Scientists have named surfing the internet at work cyberloafing

Scientists have named surfing the internet at work cyberloafingScientists have named surfing the internet at work cyberloafingWhen the workday drags on, we may turn to the wonders of the world wide web for a spark of entertainment.Now, scientists in a new study published inComputers in menschenwrdig Behavior have a term for it cyberloafing, or personal use of the internet during working hours. Bosses who catch us scrolling through Instagram may see this as a sign of laziness, but the researchers want us to rethink this, finding it to be a natural coping mechanism to workplace boredom.We cyberloaf to get through boring daysWhen the researchers surveyed 463 university personnel, they found that cyberloafing correlated with low workloads. People who cyberloafed were more likely to say their work was boring and monotonous. They were more likely to get mentally sluggish during the day.In other words, cyberloafing is a way for employees to cope with feeling underused and disengaged at work and is not necessarily a destructively counterproductive work behavior. The researchers called it an interest-enhancing behavior or a boredom coping strategy.When you see employees scrolling endlessly through their phones at work, recognize that its a sign that they are feeling disengaged with the job.Cyberloafing can be used as an indication of boredom on the job, and training efforts can be made to channel employees efforts into more productive outlets such as job crafting or enriching, the researchers conclude.So, next time you catch yourself looking at your phone to get through the doldrums of the work day, see it as a wake-up call that your workload needs to change.

Honing Additive Manufacturing Skills

Honing Additive Manufacturing Skills Honing Additive Manufacturing Skills Honing Additive Manufacturing SkillsArizona State University manufacturing engineering majors work on real-world additive manufacturing problems thanks to a new, 15,000-square-foot research facility devoted to the technique at the universitys Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Polytechnic campus in Mesa, AZ.The university is home to one of only 21 manufacturing engineering undergraduate degree programs in the U.S. and the new center gives those students a chance to hone their skills through project-based learning, says Malcolm Green, who helped establish the new four-year program.During his time at Arizona State, Green, now executive director of the Arizona Manufacturing Partnership, worked to obtain industry sponsorships to fund new academic and research programs in additive manufacturing in which the students can participate. The facility results from an ASU partnership with Concept Laser, Honeywell, Strata sys, and Phoenix Analysis and Design Technologies.The $2-million additive manufacturing center will extend those opportunities, he adds.Aerospace engineering student Brittany Nez holding Electron Beam Melting manufactured bars. renommee Jessica Slater/ASUTheres an insufficient talent pipeline going into manufacturing engineering and these companies need knowledge about these new technologies, he says. They need to recruit the next generation of manufacturing professionals, so were serving the needs of industry and only through partnership can we do that.The advanced manufacturing lab, an example of one partnership launched in 2015, houses around 25 3D printing systems that can print polymers, metals, and composites.Besides equipment, the facility offers advanced processing and analysis capabilities for use by students, faculty, and industry partners, Green says.Both industrial partners and students use the machines for a number of research and development activities, including alloy development, ceramics direct