Compare [the quoted Less Wrong post] to a college student's tendency to procrastinate, rush assignments, not study, and consequently get lower grades than they would otherwise. I'm looking at you, 2013!Nathaniel.
Actually, I still have this problem (though to a much lesser extent), which is why I'm writing this post when I have two final exams in the next 48 hours. While I dislike the university alarmism, the grades (and more importantly, habits) one obtains during their tertiary education has a tremendous impact on the trajectory of their life. Yet extremely little attention is given to the innate psychology of human beings which makes us act against our own long-term interests.
This doesn't actually do a good job communicating the problem I'm having. Discussing procrastination in terms of the consequences is usually a mistake. Looking at the causes is better. But I want to talk about the methods.
A problem that I've had trouble expressing to family and friends educated before the social media age is the dramatic change in how students my age procrastinate. It's not a conscious decision to not study. It's idly clicking "new tab", typing a few characters, and there you are. It's not putting on your coat and going to the bar, it's not deciding to read a book, it's not even sharpening a pencil and throwing it at the dart board. It's a near-reflexive reaction to the slightest bit of boredom or adversity.
More importantly, it's almost never something which will trigger a serious future-value calculation unless you're so conditioned. Even if it does, there's a lot of ways that can go wrong.
Social media taps right into our dopamine centers, giving us inconstant rewards for checking if there's fresh juicy posts in our newsfeeds. This can be useful, if practiced intelligently. The Pomodoro Technique is one such strategy. It can also be damaging, but that's not really the point of this post.
No, my point is that these things largely are not conscious decision on the part of interested actors, and trying to deal with them as such will be under-effective at best. If you or someone you know is struggling with picoprocrastination, you have to kick yourselves up into far mode and thing about it dispassionately. Be prepared to accept conclusions ranging from delete-twitter-right-this-instant to everything-is-okay-carry-on. This last bit is probably the most difficult, because we've usually made up our minds long before the debate begins.
This post didn't quite go as expected. At least that means more thoughts to get out later.
A problem that I've had trouble expressing to family and friends educated before the social media age is the dramatic change in how students my age procrastinate. It's not a conscious decision to not study. It's idly clicking "new tab", typing a few characters, and there you are. It's not putting on your coat and going to the bar, it's not deciding to read a book, it's not even sharpening a pencil and throwing it at the dart board. It's a near-reflexive reaction to the slightest bit of boredom or adversity.
More importantly, it's almost never something which will trigger a serious future-value calculation unless you're so conditioned. Even if it does, there's a lot of ways that can go wrong.
Social media taps right into our dopamine centers, giving us inconstant rewards for checking if there's fresh juicy posts in our newsfeeds. This can be useful, if practiced intelligently. The Pomodoro Technique is one such strategy. It can also be damaging, but that's not really the point of this post.
No, my point is that these things largely are not conscious decision on the part of interested actors, and trying to deal with them as such will be under-effective at best. If you or someone you know is struggling with picoprocrastination, you have to kick yourselves up into far mode and thing about it dispassionately. Be prepared to accept conclusions ranging from delete-twitter-right-this-instant to everything-is-okay-carry-on. This last bit is probably the most difficult, because we've usually made up our minds long before the debate begins.
This post didn't quite go as expected. At least that means more thoughts to get out later.
