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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

#121
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read 75% of it, does that make me qualified to trash on it? I thought it was complete garbage. Not the idea, mind you, the _book_. It's a blog post's worth of information that's comically stretched out in an early college I'm-trying-to-meet-a-word count way. The book is almost entirely pointless fluff.

I had the exact same reaction to it. Some enormous fraction of all non-fiction is an essay-length idea stretched out into a book length. It's disrespectful to the reader, but it's what they need to do to make a sale. No one wants to buy a pamphlet

It's especially disrespectful when the books are being market to people who want to be efficient.

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

#122
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 n…

If only there was a way to both not smoke and control your appetite, and maybe even eat less processed food while you're at it.

Alas, I guess we'll just have to leave that hard problem to the scientists and philosophers.

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

#124

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.

I enjoyed the book, but when I was done, it felt like it really could have been a blog post. In fact, I pointed people on my team at some summaries of it, and then said if they need more, read the book....

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Awhile back when no texting laws were just starting out I remember thinking it was so stupid because my state (Michigan) already had a no distracted driving law. I don't see how it's any different than eating, smoking, reading, or whatever else people do in their car that makes it harder to drive.

Part of it is marketing. Part of it is a way to essentially double the fine by adding an additional offense.

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

#126

The problem isn't smartphones. It's apps that appeal to addictive persona, be they social media or time consuming games. Use your smartphone as a tool and it serves a purpose without intruding on your life.

I'd buy that if all the research into making them addictive wasn't pursued. Just like cigarettes, a lot of people are being targeted by the addictive nature of these devices. Sure, there's some people who just won't smoke, no matter what. But if you look at statistically significant portions of the population, how they were directly targeted by marketing, and then saturated with a physically addictive chemical (constant dopamine rushes that impact the brain in the case of smart phones and apps), well....I'm pretty sure the argument holds up for a large part of the population. Saying "just don't do that' just doens't work.

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

#127
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newport is on a 3-book contract[1] on more or less the same subject with slightly different framing. So he's obliged to drum-up attention about it. Also as someone else pointed out in a different thread, Newport places too much attention on "quantity"; it doesn't sit quite well with me. Yes, his bigger point is entirely valid (and I appreciate him bringing it to our attention), but no—there is not enough material to…

Does Prof. C also discuss the benefits of mixing focused time with communication and idea exchange time? E.g: closed door work with open work areas. I encountered a similar idea in "The New Science of Building Great Teams" by Alex Pentland, where the concept of exploration is introduced: "The best team players also connect their teammates with one another and spread ideas around. And they are appropriately explorator…

Not quite. In my view, Prof. C's work is more fundamental in nature; he doesn't prescribe anything particular. But describes what works, based on his observations, and lets us judge for ourselves.

Among other things, he goes in detail (with studies backing up his points) on what provides "optimal experience" to humans. And covers topics like "order in consciousness", "sense of self", "entropy", "freedom", "purpose", and so on.

A couple of random quotes from my notes:

(1) "The inevitable consequence of equally attractive choices is uncertainty of purpose; uncertainty, in turn, saps resolution, and lack of resolve ends up devaluing choice. Therefore fredom does not necessarily help develop meaning in life—on the contrary."

(2) "There is one very important and at first apparently paradoxical relationship between losing the sense of self in a flow experience, and having it emerge stronger afterward. It almost seems that occasionally giving up self-consciousness is necessary for building a strong self-concept. Why this should be so is fairly clear. In flow a person is challenged to do her best, and must constantly improve her skills. At the time, she doesn’t have the opportunity to reflect on what this means in terms of the self—if she did allow herself to become self-conscious, the experience could not have been very deep. But afterward, when the activity is over and self-consciousness has a chance to resume, the self that the person reflects upon is not the same self that existed before the flow experience: it is now enriched by new skills and fresh achievements."

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think that’s really true. The health effects of a cigarette a week would be indistinguishable from background noise. Is this true? Can you provide a source? Brb running to the corner store...

I think you'll find a hard time finding any source which will claim cigarette smoking under some threshold is not bad for you. But keep in mind cigarette studies use the metric "pack-years" where 1 pack-year means smoking 20 cigarettes a day, for a year. "Heavy" smokers are generally considered as 2+ pack-year smokers. And it's not like _every_ heavy smoker gets lung cancer. In fact "only" 25% of heavy smokers get lu…

Lung cancer is the least of your problems if you're a smoker.

Smoking greatly increases risks of literally every possible health condition.

(This is why the first question you'll be asked by a doctor is if you smoke or not, no matter what your complaint is.)

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fundament…

That describes every "self-help" type book, where you take a single positive but novel concept or attribute, and find a way to talk about it long enough to fill something that can be printed and sold in airport bookstores. Eckhart Tolle has written a dozen+ books about being in the moment, for instance.

That's probably the worst aspect of Deep Work - it's written as a full-fledged pop psych self-help NYT bestseller, lacking the pithiness and the precision of his blog.

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

#130

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 fundament…

I hear you. I even agree, that some parts of this book do, annoyingly, do exactly what you describe. But, on the whole, it's a compelling message from which many people (including myself) stand to learn, and benefit.
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