Laboratorio#1
Grupo 03: Kervin Alfaro, Karol Esquivel
Ejercicio #1
Libro de preferencia y código ASIN.
Se seleccionan los libros Deepwork y Digital Minimalism. Digital Minimalism se crea en este código y Deepwork se importa ya que fue creado desde la computadora de otro miembro del equipo.
scrape_amazon <- function(url, throttle = 5){
# Set throttle between URL calls
sec = 0
if(throttle < 0) warning("throttle was less than 0: set to 0")
if(throttle > 0) sec = max(0, throttle + runif(1, -1, 1))
session <- bow(url, force = TRUE)
# obtain HTML of URL
doc <- scrape(session)
author <- doc %>%
html_nodes(".a-profile-name") %>%
html_text()
author <- author[-1:-2]
date <- doc %>%
html_nodes(".review-date") %>%
html_text() %>%
gsub(".*on ", "", .)
date <- date[-1:-2]
review_format <- doc %>%
html_nodes(".review-format-strip") %>%
html_text()
stars <- doc %>%
html_nodes(".review-rating") %>%
html_text() %>%
str_extract("\\d") %>%
as.numeric()
stars <- stars[-1:-2]
comments <- doc %>%
html_nodes(".review-text") %>%
html_text()
df <- data.frame(author, date, review_format, stars, comments, stringsAsFactors = F)
return(df)
}
pages <- 5
reviews_all <- NULL
prod_code <- "0525536515"
page_num <- 1
url <- paste0("https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/",
prod_code,"/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_paging_btm_next_",
page_num,
"?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=",
page_num)
session <- bow(url, force = TRUE)
prod <- scrape(session) %>%
html_nodes( "a.a-link-normal") %>%
html_text() %>%
gsub("\n", "", .) %>%
trimws()
prod<- prod[1]
for(page_num in 1:pages){
url <- paste0("https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/",
prod_code,"/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_paging_btm_next_",
page_num,
"?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=",
page_num)
reviews <- scrape_amazon(url, throttle = 3)
reviews_all <- rbind(reviews_all, cbind(prod, reviews))
}
str(reviews_all)## 'data.frame': 50 obs. of 6 variables:
## $ prod : chr "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World" "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World" "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World" "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World" ...
## $ author : chr "Haical Sajovic Haddad" "MATT SEIDHOLZ" "Samantha" "Brian Johnson | Optimize" ...
## $ date : chr "February 6, 2019" "February 8, 2019" "February 22, 2019" "February 5, 2019" ...
## $ review_format: chr "Verified Purchase" "Verified Purchase" "Verified Purchase" "Verified Purchase" ...
## $ stars : num 5 3 2 5 3 4 4 5 3 1 ...
## $ comments : chr "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n The reading is compelling, instructional, and practical. I couldn’t put Di"| __truncated__ "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n If you already want to curb the role of digital stuff in your life, you won"| __truncated__ "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n After reading Newport's book, Deep Work, earlier this year, I eagerly pre-o"| __truncated__ "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n Cal Newport is one of my favorite thinkers. He got his Ph.D. in Computer Sc"| __truncated__ ...Minimalism <- reviews_all
Deepwork <- read.csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KarolEsq/DA/7d26505730a50a249a23f17cd17edcd92e66c012/Deepwork.csv", sep = ";")
head(Deepwork)## prod
## 1 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
## 2 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
## 3 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
## 4 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
## 5 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
## 6 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
## author date review_format stars
## 1 Timothy Kenny January 8, 2016 Verified Purchase 5
## 2 AB January 9, 2016 Verified Purchase 3
## 3 Anonymous January 8, 2017 Verified Purchase 1
## 4 Loves to Read February 12, 2019 Verified Purchase 3
## 5 Wally Bock August 23, 2016 Verified Purchase 4
## 6 Sociologist of religion December 6, 2018 Verified Purchase 2
## comments
## 1 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n Deep Work is the execution/tactical companion to Newport's last book, So Good They Can't Ignore You and it doesn't disappoint.These books should be taken together as a whole because they give you the WHAT, the WHY and the HOW for being an elite knowledge worker.So Good they Can't Ignore you shows you why building valuable and rare skills, which Newport calls "career capital" is the number one most important thing for finding a job you love (not "finding your passion"). Building that capital allows you to find a job where you can have creative control over your work and more control over your time, which allows you to do "deep work," aka deliberate practice (and the 10,000 hour rule for expertise, Gladwell, Ericsson and others). There are also 2 other factors, choosing a domain or mission or project where you will have a postive impact on the world, and choosing to work with people who you like being around, which aren't covered much but Newport assumes you should be able to figure out on your own.Summary of what you need to be So Good They Can't Ignore You1. Rare and valuable skills (aka career capital)2. Creative control over projects3. Control over your time (which allows you to do deep work, virtuous cycle)4. Work that has a positive impact on the world5. Working with people you enjoy being withHere's the formula:-Use deep work to learn fast and build up rare and valuable skills.-Then apply these rare and valuable skills to the right projects so that you can build up career capital.-Then cash in the career capital to get more creative and time control over your job.-All the while, try to pick jobs and projects that have a positive impact and allow you to work with good people.