<story><title>Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)</title><url>https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/jobs/quit-social-media-your-career-may-depend-on-it.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kragen</author><text>The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming&amp;#x27;s Closed Door Paradox:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    I noticed the following facts about people who work
    with the door open or the door closed. I notice that
    if you have the door to your office closed, you get
    more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more
    productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you
    don&amp;#x27;t know quite know what problems are worth working
    on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in
    importance. He who works with the door open gets all
    kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets
    clues as to what the world is and what might be
    important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect
    sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is
    symbolic of a closed mind.&amp;#x27;&amp;#x27; I don&amp;#x27;t know. But I can
    say there is a pretty good correlation between those
    who work with the doors open and those who ultimately
    do important things, although people who work with
    doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to
    work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
    enough that they miss fame.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.virginia.edu&amp;#x2F;~robins&amp;#x2F;YouAndYourResearch.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.virginia.edu&amp;#x2F;~robins&amp;#x2F;YouAndYourResearch.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this case, as it turns out, bacon does give you cancer.  The relative risk of high &amp;quot;processed meat&amp;quot; consumption is in the neighborhood of 20%, i.e. RR of 1.2, for colorectal and lung cancers. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;16991129&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;16991129&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the US, there are about 200k deaths per year from these two cancers, out of 2.7 million total deaths.  So your chances of dying of one of these two cancers is about 7.4%, if you live in a place somewhat like the US.  And that increases to about 8.9% if you eat a lot of processed meat.&lt;p&gt;It seems to me like a 1.5% chance of dodging a death by cancer, and thus living an extra 5–20 years, is worth a single disrupted morning.</text></item><item><author>jacobkg</author><text>For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g &amp;quot;Young child decapitated at amusement park&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Bacon Gives You Cancer&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed.&lt;p&gt;This can take a heavy emotional toll on people over time and gradually make them more unhappy</text></item><item><author>RandallBrown</author><text>Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media?&lt;p&gt;I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things.&lt;p&gt;I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to what I&amp;#x27;ve been doing without having to call him. (I still call him, but we can talk about the pictures and things we&amp;#x27;ve seen over the last week or so.) I plan vacations and events with friends. Next weekend I&amp;#x27;m going to a bachelor party in the Adirondacks with people from around the country.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve never been worried about my employer seeing my social media profiles. If I wouldn&amp;#x27;t do something in public, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t post it to social media. Maybe I&amp;#x27;m unique in being able to restrain myself.&lt;p&gt;I always hear stories about how people are &amp;quot;so much happier&amp;quot; after they quit Facebook. What is happening on your Facebook that&amp;#x27;s making you unhappy?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rdiddly</author><text>Bacon... Hamming... I see what you probably quite unintentionally did there.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, doors are nice because you have the luxury of opening and closing them.  Just remember what open and closed doors are for.  Open it to see what&amp;#x27;s worth doing; close it when it&amp;#x27;s time to go do it.&lt;p&gt;Ideally this all applies in the metaphorical sense to social media too, if one has the discipline to handle it that way.  But the problem for a lot of people, and the problem with this door analogy, is that a door doesn&amp;#x27;t nag you, Hey. Hey. Hey. You haven&amp;#x27;t opened me lately. Hey. Tons of cool stuff is going on beyond this door. Hey. Are you okay? I&amp;#x27;m worried about you and so are your friends. Hey. Still there?&lt;p&gt;Also the door doesn&amp;#x27;t record your phone calls and so forth.&lt;p&gt;If only social media were as flexible, disinterested and unobtrusive as the lowly, everyday door.</text></comment>
<story><title>Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)</title><url>https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/jobs/quit-social-media-your-career-may-depend-on-it.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kragen</author><text>The bacon thing is maybe a good example of Hamming&amp;#x27;s Closed Door Paradox:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    I noticed the following facts about people who work
    with the door open or the door closed. I notice that
    if you have the door to your office closed, you get
    more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more
    productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you
    don&amp;#x27;t know quite know what problems are worth working
    on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in
    importance. He who works with the door open gets all
    kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets
    clues as to what the world is and what might be
    important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect
    sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is
    symbolic of a closed mind.&amp;#x27;&amp;#x27; I don&amp;#x27;t know. But I can
    say there is a pretty good correlation between those
    who work with the doors open and those who ultimately
    do important things, although people who work with
    doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to
    work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
    enough that they miss fame.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.virginia.edu&amp;#x2F;~robins&amp;#x2F;YouAndYourResearch.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.virginia.edu&amp;#x2F;~robins&amp;#x2F;YouAndYourResearch.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this case, as it turns out, bacon does give you cancer.  The relative risk of high &amp;quot;processed meat&amp;quot; consumption is in the neighborhood of 20%, i.e. RR of 1.2, for colorectal and lung cancers. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;16991129&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;16991129&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the US, there are about 200k deaths per year from these two cancers, out of 2.7 million total deaths.  So your chances of dying of one of these two cancers is about 7.4%, if you live in a place somewhat like the US.  And that increases to about 8.9% if you eat a lot of processed meat.&lt;p&gt;It seems to me like a 1.5% chance of dodging a death by cancer, and thus living an extra 5–20 years, is worth a single disrupted morning.</text></item><item><author>jacobkg</author><text>For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g &amp;quot;Young child decapitated at amusement park&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Bacon Gives You Cancer&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed.&lt;p&gt;This can take a heavy emotional toll on people over time and gradually make them more unhappy</text></item><item><author>RandallBrown</author><text>Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media?&lt;p&gt;I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things.&lt;p&gt;I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to what I&amp;#x27;ve been doing without having to call him. (I still call him, but we can talk about the pictures and things we&amp;#x27;ve seen over the last week or so.) I plan vacations and events with friends. Next weekend I&amp;#x27;m going to a bachelor party in the Adirondacks with people from around the country.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve never been worried about my employer seeing my social media profiles. If I wouldn&amp;#x27;t do something in public, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t post it to social media. Maybe I&amp;#x27;m unique in being able to restrain myself.&lt;p&gt;I always hear stories about how people are &amp;quot;so much happier&amp;quot; after they quit Facebook. What is happening on your Facebook that&amp;#x27;s making you unhappy?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>npsimons</author><text>First and foremost, what evidence is there for Hamming&amp;#x27;s claim?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; is worth a single disrupted morning.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re not talking about a single &amp;quot;disrupted&amp;quot; morning. We&amp;#x27;re talking about chronic depression, which can lead to suicide.&lt;p&gt;Many people I tell that I don&amp;#x27;t keep up with current events like to claim I&amp;#x27;m ignorant. At which point I ask them to name the most important thing they learned from news two weeks ago. Haven&amp;#x27;t had someone come up with anything substantial yet.&lt;p&gt;Knowledge is valuable, it is a form of wealth, and there are many ways to get it. I do not believe we receive knowledge from modern mainstream media today. Most of it is ephemeral drama that does not matter in the least.</text></comment>