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

https://www.gq.com/story/cal-newport-digital-minimalism

by dhh2106 • 7 years ago

246 160 7 years ago

Dumblydorr• 7 years ago

I doubt we will launch a massive campaign against phones unless they kill literally hundreds of thousands like smoking has. It's more likely we will have to for vaping or marijuana use, if they turn out to cause cancer in the millions now using those daily.

uxisnotui• 7 years ago

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

monkeynotes2• 7 years ago

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.

chrisweekly4• 7 years ago

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.

_Microft• 7 years ago

I can confirm/agree with that.

Numberwang• 7 years ago

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.

StavrosK3• 7 years ago

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.

normal_man• 7 years ago

Yeah the book is good but I found it to be insanely padded and bloated.

hackermailman2• 7 years ago

Three sentences: https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/d... I think the author himself has a one page blog post summarizing it as well.

I agree with him about the smartphone cancer that has crept into all our lives though I imagine there will be much worse distractions in the near future like deep learning phones that can tell us everything going on in a room the moment we enter it (since everybody else also has the same device). Permanent HUD like a James Cameron scifi

kirubakaran• 7 years ago

Sure, and Woody Allen summarized War and Peace in one line: It involves Russia.

mattmcknight• 7 years ago

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.

skorbenko2• 7 years ago

Actually, I made something of the sort that you're asking for [1]. Thank you for checking it out, and I would love to hear some healthy criticism!

[1] https://skorbenko.github.io/books/books/flow.html

ishan1121• 7 years ago

Yes, it was, in fact, his advice on working in isolation is one of the best things I have taken. That book has improved my productivity by 12% (i measured)

billfruit2• 7 years ago

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.

keiferski2• 7 years ago

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.

HiroshiSan2• 7 years ago

Though I completely agree with your sentiment, Cal explicitly defines the meaning of Deep Work, and I think it's an important thing society should think about as technology progresses. It helps to have the terminology to describe the state of our lives.

From page 3 of the book, Deep Work:

Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

At least read the book before you trash it.

michaelchisari• 7 years ago

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.

deepaksurti• 7 years ago

Your definition also applies to Design Patterns!

andy_adams• 7 years ago

Sometimes a fundamental idea is simple, but it takes repeated hammering into your mind before you adopt it. 95% of a book might seem like fluff, but when you read the 1 example, the 1 anecdote, or the 1 "way of saying it" that resonates with you - that's often when the idea sticks and becomes a more permanent part of your life.

Expanding an idea into book form helps more people discover that "aha" moment than a single blog post does. Plus, people just take books more seriously in general!

kashyapc4• 7 years ago

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 write three damn books. Take inspiration from Kahneman, he condensed his 40-year work (in collaboration with Tversky) into one book.

As I've noted on HN before, I'd much rather recommend the book by the Hungarian psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (or Prof. C): Flow—the psychology of optimal experience

Prof. C has defined the idea of "flow" (he discusses it in various contexts, including human well-being), and dedicated his entire life to studying it. IMHO, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely high in this book—no wonder, it was Prof. C's seminal work.

[1] http://calnewport.com/about/

chrisweekly4• 7 years ago

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.

AareyBaba• 7 years ago

One hack around is to search the author on Youtube. You will usually find a 5-10 min interview during the book tour where the author has to distill the book into quick soundbites. You can then decide if the book is worth reading. For more complex topics on physics, biology you'll often find an hour long talk which covers all the material in the book. At 1.5x speed on Youtube you can save a lot of time screening out BS.

andrei_says_• 7 years ago

Which is why I have trouble reading pretty much any of the top business books.

Fluff, fluff and more fluff. Repetitive anecdotes, personal experiences etc etc. I just can’t pretend I’m interested.

peruvian• 7 years ago

The book is good, but could've been one long blog post. It also sadly is not very relevant for many workers. Dr Newport is a tenured, famous professor. He sets his own schedule and probably works by himself.

I'm an average tech worker in an open office. My office is quieter and more peaceful than most, but I can rarely get much "deep work" in. Meetings, Slack, etc. I have no door I can close and isolate myself with. I assume this is the case with most engineering roles so the usual HN advice of "find another job" doesn't apply.

That said, I still get things done fairly well, so I'm not complaining. I've used his techniques and ideas in my free time when I read, program, etc.

titanomachy• 7 years ago

I have a similar office but I've made efforts over the years to engineer my environment to support deep work. I'd started doing this before I read that book but increased my efforts after. If you really believe it's important you can usually make it happen. I have good buy-in from my teams.

Details: desk facing a wall or window. Failing that, a 3-sided divider. Earplugs plus headphones. Skim my emails once every hour or so and leave notifications off otherwise. When I'm not trying to do deep work, headphones off so people know they can approach me. Nuclear option: work from home one or two days a week.

If you really think you can't get away with these things, then maybe you do need to find a new job where you're less micromanaged and more evaluated on results.

yellow_postit• 7 years ago

Blocking no-meeting times, scheduling times to check slack or email, staying vigilant about declining, shortening, canceling meetings are all techniques to help free up contiguous blocks of time for focused work. Though they shouldn’t have required a book I’ve seen Deep Work and PG’s Makers Schedule post be used to justify ICs making this space.

SatvikBeri• 7 years ago

He's been writing about and practicing these ideas since he was a grad student with no publications, well before having tenure. I actually think his early blog posts are substantially better and more detailed than his later books, e.g: http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/07/

rchaud2• 7 years ago

While Newport's idea is solid, the book really isn't worth reading past the first 50-75 pages, where the majority of the ideas are communicated. Unfortunately, bloat is a problem in almost all types of management/self-improvement books, so I don't want to single him out here. I have the same complaint about his earlier book, "So Good they Can't Ignore you".

taude2• 7 years ago

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....

chrisweekly4• 7 years ago

(Replying to self, bc too late to edit.)