-However, these are usually also things that you need to trade in your career capital (rare skills and experience using them) in order to maximize.-Don't try to save the world or have a big impact until you have the career capital to match. Otherwise you will probably fail. You have to earn all these perks via building career capital by using deep work.So Good They Can't Ignore You doesn't spend much time explaining how to actually implement deep work (deliberate practice) into you life. It tells you to focus deeply, stretch yourself cognitively and get constant high quality feedback on your work/output.That's where Deep Work comes in. Deep Work shows you exactly WHY deep work is so important (as opposed to Shallow Work), especially for modern knowledge workers, and why the way most people work, with constant interruptions from social media, email and their phones, is holding most knowledge workers back from being successful and competitive in today's job market.The first part of the book argues for why Deep Work is important. If you have already bought into the idea, you can skim this part, but I found the examples and people he featured to be very interesting so it's worth a read. Just don't expect a lot of tactics until part 2.Chapter 1 explains why deep work is VALUABLE. Our economy is changing, and the days of doing the same thing over and over for 40 years until you retire are over. Newport lays out an interesting theory for 3 types of workers, Superstars, Owners and High Skill Workers and makes a convincing and important argument for the importance in the future of being able to work at higher levels of abstraction and work with intelligent machines.In this chapter he also makes a case for the two critical skills for knowledge workers:1. Learning Quickly2. Producing at an Elite LevelThis conclusion informs the rest of the book. If you want to be good at these two skills, the most important thing to be good at is deep work.Chapter 2 focuses on why deep work is RARE. He shows how distractions are becoming more and more common for knowledge workers, and that attention is becoming more and more fractures. Newport makes a good case for how complex knowledge work is often hard to measure, so managers measure busyness instead of output that relates to bottom line results (KPIs). Busyness as a vanity metric. People end up optimizing for looking busy instead of getting real work done, and everybody plays along with this charade.Chapter 3 goes into why deep work is MEANINGFUL. Meaning is a key part of Newport's argument because the whole book links back to the Passion vs. Rare Skills debate…which is a better strategy for finding a job you love? If the job isn't meaningful, then deep work doesn't fully answer the question of how to best find a job you love. Newport give 3 theories on why deep work is meaningful, a psychological, neurological and a philosophical reason.That's it for part 1.In Part 2, Newport tells you how to implement deep work into your day to day life with 4 rules.Rule 1 gives you a bunch of strategies and examples of how to integrate deep work into your schedule. He offers different strategies depending on what kind of work you do. The Grand Gestures part of this chapter is really good, you learn about Bill Gates Think Week and same famous authors who go to secluded islands or build cabins to get a lot of deep work done when necessary. There is also a section here on execution using the 4 Disciplines from Clayton Christensen's work. The point on lead vs. lag measures is really good.Rule 2 covers the idea of embracing boredom. Newport gives a number of strategies for doing two important things: improving your ability to focus and eliminating your desire for distraction. At first these seem like the same thing but Newport explains why they are actually two different skills. For example, someone who is constantly switching between social media and infotainment sites can block off time for deep work but they won't be able to focus if they can't control their desire to always have instant gratification and constant stimulus. The point about making deep work your default, and scheduling shallow work in between is also a game changer.Rule 3 is about social media sites and infotainment sites. This rule isn't as strategic as the other ones, it's mostly about making a side argument that these networking sites aren't as important is you think they are. He gives some good strategies for measuring what sites and services you should include in your day to day life based on the total collection of all the positive and negative effects. This sort of critical thinking and measurement usually doesn't get applied to these kind of sites.Rule 4 is about draining the shallows, meaning going through the process of eliminating as much as possible shallow work from your daily schedule. This is more tactical chapter, (This and Rule 1 are the most useful of the 4) you learn how to plan out your day, how to stop from bringing your work home with you with an end of day ritual and how to manage your email so that you cut down on the amount of time you spend in your inbox each day. There is also a strategy for how to talk to your boss about deep work so you can get permission to re-arrange your schedule to be more productive.Overall Thoughts:This book, and Newport's previous book So Good They Can't Ignore You, are some of the most important books you will read on planning your career.Most people spend little to no time on these decisions, or just go with the flow or with how other people approach things, even though this planning process will affect the next 4 to 5 decades of their life.Most people's thinking is still stuck in the industrial economy way of thinking…it makes sense thought, our education system is also stuck in this way of thinking. Deep work gives you a solid, actionable plan and doesn't leave anything out that I can think of.