I challenge you to take a moment to become self aware about your social media habits. Will you approach this challenge with a growth mindset?
I’ve shared my thoughts previously about the lack of depth in interactions on social media here, here and here. I guess we’ll make this number four….
I’m currently reading Cal Newport’s fascinating book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. For purposes of this self-awareness challenge, it’s important for us to understand his definitions of shallow and deep work:
Shallow work: Non-cognitively demanding logistical-style tasks often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.
Deep work: Professional activities, performed in a state of distraction-free concentration, that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.
Late in the book, he shares this about social media:
Part of what fueled social media’s rapid assent, I contend, is its ability to short-circuit this connection between the hard work of producing real value and the positive reward of having people pay attention to you. It has instead replaced this timeless capitalist exchange with a shallow collectivist alternative: I’ll pay attention to what you say if you pay attention to what I say— regardless of its value. A blog or magazine or television program that contained the content that typically populates a Facebook wall or Twitter feed, for example, would attract, on average, no audience. But when captured within the social conventions of these services, that same content will attract attention in the form of likes and comments. The implicit agreement motivating this behavior is that in return for receiving (for the most part, undeserved) attention from your friends and followers, you’ll return the favor by lavishing (similarly undeserved) attention on them. You “like” my status update and I’ll “like” yours. This agreement gives everyone a simulacrum of importance without requiring much effort in return.
Newport, Cal (2016-01-05). Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (pp. 207-208). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Necessarily, life, and the way we interact on the internet, is going to have shallow work. It’s not a bad thing, unless there’s a preponderance of it. And I’m not convinced there’s a whole lot of deep work going on among educators on social media especially when I see a lot of “I’ll pay attention to what you say if you pay attention to what I say – regardless of value.”
How do you push your interactions on social media beyond shallow? What if we all pushed even a small number of our interactions on social media into the pool of deep work?
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Is social media the place to do deep work? Does the deep work happen somewhere else?
Hi Randy….this is a topic that I revisit and re-remind myself about from time-to-time. Facebook in particular is a space that lends itself to quick, knee-jerk style posts. However, one of the things about Facebook is that it provides an outlet to vent. And, once you have established the right relationship with your friends you are able to do so without negative consequences most of the time. For me, it’s also a place to be creatively silly. I love political humor. Facebook has led me to try my hand at creating memes. I also tend to not use Facebook as part of a professional PLN. I prefer Google Plus and Blogs for that purpose. Now, the problem I have is participating in other social media that is more professional. Although I participate regularly on Google Plus, I have spotty participation at best on Twitter. This is partly due to it’s format. I just do not like the short blast style of post on Twitter. It’s also the third place player on my team because if that format.