Focus and productivity are closely linked. The more time you spend focused on the task at hand, the less time lost to distraction. But intending to stay focused and successfully staying focused are two different things.
Imagine needing to research a topic for a project. You sit down, get comfortable, maybe even block off 30 minutes of uninterrupted time. But what happens? A few minutes in, a desktop notification pops up. You click ‘Later’ but lose a moment or two remembering where you left off. Then a few minutes later, just as you’re back in the groove, the ding of a new message grabs your attention. Then another. And another. And so on.
Before you know it, half of your 30 minutes was lost to distraction. Maybe way more.
It can be difficult to concentrate when there’s an influx of information constantly bombarding us. That’s just a limitation of our brains. But there are habits you can develop and techniques you can use that defuse distraction. While we were researching our article “Information overload, fake news, and invisible gorillas. Teach your brain new tricks,” we uncovered a few scientifically proven tips and habits that can strengthen your focus and boost your productivity.
We’ve grown that list of tips and habits to 23 proven techniques for improving focus:
6. Breathe in essential oil aromas. Science suggests you can “smell your way to a better brain” by inhaling essential oils like lemon, peppermint, rosemary, lavender, and jasmine.
7. Seek out new opinions to test your own views. When we step outside our comfort zones, we teach our brains new habits.
8. Meditate. One study showed mindfulness meditation strengthened the brain regions associated with concentration and decision-making.
The modern workplace is full of distractions. Adopting new techniques like these can make the difference between an hour lost or an hour gained in getting things done.
There’s a sinking feeling that comes from saying yes to a request or invitation that rightly deserves a polite no. But offering too many yeses can lead to over-complication, overload, and the risk of under-delivering. Also known as stress.
Demands on our time at work are, for all practical purposes, infinite. Yet productive time at work is limited and deadlines are always right over the horizon. The challenge of delivering an effective no at work comes down to two things. One is knowing when to say no. The other is how to say no.
Knowing when to say no requires having a clear view of your own priorities and evaluating new requests for your time against those priorities. We shared information about how to prioritize new tasks with the Eisenhower Matrix, a simple method for ranking projects and requests as they hit your desk or inbox.
There are some general guidelines for delivering a no at work. Take time to consider the request before saying no. Offer an alternative. Say no in person or by phone. And keep it simple.
But what is hard to find are specific tactics for delivering a no effectively. It comes down to your own personality and the circumstances of the denial. More of an art than science. So to help you identify your own no style, we’ve compiled some ideas for how to express a no at work.
1. The polite-reject. This approach softens the no with a thank you: “Thanks for thinking of me but I am tied up with…”
2. The wrong-expertise. When you’re not sure you have the necessary skills to contribute to a project or request, try this: “That project sounds exciting, but I don’t really have the expertise to help with this.”
3. The stick-to-the-original-plan. When a colleague or client wants to change direction or move out of scope, you can use: “These are excellent ideas. But to stay on [budget/timeline/scope], let’s stick with the original plan we all agreed to.”
4. The fork-in-the-road. When a request conflicts with one of your own goals, try this one: “I would like to help out but can’t risk missing the deadline on my current project.”
5. The respect. This approach is best when your plate is already full: “Sorry but I can’t give your project the time it deserves right now.”
6. The conflict-of-interest. When you’re asked to help out in a way that could create a potential conflict of interest, try this: “I would love to help, but I worry that my participation could create a conflict of interest.”
7. The redirect. Use this one carefully. But when someone else in the office is better suited for a particular request and you don’t have the capacity to take on the task, try: “Thanks for thinking of me, but Bob is a better fit for this request.”
8. The no-stepping-on-toes. When you’re asked to take on a task that falls under someone else’s role, you can kindly reply with: “This task sounds like it falls under Barb’s responsibilities and I wouldn’t want to step on her toes.”
9. The too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen. Some requests involve projects that are already overstaffed, and joining has the potential to degrade the outcome. Try this no: “I know there are great people already involved with this project, so I’m afraid that me joining would only overcrowd it.”
10. The delay. Even when an opportunity comes along that catches your interest, your ongoing work needs your focus. When this happens, try this: “Happy to help, but I am unable to assist until I wrap up what I’m already working on. Perhaps another time?”
Saying no can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s integrity in maintaining your boundaries and not committing to work that you can’t follow through on. Remember, if you don’t think yes makes sense, the power of no is on your side.
Digital privacy in the U.S. is in a Wild West phase. There are few laws, less enforcement, and a lot of uncertainty and chaos. Practically everything we do online creates a data trail that we have little or no access to or control over.