\n\n \n
## 2 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n I have generally been a fan of Cal's work, but had a mixed view on this book. TL DR: It has some good actionable steps, but with a lot of fluff about being more counter-culture and revolutionary than it is or needs to have.The Good1. Cal highlights actionable ways to 1) increase concentration and focus and 2) produce more work output. He specifically delineates between "shallow" low priority work and "deep" high-priority, high-payoff work and ways to identify which types of work fall into which category.2. Cal anticipates more of the (valid) objections and nuances to his thesis than I've seen him do previously. I thought his discussions on professions like CEOs that might not be deep-work appropriate, different ways to think about what social media improves your life, and going off-schedule to pursue an insight made the book much more well-rounded and connected to life.The Not-so-good1. The book is written as if it's presenting "a new, flashy, grand theory of everything". It's not that. The idea of working in a deep, focused manner isn't a new one or one that would shock people (as the book's extensive citations show). But the book puts up a very intense battle against an army of straw men. I don't think you'd find anyone who disagrees with the general notion of working intensely on your priorities; it's making your life conducive to it (and getting done what you aim to get done when you sit down) that's the hard part. So the book feels more to me like ideas you'd share with friends about how to be more productive than a revolutionary new idea, but you have to wade through *pages* of why this is *life-changing* and *flashy* to get to the more useful actionable steps.2. I think that deep work is a very large umbrella term that could be broken down. For example, the way in which brainstorming or writing an academic paper stretches your brain is very different from the way in which editing a paper (p. 228) stretches your brain. Cal identifies all of these as deep work, but more thought on how you attack very different types of deep work would be helpful. For example, the open-ended process of generating an idea and getting it on to paper requires a different process than the mind-numbing tedium of final paper edits. I would have liked more thinking through the "initial attack" and then the "follow-through".\n\n \n
## 3 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n Newport starts out with a good (albeit obvious) idea that one can get much higher quality work done by getting rid of the constant distractions and interruptions surrounding us -- like tv, smart phones, email, and social media. Thereby allowing your mind to become deeply focused on the task at hand. I think we can all remember times when we have achieved this state whether it was writing a paper, building a model, drawing a picture, reading a novel, writing a computer program, putting a puzzle together, etc. We can also all remember how good it felt to be that focused and that productive. So his premise for this book is a good one even if for no other reason than to point out how we have let social media take over so much of our time -- that we have become constantly `on call' and therefore don't think as deeply about things anymore. That we should force ourselves to disconnect once in a while.The problem with Newport's book is that the above ideas are not enough material for an entire book. So he needs to fill out the book with interesting stories and related facts. This is where Newport gets sloppy, goes off the rails, and ruins the book. He contradicts himself over and over. Starting out by saying one needs time isolated, undistracted, alone, to be totally focussed on a task for several hours at a minimum, and then contradicting this by saying we should work in teams, or first that we ignore the smart phone and later put a stop watch phone app on our desk which we can constantly glance at to make sure we stay there for a certain time, etc. He even inserts bizarre asides that are completely irrelevant to his `deep work' topic such as card memorization tricks that have nothing to do with deeply concentrating on a task and entering the `deep work' state. Newport's editors at the publishing company clearly didn't bother pointing out the many contradictions, irrelevant distractions, and non-sequiturs riddled throughout this book.`Deep Work', as Newport calls it, is sort of the work analogue of rem sleep, it is a state of concentration that only comes after you work undistracted for a certain amount of time. The amount of time needed to achieve this state differs between people and you get better at it with practice. In fact, contrary to what Newport says, some people can do it without the isolation. They can simply put their phone in airplane mode and shut everything out. Like the guy on the subway reading or writing who is completely oblivious to everything around him. A bomb could go off and he wouldn't even notice. In other words, contrary to Newport's initial (contradicted later) premise, we don't need to retreat to a proverbial `mountain shack' to achieve this productive state. In fact, I am in the state now, writing this. Yes, the mountain shack helps, but it is not required.It became clear by the end of the book that Newport has decided to write Malcolm Gladwell type `techno self help books' for two reasons: 1) to pad his resume, and 2) to make money.The first is clear by the importance he places on the number of books and articles people pump out (falling in to the `publish or perish' trap of academia) repeating yearly publication rates over and over for himself and others -- quantity not quality; and the second is clear by the importance he places on riches and rich people. How rich you will get, how irreplaceable and therefore highly paid you will be, etc., if you are a deep worker guy. Although this may just be his awareness of the values