The native idea of this blog post came from watching “the social dilemma” documentary on Netflix months ago. If you haven’t watched it, I recommend it for you.

Technology has travesed time horizons and made a lot of progress even facinating the very humans who invented and driving the advancements every minute and every day. It’s even disturning…here is what I mean…

Well, according to the social dilemma…Facebook now has 2.8 billion people viewing their product.

I also refresh our memory from the movie ‘The Matrix’. The Wachowskis who cretaed that movie visualized that the world that was seen by most was an artificial digital world created by A.I. Aha… that is why when they are in the matrix, there is a green-ish hue.  It was to depict them being viewed from a computer screen

Why am I saying all this? Is there an issue?

Well, when most of us on Facebook… we see different things based upon our likes, activity… and what Facebook wants to show us.

For a movement, compare that with Wikipedia where all of us sees the same page when we visit that site.

The other social sites like YouTube etc. follows what Facebook does to the user.

This way, social sites are controlling what a user is viewing…and in a sense control the reality of these 2.8 billion people.  That’s close to 1/3rd of the globe’s population.

So we are feeding A.I with each and every click, swipe, and view, and with our actions A.I. gets more smart and in a sense…keeping us more entangled and distracted.

Getting it?

What Can We Do To Overcome The Social Dilemma?

Some people believe that social media and technology have done more damage to society than helped it.

It’s created less empathy and people don’t know how to genuinely interact with one another.

The key moving forward is to manage your time on social media…and be honest with yourself if you have an addiction.

According to one panelist in the social dilemma…the way the apps are designed is to get the brain to release dopamine…which is what keeps many hooked.

One of the best ways to take back your time and focus is by doing a social media cleanse and reworking/rewiring your brain. I did just that after overcoming an internet addiction…

What to do to get more focus, the need of the day?

Am I alluding to technology being bad?  Quite the contrary.  Like any tool…it’s about the hands that the tools are in.   The way that social media was originally designed was to be a way to keep up with family and friends.

But now since it’s addictive and those addictions are being exploited, as technology adapters we’ve got to make sure we take steps to keep focused and achieve our goals.

Let me tell me about my addiction that cost amlost 2 years of my life… seriously?

This was not an addiction with drugs or alcohol, and in-comparison the ‘high’ was mundane, just avoiding life and responsibility. Months went by, lost to an addictive and bitter procrastination.

Nobody was worried, on the surface I looked busy and hard working, yet around me life passed me by while I was infused in a dopamine haze.

I’m a recovering addict to email, chat, social media and so many little fun distractions online.

My self realization story…

Luckily one day I read an article which said turn off all auto-checking of email and IM notifications so that you won’t get disturbed when you have work to do.

I felt pretty dumb having spent the last couple of years doing the opposite, allowing myself to be constantly interrupted. After I made that little change things began to get better.

That’s when I realized I had an addiction.

Even without the auto-alerts I found myself constantly being drawn in to see the latest unimportant message I had received.

That was over 5 years ago, before people realized just how bad internet addiction can be.

I was pivoting myself with information over dose as a presumable professional stature.

Email, mobile, social media, and messenger are still dopamine inducing distractions I still battle with today.

I have to put a lot of things in place, and worked hard to break these destructive habits with better ones.

It’s why I started practicing weired unsociable rules in my work environment and I can be difficult to get hold of. I’m a bit like an alcoholic who can’t go to a bar because he’ll relapse.

I’ve literally persuaded myself through and through that email ruins my life. But like any addict that knows the dangers, I’m still tempted every day.

I was the last of everyone I knew ot get a smart phone in my network because I knew once I got it I would be addicted. Now I have to keep my phone away from me in bed, and often put it in another room or out of site, keep it on silent and turn off notifications for most things.

In due course here is what I discovered…

Brain scans have shown dopamine releases when we get email, get a ‘like’ on Facebook, or a new message on mobile.

That attracts us in, and then we develop dependency and muscle memory.

Ever find yourself typing in text msg, or loading up an app on iphone without thinking about it? That’s muscle memory driven by a desire for a little more communication crack.

Just like injecting refined heroin into your veins, the brain is not engineered to efficiently make use of the internet.

The brain is just overwhelmed and on an incredible crazy binge.

The internet is like ‘Los Vegase’ for brains – a place of over-consumption, indulgence and an electric environment that leaves you forgetting the real life.

But at some point you have to leave Vegas and sober up…

Like with any addiction its incredibly important to recognize its a problem. One that can ruin your life.

The crack communication addiction does not make you ‘connected’. You’ve just unplugged yourself from what is really important in life.

You’ll find days lost, weeks fade away, and months disappear as you spend your time in endless chat and noise from distant but loud voices all around the internet.

You’ll persuade yourself that these online conversations and all the time you spend on them are very important, until they takeover and you the real important tasks get long forgotten.

It’s called the web because its where you can get trapped.

Don’t be the fly, try to be a winner…

For most people these potentially powerful communication tools just become a distraction trap – and ultimately services like Gmail, Social Media and Mobile are designed to distract you, because the more you use them, the more money they make.

It takes a disciplined and sophisticated mind to orientate and grapple through the web’s vast expanse to find the true hidden gold that can enrich our lives, while blocking out the dirty noise.

Bear in mind that we have built-in weaknesses that allow us to be distracted and exploited online. Our brains were never designed to handle this situation and we’re vulnerable.

Companies like Google ane Facebook mathematically test the most effective way to get you hooked. They use advanced AI that’s pure goal is to keep your attention. They are incredible at it.

You are up against some of the smartest minds on the planet that continually test what keeps you staying longer and coming back for more.

But you can reclaim your brain and be more productive, get over the tipping point faster, and gain true achievements that can make you happy, rather than be cheated with social media and email dopamine hits.

Useful Tips for Better Online Productivity…

• Turn off all auto-notifications of Email, News, Slack, Instagram, Facebook and any other app that you can. If something pops-up you can see, Google how to turn it off. I never see or here any alert, ping, number or pop-up when I get a message from anyone.
• Auto-delete/archive ALL email from social media apart from notifications of new messages using rules.
• Remove distracting features from your devices… for me Google’s ‘Discover’ for news articles was sucking me in, so I turned it off.
• Buy a kindle or similar for reading books and keep it offline while you read. I like the Kindle paperwhite as it’s terrible for browsing the internet so I keep focused on reading the book… or better yet… just buy the book 
• Only give your phone to a very small number of higher level employees and be very strict that instant messaging and phone calls is ONLY for something urgent – and define what urgent is. Don’t see this as a way to alienate your staff, they can still contact you via email so you can manage your time, and work on what is important without distraction.
• Never start your day by checking email, slack facebook or mobile. It can wait while you spend at least an hour working on something important.
• Create a daily list of what you did yesterday, and what you will do today, and start at that first.
• If you do have urgent things that come in via email that you MUST look at, set up a separate priority email account, and give it out to only those that will need to contact you urgently.
• My first breakthrough with email came to me after I was forced not to check email for 2 weeks while on vacation with an unexpected lack of internet, and everything turned out fine. I realized I had been wasting my time checking email & messages multiple times a day. Be strikingly honest about if you really need to go on email, mobile, social media or your preferred distraction so often. Give it up for 1 day and see what happen- were you more productive? Try it for 7 days just to see what happens, discover your limits and be challenged by a new way of doing things that can potentially lead to a breakthrough.
• If there’s a site you keep finding yourself on, or typing without realizing, and/or you are having trouble controlling your addition then blocking sites and tracking your time will help.

Let the community know if you have cracked a productivity habit or a way to increase focus. Comment below…

Related Reading: Monetize Social Data Without A Middleman

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