Take these two straightforward questions: What information does your favorite app or Internet service collect about you? And what do they do with it? Most of us couldn’t answer that, but that’s by design. The United States lacks an overarching privacy protection law, like the European Union’s GDPR—the big new law that might finally shake up digital privacy. So technology companies don’t have much reason to share exactly what data about you they collect, store, and, in some cases, sell to third parties.
Below is Entefy’s latest roundup covering the gamut of cyber privacy matters to help keep you informed:
2. Get your Facebook data back. Do you ever wonder how Facebook gains so much insight about its users? The free browser extension Data Selfie sheds light on Facebook’s machine learning algorithms and “tracks all the digital breadcrumbs you would leave behind when using Facebook (hint: it’s a lot of breadcrumbs) and creates your personality profile.”
3. It’s possible to hack a phone through sound waves. Accelerometers measure rest and acceleration in smart devices and are commonly found in smartphones, fitness trackers, and automobiles. Although helpful for navigation and orientation, there’s been a recent discovery that accelerometers are susceptible to vulnerabilities. “Researchers describe how they added fake steps to a Fitbit fitness monitor and played a ‘malicious’ music file from the speaker of a smartphone to control the phone’s accelerometer. That allowed them to interfere with software that relies on the smartphone, like an app used to pilot a radio-controlled toy car.”
4. ESPN collected first-party data on about 106 million of its users. ESPN collects information such as a person’s favorite teams, leagues, and players, as well as displays strategic advertisements based on these preferences. If a Warriors fan visits the website after a win, advertisements for special merchandise will appear when that person checks the website. For the ESPN visitors that do not volunteer their preferences, the network can figure out sport preferences by tracking their behavior online.
5. Smart TVs are known to track personal data, and Vizio got caught. Earlier this year, Vizio paid $2.2 million to settle charges for monitoring viewing habits of more than 11 million TVs without consent. “The main problem was that Vizio TVs had tracking features turned on by default, instead of an opt-in setting like many other manufacturers use…but the situation is now a relatively good one for Vizio TV owners: the company is specifically prohibited from tracking your viewing habits without explicit permission.”
6. Google can track when someone clicks an ad and buys something from a physical store. If you see an online advertisement for a product, then go to a store and buy it with a credit card, Google can track your behavior and report the data to marketers so that they can see how effective their advertisements are. “How does Google know if you bought something at Subway or Aldo? It works with the credit and debit card companies to match up in-store purchases with your online identity. The company has partnerships with companies that account for 70% of credit and debit card purchases in the U.S.”
7. There are “microdots” on printed documents that encode the serial number for the original printer. Research that printers might be spying on us has been around for a while. A recently leaked document has brought it to the forefront of the news again. After a quick analysis of documents related to a National Security Agency leak case, experts “seemed to reveal the exact date and time that the pages in question were printed: 06:20 on 9 May, 2017 – at least, this is likely to be the time on the printer’s internal clock at that moment. The dots also encode a serial number for the printer.”
8. Not all virtual private networks (VPNs) are created equal. VPNs create an encrypted connection between your browser and another private server, and protect users from things like malware. But it can be hard to tell how secure every VPN is and what it’s doing with your data. To optimize security on your VPN, “avoid free services, and…look into setting up your own. Otherwise, make sure a paid VPN has a privacy policy you’re okay with…And on a larger scale, remember that the best solution is still policies that would tackle the problem at the source: ISPs’ ability to sell your data.”
9. Twitter’s new privacy policy with invasive defaults doesn’t “sound good.”Twitter has updated its privacy policy in order to provide users with a more personalized experience, which includes very specific tailored ads. Twitter “will now record and store non-EU users’ off-Twitter web browsing history for up to 30 days, up from 10 days in the previous policy.” This policy is on an opt-out basis. You can “click ‘Review settings’ to opt out of Twitter’s new mechanisms for user tracking.” Wondering why EU users are exempt from this privacy policy? Read on.
10. Amazon Echo Look is collecting a full picture of you and your home. The cloud-connected camera wants to give consumers feedback on their outfits by using advice from fashion experts and machine learning algorithms. “The lookbook is a digital collection of ‘what you wore and when.’” But what’s important here is that “you’re potentially giving the tech giant a lot more data than just the type of chinos you sport. The pictures can reveal socioeconomic status, whether you’re married, religious affiliation (hello cross above your bed), and potentially a lot more.”
Digital privacy in the U.S. is going through growing pains, and we hope these resources help you stay informed. After all, protecting yourself starts with awareness. For additional information be sure to check out our first, second, third, and fourth articles related to this topic.