driving his target audience -- i.e. tech entry level programmers types or software sales types who went into CS or business school to make money. In otherwords the type of high level software tech guy who idolizes Bill Gates and has never heard of Dennis Richie or Richard Stallman. (Newport himself not have heard of them either)It is also annoying that he talks forcefully about deleting your twitter or your facebook account and then reveals later that he has never even had a facebook account! That is like complaining about the number of people addicted to `game of thrones', saying it is a worthless waste of time and they should stop watching it, only to reveal he has never seen an episode of the show!Look, I agree that social media is a distraction and one should not allow it to constantly interrupt your concentration throughout the day, but lets not start deleting every modern tool just because they can be addicting. Instead learn moderation! Alcohol can be addjcting too, but there are 10 people who enjoy relaxing with a scotch or glass of wine in the evening for every addicted alcoholic. Facebook provides pleasure and relaxation to people -- which is exactly why it can be addicting. The secret is moderation, not elimination.Also, all of his talk about how long your mind can remain in `deep work' mode per day is pure made up nonsense. Four hours? He has no clue. Nor should he. In fact, it is likely different for different people and completely dependent on how long you have practiced it. People have gone for weeks, months, or even longer in that state (when proving Fermat's Last Theorem, Andrew Wiles went for 7 years!) Isaac Newton for example, would work so hard on a problem that he would forget to eat, he would dream about it, and it would totally consume him for weeks at a time. I heard a story, written by a fellow Cambridge professor and fellow member of the Royal Society who said Newton would emerge from his rooms, ostensibly to get some dinner, and would walk a certain distance lost in thought and completely oblivious to his surroundings. He would then suddenly stop and look around. Clearly having forgotten why he had left his rooms and he would then turn around, go back to his rooms, and continue working. Now that is what I call prolonged `deep work' -- forget about social media, not even hunger could interrupt Newton .Anyway, I could go on but I won't bore you with further complaints.Read "On Writing" by Stephen King and you will get a much more substantial and informative discussion of how to work, to create, and to go 'deep'. King's version of "deep work" is outlined beginning on page 151 (sections 2, 3, and 4 of the part entitled 'on writing') and I think he really nails it. Stephen King is both prolific and humble (he is also filthy rich for those of you who think that fact is important), and he certainly proven he knows how to achieve deep concentration. Search "22 lessons by Stephen King" sometime. They apply equally well to any 'deep' creative task in my opinion.Summary: Make time in your life to go distraction free when you have an important creative endeavour to work on. Put your devices in airplane mode and retreat to your proverbial `mountain shack'. Do it as often, as for as long, as it takes to finish that creative endeavour. Then turn your devices back on and rejoin the rest of us out here in social media land. Tell us about your cool creation so that we can enjoy it as well and we can compliment you on how cool it is and how much hard work you did to accomplish it. However, don't brag too much or toot your own horn too much okay? Let us do that. Your creation shows your value without needing adornments about your publication rate, your million tasks accomplished -- and with children in their terrible twos!, your MIT education, your Georgetown professorial eliteness, and the rest. All that tooting just makes you look insecure.In fact, by the end of Newport's book, it made me want to read a book written by his wife. I bet she would tell a revealing tale.\n\n \n
## 4 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n On page 136, the author says, "I discovered the gap between what and how was relevant to my personal quest to work more deeply." The first 135 pages of this book are the 'what'. I'll sum it up for you and save you some time: We're all distracted because our brains like distraction and also because our bosses like us to look busy." Pretty sure we all knew that by now. You still have to mine through the next 120 or so pages to get to the 'how' nuggets of deep work. The 'rules' that are mentioned in the title. I'll give you some hints - routine helps, facebook sucks, and boredom is the birthplace of creativity. I wanted to love this book. I'm a writer, and staying focused is tough. But I felt a lot of this book was redundant and finding the nuggets of help and inspiration was annoying.\n\n \n
## 5 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n Cal Newport gives us a very specific definition for the “Deep Workâ€Â\235 in his title. Here it is.“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.â€Â\235Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World is based on what the Cal Newport calls his Deep Work Hypothesis:“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.