Hello!
Seiiti Arata.
They say that in poker, if you don’t know who the fool at the table is, it’s probably
you.
And on the internet it’s very similar.
If you don’t know what kinds of foolish behaviours to avoid, you probably have to
learn to protect yourself from them.
But what kind of foolishness are we talking about?
Now more than ever, we need to deal with all of the extra information and distractions
online.
This information overload makes us anxious, overwhelmed, and even misinformed.
Take a minute to think about all the different kinds of information you need to process every
day: News, notifications, friend requests, messages, podcasts, videos, games, new social
media, memes, unmissable series, gossip, fake news, people getting canceled, complaints,
and polarization... all of this can suck up your attention.
And that’s why, at the end of the day, you feel totally exhausted... and you didn’t
accomplish what you really wanted to that day.
This doesn’t just happen to you.
Everyone is exposed to information overload and distractions.
But some people know how to protect themselves.
And today, you too will learn how to make yourself immune to information overload and
make better choices.
Information overload and distractions will always be present in your life.
You will always be bombarded with notifications and attention-grabbing news in a world where
everything seems urgent, but nothing is actually important.
So what can we do to better deal with all of this information?
You can’t reduce the amount of information that gets to you.
But you can change how you decide to process it.
This is the central idea of media literacy, which we will learn about today.
If you don’t use the internet intentionally, the internet will use you.
The first step to free yourself from information overload and distractions is learning to use
the internet with intelligence and intention.
You can’t be the kind of person who gets distracted all the time.
You need a plan, a clear intention that you want to achieve.
Without a clear plan, you risk exposing yourself to information that will influence how you
think, act, and feel.
You need to be able to judge the quality of the information you find.
You need to evaluate if this information is useful for you.
This skill is known as media literacy.
And you can consider yourself well-versed in media literacy when you are able to truly
understand the context in which information was published.
The ideas of media literacy are generally applied to misinformation and fake news.
But we can go even farther.
We can think about digital literacy, which also helps you to decide which information
is worth consuming intelligently to achieve your specific goals.
When using the internet, be clear about what you want.
What’s wrong with information overload and the abundance of distractions on the internet?
The problem is that we browse without really knowing what we’re doing.
Many people have the habit of taking their phone out of their pocket and checking social
media, news sites, and messaging apps to pass the time.
This is being in a reactive mode.
We’re always reacting to what the news feed shows us, what notifications pop up, or the
latest video that got posted or recommended.
So what’s wrong with this?
The problem is that what’s showing up in front of you is not helping you to improve
your life.
What you see in your feed is the most addicting news that makes you angry and polarizes people.
The algorithms understand that this kind of content creates the most engagement and gets
you hooked on using that app.
The business model of most of these social media sites requires people to use their apps
ever more.
That’s the only way they can sell ads and increase their profits.
In other words, these apps were designed to grab and hold our attention for the longest
time possible.
There are two big problems here.
First, you can be wasting time that you could use towards your own goals.
The second problem is watching ads that almost always target our negative emotions to make
us buy something.
One way to escape this trap is by going back to the old idea of “logging on to the internet”.
Make a habit of using the internet with intention and clarity.
Learn to go offline.
Back in the day, you needed to “log on to the internet”.
It was normal to be offline, and you had to make an effort to go online.
You needed to turn on your desktop computer and dial a specific number to connect to the
internet.
This has now changed.
Today, it’s normal to be online, and you have to make an effort to go offline.
To go offline, you could turn off your WiFi or even use your phone’s airplane mode.
It seems like a crazy idea, but there are many popular apps that exist to force you
to stay offline.
Here’s a link to see for yourself : [ https://arata.se/hgtt ]
However, this isn’t a very practical solution, and it has obvious disadvantages.
A tool that forces you to stay offline is like a crutch to compensate for a lack of
discipline.
That’s why I don’t personally use apps to keep myself offline.
I use the time blocking method that we saw in the fifth episode of the Study Arata series
[ https://arata.se/study05 ]
Combine clarity of intention with the time blocking method.
Don’t allow distractions to obstruct your intention
The time blocking method is very simple.
First, you set an intention.
What’s your reason for going online now?
Ideally, you’d write this on a post-it note, in a notebook, or even on your computer screen.
Having made a note of this, you’ll always have your intention for using the internet
visible at every moment.
Then, you define a block of time.
Set an alarm or timer on your watch, cell phone, or computer with the amount of time
you chose.
And during all of that time, do your best to keep your focus solely on the intention
you set.
For example, imagine that your intention to go online now is to do a report for your job.
And you decided to devote one hour to this task.
You wrote down your intention on a post-it note, stuck it next to your computer screen,
set your timer to go off in an hour, and started to work.
If you’re not extra careful, it’s almost certain that your mind will get distracted
during the sixty minutes that you chose.
Suddenly, you get a notification on your phone.
Or you open a new tab and start reading the news.
Or worse, you fall into the social media trap and spend half an hour looking at photos.
By the time you realize it, a good chunk of your time has passed and you were distracted,
far from your original intention.
This is why it’s very important for you to reduce the possibility of distractions
as much as possible during your time blocks.
Silence your phone, close your email, block social media, use headphones, install an app
that doesn’t let you open multiple tabs...no matter what technique you use, what’s important
is to reduce distractions so they don’t obstruct your intention.
Don’t worry about being perfect.
One distraction or another will always come up.
But each time you practice the habit of using the internet with intention, your ability
to concentrate will become even stronger.
Then, you’ll be able to better deal with information overload so you can concentrate
on what’s really important to you.
You can use the internet more intelligently to combat information overload and distractions.
The most important step is to learn to go online with the intention of accomplishing
a specific goal, which can in and of itself be a distraction.
With our smartphones always at our side and connected, if you don’t learn to use the
internet with intelligence, the internet will use you, trapping you in social media, selling
you products, or putting ideas into your head.
The more intelligent you become, the easier it is to escape these traps.
And don’t make the mistake of believing that your intelligence is fixed, something
that you were born with and can’t be improved.
Here at the Arata Academy, we have a specific course for you to improve your intelligence
level.
You can access this course now at https://arata.se/intelligence