<story><title>Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)</title><url>https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learned-helplessness/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>philip1209</author><text>This article talks about learned helplessness in a learning context. I talked about it in a work context, and the two could be linked. I think social media is training people for everything to be quick, but learning + work aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily quick.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; This insistence on constant availability disrupts the essence of focused work. Rather than encouraging employees to tackle complex problems independently, there’s a trend, especially among junior staff, to quickly seek help upon encountering any obstacle. The fear is that being “blocked” under-utilizes an expensive team member. However, the nature of knowledge work is solving ambiguous, complicated problems - so the expectation of constant availability can lead to a culture of learned helplessness, which shunts professional development.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.contraption.co&amp;#x2F;essays&amp;#x2F;digital-quiet&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.contraption.co&amp;#x2F;essays&amp;#x2F;digital-quiet&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spencerchubb</author><text>As a junior dev, sometimes I&amp;#x27;ve been blocked for hours because I want to show that I can solve problems independently. But I&amp;#x27;ve definitely had cases where I should&amp;#x27;ve asked questions early. A question that takes 1 minute to answer could have saved hours.&lt;p&gt;For instance, I was stuck on figuring out how to send an email through AWS. Turns out we have a lambda function that handles all the authentication and security things that are specific to our company. Once I asked my coworker and found out about this function, it was trivial.</text></comment>
<story><title>Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)</title><url>https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learned-helplessness/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>philip1209</author><text>This article talks about learned helplessness in a learning context. I talked about it in a work context, and the two could be linked. I think social media is training people for everything to be quick, but learning + work aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily quick.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; This insistence on constant availability disrupts the essence of focused work. Rather than encouraging employees to tackle complex problems independently, there’s a trend, especially among junior staff, to quickly seek help upon encountering any obstacle. The fear is that being “blocked” under-utilizes an expensive team member. However, the nature of knowledge work is solving ambiguous, complicated problems - so the expectation of constant availability can lead to a culture of learned helplessness, which shunts professional development.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.contraption.co&amp;#x2F;essays&amp;#x2F;digital-quiet&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.contraption.co&amp;#x2F;essays&amp;#x2F;digital-quiet&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Swizec</author><text>As a tech lead I would rather see a team member ask me questions early than never. Nudging them in the right direction before they waste 3 days going down a path that’s never going to work is at least half my job.&lt;p&gt;But it’s important that they’ve done enough research to formulate the question. A little struggle helps the learning stick.</text></comment>