â€Â\235Why do the hard work of deep work?Newport believes that the ability to do deep work will help you master hard things quickly and perform at an elite level. And he thinks that those skills are key to success in the coming decades. This book is about wringing the most value you can out of your time by spending some of it on deep work.Not a new idea, but an important onePeople have been writing about working in long, uninterrupted stretches of time for quite a while. You’ll find it in Peter Drucker’s book, The Effective Executive, written in the 1960s. Then it might make you more successful. Today, Newport thinks it’s a survival skill. He thinks that the world will be divided into two kinds of performers in the future. One group will not master deep work and will slide down the performance curve. The other group will master deep work and will be more successful and more satisfied.An important idea that pushes back against our work cultureWhat Newport is calling for in terms of concentration and effort goes against the grain of the current work culture. Today we think that being connected 24 hours a day and 7 days a week is normal. We don’t see anything strange about a person stopping in the middle of a dinner conversation to check email. Yet, that’s exactly the opposite of the behavior that Newport recommends.How to get the deep work doneThe author suggests six strategies for getting the deep work done. I found those interesting reading but not particularly helpful, with one exception. That’s the advice to: “Decide on your in-depth philosophy.â€Â\235That will be particularly helpful for you because it gives you different ways to approach the idea of doing deep work, no matter what kind of situation you’re in. My only quibble here is that I don’t think you just decide and do it. I think you’ll try things out, find what works, and maybe combine the philosophies so that they work best for you.After going through some of the basics, Newport defines the problem accurately by noting that it is a problem of execution, not a problem of understanding. Knowing that deep work is important and understanding how it works won’t make a pinch of difference without an execution strategy.He recommends the strategy from a 2012 book called The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals. That book lays out four specific disciplines that Newport applies one after another to the process of doing deep work.Focus on the wildly important. Not just “important,â€Â\235 “wildly important.â€Â\235 Pick one or two things that will make the biggest difference for you and work on those. As many authors have said, you will accomplish more with a few goals that you concentrate on rather than with many goals that distract you and suck up your energy.Act on the lead measures. Measure what you need to do to get the results you want. Do that and the results will take care of themselves.Keep a compelling scoreboard. Keeping score and keeping records keeps you honest and helps you make more progress.Create a cadence of accountability. This is a lot like scrum. Don’t just do deep work. Have someone or a team that you’re accountable to and to whom you report regularly.Is this book for you?This is a good book, especially if you are new to the idea of what deep work represents: long, uninterrupted stretches of work that push you to your limits. The material on execution includes ways to work in teams and to mix creativity and innovation to produce more and better work.There are some things that you should be aware of before you consider buying the book. The first part of the book seems very helpful, but then effectiveness tails off. That’s not unusual in business books, which tend to start strong and then peter out. This one keeps going, but the second half of the book is not nearly as sharp or as helpful as the first.There are lots of powerful insights in the book. Even if you don’t buy the entire process, or if you buy it but don’t entirely put it to work, you’ll pick up some tips and tricks that will make you more productive. There’s one, for example, about not taking breaks from the distractions, i.e. checking your email. Instead, take breaks from your deep work. You work, you take a break and you do the distractions then.There was another one that was particularly helpful for me about developing a shut-down ritual at the end of the day. I’ve been working on things in a kind of deep work way for years, it’s what writers do. What I had not mastered was the ability to shift from my work day to home without a fairly long transition period. The close-out ritual has helped with that, though I’m still struggling to master it. The problem is with me, not the concept.On a personal note, I would have liked the book better if there were more business examples as opposed to academic examples of ways to make this work. In fact, I’d have preferred more examples from someone other than Cal Newport.Bottom lineThis will be a good book for you if you want to improve the amount and quality of your personal work. It will help you get things done with teams. It will give you a number of productivity tips, whether you go for the whole book or not.On the downside, the book is probably longer than it needs to be. The most important “downsideâ€Â\235 has nothing to do with the book. If you don’t put what you learn to work, it will have no value for you. In the case of deep work, that means making changes to your work routines and habits. It will take you months or years, not days or weeks, to get the value that’s here for the taking.\n\n \n
## 6 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n If you've never heard that concentration on a task leads to better outcomes, by all means buy the book.If you're searching for strategies to accomplish concentration, you might find help here, but you'll be trawling through an ocean of tangentially relevant opinions.If you are curious about the author's psychology and life world, there's an abundance of insight.But for most of us there's little new here and very little that's applicable outside of common sense: if you're distracted, you loose concentration. If you've lost concentration, it will be harder to deliver results. To deliver results, set time aside, even if it's only 30 minutes a day. And go work hard.But please don't spend money on this book!