#WritingOutput/Newsletter
Random Walk Newsletter, Issue 31#
Observations & Insights#
Health
Recently, there has been a widespread flu outbreak, and my daughter caught it at kindergarten, and I couldn't escape either. In all my life, I've never had two fevers within three months (the last time was when the pandemic was lifted), and this time it was quite troublesome. When the symptoms first appeared, I immediately took oseltamivir, and after taking it for two days, I felt fine and didn't continue taking it. However, after three days, the fever returned, and it was even higher than the previous time. So this week, I persisted in taking a full course of medication, and there shouldn't be any major problems this time.
I'm always troubled by various things and overthink a lot, but when I get sick, all I hope for is to recover quickly. Last time, I had dinner with a colleague who happened to be going to the hospital for a check-up because she had been suffering from migraines. During the physical examination, the doctor mentioned that there seemed to be a small shadow and asked her to get an X-ray. During that period, she was worried about being laid off (we all know about the wave of layoffs that started last year). After the examination, she told me during dinner that while waiting for her report to be printed, she just wanted to focus on work and not worry about anything as long as her health was okay.
Nostalgia
Recently, when reading newsletters from other authors, a passage struck a chord with me. "Technology has always been advancing, but behind these advancements, our human lives are 'regressing.' In the past, we used to walk to work to save money, but now we drive to work every day to save time, and then we complain about not having time to exercise. In the past, when we were bored, we would read books or flip through magazines, but now we only watch short videos and then complain about not having time to read."
We should seek some nostalgic habits in our lives, or at least not let technology dictate how we live.
This also reminded me of a topic: technology is not inherently evil; it depends on how people use it. For example, I once heard about the dark web in a book. The initial intention of creating the dark web technology was to avoid surveillance and have freedom, but later it was exploited by some criminals. Recently, the popular chatgpt, while technologically astonishing, has also been used by some people to complete their theses (it is said to be difficult to detect plagiarism) or engage in some shady activities. This brings unfair competition to those who work hard and diligently. However, technological development is inevitable, and how to control its scope of influence in the future is the most worthy question to ponder.
Audiobooks & Books#
Your Brain Likes to Hear You Say This
Lately, I've deliberately increased the amount of audiobooks I listen to. Without input, there's nothing to write. I'd like to share this book with you. It mainly revolves around some characteristics of the brain, such as multitasking.
Actually, it goes without saying that multitasking is something we've known since we were young. We know that we need to focus to learn, just like the books on flow theory. Achieving a state of flow means being completely absorbed in a task. However, there was an example in the book that surprised me. The author said that so-called multitasking is just switching between tasks, and the reason why we should avoid multitasking as much as possible is that the cost of task switching is too high (it's quite similar to humans and computers). The cost can be divided into three categories: time, accuracy, and memory.
Here, let's talk about time. We all know that drunk driving is very dangerous because when intoxicated, our reaction time slows down. For example, a normal reaction time is 1 second, but after drinking, it becomes 1.15 seconds. But what about multitasking? For example, texting while driving. The reaction time in this case is actually 1.3 seconds, which is twice as long as being drunk.
The author also mentioned why we shouldn't put too much text on PowerPoint slides. My initial thought was that there was simply too much text, which is unfriendly to the audience and makes it hard for them to follow along. The book explains that when we present a PowerPoint, if the audience is reading the text on the slide while listening to us, these two processes will interfere with each other. If you want others to understand better, you should convey your information through a single channel.
That's all for this issue of the newsletter. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. Thank you for reading.