There’s a lot of data flying around these days. Literally. Commercial jets are continuously generating data while they’re in the air: log files, GPS info, data recorders, audio files, the list goes on. In fact, a single 787 Dreamliner produces 500 gigabytes of data every time it flies. That’s the same amount of data it would take to stream music or video on a device for over 31 days.
This tells us a lot about the extent of today’s global data explosion. With 553 Dreamliners delivered to airlines to date, all those 500 gigabyte flights add up to 276.5 terabytes of data on days the whole fleet takes to the air.
All this data creation is a reason artificial intelligence is transforming industries around the world. One of the strengths of AI is its ability to identify patterns and meaning in piles of data. Which becomes critically important as big data gets bigger by the day.Entefy’s enFacts are illuminating nuggets of information about the intersection of communications, artificial intelligence, security and cyber privacy, and the Internet of Things. Have an idea for an enFact? We would love to hear from you.
The wheel. The printing press. The telegraph. These technological advances certainly changed things for humans. And today smartphones are no exception. Science is beginning to show that they’re not just changing things, they’re changing us. Some of these changes are unexpected and certainly worth knowing about.
In the digital era, that old piece of wisdom “everything in moderation” seems particularly valid. Look at it as finding your own personal Goldilocks formula for screen time.
Here are 12 ways digital device use can impact our brains, behavior, and mental health:
1. Technology heightens our desire for instant gratification
If you click on a video and it’s slow to play, how long are you willing to wait? One study into how video quality impacts viewers provides an answer that’s pretty telling. The study included 6.7 million unique viewers who watched 23 million videos for 216 million minutes. The finding was that viewers start clicking elsewhere after just 2 seconds, and every additional second of delay added another 5.8% to the abandonment rate. These findings are specific to online video behavior, but certainly point to a lot of people expecting instant (digital) gratification.
2. Social media can fuel narcissism
A group of 292 individuals (75% were college students) participated in a study into potential links between Facebook use and high scores on the narcissistic personality inventory (NPI) survey. It found that Facebook users with high NPI scores tended to have more friends on Facebook, tag themselves more often, and update their profile photos and newsfeeds more. “For the average narcissist, Facebook ‘offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication,’” said Christopher Carpenter, the study’s author. “In general, the ‘dark side’ of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook’s socially beneficial and harmful aspects.”
3. Social media impacts the mental health of young people
The images we see on social media are carefully curated and not always the best reflections of the everyday world. Compare your next home cooked meal to the food porn on Instagram and you’ll know the feeling.
This “unreality” can have a big impact on younger users. The #StatusofMind study in the UK surveyed 1,500 participants aged 14 to 24 about their social media use. It found that social media platforms did in fact negatively impact health in areas like anxiety, depression, and body image. Further, 7 in 10 participants reported experiencing cyberbullying.
But other findings were more positive: Social media can improve access to information about other people’s experiences with health issues, and social media users report more emotional support from their contacts.
4. Trouble when your smartphone is something you “can’t live without”
One idea about smartphones seems to be taking hold: Smartphones are the new cigarettes. Like smoking in, say, the 1950’s, smartphones are a habit that few people really question. But unlike cigarettes, the verdict is still out on exactly how much smartphone usage leads to negative health effects.
One consideration is whether constant connectedness makes it easier to dedicate time and attention to things that don’t really matter. One psychiatrist observed that many people in her practice have “disconnected from what really matters, from what makes us feel nourished and grounded as human beings.”
5. Technology appears to be warping millennials’ brains
There are 83.1 million people aged 18 to 34 in the U.S. spending an average of 18 hours per day using digital media. If that seems high, the study counts 1 hour multitasking on social media and streaming video as 2 total hours of media use. Being constantly “on,” digitally speaking, may be changing how the brain develops. Preliminary findings of research into brain development among millennials suggest that their brains are developing differently because of their almost constant interaction with digital apps and devices. These differences can be seen in brain regions linked to communication skills and the core of a person’s personality.
6. Digital overload impairs our natural ability to filter stimuli
Our brains simply weren’t designed to handle the flood of information that constantly bombards us online. The brain works best when it can efficiently filter the noise from the signal, and a big way to help it do that is to limit how much informational stimulus we’re exposed to.
7. Social media and online news can inhibit memory formation
There is another noteworthy aspect of brain behavior related to social media use: memory formation. Research suggests that low levels of focus (as is typical while browsing social feeds and online news sites) can inhibit memory formation. You may have experienced this when you tried and failed to recall something that you saw on your feeds earlier in the day. The takeaway is that if you want to remember something, be prepared to give it sustained attention, and then revisit it again and again to make it stick.
