you rate up to 5 stars, everyone understands what that means, right?”, yep, but everyone understands differently. (Also, I wouldn’t know before trying it, whether the minimum is 1 star or 0 stars.)
It might be interesting to see a map, what each country considers to be a proper rating for “normal experience”. It seems to me that this is a specifically American thing, where things need to be enthusiastically called excellent unless they really suck, where calling something “okay, I guess” is a polite way to suggest that someone should be fired, because everything is supposed to be exceptional all the time. While in Eastern Europe, “okay, I guess” would mean that even a grumpy customer couldn’t find anything specific to complain about, so the service is truly excellent, at least relatively to local standards.
In different context, I have seen surveys with ratings from 1 to 10, where the summary given to management was that 10 meant “good”, 7-9 meant “neutral”, and 1-6 meant “bad”. It made me worry how many people I might have accidentally got fired by giving feedback “highly above average, but not literally Einstein”. Since then, whenever possible, I refuse to provide feedback in form of stars.
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The linked article says “In other words, the environment may have made deep work more difficult but we still retain the ability to concentrate in a distraction-free environment.” This seems to me like a plausible explanation. We don’t see the improvements in concentration in real life, because the environment keeps getting noisy much faster. But once we remove the environment, we can notice that we are actually quite good. In other words, people usually attribute the ability to concentrate to personal characteristics, but environment plays a greater role.
Which leads to a question, why do employers insist on creating such noisy environments? I mean, my first job out of school, I had my own little office where I could close the door and apply my full focus to my work; I was usually only interrupted once a day by lunch. These days, it’s open spaces everywhere, buzzing like a beehive, dozen meetings every week, notifications turned on to the maximum (I get a message in Teams, then I get an e-mail saying I got a message in Teams, then I get a Windows notification saying I got a new e-mail), people interrupt me at random moments, I have several tasks assigned in parallel and I need to watch their ever changing business priorities… And then, once in a while, kids are away on a weekend, it’s quiet at home, I turn on my personal computer and learn a new technology or something, just like in the old days. So it feels like the ability is still there, only the right conditions do not exist anymore.
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My best proposal continues to be a law mandating that large social media platforms offer access to alternative interfaces and forms of content filtering and selection. Let people choose friendly options if they want that.
I see this as a problem with regulating advertising, because that is the ultimate reason why companies do all these harmful things. Toxic stuff because it increases the time you spend online; maximizing the time you spend online because that way they can show you more ads.
The alternative interface should be some kind of open-format API, so that people could produce open-source applications to browse the social networks.
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If you think you don’t pick your associates largely on the basis of health, stamina, looks, power, wealth, fame, achievements, connections or taste, I am here to inform you that you are probably fooling yourself on that.
Well, either that, or you are doing the typical-mind fallacy. Which one is it, and how would you know?
The problem with five stars seems to be illusion of transparency: “here is the system where you rate up to 5 stars, everyone understands what that means, right?”, yep, but everyone understands differently. (Also, I wouldn’t know before trying it, whether the minimum is 1 star or 0 stars.)
It might be interesting to see a map, what each country considers to be a proper rating for “normal experience”. It seems to me that this is a specifically American thing, where things need to be enthusiastically called excellent unless they really suck, where calling something “okay, I guess” is a polite way to suggest that someone should be fired, because everything is supposed to be exceptional all the time. While in Eastern Europe, “okay, I guess” would mean that even a grumpy customer couldn’t find anything specific to complain about, so the service is truly excellent, at least relatively to local standards.
In different context, I have seen surveys with ratings from 1 to 10, where the summary given to management was that 10 meant “good”, 7-9 meant “neutral”, and 1-6 meant “bad”. It made me worry how many people I might have accidentally got fired by giving feedback “highly above average, but not literally Einstein”. Since then, whenever possible, I refuse to provide feedback in form of stars.
.
The linked article says “In other words, the environment may have made deep work more difficult but we still retain the ability to concentrate in a distraction-free environment.” This seems to me like a plausible explanation. We don’t see the improvements in concentration in real life, because the environment keeps getting noisy much faster. But once we remove the environment, we can notice that we are actually quite good. In other words, people usually attribute the ability to concentrate to personal characteristics, but environment plays a greater role.
Which leads to a question, why do employers insist on creating such noisy environments? I mean, my first job out of school, I had my own little office where I could close the door and apply my full focus to my work; I was usually only interrupted once a day by lunch. These days, it’s open spaces everywhere, buzzing like a beehive, dozen meetings every week, notifications turned on to the maximum (I get a message in Teams, then I get an e-mail saying I got a message in Teams, then I get a Windows notification saying I got a new e-mail), people interrupt me at random moments, I have several tasks assigned in parallel and I need to watch their ever changing business priorities… And then, once in a while, kids are away on a weekend, it’s quiet at home, I turn on my personal computer and learn a new technology or something, just like in the old days. So it feels like the ability is still there, only the right conditions do not exist anymore.
.
I see this as a problem with regulating advertising, because that is the ultimate reason why companies do all these harmful things. Toxic stuff because it increases the time you spend online; maximizing the time you spend online because that way they can show you more ads.
The alternative interface should be some kind of open-format API, so that people could produce open-source applications to browse the social networks.
.
Well, either that, or you are doing the typical-mind fallacy. Which one is it, and how would you know?