That our digital
addictions are drowning us in dopamine is no secret. Neither are digital
natives unaware that social media companies pump millions of dollars into
creating technology that can keep us hooked. While many around the world are
looking for ways to manage their digital addictions and curbing online
interaction in a manner that it doesn’t impact their productivity, an
Indian-American founder and CEO of a wearable device company has decided upon a
radical way to beat the addiction — to get slapped.
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Maneesh Sethi, who
founded and runs Pavlok — a company that makes wearable devices — decided to go
to Craigslist on a particular day in 2012 and decided to hire a person who
would slap him every time he opened Facebook in order to boost his
productivity. Nine years later, his move was lauded by one of the world’s wealthiest
and most successful entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk
had this to say about Maneesh Sethi’s decision.
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Talking about his
journey in a blog, Maneesh Sethi said he just wanted a person to help raise his
productivity, so he went on Craigslist to look for a person who would be
willing to slap him if he logged into Facebook. He found a woman named Kara who
would slap him every time he strayed of his course for $8 an hour and his
productivity rose to 98%.
A picture of Sethi
being slapped by Kara has now gone viral on social media. Elon Musk responded
to the picture with two fire emoji. Musk’s response made Manish’s day. “Is Elon
Musk giving me two emojis the highest I’ll ever reach?” Manish wrote in
comments wondering out loud whether he, like Icarus, was flying too close to
the sun.
“I’m the guy in this
picture. Is @elonmusk giving me two emojis the highest I’ll ever reach? Is this
my icarus flying too close to the sun moment? Was that implied by the fire
symbols elon posted? Time will tell,” Manish wrote.
