Think Differently

An extract from the “Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Operational and Other Financial Highlights:

• Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 3.74 billion as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 4% year-over-year.
• Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.96 billion as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 2% year-over-year.
• Ad impressions and price per ad – In the fourth quarter of 2022, ad impressions delivered across our Family of Apps increased by 23% year-over-year and the average price per ad decreased by 22% year-over-year. For the full year 2022, ad impressions increased by 18% year-over-year and the average price per ad decreased by 16% year-over-year.”

Source: https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2023/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2022-Results/default.aspx

PS For reasons that I cannot fathom the actual full report for 2022 remains unpublished in January 2024.

The accompanying statement by Mr. Z. (uckerberg):

“Our community continues to grow and I’m pleased with the strong engagement across our apps. Facebook just reached the milestone of 2 billion daily actives”

Simplistically distilling this down Meta cares about 1. Activity 2. Users and 3. Ad impressions.

Guess what?

Meta may have Customers, but they are not (family active) People.

They sell Advertisements, they sell them to You, and they make Revenue because of it.

Lots of it, apparently approximately USD 116,609 million in 2022.

Newsflash: You are not a Meta customer; you are its Product, and you are Cheap.

Here is an innocent thought…  Perhaps Meta should start paying its users.

Pretend for a second your e-mail inbox is an actual physical mailbox in front of your house.
Would you jump up from your chair every 5 minutes, go outside to check if anyone delivered you mail?

No, you wouldn’t. Why is e-mail so different though and what do studies show?

“people spend around 23% of their work time on email, with some estimates suggesting that individuals check their email about 36 times per hour. Others have found that users check their email around 11 times per hour, keeping their email application open in the background (84%) and often relying on notifications to access their messages (64%).

This level of “checking email” interaction isn’t without consequences. The average knowledge worker tends to “check in” with communication tools every 6 minutes, with 35.5% checking their email and instant messaging every three minutes or less. This constant interruption disrupts workflow and diminishes productivity.”

Source: https://ppm.express/blog/checking-emails/

Based on a 40 hour “work” week we spend more than 9 (!!!) hours of checking, reading and responding e-mail. That is a day a week, not evening considering the attention switching cost of the constant interruption we experience.

But what if we treat our e-mail inbox like an actual physical mailbox. Once a day the virtual mailman, just like a regular one, delivers all your daily e-mails around 3pm.
 
At 3pm you sit down and take the opportunity to sort through your mail based on priority and urgency, obviously discarding the advertisements and other direct mail you clearly didn’t ask for or subscribe to.
 
You, free of any other distractions, will have time to focus and address any urgent or priority matters, ensuring these mails get your full attention.
 
This will clearly benefit the recipients that receive a thoughtful response and more importantly you, who is no longer in a constant frenzied state of determining when to check your e-mail..
 
Sounds like an opportunity to reclaim time, focus and attention?
 
Just imagine what this simple change could mean for improving your personal and professional productivity.
 
Alternatively you can go back to checking your e-mail every 5 minutes pretending its massively urgent and cannot wait.