\n\n \nhead(Minimalism)## prod
## 1 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
## 2 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
## 3 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
## 4 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
## 5 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
## 6 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
## author date review_format stars
## 1 Haical Sajovic Haddad February 6, 2019 Verified Purchase 5
## 2 MATT SEIDHOLZ February 8, 2019 Verified Purchase 3
## 3 Samantha February 22, 2019 Verified Purchase 2
## 4 Brian Johnson | Optimize February 5, 2019 Verified Purchase 5
## 5 Jeff B. February 12, 2019 Verified Purchase 3
## 6 T.S. Daily February 5, 2019 Verified Purchase 4
## comments
## 1 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n The reading is compelling, instructional, and practical. I couldn’t put Digital Minimalism down, and ended up "consuming” it in only 4 sits. Because of that, I feel compelled to share a review before you make any commitment.Let me divide this review into 3 parts. First I'll share reasons why I chose to read the book and some personal takeaways. Next, a summary of the book including short excerpts I highlighted while taking notes. Last, I'll suggest a few complementary readings.PERSONAL THOUGHTSI probably pre-ordered this book because I’ve been intrigued by how the overused of modern technologies—specially social networks and social media—have influenced our societies during the last 10 years. This latest wave is actually recent, and being in my early 30s I still remember clearly how life was during high school and early days in college before this explosion.We all acknowledge the wonders of technology, how the development of new tools has helped the prosperity of our societies in many dimensions. However, the opposite is equally important—consequences that deserve to be understood and evaluated. Besides the social, emotional and psychological aspects, which are the main focus of Digital Minimalism, I also care about the impacts on our physical health caused by technology overexposure. Not only how the devices shape our physical posture for worst over the years but also the detrimental effects of electromagnetic fields to our overall health.That said, I’ve been trying to be mindful about technology use during the last 4-5 years. I still have social network accounts, but I feel quite odd among my peers because I’ve been checking these accounts less often than ever—about once a month—but I rarely post pictures or comments. It brings a deep sense of freedom and calmness. In terms of smartphone use, I keep it on airplane mode for around 80% of the awake time, and I often try to go on adventures up in the mountains to be away from signal access for days or weeks at a time. This desire to be unreachable has grown over time and, although it makes me feel grounded and present, I admit that can be quite selfish of me towards loved ones.Reading this book helped me better understand the forces behind addictive technologies, exposed me to pragmatic ideas to implement the minimalism philosophy, and supported my previous thoughts on how we can better handle digital overexposure.SUMMARY[Intro] Digital minimalism, according to Cal Newport, is a philosophy where we focus our online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that support the things we value. We learn how the author got interested in the topic after receiving feedbacks from his previous book.[Chapter 1] Cal starts with a refresher—bringing back to the early and “potentially innocent" days of Facebook and the iPhone—then, he soon shows how these new technologies took the lead by dictating how we behave and how we feel by pushing us to overuse their products for as long as possible. Interesting story about how NYU professor Adam Alter shifted his research topic after getting “trapped” for 6 uninterrupted hours playing a game on his phone during a cross-country flight. Cal then explains 2 of the main forces used by technology companies to encourage behavior addiction: [1] Intermittent positive reinforcement. [2] The drive for social approval.[Chapter 2] Here is a primer on digital minimalism. We learn that "to reestablish control, we need to move beyond tweaks and instead rebuild our relationship with technology from scratch, using our deeply held values as a foundation.” Cal explains why digital minimalism works through 3 principles: [1] The first principle argues that, when we clutter our time and attention with many apps, social networks, and services, we create an overall negative cost compared to the benefits of each individual item in isolation. I was absolutely delighted to read his arguments by sharing Henry Thoreau’s decision to live for two years in a cabin near the Walden Pond. Thoreau's book, Walden, has actually impacted my life tremendously when I first read as a freshmen in college. [2] The second principle says that besides choosing a technology that supports our values, we should also think how we should use them to extract full benefits—optimizing, therefore, the returns. Here Cal shows how “the law of diminishing returns” can be directly correlated with potential negative effects when technology usage surpass the benefits they can generate. [3] The last principle shows that being more intentional about how we engage with new technologies is one way to become sincerely satisfied. For that, the author illustrates the Amish's approach toward technology: “they start with the things they value most, then work backward to ask whether a given new technology performs more harm than good with respect to their values.”[Chapter 3] In this chapter Cal shares a system for digital decluttering by transforming our relationship with technology. He encourages us to apply a rapid transformation: “something that occurs in a short period of time and is executed with enough conviction that the results are likely to stick.” He divides the process in 3 steps: [1] The first one is to establish which ones of the new “optional” technologies we can step away from without creating major problems in either our professional or personal life. [2] The second step is to take the leap and give ourselves a 30-day break while we rediscover the activities that generate real satisfaction without being attached to our devices. [3] The final step is the reintroduction, building it from the scratch, following the principles previously explained in chapter 2 by choosing carefully the apps/tools and using them with a deeper sense of purpose.