Here's the thing, you should go watch this video. It's a little rough, and little long, but the premise is worth considering. If you prefer to read, read this. It's heretical. Hopefully you're brave enough to stick with it and consider your role in how technology affects and changes us, and changes society, for both the good and the bad, and how our economics also play a roll, and could be changed or reformed to serve us (humanity) better.
This plugin attempts to intercept your casual visits to various sites and ask you for the reason why you're visiting, so that you can become more intentional about how you spend your visit. For example, if you go to Facebook to look up information about a person you're going to meet, then you should state that. If your intention gets hijacked, you can report that via Hindsight, and you'll start to see how often you're able to complete the specific task you started, versus the thing that Facebook wants you to do (i.e. browse around, see stories, click on ads, get distracted).
By developing this meta-awareness, you may slowly gain back from autonomy and agency from the sites that are designed to pull you in and monopolize your time.
@chrismessina@edelwax This is fascinating. Very interesting project. I, for one, fully recognize how often my attention is hijacked, and have been making more concerted efforts this year to maintain better personal discipline... with very mixed results. Thank you for sharing!
@chrismessina@edelwax I think this is going to be more of an issue over time. We had to fire someone earlier this year who just couldn't stay off facebook during the work day. Part of her job included post to facebook or responding to people, but it became obvious that she was just spending all day checking to see how many people had commented on her baby's pictures she'd posted or chatting with friends. Going to only get worse with all of the other social media holes you can go down for hours.
@sacbookreviewer great anecdote. Yes, it's only going to get worse (hey, I'm part of the problem, and also suffering from it!) unless we equip folks with tools to help them regain autonomy over their time and attention. Hindsight is one of many tools intended to serve this growing need.