The days are long, and the years are short, a line from Gretchen Rubin in her book The Happiness Project.  Today was a long day, with stories about future storms, where parents' top concerns are this year, and how to improve the state of Too Busy Syndrome.  Thank you for being here.

Casey Newton writes a story I don't want to highlight, but complacency is a killer, and the fight continues.  Facebook sells advertising, and most of Meta's revenue comes from advertising.  Sell more ads to advertisers, and make more money.  Advertisers want; audience, data, exposure, and personalization.  Facebook has been collecting user data for almost 20 years; it knows all about us.  That same analysis of the audience is done on time on the app, and it knows what it needs to do to keep you on the app.  The longer you are on the app, the more ads they can serve.

One way to look at Facebook is to pretend Facebook is a TV channel from the old days, but it’s the only TV channel.  As a user, you can turn it on or you can turn it off, but there are no other channels to go to on this particular TV.  How do you stop someone from turning you off?  Rage works best.  I've often wondered why the Trumps and Musks have massive social media followings.  Are they the most interesting people in the world?  Or can we not look away? 

Anyone who has raised children, or helped out an especially needy friend, knows they are relentless.  No matter how often they come at you with the same crazy speech, point or rumor – you have to step back, breathe, and stand your ground when explaining right and wrong.  Now do that with two billion users.  The math is overwhelming, and so is the job of good people willing to stand up and do the right thing. 

I don't want to write the story, have to read about, think about, or have the storm dominate any head space.  Suppose we have to report on minority delusions as writers, journalists, and analysts.  In that case, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and write about the under-reported angles, something that highlights our collective soul and what empowers all people. 

There are more of us than there are of them; we reported earlier that 20% of people are the loudest online, we can't stop 'em from posting, but we can stop reading and writing on all the nonsense.  Again, what does the screaming kid want?

Pew Research reported on the most significant parent concerns, and a few standout items are frightening.  A few things on the list are evergreen; they could have been on the list 50 years ago, being bullied, having problems with drugs and alcohol, and even teen pregnancy.  What you wouldn't expect on the list is concern about your children being kidnapped or shot, and these were both on the list.

On the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway today, Galloway commented that since he moved over to England recently, he was surprised at how the worry of gun violence is so low in other countries.  Swisher followed up by being conscious of the potential of gun violence when her kids go to the mall or a concert.  Seems like such a waste.

Hard to think Dr. Spock's books on parenting could have prepared us for a social media, post-pandemic world, but here we are.  The Pew Research report on parenting goes into several other areas of parenting.  Some focus on what parents want for their kids and how they feel they are doing as parents.

In a great article on Medium, Professor Roger Martin writes about transformative management strategies and helps with the Too Busy Syndrome (TBS).  According to his Medium profile, Rogers was the Dean of the Rotman School in Toronto, CA, and was named the #1 management thinker in the world in 2017.  Talented business professionals and academics that can break down concepts into simple tasks win the day for us.  Rogers builds a strategy he calls Personal Playing to Win strategy, and the system is part delegation and part mission statement.  The difference in his tactics is the way he lays out the steps.  In the article, he uses his time as Dean as the template for the strategy; for those of us in smaller businesses, the system still holds water.

It might be easier to empower existing employees depending on the size of your organization; you can do the same thing with your subcontractors and vendors.  Growth is never easy; a strategy to handle growth will sustain your growth and your sanity.

In many situations, personal and professional, the Too Busy Syndrome is a series of choices.  The good news is you can always make new choices. 

File this under; wow, didn’t know that was a thing? Then thinking about, yea, that makes sense. This story was in the WSJ, another shock in our oversharing social media; look at my world – your playlists say a lot about you. Should you look at someone’s playlists on Spotify? Many people make the lists public, probably to expand the community of music lovers and send and receive a love of music.

Innovative singles may qualify for a date by looking up playlists on Spotify; others may use it to find common ground and talking points. It’s hard to say where to land on it; in the old days, we kept our “playlists” in our apartments' tape cassette crates or CD towers.

Not seen.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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