8. Smartphone use can cause headaches and nerve damage
First, a quick anatomy lesson. The occipital nerves run out from the spine into the back of the neck and continue running to the top of the head. Problems with the occipital nerves include tension headaches and back pain. There is evidence that prolonged smartphone use can stress the occipital nerves, eventually leading to a condition called occipital neuralgia. Occipital neuralgia is characterized by chronic pain and headaches, especially those localized to the side of the head and scalp.
9. Talk about stress
The American Psychological Association polled 3,500 adults about their smartphone use in an online questionnaire. The survey found that “people who are always looking at their digital devices—called ‘constant checkers’—reported higher levels of stress compared to people who spend less time interacting with their gadgets.” The report used a scoring metric to quantify stress levels: “On a 10-point scale, where 1 is ‘little or no stress’ and 10 is ‘a great deal of stress,’ the average reported overall stress level of constant checkers is 5.3. For non-constant checkers, the average reported stress level is 4.4.” Suggesting that too much smartphone checking leads to a 20% boost in stress levels.
10. Screen time before bed impacts sleep worse than a double espresso
University researchers conducted a sleep study that compared the impact to the circadian clock from bedtime caffeine consumption and digital device screen time. The results suggested that, “consumption of a caffeine dose equivalent to that in a double espresso 3 hours before habitual bedtime induced a ~40-min phase delay of the circadian melatonin rhythm in humans. This magnitude of delay was nearly half of the magnitude of…exposure to 3 hours of evening bright light” from a digital device. We’ve previously covered better sleep from a notification vacation.
11. Digital connectedness can lead to real world isolation
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher conducted a metaanalysis (a study of multiple studies) of psychiatric research into social media use and isolation. She found that, “people who choose to devote large portions of their time to connecting online are more isolated than ever in their non-virtual lives, leading to emotional disconnection, mental fatigue, and anxiety.”
12. Mobile device use associated with an increased risk of brain cancer
The tin hat crowd may be onto something. A study into the potential link between brain tumors and mobile phone use found that there is indeed an increased risk associated with prolonged mobile and cordless phone use. The World Health Organization is more cautious, calling the electromagnetic fields produced by mobile devices “possibly carcinogenic.”
What’s important to keep in mind is that much of the research focuses on what happens when people over-use devices. So, like with many things in life, the answer to “What can I do about it?” is to practice moderation. Understand what the science tells us can happen, and modify your own habits accordingly.
Here are 6 ways to boost your focus and retain more of what you read:
When it comes to getting our information off the Internet, we’re all a little like children—we have limited attention and we’re not always sure where to direct it. The challenge is that it can be difficult to limit how much information we consume when there’s always something new calling out for a click. The thing is: attention is a finite resource. Knowing how to spend it wisely can be a challenge.
In 2014, the term “fake news” hadn’t yet become part of the American lexicon and the 2016 U.S. presidential race was only beginning to make headlines. But in California, a man named Jestin Coler was hard at work creating one of the most divisive media trends in modern history.
Dubbed the godfather of the fake news industry, Coler’s efforts began with publishing fabricated stories—including an article about Colorado food stamp recipients using welfare benefits to buy marijuana—that garnered enough traffic to generate tens of thousands of dollars a month in ad revenue. The idea quickly caught on. Competing sites sprang up around the world as other publishers raced to create fake news masterpieces of outrageous, conspiratorial, and highly partisan news ahead of the election.
There’s no easy answer to the problem. But artificial intelligence can help.
Fighting fake
Sixty-two percent of Americans look to social media for information on what’s happening in the world. How we engage with the articles and videos we find on these platforms influences which stories and posts we’ll see in the future. If we like, comment on, or share more conservative news items than we do liberal ones, for instance, social algorithms will show us similar content the next time we sign on. Our online contacts also factor into this equation. Having a disproportionate number of liberal-leaning friends or followers skews our feeds as well.
Blatantly false news isn’t the only thing that should concern us. Headlines and stories that frame accurate information in misleading ways also distort our perceptions. As Kim LaCaria, content manager for Snopes, told Quartz, ‘There’s information and then there’s how it’s presented, and those two aren’t always the same.’
