The Pressure to Learn 'Quickly' and Digital Consumption
My reflections on the overwhelming pressure in tech to learn quickly and how digital consumption affects our ability to focus and create meaningful work.
Probably I am not the only one that tries to find some spot here and there to do a bit of reading (specially if you have 80 tabs open with “Save for later” articles 😅).
In the IT field, being able to “catch up quickly”, “learn quickly” and “solve quickly” is seen as a must to stay in the sector for the long run. To be honest, it is overwhelming. The constant focus on “quickly” can make us forget that real learning and problem-solving takes time and effort. This has deeply bother me for quite sometime and even make me feel unproductive, blocked to finish writing / creating things I had in mind for a while because I am already late for it. But when I take a step back and look at everything I’ve actually done, I realise I have been doing way more than I give myself credit for (specially given the amounts of hours a day has). It’s just hard to see that when you are struggling in the grind. And honestly? It’s exhausting and confusing 🫠
It was a good timing then that Today I ended up with this article from the Hacker Newsletter:
And something resonated there:
“I want to know everything, immediately, quickly. Since this is not humanly possible, I end up doing nothing.”
“You find yourself in a quest for productivity, feeling productive because of the quest, but not really doing any productive work.”
“Difficulty concentrating, lack of focus, inability to understand what I read, stress, anxiety. I see these kinds of complaints from many people lately, and in my opinion, our biggest common ground is digital content consumption.”
And avoiding, like the author, to go against that article, I also do not have an advice, but just leaving the article there for your own reflection on this. Slowing down, taking a break, and letting yourself process what you already know can be more valuable than rushing to consume the next thing. 🌱
Give it a read if this resonates with you. Ask yourself what would slowing down look like for you? I’m trying to figure out for myself right now.