sintering, and acoustic meta-material research, as well as prototyping of complex mechanical components, says Ann McKenna, director of the polytechnic.With so few of these types of centers, this really positions us regionally to be the go-to place that can work with academic partners, federal agencies and industry to advance a new and emerging field, says Ann McKenna, director of the Polytechnic School.For its part, Honeywell Aerospace outsources to the center the research and development that cant currently be staffed.We want to use the ASU lab to engage students to help us understand the science behind some of the things were doing, says Donald Godfrey, engineering fellow for additive manufacturing at Honeywell Aerospace.Honeywell plans to bring metal additive manufacturing techniques into its future product-making portfolio and, to that end, operate four additive manufacturing technology centers around the world, including the Arizona center. The oth ers are located in Bangalore, India the Czech Republic and Shanghai, China.The center can be used for other projects that match industry initiatives with student-led research and development. For instance, students in the program teamed for 2015 fall semester with Local Motors of Phoenix, to research and test materials that could be used to 3D printed automotive test parts, says John Rogers, the companys founder and chief executive officer.Local Motors hopes to bring to market the first 3D printed automobile. The automaker introduces its first 3D printed car in 2014. Designs for a new vehicle are in progress in parallel with materials development and testing. The first models are expected to hit roads in 2017, Rogers adds.The students focused on designing, simulating,4 and fabricating a set of test structures and test systems to increase the inter-laminar strength of 3D printed automotive parts. Theyll also have access to Local Motors operations and itslarge-scale 3D printer.Teaming up with students allows us to get more great minds involved in the project. Having more minds on a particular aspect of a project can help us find quick solutions to problems, says the companys vehicle systems engineer Tony Rivera.On the project, four mechanical engineering undergraduates found a way to help Local Motors strengthen the adhesion between the 3D printed layers by around 35 percent, needed to make the cars strong enough to be considered safe for highway driving.The Strati, a line of Local Motors printed cars, is made from ABS plastic reinforced with carbon fiber. The 3D printer melts down small pellets of the ABS plastic into a pliable material that the machine exudes in layers. The Stratis design calls for 212 layers of 3D-printed material, with layers securely adhering to one another.Through research and tests they carried out at the ASUs Polytechnic center and at Local Motors facilities, the team discovered that attaching a heat source just in front of the 3D printe rs nozzle warms the previous layer of ABS plastic enough to improve bond strength of the adhesion by more than 35 percent.These findings can be refined to further strengthen the material, Rogers says.As his companys partnership with the students will be ongoing, he anticipates a spate of discoveries that will help Local Motors get on the road faster. The discoveries will come thanks, in part, to the universitys new additive manufacturing center.Jean Thilmany is an independent writer.Learn more about the issues and challenges associated with every step of the additive manufacturing lifecycle at AM3D. For Further DiscussionTheres an insufficient talent pipeline going into manufacturing engineering and these companies need knowledge about these new technologies.Malcolm Green, Associate Director, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Polytechnic

