Wed, Mar 16, 2011
Is the Internet Destroying Your Productivity?
Posted by Charles Purdy
New York Times columnist David Carr says, “I’m so productive, I never get anything done.”
Sound familiar? Then you were probably too busy to attend this SXSW panel discussion, where Carr was joined by Molly McAleer, CEO of MollsSheWrote; Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor of The Atlantic; and Anthony De Rosa, a co-founder of Neighborhoodr.com—along with a large, diverse audience of hyper-connected attendees.
But were you busy working, or just doing busy work? Carr thinks that a lot of our time on computers is taken up by the latter: “Make the coffee, check the RSS, groom the avatar, freshen the blog, make nice with the Twitter—and now it’s time to do the same thing again,” he explains. “Meanwhile, your job/project/spouse/story sits there, staring at you with big cow eyes and wondering if you will ever leave the grid and do something real, something productive, something that will yield cash money and not just more followers on Twitter.”
Of course, people have always found ways to procrastinate or “slack off” from their work. A few minutes on Facebook isn’t so much different from the few minutes our parents or grandparents might have spent gossiping at the water cooler or on a coffee break. But for people who work at a computer, it’s harder than ever to stay focused. There are the temptations of our social networks, our email in-boxes, and our favorite Websites. And the problem, as Carr sees it, is that a lot of this stuff feels sort of like work—but it doesn’t actually produce anything.
And for McAleer, that is an important distinction. “When I’m working, there is going to be output,” she says. “When I’m not working, there’s no output.”
Carr feels the Internet makes him less productive. He explains, “What I do is make content. Lately, I have been so busy promoting what I do [on Twitter and so on], that I don’t do what I do.”
McAleer adds, “We have to impose self-discipline—but we always have. All known thought is a click away, so it takes more self-discipline.”
The Web is a great productivity tool, but these panelists also see it as a productivity destroyer. De Rosa says, “Sometimes I love the Web, but I feel like I always have to be monitoring it or feeding it.” He cited the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan as an example: he monitored live news of the disaster for many hours and discussed it with his network. And he thinks that, for many people, monitoring news events in real time reaches the point of compulsion.
Carr feels that the Internet can become a tool of self-obsession for many people who use it for social interaction or for self-promotion. We get online, and we “look for me, what does the word think of me,” he says. “You use to wait six months to find out what people thought of you; now you can watch reactions in real time.” That’s why, he says, email can a become a deceptive waste of time: “Email is all about myself, so I’m very attracted to it.”
Carr also thinks that Twitter can be an unhealthy symptom of self-obsession, and De Rosa agrees, saying it has rewired his brain and that he walks around thinking, “I need to tweet that later.”
Coates says, “At the end of the day, if you want to get [work] done, you get it done,” and he has an interesting take on procrastination: “For me, it was fear, not procrastination,” he says. “If I have full confidence about something, I just go ahead and knock it out.” And discovering that fear was the root of his being distracted made it easier to conquer, because he “didn’t want to be a punk.”
The panelists asked some interesting questions, to which there are as many answers as there are people. I’d like to pose those questions to you, and start a conversation about how we’re staying productive and avoiding the distractions of the online world—if it is, indeed, a distraction.
- Does the Web actually make you more productive? Or do you go online to get a quick fact for a business proposal you’re writing—and end up, 45 minutes later, watching a YouTube video series of a piano-playing cat?
- Is the free flow of information of the Internet making you smarter or just more distracted?
- What specific steps have you taken to separate your use of the Web for productivity and for recreation?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section.
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10 Responses to “Is the Internet Destroying Your Productivity?”
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March 16, 2011 at 4:25 PM
The internet is definately a tool that makes us more productive, but I also think without the concentration and ability to create parameters for yourself, it’s easy to wander. As an employer, it’s important to know and understand that not all individuals are built the same and thus some may have that self control and some may not (hence employers creating blocks on internet usage). It’s really all about how we use what’s out there, if we want, we can harness information that makes us smarter, or we can use the internet to entertain ourselves and “space-out”.
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March 16, 2011 at 9:03 PM
The web makes more less productive, for sure. The harshest step I’ve ever taken to distance myself from the web, was to delete my Facebook for about 4 weeks. In that time I freed up over 3 hours a day, and ended up learning to knit, finished school work on time, and had time to sleep every day. Now that I’m back on Facebook I don’t really knit anymore, my school work is never done and I sleep only 4 hours a night.
