Gary Mintchell

February 3, 2023

Gary Mintchell Newsletter--Attention Deficit or Attention Span

The seeming chaos surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has faded. His tweets have become more infrequent and less bombastic. His apparent panic to fund the takeover keeps finding new paths to cost reduction. They’ve reduced the gross algorithm feeds, but the “for you” and “following” tabs don’t seem to work that much and notifications also seem to miss mentions.

The latest attempts to put everything behind a walled garden is turning off API access from 3rd party applications. If you remember one of his ploys to get out from under his rash offer to buy was to talk about bots, well, they’ve turned off all bots evidently. And there were “good” bots that automatically tweeted specific information that many people looked forward to. Now, they all have to pay to play. 

I got into a conversation with a long-time acquaintance in the industry. He still scans Twitter, but he’s not thrilled. He told me he hasn’t switched over to Mastodon because he can’t find his tribe there. I understand that. It’s where I am at the moment.

What I do know is that referrals to my websites dropped each week until there are now none. I surely miss the old Twitter from years ago.

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Speaking of social media—have you worried about attention deficit due to the many enticing distractions? I have a recommendation. A new book by psychologist Gloria Mark, PhD, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. I think the operative word is balance.

She discusses a variety of research findings before offering some suggestions. Among them—it’s OK to seek cognitive release by playing the occasional Candy Crush (or whatever), plan your day allowing for some breaks, and become aware of your habits and time so that you can course correct.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/attention-span-finding-focus-and-fighting-distraction-gloria-mark/18423478?ean=9781335449412

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Stop by https://themanufacturingconnection.com/ to check out some recent posts:

QAD CEO Speaks To Recent Acquisitions

eYs3D Launches One-Stop XINK Development Platform for Vision-Equipped Robots

ABB Divests Power Conversion Business

QAD Acquires Redzone

Universal Robots Cobot Awareness and 2022 Results

January News from Festo

Waev Consolidates Industrial Electric Vehicle Business

Hexagon Invests 100 MUSD In Autonomous and Sustainable Manufacturing

U.S. Chamber Calls on Lawmakers to Reject Gridlock and Pursue Agenda for American Strength

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Gary