[Chapter 4] This is most probably my favorite chapter, where we learn the value of solitude. Cal starts by sharing an interesting story of President Lincoln’s decision to reside in a cottage during months at time, communicating back and forth to the White House on horseback. The author then shares the benefits of solitude such as being a prerequisite for original and creative thoughts, as well as a deeper appreciation for interpersonal connections when they occur. He then shifts gears toward the impacts of solitude depravation, showing, for example, that the rise in anxiety-related problems among students coincide with the use of smartphones and social media. At the end of the chapter we learn 3 practices to foster more solitude moments in our daily lives: [1] To leave our phones and devices at home. [2] To go on long walks. [3] To spend time journaling.[Chapter 5] Now we jump to a chapter rich in social psychology lessons. We first learn how our brains evolved to desire social interactions, but differently than the rich face-to-face encounters, during the last decade or so we have been bombarded by digital communication tools, encouraging interactions through short, text-based messages and approval clicks. At the end Cal offers practices to develop meaningful “conversation-centric communication.” They range from avoiding clicking the “like” button all the way to holding more meaningful conversations during office hours.[Chapter 6] Now we jump to an empowering chapter. We learn to cultivate high-quality leisure time at the same time we declutter the low-quality digital distractions from our lives. They both, in fact, work together in order to create a more purposeful habit. This chapter is filled with real life examples of successful stories where helpful lessons are drawn at the end of each example. Like in the previous chapters, Cal doesn’t share only examples, but also practical ways to adopt his claims. My favorite suggestion is about scheduling in advance the time we'll be spending on low-quality leisure.[Chapter 7] The final chapter is about building a more resistant mindset to avoid the power of the attention economy—which is “business sector that makes money gathering consumers' attention and then repacking and selling it to advertisers." Practices are provided when further discipline is required to avoid exploitation: [1] Delete social media from our phone to remove the ability to access them at any time. If we're going to use social medial, we should access them through a web browser. [2] Turn our devices into purposeful tools, diminishing the number of things they enable us to do. In Cal's own words “I’m not talking about occasionally blocking some sites when working on a particularly hard project. I want you instead to think about these services as being blocked by default, and made available to you on an intentional schedule.” [3] To use social media like a social media professional does. [4] To embrace the slow media consumption by maximizing the quality of what we consume. [5] Making the hard choice to switch from smartphone to a “dumb” phone.COMPLEMENTARY READINGSWell, it doesn’t matter where in the spectrum we fall as long as we vow to move the needle towards a more meaningful and intentional technology use, diminishing our “natural” tendency to become dependent on digital devices. While reading Digital Minimalism I thought about book titles that could complement the content.[1] Essentialism, by Greg McKeown, is definitely the one that comes to mind first. It helped me focus on less but more important tasks, giving clarity to what matters most.[2] Originals, by Adam Grant, helped me see the world of creativity through a different angle by being more true to who I'm.[3] Atomic Habits, by James Clear, has already influenced me to build better and more meaningful habits during the last 3 months. It can be an extremely helpful source to apply the lessons suggested in Chapter 6.[4] Last, if you'd like to learn a bit more about electromagnetic fields and how we can minimize the dangers, look no further than The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs, by Nicolas Pineault.Take good care,Haical\n\n \n
## 2 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n If you already want to curb the role of digital stuff in your life, you won't get that much value out of this book.Cal makes a great case for WHY to pursue digital minimalism. But I already know why -- my digital addictions are messing up my life. What I wanted to know is HOW.On that, Cal doesn't have as much to say. A few tips -- mostly the "digital declutter," a 30-day moratorium on the digital services in your life -- are pretty useful. For one, it finally convinced me to buy Freedom, an app that regulates your internet use.The rest of the book is thickly padded with anecdotes. They had me flipping pages, wishing we could get to the point.$15 can either get you this book, or half of a year of Freedom. If I could roll back the clock I know where I'd put my money.