So I’m in Syracuse, N.Y. visiting family. I’m here for today and tonight and I’ll be heading back to the midwest tomorrow.
That’s a lot of driving. But surprising mom with a visit from her oldest born? Totally worth it.
The drive along the Indiana Toll Road, Ohio Turnpike, a thankfully short run through PA and then the New York State Thruway gives one a lot of time to listen to podcasts. I’m in a self-analysis and “fix some things” mindset, and I’ve been listening to episodes of Focused on the Relay.FM podcast network.
Really good stuff. I’m finding several areas needing improvement when it comes to focus and my professional life and I’m taking notes while I’m driving listening to these podcasts. Thank goodness for Siri and the ability to say “Remind me…” and whatever nugget of information I just gleaned from the dialog.
One of the things that interested me most this morning was a discussion about the “Infinity Pool” concept utilized by apps, mainly social media ads like Facebook and Twitter. Apple News and YouTube also fit into this category. These apps have endless scrolling. They just keep feeding you more and more information based on an algorithm as you scroll through the content they’re providing you. There is no end. You just keep going.
This is how social media becomes such a massive time suck. Do I really need social media like this on my iPhone? Twitter has become hard to take and using it was really impacting my mood in a negative way, so I’ve been taking a break for the past couple of days. After listening to these podcasts, I’m really hesitant to ever let Twitter on my iPhone again and I’m not missing it as much as I thought I would.
Taking stock in what I do, taking an honest look at my behaviors and habits with my iPhone has made me realize that there’s a lot of truth in the episodes I’ve been listening to. I plan on listening to more of these episodes on the drive home.
I’ve got some house cleaning to do.
