The habits and rituals of fragmentation \ stacker news ~mostly

4709 sats \ 16 comments \ @elvismercury 18 Mar mostly_harmless

I've noticed that certain behaviors -- participating on SN being a prime example -- fractures my mind. That phrasing is dramatic, I realize, but I think it's accurate. Something about posting, commenting, constantly checking back, having a tab open and waiting for the little red rectangle to appear -

This is 'bad' from an obvious perspective, in that it takes a bunch of time. It's bad from a less obvious but still well-understood perspective of preventing deep engagement with other things that I am meant to be doing. The programmers among you will recognize the high price you pay when your focus is kept from coelescing, because somebody dumps a bunch of meetings on your calendar, or because you keep getting interrupted. A thirty second interruption costs vastly more than thirty seconds.

I think there's an even subtler and more far-ranging issue, which is the mental mode that a person comes to occupy in an environment like this. In the same way you can get in the flow of deep concentration, and your mental rhythms accord with that, you can get into a 'rhythm' of having no rhythm, of jumping from one thing to the next. The interruption of rhythm is itself a rhythm. We often think of this as the lack of something, but really, it's the presence of something we don't have a good name for: the habits and rituals of fragmentation.

This switch mode ruins my productivity as it is traditionally assessed, but that's an old story and not interesting. A newer and more interesting story is that this way of Being is a new thing in the world, at least when inhabited this frequently, at this scale. And as such it poses new challenges [1] and, though I suppose I'm not used to considering it this way, new opportunities.

I'm curious how this idea lands for anyone else. Or if it doesn't.

[1] an interesting exploration of a related idea is:

Bak-Coleman, J. B., Alfano, M., Barfuss, W., Bergstrom, C. T., Centeno, M. A., Couzin, I. D., Donges, J. F., Galesic, M., Gersick, A. S., Jacquet, J., Kao, A. B., Moran, R. E., Romanczuk, P., Rubenstein, D. I., Tombak, K. J., Van Bavel, J. J., & Weber, E. U. (2021). Stewardship of global collective behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(27), e2025764118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2025764118

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443 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 18 Mar

When I started reading novels again, I noticed my brain changing modes. There was actually a bit of a hurdle for my brain to settle into doing an uninterrupted activity like that. My work tends to be very fragmented, so it's a bit rare that I get to spend several consecutive hours working on something.

I was also thinking about this a bit while chatting with @siggy47 about his cruise. Whenever we go on a cruise, there's a noticeable adjustment to not rushing through things as though you have something else to get to.

Do you think there are benefits of being fragmented rather than present? Or is it just a new obstacle that we need to adapt to?

458 sats \ 1 reply \ @arrivederci 19 Mar

Do you think there are benefits of being fragmented

Yes. I wouldn't have discovered Bitcoin pretty early on if I hadn't had 'fragmented' attention. I tend to read fairly widely and follow tangents that interest me and the focus of my interest shifts around from day to day (although I do still have abiding interests). And my mind was already 'pre-prepared' for receptiveness to Bitcoin when I did first come upon it from having preciously followed some interesting things my fragmented attention had come across earlier (like how public key cryptography works and how powerful a concept it is).

This isn't meant to be a boast at all, because I'm very much aware of how my fragmented attention often takes me away from the deep focus required to complete projects. It's an interesting trade-off problem, because to focus you have to shut out 'distractions', while some 'distractions' can actually be very useful and enlightening new information. I'm sure there are many people who are doing valuable work requiring deep focus who have dismissed Bitcoin as a distraction, when, as we all agree here, Bitcoin is way too important to dismiss but it does require giving it some attention to appreciate why.

edit : should have read @elvismercury's answer to your question before replying, as they say it better than me

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 Mar

I also "tend to read fairly widely and follow tangents that interest me", but I feel like there's a big difference between giving something hours of attention vs minutes.

I tend to get distracted by new things throughout the day, but when I feel like I'm functioning best, I'm usually dedicating prolonged attention to something.

64 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 18 Mar

Yes. I'm experiencing that now.

230 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 18 Mar

Do you think there are benefits of being fragmented rather than present? Or is it just a new obstacle that we need to adapt to?

I think for sure there are virtues to it. For a certain kind of mind (which maybe any mind can be trained for) being able to mainline 100 different ideas in the course of a couple of hours can give you truly amazing synthetic scope -- you can find connections between disparate things, develop an understanding of X as it relates to Y, and connect them to your existing scaffold. It's a very different feeling and outcome than drilling deep gets you.

It's a great mode to be in. But it's not the only mode you want to be in. At least, I certainly don't.