\n\n \n
## 3 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n After reading Newport's book, Deep Work, earlier this year, I eagerly pre-ordered Digital Minimalism. I found Deep Work to be profound, thought-provoking, and somewhat life-changing.With Digital Minimalism, I just want my time and money back. In this book, Newport explores a "new" idea (it's not) that social media use and technology are hurting us in ways we did not expect and that digital minimalism(!) is the answer. He had thousands of his blog readers experiment with a 1-month technology sabbath/abstinence and reported their findings because he himself has never used social media (e.g., never joined Facebook). I found it odd for someone like Newport to talk as if he knew the experiences and difficulties of technology addiction when he himself has never felt the helpless compulsion to check their smartphone when bored as most people are today. It's like someone who's never been overweight providing thoughts, practices, and strategies to a fat person on losing weight to -- it sort of just rings hollow. He poorly defends himself by saying that because he's not fallen trap to modern technologies, he has experience of seeing things from the other side.The rest of the book is mostly things you probably already know or common sense stuff about technology addiction. There are a few useful tips on how to combat our overuse of technology, which is why I've given the book 2 stars instead of 1.I would not recommend this book; for ~$15 and only 250 pages of fluff, your money is better spent elsewhere.\n\n \n
## 4 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n Cal Newport is one of my favorite thinkers. He got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and is now a Professor at Georgetown. He’s also a bestselling author of a number of books including one of my top all-time favorites: Deep Work.Given the fact that the fastest way to Optimize your life is to STOP doing things that are sub-optimal AND the fact that (for nearly all of us) our use of technology is the #1 thing that “Needs work!,” I think it’s SUPER important for us to figure out how to best use all the technology available to us WITHOUT becoming lost in a tsunami of inputs.Enter: Our new philosophy of technology use: Digital Minimalism.Enter: My strong recommendation of the book.If you’ve been looking for a coherent approach on how to, as per the sub-title of the book, Choose a Focused Life in a Noisy World, I think you’ll love Digital Minimalism as much as I did.\n\n \n
## 5 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n Some articles should become books while some books should remain blog posts. This book is an example of the latter.I was riveted by Newport’s previous book, Deep Work, having reread it several times. I was captivated by Newport’s TEDx talk about leaving social media. After reading Newport’s blog posts on Digital Minimalism in late 2017 and having followed several general minimalism blogs for the last few years (e.g. Joshua Becker), I had high hopes for this book after first hearing about it several months before its release. Honestly, I do not know what I was expecting from this book, but I did not find “it” in Newport’s latest release.The book contains much helpful background information about the digital “slot machines” we carry in our pockets and yearning for repeated dopamine hits. The case was well made for the problem at hand. The book fell short in solutions. For every solution proposed, several pages of background and anectodatal stories/case studies were presented. The examples were weak and unmoving. While the solutions presented were solid overall, they did not need to be stretched out over several pages to fill pages in a book. As stated previously, this book felt forced as it would have been adequate as a series of blog posts or long form article. Like the minimalism movement overall, there is not much left to say on this topic which has not already been said repeatedly online through many voices.While Newport has managed to avoid the trappings of social media, it seems like he was lured into the publisher’s net to create another best seller. Unfortunately, Digital Minimalism does not deliver.\n\n \n
## 6 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n This is a great and very readable book that'll probably change how you relate to social media and your phone. You should read it ASAP and I'll be recommending it to everyone I know.Unlike a lot of authors, Cal Newport actually walks the walk too. You don't get tenure at Georgetown AND write a couple bestselling books (with kids) unless you really have your act together.But ... I had two issues with the book. (1) it wasn't organized as well as it could have been, and (2) it contradicted itself in minor ways. The biggest example of the latter is when, early on, Newport bashes on the tips/tricks/hacks ("turn off notifications") that are occasionally recommended to people trying to spend less time with their phone, before later giving many similar tips and tricks (good ones to be sure) himself.The book also has a sort of weird structure -- I figured Part 1 would be the philosophy of it all, where Part 2 would be the implementation, but instead you get the philosophy + the details of the "30 Day Declutter" (which Newport has talked about in interviews leading up to the book) in Part 1, then a detour discussion of leisure, then back to some very good points about the economics of attention + social media to wrap things up.It's all very good, and like I said, you should definitely read it (I could see myself reading it multiple times), but reluctantly I'd say those two things are enough to dock a star.\n\n \nEjercicio #2
Se agregan los dataframes en uno sólo
DFTotal <- bind_rows(Deepwork,Minimalism)Ejercicio #3
Se hace un diagnóstico del dataframe y el libro Digital Minimalism tiene en promedio una mejor puntuación que Deep Work
library(dlookr)
diagnose <- DFTotal%>%group_by(prod)%>%summarise(meanstarts = mean(stars,na.rm =TRUE))
diagnose## # A tibble: 2 x 2
## prod meanstarts
## <chr> <dbl>
## 1 Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World) 3.94
## 2 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World 4.2Ejercicio #4
Se realiza un boxplot de la variable Stars
boxplotstars<- boxplot(stars~prod,
data=DFTotal,
main="Reviews",
xlab="Book",
ylab="Stars",
col="orange",
border="brown",
cex.axis=0.5
)