Colombia Journalism Review has advised journalists to look at creation dates and source materials to verify videos, along with clues from content creators’ online backgrounds. Video analysis programs and other verification tools also help. Nearly 60 percent of people repost articles without reading past the headline; so the odds of readers vetting every article seem slim. Even if we all had sufficient time and inclination to become digital detectives, the sheer amount of online content means that making a dent is unfeasible. Millions of online interactions occur each minute, and no human can keep up with them all. An artificial intelligence system, on the other hand, might be able to help stem the fake news tide.
Using AI to solve the fake news problem
An AI system trained to analyze text, videos, images, and audio could work around the clock at rates that far exceed even the most efficient human. Computer science researchers at one university are developing a machine-learning approach to fake news detection. The program will analyze the content of an article and then score it based on how likely it is to be fake news. It can also generate a breakdown of why the score was assigned so readers can understand why the AI system flagged something as fake news.
“Artificial intelligence (AI) can have all the same information as people, but it can address the volume of news and decipher validity without getting tired,” said Stephen Woerner, a student working on the project. “People tend to get political or emotional, but AI does not. It just addresses the problem it’s trained to combat.”
Ironically, the more fake news that’s produced, the better an AI vetting system may become. Machine learning platforms self-improve based on data inputs, so a glut of false articles and videos can enable them to hone their fake news detection abilities.
Other AI systems being developed to identify fake news use natural language processing (NLP) to conduct a complex series of analyses on news items. NLP systems process and organize even unstructured information, pulling insights from vast data sets—an ability that would clearly be useful in scanning and categorizing large volumes of articles created on the web. Algorithms written specifically to identify fake news might compare the ways in which different sites cover certain news events and how a lesser-known site’s coverage stacks up against mainstream outlets, as well as dissect elements such as context and location.
Some developers are working to create programs that parse the contents of articles from different websites and compare their coverage of events against one another to look for potentially misleading items. Again, the more fake news the system takes in and analyzes, the more adept it becomes at identifying suspicious claims and publication details.
A man-machine alliance
Even if AI helps curb the fake news problem, humans still bear responsibility for creating and sharing fake news. Platforms, including social media, enable users to flag posts as fake news. They use algorithms to identify fake content and keep it from spreading. However, the output are as accurate as people’s input. If enough users flag authentic content as fake, then quality publishers are at risk of being wrongly labeled.
Darren Campo, an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Businesses, told Fox News that humans can also manipulate AI systems by using careful language in fake news production. “Fake news protects itself by embedding a ‘fact’ in terms than can be defended,” Campo said. While AI systems may be effective at identifying that a fact is incorrect, it may not be as effective at identifying the context around that fact.
Developers would also need to account for limitations in their programs. For instance, a vetting algorithm might draw on existing content to verify a story’s accuracy. But when a reputable outlet publishes breaking news, it may do so without much context, which may in turn impact the AI system’s determination. Proper human input can help safeguard against this and avoid further exacerbating the fake news problem.
We’ll also need to overcome our own biases. Reading articles that feed into our confirmation bias can make us feel good, but we’ll have to exercise skepticism about what we read if we’re to defend truth and factual reporting in our society. AI will likely play a critical role in combating fake news, but progress in this area depends on us, as people, becoming more conscientious about what we share and how we engage with one another online.
In this era of information oversaturation, notification overload, and app-for-everything overkill, many people have turned to multitasking as one strategy for keeping their heads above the digital waters. Research shows that switching quickly between projects can reduce productivity by up to 40 percent.
The extra hours you seem to be creating by multitasking come with serious trade-offs compared to focused unitasking. When we’re bombarded with simultaneous streams of electronic information, we lose focus which then negatively impacts our ability to recall the information. And research has found signs that media multitaskers have less grey matter density in the brain region responsible for cognitive and emotional control.
The science is still preliminary, but are we going to look back on this era one day and shake our heads over how we ignored signs that constant multitasking eats away at our brains? Entefy’s enFacts are illuminating nuggets of information about the intersection of communications, artificial intelligence, security and cyber privacy, and the Internet of Things. Have an idea for an enFact? We would love to hear from you.
How often do you find yourself thinking about roundworms and their connection to the Internet of Things—the world of smart devices often just called IoT? IoT devices are things like Internet-enabled appliances and fitness trackers.
What do these devices have to do with worms? Strength in numbers. Individual IoT devices might not have a lot of capacity on their own, but when you link a bunch of them together, they can have a big impact.
In this video enFact we examine the surprising links between the humble roundworm and cutting-edge IoT devices.
Entefy’s enFacts are illuminating nuggets of information about the intersection of communications, artificial intelligence, security and cyber privacy, and the Internet of Things. Have an idea for an enFact? We would love to hear from you.
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