402 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 18 Mar

Playing piano helps me a lot with reversing this fragmentation. It requires and rewards focus at the same time. It also shows me how much my mind is fragmented. You can get pretty used to this fragmentation such that it becomes your default state of mind that you don't question anymore.

The programmers among you will recognize the high price you pay when your focus is kept from coelescing, because somebody dumps a bunch of meetings on your calendar, or because you keep getting interrupted. A thirty second interruption costs vastly more than thirty seconds.

What you mention here is very related to the Maker's Schedule.

I am sure you already know this post from Paul Graham but mentioning it here for everyone who reads this and doesn't.

The interruption of rhythm is itself a rhythm. We often think of this as the lack of something, but really, it's the presence of something we don't have a good name for: the habits and rituals of fragmentation.

Regarding this, I have to think about it. I am currently too fragmented though, ha, but I try to come back to this when I did.

326 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 18 Mar

I definitely feel this way.

Social media let's us have a conversation with people who aren't right in front if us. It's a little more public and a lot lower bandwidth. When we have multiple posts and multiple comment threads it's like trying to have several in person conversations simultaneously--doesn't work well.

I wonder if we would feel less fragmented if we only had one post or comment thread going at a time. Maybe a thirty second interruption isn't so big a deal if you are switching between only two tasks, subjects. It's the sheer number of simultaneous but different conversations that makes it especially brutalizing.

134 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 18 Mar

It's the sheer number of simultaneous but different conversations that makes it especially brutalizing.

This seems plausible. One thing I sometimes do (I'm doing it now) is to lock down my switching. I worked all morning on work stuff, now I'm switching over here for a bit and talking to you guys, and I will then switch away for the rest of the night. It's fragmentation, but not terrible.

Hard to be disciplined about it, though. Easy for me to go off the rails.

222 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 18 Mar

The interruption of rhythm is itself a rhythm.

You nailed it. This defines everything about fragmentation.

218 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 18 Mar

I think this thing about fragmentation has always existed, at least for me as a teacher. I work at a staffroom and find that my focus is disrupted whenever colleagues come over to me for a chat or pow wow. I can’t always be so task-oriented because they may have had a bad day and need a listening ear. But ya my work doesn’t get done.

Back to SN, I think a simple guideline to follow is whether I feel empty or satisfied after my time on SN. I have always been a writer. If I am not writing on SN, I would be posting stuff on my blog or social media anyway. The thing to note is to be true to myself n write in order to explore what I’m feeling instead of farming sats. I will probably feel good after typing this comment because it is through the process of writing that my Being bursts through my murky mind and makes itself clear.

I don’t mind a good old doomscrolling every now and then. I’m human after all n sometimes need to decompress. However, I try to bring more of a hunting mentality to my time here. When I am more intentional about what I wanna explore here, I remember the things I pick up better. So yesterday I typed “attention” into the search bar and read some stuff associated with it. That way, I know that I’m expanding my knowledge, albeit slowly.

Lastly, I think some boundaries will help me to get the best out of SN. I intend to zap 5 Stackers 49 sats each every day (until my winnings from Fun Fact Friday are depleted haha). If I don’t get to a Stacker, oh well there’s always later or tomorrow. After all, Stackers are known to gravitate towards low time-preference stuff.

This was a lovely diversion from my morning routine. That said, I did get some reading done. And will probably nap on my work to work haha.

218 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 18 Mar

A thirty second interruption costs vastly more than thirty seconds.

It costs at least 10 minutes IME.

I think there's an even subtler and more far-ranging issue, which is the mental mode that a person comes to occupy in an environment like this. In the same way you can get in the flow of deep concentration, and your mental rhythms accord with that, you can get into a 'rhythm' of having no rhythm, of jumping from one thing to the next.

I'm curious how best we can avoid this while still giving folks what they want - presuming fragmentation isn't what they want. We could introduce a silent mode for notifications where you can block off time on a schedule, e.g. no red dots 9-5 M-F.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury OP 18 Mar

e.g. no red dots 9-5 M-F

That's an interesting idea!

Another way is just to jump in with both feet: add features to maximize the ability to benefit from fragmentation. I think that winds up making SN into practically a thinking tool, which would be super interesting to me but perhaps not to many.

121 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 18 Mar

SN is a 24/7 cocktail party only the individual can unplug themselves by abstaining drinking all day and all night is fun though.

anon mode with no rewards, no notifications is a party trick to keep drinking responsibly it costs more but when you consider the fragmentation effects, does it really?

48 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 18 Mar

Maybe we should have a logged in mode called sober mode.

No rewards, only notifications for direct replies, no sats shown on posts.

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19 Mar

You have my divided attention

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DudeJLebowski 19 Mar

Just check in a couple of times a day.