Daily Links 2-25-14

In today's post: the Christian leader in the digital age, smartphones are making us tired and unproductive, food brands named after real people, and more.

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The Christian Leader in the Digital Age:

The Digital Age is upon us. In the span of less than three decades, we have redefined the way humans communicate, entertain, inform, research, create, and connect – and what we know now is only a hint of what is to come. But the greatest concern of the church is not a technological imperative, but a Gospel imperative.

The digital world did not exist a generation ago, and now it is a fundamental fact of life. The world spawned by the personal computer, the Internet, social media, and the smart phone now constitutes the greatest arena of public discussion and debate the world has ever known.

Leaders who talk about the real world as opposed to the digital world are making a mistake, a category error. While we are right to prioritize real face-to-face conversations and to find comfort and grounding in stable authorities like the printed book, the digital world is itself a real world, just real in a different way. 

Real communication is happening in the digital world, on the Web, and on the smart phone in your pocket. Real information is being shared and globally disseminated, faster than ever before. Real conversations are taking place, through voice, words and images, connecting people and conversations all over the world. 

If the leader is not leading in the digital world, his leadership is, by definition, limited to those who also ignore or neglect that world, and that population is shrinking every minute. The clock is ticking.

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21 English words we need to get rid of. It's surprising to me how many of these words are commonly used.

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For all their advantages, smartphones don't seem to be making us more productive. Quite the opposite:

For a productive day at work tomorrow, give the smartphone a rest tonight. 

Reading and sending work email on a smartphone late into the evening doesn’t just make it harder to get a decent night’s sleep. New research findings show it also exhausts workers by morning and leaves them disengaged by the next afternoon. 

That means the way most knowledge workers do their jobs—monitoring their iPhones for notes from the boss long after the office day is done and responding to colleagues at all hours—ultimately makes them less effective, posit researchers from University of Florida, Michigan State University and University of Washington.

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A handy infographic on why readers prefer print books to e-books.

via EBookFriendly.

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Real or Fake: The Names Behind 12 Famous Food Brands. I was pleasantly surprised at how many of these were real.

Daily Links 10-21-13

Is Paleo just a fad diet, the downfalls of teenagers on social media, the differences between buzzwords and leadership, and more in today's roundup of links.

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Is Paleo just another fad diet or is there something more to it? Speaking from personal experience, Paleo has been a life-changing decision for me. About a year ago I was getting sick all the time. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. My doctor was stumped. Then I finally stumbled across Breaking the Vicious Cycle and started following the guidelines closely. My health changed dramatically and started to lose weight. Paleo is closely related to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and the approaches are similar. Eating Paleo has made a big difference in my life. If you're dealing with digestive issues it's worth a try to see if it will make a difference.

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This week marks the return of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot to the small screen. Of course, Britain gets to see it first. American viewers will have to wait until next year thanks to PBS. To whet your appetite, ITV has posted a trailer on their website. These will be the last four movies in the entire canon.

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Habits of successful people: They start before they feel ready. This is a fascinating article.

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Have you ever looked closely at company logos? They may be trying to tell you something.

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This is a frightening list: seven everyday foods that could kill you. (Hat tip: Food Riot)

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The downside of teenagers being constantly connected to their electronic devices. For what its worth, this is an area where we have treaded carefully with our own daughters.

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10 differences between buzzwords and leadership:

On several occasions when teaching, I’ve noted the difference between buzzwords and leadership. In fact, I think that a key facet of leadership is knowing the difference between a strategy and a collection of buzzwords. In the corporate world, there are a multitude of buzzwords (and phrases) that need to fall out of existence. And, yes, I’m an offending party on several of these.

Hat tip: Justin Taylor

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I find to-do lists are really helpful in managing my day to day tasks. Here's a fascinating history of the to-do list and how to make them work better for you.

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This is fun: A list of 25 movies that you might not know were based on books.(Hat tip: Book Riot)

Daily Links 10-17-13

Living digitally is the theme of today's link roundup. Something tells me our digital lives aren't all they are cracked up to be.

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This is interesting: 18 obstacles to personal daily devotions in the digital age. Sadly, I can relate to a lot of these. When you're done with that you can click over to this handy list of 20 tips for personal devotions.
(Hat tip: Challies)

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I'll admit it. I was surprised by this statistic:

E-Reader and Tablet Owners Read Over 60% More Books Than Those Without Digital Devices

USA TODAY and Bookish (www.bookish.com), a website designed to help readers discover and buy books, conducted a joint national poll of adults that finds how e-readers and tablets are shaping the culture and attitudes toward reading. More than a third (35%) of readers report they are reading more books thanks to their e-readers and tablets. Adults with reading devices say they read an average of 18 books a year, while those without devices say they average 11 books.

Other findings include:
• Doubling the numbers from less than two years ago, 40% of adults — including 46% of those between 18 and 39 – currently own an e-reader or a tablet.
• 60% of college graduates have an e-reader.
• 27% of readers say they have used Facebook, Twitter or book websites to comment on a book, and that number rises almost two-fold (50%) among those under 40 who own a reading device.

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How bad is multitasking for the brain?

When we multitask all day, those scattered habits literally change the pathways in our brains. The consequence, according to Nass's research, is that sustaining your attention becomes impossible.

"If we [multitask] all the time--brains are remarkably plastic, remarkably adaptable," he says, referencing neuroplasticity, the way the structures of your brain literally re-form to the patterns of your thought. "We train our brains to a new way of thinking. And then when we try to revert our brains back, our brains are plastic but they're not elastic. They don't just snap back into shape."

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There are advantages and disadvantages to being hyperconnected. Here are a few physical problems that you probably hadn't thought about. I think the stats about how often folks check their smartphones might be a little inflated. I check my phone often but 110 times per day seems excessive.

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According to a new study, age and narcissism drive whether you choose to use Facebook or Twitter.