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Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

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Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#31

Post by skohan »

deweller wrote: post #5

Cigarettes are a flawed analogy. There is no such thing as a "healthy" use of cigarettes. But I would argue that smart phones can be used in a healthy way. And I would also argue that the phone itself is not the problem. The problem is the reliance on the endorphin hit that comes from a new IM, like, post, etc. Some app makers have optimized their platform for engagement and have consequently made this highly addicti…

Actually there are a lot of therapeutic applications for Nicotine. Nicotine can be beneficial for a wide range of psychiatric disorders, and there's evidence it might help with Parkinson's symptoms as well.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#32

Post by billfruit »

chrisweekly wrote: post #3

Related tangent: Newport's book "Deep Work" is excellent. It makes a strong case that deep work is increasingly rare, valuable, and meaningful. But it goes way beyond the "what" and the "why", providing the "how", in the form of specific, pragmatic, actionable guidance for achieving just that. Anecdotally, it's been very helpful for me.

Really though, I do found that the book is just stating the obvious most of the times, and I wonder at all the praise it is getting here. Some of his ideas on memorization and his methods to structure thoughts, were non-ideas, or perhaps just low level trickery, and nothing fundamental.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#33

Post by dayglo »

Something1234 wrote: post #29
StavrosK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that you could do the same for many business books, and had made a site to provide summaries of the books. What sparked me to do it was reading "The No Asshole Rule", which was so devoid of actual content that it could be summed up by its title. It was full of anecdotes and statistics that ended up drawing the wrong conclusion.

Whats the site?

There’s a good site that does this called Blinkist. https://www.blinkist.com/en/about/

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#34

Post by keiferski »

chrisweekly wrote: post #3

Related tangent: Newport's book "Deep Work" is excellent. It makes a strong case that deep work is increasingly rare, valuable, and meaningful. But it goes way beyond the "what" and the "why", providing the "how", in the form of specific, pragmatic, actionable guidance for achieving just that. Anecdotally, it's been very helpful for me.

This book follows the recent trend of: find obvious slightly un-talked-about idea, create a fancy sounding term to describe it (preferably with as few words as possible - one is best, like Blink or Outliers.) These words should be vague and have hundreds of meanings - 'work', 'deep', or 'source', for example. Then, while you could summarize the idea in a single page, write 100+ pages framing the issue as a fundamental shift in one's perception. Finally, go on a media tour to promote it.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#35

Post by snarf21 »

deweller wrote: post #5

Cigarettes are a flawed analogy. There is no such thing as a "healthy" use of cigarettes. But I would argue that smart phones can be used in a healthy way. And I would also argue that the phone itself is not the problem. The problem is the reliance on the endorphin hit that comes from a new IM, like, post, etc. Some app makers have optimized their platform for engagement and have consequently made this highly addicti…

Right, early smartphones without social media were far less addictive. Games were less addictive because it was things like Snake not Fortnite. The other missing piece is "What would people do instead?". If you get rid of your smartphone and replace it with six hours of Netflix, you are probably not any healthier or better off.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#36

Post by mrfusion »

monkeynotes wrote: post #19
uxisnotui wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texting while driving comes to mind: https://www.nsc.org/road-safety/safety-topics/distracted-dri...

Eating while driving is also a huge part of the distracted driving problem. Food also causes numerous other health problems; obesity, diabetes and so on. If we all work really hard we can come up with dumb reasons to ban almost anything. Politicians make careers out of this sort of thing.

I always liked the idea of simply banning distracted driving. Why have the law play cat and mouse with new technologies.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#37

Post by hombre_fatal »

monkeynotes wrote: post #15
skilled wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes -- the "healthy" card. Good one! Makes you wonder what if "healthy" meant no phones at all... dang! I was fortunate to have a childhood without phones, and if I ever have kids myself I want to give them the same experience no matter what it takes.

> no matter what it takes Hopefully by the time you have kids wisdom highlights why the above is a destructive mentality. So many children are set up for anxiety and pain by their parents imposing so much of their own bullshit on them. By all means adopt principles that align with your beliefs, but for the love of god numb your ego a touch and realize if you love your children you have to let go of yourself and free…

Edit: overshared

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#38

Post by StavrosK »

Something1234 wrote: post #29
StavrosK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that you could do the same for many business books, and had made a site to provide summaries of the books. What sparked me to do it was reading "The No Asshole Rule", which was so devoid of actual content that it could be summed up by its title. It was full of anecdotes and statistics that ended up drawing the wrong conclusion.

Whats the site?

This was years ago, and there wasn't much interest so I took it down.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#39

Post by j-c-hewitt »

deweller wrote: post #5

Cigarettes are a flawed analogy. There is no such thing as a "healthy" use of cigarettes. But I would argue that smart phones can be used in a healthy way. And I would also argue that the phone itself is not the problem. The problem is the reliance on the endorphin hit that comes from a new IM, like, post, etc. Some app makers have optimized their platform for engagement and have consequently made this highly addicti…

Not totally true. Cigarettes are a very effective appetite suppressant. That is one of the reasons why people who work in the food industry all smoke so much.

Obesity has skyrocketed as cigarette and other tobacco use has declined. Obesity also increases the risk for most types of cancer, so it is just trading increased lung cancer risk for some people for increased risk of both heart disease and cancer.

In general nature does not like free lunches. There are costs and trade-offs in everything and smart phones are not an exception to that.

Re: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

#40

Post by bluedino »

everdev wrote: post #22

If you look at city photos pre-iPhone people are walking with their heads up (no one is looking at their phone). Not a judgement, just a stark contrast from ~10 years ago.

posts old timey photo of everyone on a train reading the newspaper
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