Mohammed Kassem > Recent Status Updates

The limited amount of time that we have humans defines how we see the world around us. Thus, We try to finish as many tasks as possible to "free" ourselves up for more engaging activities. However, we always have something to do. And this is just the introduction of the book which I am very interested in reading about.

Cory Doctorow provided simple explanations about why companies don't just enshittify themselves. The primary reasons preventing the companies from enshittifying themsleves are 2, which are common across sectors, 1. the markets(competitive) and 2. governments (regulators). These two work in collaboration to prevent the product we use in a daily basis to worsen.

Read about the 4 philosophies to embrace the work style of deepwork; Monastic(complete elimination of distractions), Bimodal(Allow shallow important shallow activities), rhythmic(scheduled deepwork) and finally journalistic(for high skilled professionals).
These different philosophies are done by different professional people with different professional goals. These concepts change the way I look at people.

Great writing about deep work. I learned how even deep work is beneficial the main reason why it's ignored is because of the black hole metric, were "the path of least resistance" and "Busyness as a proxy for productivity" are highlighted. I also learned about three arguments of deep work, which are situated in neurological, psychological and philosophical and all are great arguments.

I learned about Loery's experiment about attention residue and jack dorsey's counter example to deep work.
I was facinated by how if we didn't finish the tasks we are stilling thinking about it while working on something else. I also learned about the three themes that companies are impossing on their employee's which are 1. open office spaces 2. Instant messaging and 3 use encouragement of social media.

Coming from "The shallows" by Nicolas G. Carr. This book provides great explanations and reasons for anyone to dive deep into "Deep Work". I got to learn about what is the difference between shallow and deep work, and what is the deep work hypothesis which theorizes that deep work is becoming increasingly rare and valuable in this economy.

The concept of deep work is important nowadays.

I read the chapter where it seems Sarah Wyn-Williams is stating that Mark is trying to become the president of the United States, which sounds ridiculous given his past history with previous interactions with people, such as the Guatemala president "but but but I'm the president of Guatemala" and egocentric personality. Sarah is planning to leave facebook for the better.

The personal story of how Xanthe was born when Sarah Wyn-Willaims was in the intensive care unit in the United States, it was a touching story of worry. And how unfortunate for her when she did pass the citizenship exam, but only to realize that law requires at least ninety days in California, so she does not receive the American citizenship for her reasons. Now I'm reading on how facebook is affecting the world.

Sarah wyn-williams provides valuable insight into how facebook is working in the inside. Which not only reveals the shocking work culture of facebook but also how it influences other countries of the world to expand its user count. Sarah shares her crazy stories, from how mark is socially awkward, to how he had a room called "the war room" in order to keep the internet.org alive.

Sarah Wyn-Williams was attacked by a shark when she was thirteen of age, the attacked left her with marks on her right side of her body, however her parents don't take the situation seriously initially, she impressively survives encounter.

From the previous encounter the New Zeleander determined that she wanted to do something big.

The neuroplasticity of the brain is a the key distinction from computer brains. Every time we engage ourselves to an action we fire up neurons in our brains that activate the short-term memory of the brain, if we keep repeating the same action it will transform into long term memory. But the magic happens here, in order for the memory to be a long one, it must change the brain chemically and physically.

Several research studies have indicated that as we spend more time on the internet clicking through hyperlinks and Skimming through the page contents, the more we are multi-tasking and distracted we are.

In one study, volunteers had their eyes monitered by equipment to locate where they looking, then after all of the volunteers have finished, the authors have noticed an F pattern of skimming trough the page.

The internet has changed the way we think, write, and read. The gradual change from physical books to changeable e-books that can be edited online affects how the reader and the writer interact with the book, or in other words "deep reading" is deceasing.

There were many experiments performed in order to understand how the brain works. For example, oceanic creatures are a top choice to perform neurological test because of their large nerve cells and simple nervous system. This section of the book focuses on how even thought (without any action) can cause a substantial change to our psyche.

It amazes me how the plasticity of the brain was discovered in the early days, since sigmund freud, however it was ignored because of the common convention of the brain being unable to change. Later on, it was discovered by Merzenich that the brain is changeable by a process called neuroplasticity.