Despite the hardship fuelled by today’s economy where blue, white and pink-collar workers experience job losses, the digital economy presents us with opportunities to make a living from many activities. Many jobs people do nowadays would, in the past, not be regarded as “real” jobs.
The fullness and diversity of life make us appreciate the many offerings and activities people get involved in and reward them for doing so. Today’s ordinary person is one familiar with, if not adept at, many aspects of life. Gone are the days when people were ignorant in activities not central to their paid jobs. A typical urbanised member of society knows more about the environment, economy, politics, science and technology, health, law and art among others than, perhaps, what their past century equivalent was.
In this light, the rise of digitisation makes it easier for one to be easily distracted from doing one’s job for which one is hired and paid to do, to focusing on doing another’s job. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 29 May 2017.
The rise of digitisation initially saw many unprepared business leaders in newspapers and magazines losing signification share of revenue to disruptive unconventional business new entrants who used technology extensively. Many fell by the wayside and predictions were widely made that print media would die completely in the long run to be replaced by non-traditional digital content providers such as Google among others. More predictions were also made that with the rise of social media, traditional journalism would be replaced by an untrained person capturing content using a smart phone. Unbeknown to such forecasters was the subsequent rise of fake news purveyors, which now increase the importance of the need for us to scrutinise and authenticate information we consume.
What started as a threat to journalism is now what fuels its popularity and placement in people’s daily discussions. Digitisation, particularly as seen in the rise of social media, presents many professionals opportunities to “sell” their content by ensuring as many people as possible interact with what they publish online. They take advantage of the exponential effect of information dissemination by pushing content to ensure it remains trending. Trends in turn encourage consumers fear losing out and regularly check social media sites for new postings.
As many trending topics invoke some high levels of emotions, people can be easily absorbed by such content not realising its poor effect on productivity. Each time we “engage” with the content, particularly one authored by a professional such as a journalist or social commentator paid to provide it, we are helping its author achieve set performance and financial targets at the expense of achieving our targets.
Journalists and commentators greatly appreciate it when their content trends and gets people absorbed in its consumption. Ironically, they also find sources of their next publications from the comments people post in reaction to their articles. Authors do their jobs publishing content yet when the public gets distracted spending time-consuming it, they help authors do their jobs at their expense. Yet none of the authors are helping consumers do their real jobs. This unbalanced interaction is one of the many reasons productivity is low and services are not diligently delivered.
Our productivity may not be the only thing adversely affected by such distractive content, but our health and, in some cases, social relations too are affected. Because of the content’s ability to invoke our deep-seated emotions particularly if deemed unacceptable, our health might be negatively affected and communities may be polarised into “us” and “them”. We cannot achieve development effectively if there are fierce divisions among us.
“It’s the work of the devil”, as some would say to explain away the scourge of deplorable evil they find difficult to overcome. And we would be wiser to note evil-works aimed at depriving us of the blissful life we ought to have, which steal our attention from important things but steer us to focus on frivolous time-wasting unsavoury gossip and slander. Distractions increase our stress levels and lead us into hopelessness and despair.
I do not lament the occasional consumption of online social media content. Good business management necessitates the need to keep abreast of topical matters so we could tailor our offerings to meet the needs of people. I get concerned when such consumption distracts us from doing our jobs. At first, one becomes aware of the inordinate time spent consuming such content and may place limits to ensure a focus on one’s productivity. Over time, however, the awareness decreases as one becomes addicted to the content. In no time, very little real productive work gets done.
We must not lose focus on our vision and goals. Our circumstances and experiences should not make us lose focus on important things in our lives. The younger we are, the more we should resist the trap of settling down. We must find ways to keep our minds and abilities stretched. In fact, I would even go further and say so long as one’s alive, one should fiercely resist the temptation to settle for the comfort zone. That leads to death.
Anything we focus on grows. If we are too settled, we stop growing in other areas of our lives. The end is death. Let us therefore grow in our focus on important areas of our lives and development. Life is certainly not meant to be filled with seriousness only. We also need some fun. Just as our health depends on maintenance of a balanced diet, the sharpness of our minds depends on us maintaining a good balance between seriousness and fun. Just ensure that as you occasionally check on what is trending, you maintain sharp awareness on the impact on your productivity.
Let us focus on our assigned jobs so everyone’s job is done. This way, we will have sufficient time and resources to help others struggling to do theirs or finding work.
Our well-being is first in our minds and its realisation in our hands. Let us therefore rid ourselves of little distractions negatively affecting our lives.