Re:Half a million people watch me study on TikTok
by nerdponx on Monday May 09, 2022 @08:26PM
(#31321784)
I experience this as well. I remember that in school, I would always seek out the most remote corners of the library in order to work. And before Covid times, working in an office that was anything but dead silent was a constant source of "activation" and therefore subtle distraction.
Working from home has posted its own distraction challenges, but I do not miss that "nonfunctionally distracted" feeling I often got in the office.
Overall, I find I usually get better non-interactive work done when not in such close proximity that social behaviors are activating. (Interactive real-time collaboration is a different matter, and that has its moments.)
Someone sitting across right across from me, or right next to me, when we're not collaborating, for example? I'll be lucky if I can mindlessly tweak UI visual details, or spit out design or code that I've thought about only superficially. There's no way I could fairly rigorous thinking-through and creative connection-making, in that context, like I can in some other contexts.