Stedman Grahams unconventional advice for young professionals

Stedman Grahams unconventional advice for young professionalsStedman Grahams unconventional advice for young professionalsTaking a sociology course? Drop it. Read a book, Stedman Graham joked to Ladders. The New York Times bestselling author was quick to pepper, measured responses with short bursts of dry humor, though never at claritys expense.The pleasure of our correspondence regarded his new book,Identity Leadership To Lead Others, You Must First Lead Yourselfa meditation on self-actualization and productivity, on route to becoming Grahams 12th publication.Center StreetFollow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreAge of skillsIn honor of the approaching release, in addition to a partnered launch of a diversity,and inclusion initiative, Graham spoke at Thrive Global about themission statement of his latest book and all of theseminal passions that inspired it. Identity, Graham remarked, in his introduction and pointed out again in our one-on-one chat.Making the most out of time is purposed by a thorough and conscientious knowledge of ones self-a practice Graham believes many Americans employ much too late. He frequently evidenced a frustration at all the hours wasted by a generation that ultimately lacks orientation. Graham once contended that there are 6.5 billion people (the population of the world) that dont know who they are- they have no process for organizing their life around the 24 hours that they have.This assessment is endorsed by a survey featured in Grahamss new book, directed by Harris Poll, that underscores the most common menaces to productivity. Fifty percent of respondents reported losing time to personal calls and texts, 42% confessed spending the majority of their day gossiping, and 39% occasioned the internet a vice that earned a bit more charity from Graham than the others. In his estimation, the educational system is outdated, which means young professionals must rely on other means to stay enlightened, and relevant in the 21st century.Currently, the consensus regarding the practical necessity of college educationis in limbo. As of 2019,Americans owe over $1.56 trillion in student loan debt, segmented among 45 million borrowers. When higher education stopped being about developing skills germane to our interests and turned into an institution that determined how much we ought to earn every year, ambivalent young adults decided having a degree in something was better than taking a year or two to figure out what it is they actually want to do. Information only becomes knowledge when it is attended by purpose.Today, the educational system teaches you to memorize, take tests, repeat the information back, you get labeled with a grade, If I asked what you learned two weeks later, the student will probably say I forgot. Nothing for nothing equals nothing, Graham commented to CBS back in 2012.Seven years later, Graham still celeb rates the process of rumination. I asked the author if there were simple direct ways to focus an anxious trajectory, specifically for those that already cowed to the college myth. History has taught me that big questions often relent to an army of small ones.College is supposed to prepare you for success, Graham told Ladders. Is what youre studying preparing you for the workforce? Taking sociology courses, drop it? Read a book. Are you taking psychology courses? Drop it, read a book. You taking liberal arts? Drop it, get you some books. Focus on skills. Not generalized information. This is the age of skills.An efficient tactical approach to determining whether or not enrollment is costing you valuable time is conditioning your mind to think like an employer. Graham added I wanna know what you can do. I dont care about what school you went to, or how smart you think you are. What can you do? And does it bring value to my company? Does it bring value to my organization? Figure out whe re the industry is going and what you should be focused on. Drive, knowledge of ones self, and trust are all neatly defined as Self Leadership. Unraveling the process to success begins by organizing the things that youre passionate about. Similarly to interviews, Graham has done in the past, the word love punctuated virtually every proclamation. He defines love as the fidelity to the things you care about, making love practical.Instead of reacting to habits, Graham implores us to organize information toward a foundation of growth and development.Leaders, not labelsThe fruits of self-leadership extend beyond the professional realm, of course. Members of marginalizedgroups are particularlyat risk of being amputated from a sense of self-worth. Graham lamented the pervasion of labels that keeps so many young women and minoritiesfrom discovering pertinent things about their desires and passions. Too often, labels, are just limitations disguised as cultural appreciation the kind of hackne yed blurb that reins MLKs efforts, or Virginia Woolfs influence.Coleman Hughes is a brilliant writer and student currentlyenrolled at Columbia University, as a philosophy major. The well-reasoned undergrad is a frequent contributor to Quillette, Heterodox Academy, and the Columbia Daily Spectator, he also happens to be a person of color- a superficial distinction that ensures the quality of his writing play second fiddle to tribal urges. Graham dedicated some time to address the kinds of controversies that call Colemans authenticity into question.At multiple points, he mentioned his objective to do away with all of the barriers that keep opportunities and education out of the reach of disenfranchised groups, some of which are institutional, and some of which are philosophical. In reference to the latter, i.e. the fear that the outlay for obtaining certain kinds of success, or adopting certain kinds of world views, is the right to your culture, Graham declared that we have to belong to ourselves, first and foremost. For many years, Graham confesses to not knowing who he was by reason of his race-based consciousness. When you relinquish your power of identity to social constructs, you forfeit control of your development.Early in life, I let other people define me. I let people define me by my race. Graham continues. I couldnt make plans for my life because I had no concept of who I was or what I was capable of.ur passions paint a more faithful image of our character, not arbitrary features like race or gender. As Graham pointed out, the list of labels get very long when you let other people define you. When we acquiesce to labels, we concurrently develop mindsets to inequality, which leads to us making poor choices and limiting our own potential and opportunities.Write down all the things you love. An organizational process-organize then you gotta think. Identify your skills. Eliminate all the things you dont want to do. And narrow it down to the things that you might want to do. From here, ask yourself, which one of these things would I do, even if I never had to work for a living? If you didnt have to get paid, what would you do?Once again, when mapping success, Graham motioned that love is the most faithful navigator and that time offers the truest mark of egalitarianism.Everybodys got 24 hours, thats what makes us equal. The question is how are you going to organize that 24 hours so that you can become a learner.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from jngstes Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people