Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes
GQA Q+A with the computer scientist about his new book Digital Minimalism, why future workplaces may go email-free, and why tech backlash is about to go mainstream.
Read when you’ve got time to spare.
Yes, you’re reading this on a screen. And yes, this guide is brought to you by the app Pocket, so we can hardly preach about the need to convert to an entirely off-the-grid, device-free lifestyle.
But it’s our mission at Pocket to help people spend their finite time and attention better—so that when you do devote precious minutes or hours to reading on a screen, it feels like time well spent.
But enough about us. Let’s get back to you. And the way you feel at 1am when you’ve somehow not reached the end of Twitter, despite your best doomscrolling efforts. Or at 6am, when the first thing you do is reach for your phone. Or the hours you spent watching The Crown on Netflix while doublescreening Wikipedia for facts about the royal family. We swear there’s a way out. And the first step is understanding the powerful hold screens have over us—and what practical tips we can take to break the spell.
A Q+A with the computer scientist about his new book Digital Minimalism, why future workplaces may go email-free, and why tech backlash is about to go mainstream.
Whether you hear it or see it, the alert can trigger a whole host of emotions, chemical reactions, and resulting side effects.
“Technology feels disempowering because we haven’t built it around an honest view of human nature,” says tech critic Tristan Harris.
Silicon Valley is keen to exploit the brain chemical credited with keeping us tapping on apps and social media.
Every moment of potential boredom can now be ameliorated or avoided by all manner of tasks, modes of entertainment or other distractions conveniently provided courtesy of our mini computer and bodily prosthetic.
Time away from Facebook has its ups and downs, research suggests—so Kira Newman gave it a shot.
Why does anxiety about needing to stay in contact negatively impact sleep?
The author and artist’s keynote address on our fractured attention spans went viral. Now she has a plan for how to heal them: lose ourselves in nature.
“Something's in the air. I think people are finally getting fed up with how much of their humanity they're losing to always staring at these screens.”
Screen time has skyrocketed as we all stay inside to combat the pandemic, but now more than ever is an opportunity to disconnect.
In this excerpt from her book ‘24/6,’ filmmaker author Tiffany Shlain explains how she manages her social media use to keep it happy, not stressful.
Excessive screen time can be harmful to our well-being, but we can free ourselves from tech’s hooks with goals, rules and boundaries.
Pre-quarantine, you likely thought that you spent almost all of your workday at the computer. But little did you know that you could spend so much more.
This article, from 1996, was one of the first to explore a then-emerging issue. As one doctor in the piece says, ''I think we're about a year away from having people recognize it's really a problem. It's out there. There's no question.''