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March 18, 2011 at 11:09 AM
The Internet is not a tool, it is a medium for both productivity tools and time wasters. So depending what you are doing on the internet, you can be productive or not. If your job is to promote your brand, you can say that what you are doing on Twitter and Facebook is productive, provided you are doing it well and you are measuring results. If all you are doing is watching funny videos on YouTube, instead of working or studying, then obviously, you are wasting your time. If you think of how we went about finding a local business 20 years ago, all the information available on the internet is a godsend. Remember (or imagine) how long it took to look at the yellow pages to find a local business, call them on the phone to find information (which could only be done during business hours) and then look at a road atlas to find the place? Now you can do it in 5 minutes, any time of the day, thanks to the Internet.
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March 18, 2011 at 12:41 PM
I really like the way that you framed this. You right on when you say that the internet is requiring us to be even more disciplined. It’s up to us how we managed its use. And I also agree that there’s an emotional connection to being online because it makes us feel good to get a response or to be needed. A quick fix makes our brain happy. But we have to set boundaries. I work with clients to help them connect to their big picture career goals. And that often requires taking the time to get clear on what you really want instead of just reacting to what’s in front of us. One of the things that I have seen really help people is to identify high level key career goals/pillars (i.e. improve my relationship with my team) and then pause throughout the day to see if what you’re doing is aligning with your big picture goals. If it’s not, it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have to do it but may have you re-prioritize. And the most important and often the hardest thing to do is to set aside no-email/no social network time. I know I know. But baby steps. Trying it for one week. No email for one hour a day each week. I promise it’ll make a difference.
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March 18, 2011 at 1:08 PM
Hello Mr. Purdy,
I thoroughly enjoyed this post. I received it through a newsletter I receive at my work named SmartBrief on Your Career.
This post answers so many questions about technology abuse today. I find myself distracted and making purposed action to redirect or discipline my purposes for the day. I wonder how many disciplines we are able to consciously make an effort to put into effect in our lives? This world is full of discipline doctrines, but which ones work and how?
‘Looking for me,’ I believe, is the number one distracting factor in productivity; oh how prone we are to do so. Overcoming self absorption with concentrating on others is a good idea. What stops us from becoming too overboard with that, and divulging ourselves into areas that are beyond the realities of truth?
It all comes down to the age old question or idea of juggling and mediating our own lives. Is it impossible to do? And, if not what’s the solution?
Thank you for your post, and I look forward to more (as in number) insightful posts.
Sincerely,
Jan
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March 19, 2011 at 7:08 AM
I thought this was a very thought provoking post. I agree with those above that we have to more disciplined now than ever before so that we use the Internet (a tool) well to accomplish our goals. I do, however, disagree with a statement that you made in your post.
You wrote: And for McAleer, that is an important distinction. “When I’m working, there is going to be output,” she says. “When I’m not working, there’s no output.”
What about all the producers and promoters that were written about above? What about people like me, educators, who are using the Internet as professional development? I am learning and reading posts, tweets, and sites to gather information for better practice. None of these activities “produce” anything necessarily, but I am certainly working. Yes I do practice discipline and restrain myself from clicking on the piano playing cat, but I am working. So, I think we have to be careful not to get caught up in the argument that work only produces something measurable. There is much to be said about work creating “critical thinking”.
Thanks again for a thought provoking post!
Jessica
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March 24, 2011 at 8:56 AM
The quote from Coates hit home for me. He said it was fear, not procrastination, that kept him distracted from his work. I find when I have total confidence in what I’m doing, I spend little time online. I may view a few sites to get specific information I need, but then I’m off. When I’m not certain, I spend time surfing the web hoping to find that bit of information that will give me the confidence I lack.
I’ve convinced myself that wandering the internet soaking up information is like a plant soaking up fertilizer. It’s a good thing to do until my project takes root. But there is such a thing as too much fertilizer, and the plant dies. I need to find the balancing point between using the internet to help boost my creativity and productivity and the point where I’m so over saturated I can barely move.
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March 25, 2011 at 2:30 PM
That quote from Coates really resonated with me, too, Shari. And I like your analogy about the Internet being like fertilizer. Thanks for your comment!
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March 31, 2011 at 1:03 PM
I agree wholeheartedly. Yes, the Internet blow my mind day in and day
out, and kills my productivity in the process.
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