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    Happiness Lab On How Grades And Rewards are Manipulative

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

    One of the most popular arguments we hear, and one I’ve made myself, is that to truly stay informed, and avoid living in the bubble of our own political bias, we need to make sure we are getting information from a variety of sources, including ones we may not agree with.

    This study seems to be telling us that isn’t enough, and it can easily be manipulated. If I read an opposing viewpoint, and there’s no reward for doing so, I’m unlikely to really be influenced by it, but if I read an opposing viewpoint and get rewarded for it, I’m more likely to change my mind.

    Now, remember that emotional contagion we might get from social media? What if I shared one side of a political view, and got rewarded by the algorithms or whomever with lots of likes and comments, and the post got shared a whole bunch, but posts from the other side, got none of that? Which side am I more likely to agree with? Right, the one that I got better grades on. Not because it’s true, better, or more accurate, but because I am rewarded for thinking that way. Rewarded the way I’ve been my whole life, since I was a little boy, from the first time my parents wanted me to behave a certain way, all the way through my school years, and for all of my career.

    How hard would that be to fight against? Almost impossible, I’d say. How easy would it be for social media to do it, either the companies themselves, or large groups of users?

    How does that influence what we do see on social media?

  • What I’m Sharing (weekly) July 12, 2020

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    Ways companies can measure workers’ mental health

    A Professional Recruiter’s Top 5 Insider Tips for Stress-free Networking and Interviewing

    Law Firms Are Seeing Renewed Competition—from Clients
    – “Corporate legal teams, under the gun to cut costs and empowered by powerfully simple technology, are increasingly in-housing work that was once sent to outside counsel.”

    The pandemic is wrecking the typical 9-to-5 workday. Good riddance.

    Be aware of how anxiety affects your job search skills

    No Excuse Not to Use a Password Manager

    Working Through a Personal Crisis

    The Expanding Role and Influence of the Modern Litigation Support or E-Discovery Manager

    The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Side Of AI

    Stop Using 123456 as a Password

    Tell Congress to Vote Yes on Giving Us All Access to Affordable, High-Speed Internet
    – If much of the world moves to #WFH, affordable internet will be the dividing line for who can work, and who cannot.

    Gender Pay Gap Wide Atop In-House Counsel Ladder, May Be Closing

    Exif Data: What is it?

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    Linked: Leaders Need To See More Than The Big Picture, They Need To Catch The Small Cues

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    From a purely business focus what Ira says about retention should be obvious, but I suspect many people don’t get it, despite the fact that it wasn’t that long ago when the economy was doing well, and the job market was ripe for the picking as a seeker. That’s changed, but it will change again….

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    Linked: 3 eDiscovery Lessons From COVID-19 Shutdown

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The first line of the first lesson is one I totally agree with: “It’s said that major events don’t so much change our culture as they simply reveal what was already there.” I feel like Jeff should have reminded himself of that first line when writing the rest of it, because yes, it’s true that…

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    Linked: A New Skill a Day Keeps the Stress Away

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    I found this opening paragraph pretty interesting in and of itself. With the current uncertainty in our daily lives, many people are more stressed than ever. Conventional wisdom says to eat well, exercise, and relax to reduce stress. While that’s all great advice, studies show that learning may relieve stress better than relaxing.  In recent…

  • Shut Up and Encrypt

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    While watching the Alex Winter film about the Panama Papers, this quote stood out to me, given all of the talk about the “dangers” of encryption.

    While working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in the early days of investigating the data leaked from the Mossack Fonseca law firm, the importance of not letting anyone know that the data had leaked, or that it was all being investigated, was paramount, so they lived with this slogan:

    “Shut Up and Encrypt”