Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where your time is well spent even though you should probably be doing something else.

3 things worth procrastilearning over

1. Social media’s extremist content is even worse if you don’t speak English

There's a big debate in the English world about how social media should be moderated. Changes at Facebook this year, for example, have had people worried extremist views will become more prevalent there.

But outside of English, the rest of the linguistic world has consistently had more problematic social media behaviour for years anyway. For example, in Spanish, not exactly an unpopular language, it's almost too easy to accidentally stumble upon extremist views.

Could this sort of quirk of technology be part of the reason extremist views have become more prevalent over the last decade?

2. We can't but rising (or falling) to other people's expectations

Have you ever had somebody encourage you by saying they believe in you and expect you’ll be able to do something? How about the opposite, like hearing somebody berate you for being useless and that you’re bound to fail?

This stuff affects us. It turns out we rise or fall according to other people's expectations. It's called the Pygmalion Effect.

The most famous study about it involved teachers who were told certain children in their classes were gifted. After a year, the gifted children had much higher than average results. The catch was that none of the children were really gifted (or at least they hadn't been tested for it). Their academic results were due to how the teachers had treated them over the course of the year. The teachers’ assumptions that they could do things well gave all the 'gifted' kids a boost.

3. There’s an island that speaks Elizabethan English

Due to its remoteness, Ocracoke Island in North Carolina has been stuck in a language bubble for a few centuries. Today, around 150 of its inhabitants have a fantastic accent that doesn’t sound exactly American. In fact, it may have more in common with Elizabethan English. I guess this is what Shakespeare sounded like?

There’s a good BBC clip from 2021 about it, but a short film from 1997 has the most examples since more speakers were still alive back then.

In case you're wondering, there are over 160 English dialects in the world. Have you seen the BBC News version of Pidgin English? It is probably the best news source on the Internet. For example, here is a recent article about who be di richest people for UK?

2 quotes to keep in mind

1 simple tip to find focus

Ask AI to give you a pep talk.

When you're stuck in a rut with work, try opening up ChatGPT or Claude or whatever and tell it about the problem and ask it to help. Give it precise descriptions, and watch it pep talk you through. This works particularly well with the lesser-known Pi.

Below are some examples - with a great screaming hook at the top of the thread:

Of course, if you are spending lots of time in AI asking it to make random prompts, do actually follow its advice instead of going into a rabbithole of prompting. You can get AI to help you with focus, but you need to want to actually focus in the first place 😉

That's all for today. Many thanks for reading.

Adam

P.s. I’m sorry for the one-day delay in our usual publishing schedule. I moved house this week and have had little time in front of a computer. If you even noticed the delay at all though, you deserve freshly-baked cookies and a hearty slap on the back 🍪

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff

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