Oct 31, 2021 12:00 AM
Jul 31, 2025 12:00 AM

DL 309

Fully Immersed In An Activity

Published: October 31, 2021 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome back. Here's Digitally Literate, issue #309. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

This week I post the following:

Last week I decided to unplug for a week as we had family come to visit for the weekend. It's good to get back to keeping track of what's happening in tech.

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi passed away last week at the age of 88. Besides being one of the world's leading researchers on positive psychology, he was best known for introducing flow theory in the 1970s, defining it as a state of mind attained when one becomes fully immersed in an activity.

In an interview with Wired magazine, he described the concept as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

Flow is the mental state of being completely immersed in an activity for its own sake, where time seems to fly.

📚 Read

Facebook has rebranded as Meta, signaling a shift toward the metaverse — a mix of aspiration, hype, and monetization strategy.

Facebook suggests that this rebrand is an attempt to make it easier to differentiate between the different apps that exist under the company's banner. I believe this rebrand is an attempt to move the discussion from their string of bad news over the last couple of weeks/months/years. This is also an opportunity to make money and capture the market around an eventual metaverse.

Facebook Says AI Will Clean Up the Platform. Its Engineers Doubt It.

I'm continuing to unpack the Facebook Files, A Wall Street Journal investigation. Facebook executives have long said that artificial intelligence would address the company's chronic problems keeping what it deems hate speech and excessive violence as well as underage users off its platforms. According to the documents, those responsible for keeping the platform free from content Facebook deems offensive or dangerous acknowledge that the company is nowhere close to being able to reliably screen it.

"The problem is that we do not and possibly never will have a model that captures even a majority of integrity harms, particularly in sensitive areas," wrote a senior engineer and research scientist in a mid-2019 note.

He estimated the company's automated systems removed posts that generated just 2% of the views of hate speech on the platform that violated its rules. "Recent estimates suggest that unless there is a major change in strategy, it will be very difficult to improve this beyond 10-20% in the short-medium term," he wrote.

This March, another team of Facebook employees drew a similar conclusion, estimating that those systems were removing posts that generated 3% to 5% of the views of hate speech on the platform, and 0.6% of all content that violated Facebook's policies against violence and incitement.

Re-entry into polite society is proving to be a little bumpy.

Some people may have thought that having been prevented from mingling with other humans for a period, folks would greet the return of social activity with hugs, revelry, and fellowship. Psychologists suggest that the long separation has made social interactions more fraught.

The combination of a contagious, life-threatening disease and a series of unprecedented, life-altering changes in the rules of human engagement has left people anxious, confused, and, especially if they do not believe the restrictions were necessary, deeply resentful.

Cal Newport with an interesting, reflective piece about his writings about the importance of deep work and the need to minimize distractions. Newport started receiving some pushback around his use of the term productivity.

He responded with this post on his blog, and then ultimately the piece in the New Yorker.

It is interesting to think about Newport's question across these posts. Has the term "productivity" (and the culture surrounding productivity) outgrown its utility?

Dog trainers are using video sessions to connect with pets and their owners, adapting their practices to pandemic constraints.

Innovations in training methods highlight how industries are adapting to new realities.

🔨 Do

Make a Mini Graveyard Terrarium

A fun and creative project! Build a graveyard terrarium and personalize it for a seasonal twist. Great for kids and DIY enthusiasts.

Learn how here.

🤔 Consider

The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

This prescient observation from Stephenson's 1992 novel takes on new relevance as Facebook rebrands to Meta and promotes its metaverse vision. The quote reminds us that the concept of virtual embodiment isn't new—it's been explored in literature for decades. What's different now is the corporate attempt to monetize and control these virtual spaces.

Stephenson's insight also connects to Csíkszentmihályi's flow theory. In flow states, the ego falls away and we become fully immersed in activity. The metaverse promises similar immersion, but through artificial avatars rather than authentic engagement. The question becomes whether virtual embodiment can create genuine flow experiences or merely simulate them for profit.

As we navigate Facebook's transition to Meta, we must consider whether these virtual spaces will enhance human potential and creativity or simply create new forms of surveillance and manipulation disguised as innovation.

Newsletter Evolution Note

Issue #309 showcases Ian's ability to connect psychological research (flow theory) with contemporary technology concerns (Meta rebrand, AI content moderation failures) and broader cultural observations (post-pandemic social behavior, productivity culture critique). This synthesis demonstrates his growing sophistication in understanding how individual psychological states intersect with technological systems and cultural narratives. The inclusion of both profound theoretical insights and practical activities reflects his commitment to balancing deep thinking with accessible application.

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Connected concepts:

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.

Please note, Neal Stephenson is the writer who coined the term "metaverse" 30 years ago in his novel Snow Crash. I loved Seveneves and will soon start Anathem. Stephenson's newest novel is Termination Shock.