More on disfluency
We’re off to the US on holidays this week so it will only be a quick update today, and then no posts for a few weeks. First stop is Texas for a mate’s wedding. It will be my first taste of an “open carry” state. And then on to New York with Lyn to celebrate our […]
Disfluency – the key to insight
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re surrounded by well presented data these days but actually not making any better decisions, or taking any better actions, because of it? Well you wouldn’t be alone. It turns out that often the easier data is to read – well designed graphs and tables – the less […]
Clinton: “love trumps hate”
After last week’s stunning speeches at the DNC, indulge me, please, with one more post on the US election. I’ve had people ask me a few times to say how I think Clinton crafts her narrative and how she answers the “worldview questions”. (If you need context on this, read the original post on narrative […]
Donald Trump’s “it’s midnight in America” narrative
I sat stunned watching Donald Trump’s acceptance speech on Friday. A rambling, unstructured, but terrifyingly dark view of America. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it – as Nate Silver says, it will be the reason he loses by 15 points or goes on to win. The unrelenting bleakness and anger made me […]
Amusing ourselves to death – Part two
This is the second post in a two part series on Neil Postman’s 1985 book “Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business” . The first part is here. This week’s post is also the final in the series on how technology “hijacks our minds” (to quote Google’s Tristan Harris), which I started a […]
Amusing ourselves to death – Part one
This is the first of a two part final in a series on how technology “hijacks our minds” (to quote Google’s Tristan Harris). You can read the first post in the series here. The last few posts have looked at: How dopamine acts on our brains every time we get a Facebook like or an email update the […]
Overcome information overload by tuning the signal to noise ratio
Two weeks ago I talked about information overload and suggested a model to explain it: The model shows two drivers of information overload: The sheer volume of information hitting you. The narrowing of your “processing funnel” due to the fatigue caused by having to deal with this information. In other words, a vicious circle starts […]
#Beleave – Did social media win it for the Leave campaign?
I’ve suspended the series of posts on how technology hijacks our minds for this week, to focus on the Leave win in the UK’s EU referendum. I want to ask whether the Leave campaign won the social media battle and therefore the referendum war. Leave won on Facebook The New York Times has an interesting […]
The dynamic at the heart of information overload
This is the fourth part in a series on how technology “hijacks our minds” (to quote Google’s Tristan Harris). You can read part one of the series here. The last three blogs have looked at: How dopamine acts on our brains every time we get a Facebook like or an email update the same way […]
How to stay focused by stopping self-interruptions
This is the third part in a series on how technology “hijacks our minds” (to quote Google’s Tristan Harris). You can read part one of the series here. The last two blog posts have focused on how technology can distract and interrupt us. We’ve looked at two key mechanisms: The strong reinforcing effects from social media […]