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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

#151

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #34
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 fundament…

[deleted]

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

#152

Post by erikpukinskis »

jrockway wrote: post #109
rauhl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such thing as a "healthy" use of cigarettes. I don’t think that’s really true. The health effects of a cigarette a week would be indistinguishable from background noise. The fundamental problem with cigarettes is that they are addictive, and convenient (at one time very convenient), and so it’s easy to smoke more and more. That’s actually very similar to smartphones: their use is addictive, and convenie…

I don't think cell phones cause lung cancer or emphysema. The better comparison is to caffeine. Yeah, it's pretty addictive. But it doesn't kill you. That's about where the cell phone is for some people. (And hey, the blue light even screws up your sleep cycle supposedly. As a long-time drinker of caffeine, I don't even HAVE a sleep cycle! Take that, cell phones.) Also, I am guessing that most doctors would not recom…

Cell phone addiction absolutely causes life threatening risks, like stress, isolation, attention deficit, etc.

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

#153

Post by erikpukinskis »

lm28469 wrote: post #63
j-c-hewitt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you have any source for "That is one of the reasons why people who work in the food industry all smoke so much." ? As far as I can tell most low wage / manual labor jobs are plagued with cigarette smoking because it allows more breaks / and it's a way to kill time. Here in germany a lot of 30s people picked up smoking during their mandatory military service (cigarettes were free to avoid creation of black markets,…

Kitchen work is also extremely “crunch-y” with high stakes blocks of time where any mistakes you make have compounding costs. A stress relief drug like nicotine can help you regulate your mood around that cycle.

There are better ways to regulate mood and stress but most of them can’t be packaged and sold for $5, which makes them unlikely to proliferate under capitalism.

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

#154

Post by erikpukinskis »

com2kid wrote: post #116
efields wrote: post #42

Most people don't actually want a smartphone. Pain in the ass to keep charged, carry it everywhere, not drop it, not lose it. Everybody generally wants a few core services from their smartphone: send and receive brief messages, directions, ride hailing, listen to a podcast or some streaming service, mobile payments, take photos (perhaps most importantly). Sometimes some people want the distractions available on a sma…

> Everybody generally wants a few core services from their smartphone: send and receive brief messages, directions, ride hailing, listen to a podcast or some streaming service, mobile payments, take photos (perhaps most importantly). Complete access to a large % of Western civilization's collective knowledge is also kind of nice. Mostly used for restaurant open hours and random Wikipedia articles. But still. Knowing…

Why only Western Civilization? Why not the collected knowledge of all of humanity?

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

#156

Post by HiroshiSan »

com2kid wrote: post #101
goostavos wrote: post #77

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.

The few 'new idea' type books I've found to be useful are rather thin, printed on cheap paper, and have rather large text. Even they are padded out, but at least a bit less so. The problem is, I don't think people will pay $30 for a 50 page book, even if the ideas inside it are worth the money.

Yeah, Seth Godin is really good at writing books that pack a punch with few pages.

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

#157

Post by mark_l_watson »

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.

Right on - 'Deep Work' was very helpful in doing some self-evaluation and priority setting. I just ordered his new book, to be delivered in a week or so when it is released.

Making good evaluations on 'opportunity costs' is key. As I get older I allow more fun time than I used to (I am almost 68).

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

#158

Post by mark_l_watson »

efields wrote: post #42

Most people don't actually want a smartphone. Pain in the ass to keep charged, carry it everywhere, not drop it, not lose it. Everybody generally wants a few core services from their smartphone: send and receive brief messages, directions, ride hailing, listen to a podcast or some streaming service, mobile payments, take photos (perhaps most importantly). Sometimes some people want the distractions available on a sma…

I totally agree with you on Apple Watch + AirPods: cover so many use cases, and I feel "Star Trek'y" - not just me: my wife and several friends feel the same way.

I don't waste time with my Apple Watch + AirPods: I just process calls/texts/emails and listen to pad casts or music.

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

#159

Post by staticautomatic »

peterkshultz wrote: post #95
ergothus wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in some philosophy classes in college I developed my "theory of bullshit". Basically, when I'm reading your work explaining your theory, if I go through two full pages without encountering a new idea, your work is bullshit. This doesn't apply to providing EXAMPLES of your theory, and a theory is often many new ideas so that explaining it will take many pages, but if I read 2 pages of explanation and don't…

You should check out the book "On Bullshit" by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt. He develops a similar theory.

Frankfurt's theory/definition of bullshit has literally nothing to do with fluff.

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

#160

Post by swah »

mattmcknight wrote: post #113
Numberwang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didnt someone do a summary of that book in like a single page somewhere? As in, there were good ideas but it could be summed up to a short paper. I can't find the link now.

Would check with Derek Sivers: https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork I think the point of reading the book is you will see the ideas in the summary, but may not believe they are true. The book is there to convince you through data, logical arguments, and stories that the ideas are true. In addition, repetition is one of the most valuable techniques for actually remembering things.

I read the summaries by Sivers before reading a book and after reading a book, many times. Of course, sometimes I skip the book.
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