"Newport's book "Deep Work" is excellent" -> Newport's book "Deep Work" makes excellent points.

I've benefited meaningfully from reading it, but also agree w/ many commenters' view that it could've been much more concise.

mark_l_watson2• 7 years ago

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).

deweller• 7 years ago

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 addictive for many people.

But this addiction is much easier to break for most people than an addiction to something like say cigarettes (or even sugar).

DisruptiveDave• 7 years ago

But this addiction is much easier to break for most people than an addiction to something like say cigarettes (or even sugar).

Physically? I presume you're right. But here's the problem; you don't need cigarettes to accomplish any other expected, daily task in your life. You need your phone for a whole bunch of useful tasks that aren't health-depleting. I once read someone explain eating disorders in a similar way. You still need to eat, so you can't simply kick the root of your problem out of your life forever.

skilled4• 7 years ago

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.

keerthiko• 7 years ago

the classic "we didn't have nice things when I was a child, so I shall socially constrain my children's options in a completely different era in the same way arbitrarily" style of parenting. I'm sure your kids will be grateful and excited /s

monkeynotes2• 7 years ago

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 them as much as corral and influence them.

Be reasonable, understanding, compassionate, loving and unselfish, and see how 'no matter what it takes' holds up when considering those virtues.

RegBarclay• 7 years ago

Technology, culture, society, and ourselves -- they all change. I have children born over a period of 12 years. What was appropriate and worked for my oldest may not fit or work with my youngest. And that's just one decade. The space between my teen years and my youngest child's teen years is closer to four decades. What was appropriate and worked for me just isn't even possible for my kids.

You'll understand better when you have kids. I hope.

rauhl• 7 years ago

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 convenient (you can get a hit at work, in line, in the car, at the store, walking down the street, in bed).

As with tobacco, I believe that the answer is to responsibly use smartphones. Chain-smoking is bad; so too is constantly getting a hit from your smartphone. Smoking a pipe a couple of times a week (or a cigar a couple of times a month) isn’t a problem, and neither is using a smartphone intentionally & deliberately.

cmiles74• 7 years ago

I wonder if some people are built such that they can't just put the phone down, similar to how many people really struggle to quit smoking. For those people there may be no "healthy" was to use the product.

throwaway413• 7 years ago

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...

sigi45• 7 years ago

But my 'hit' are alarms, communication with family, news, emails etc

I prefer reading emails on my way. I'm distracted anyway and when I arrive at work, no emails anymore.

jrockway• 7 years ago

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 recommend smoking a pipe a couple times a week. I doubt it's harmless.

skohan3• 7 years ago

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.

lm284694• 7 years ago

afaik nicotine is the addictive substance in cigarettes but it's not the most dangerous.

+ Inhaling any burned matter / fumes will have an impact the lungs.

"Cigarette smoke contains over 7,000 chemical compounds, including arsenic, formaldehyde, cyanide, lead, nicotine, carbon monoxide, acrolein, and other poisonous substances. Over 70 of these are carcinogenic." [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette

snarf21• 7 years ago

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.

billfruit2• 7 years ago

OTOH, snake can be played without much effort, where as it requires much patience and effort to play Fortnight. This is something that most of the critical discussion on games seems to be missing. Most computer games require lot of effort and time investment to play, they aren't actually an avenue for instant gratification.

j-c-hewitt• 7 years ago

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.

lm284694• 7 years ago

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, people who smoked had more breaks + herd behavior)

NovaS1X• 7 years ago

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.

drilldrive• 7 years ago

I like to think of smartphones as the "devil's gadget", alluding to the original conceptualization of Satan: the being of natural tendency.

Apocryphon3• 7 years ago

Idle hands...

baxtr2• 7 years ago

I don’t buy the analogy. Do we look back at TV saying the same thing? Granted we have to learn how we can live in balance with smartphones and the always-in mentality. Compared to cigarettes there are a lot of positives things you can do with smartphones.

grawprog2• 7 years ago

Yeah. People have been saying it for a long time about tv. At least as long as I can remember.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/12/02/heads-up-...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-tv-rot-your-...

wvenable• 7 years ago

People used to say the same thing about reading if you go back far enough.

randomsearch• 7 years ago

TV isn't the same, as it doesn't contain the same tight feedback loop of reward and punishment as social media.

baxtr2• 7 years ago

TV isn’t the same? you mean like smartphones aren’t the same as cigarettes?

rchaud2• 7 years ago

It's the difference between one-way and two-way methods of communication as well as past events vs live events. TV shows are static, they are completely unchanged by your personal opinion as you watch it. You cannot submit a comment on a TV episode, nor is there any mechanism for the episode to reflect the impact of your comment (likes, replies, etc.)

In fact, even FB/Twitter/IG aren't "real-time". They don't show all the likes as they're coming in. They specifically delay showing the full number so you have a reason to come back and re-check. If you see a higher number of likes, you're going to come back again to re-check.

cirgue• 7 years ago

Do we look back at TV saying the same thing?

They definitely do. Not to the same degree that people shun cigarette smoking as a vice though. There's a reason that the phrase 'binge-watching' includes the word binge, as opposed to saying 'marathoning' or something that would communicate the same thing.

keiferski2• 7 years ago

Not a great analogy. A better one would be the automobile, IMO. Incredibly freeing and powerful, but pushed by actors for ethically dubious reasons and capable of massive negative societal effects if left unchecked.

owens99• 7 years ago

Yes, but automobiles aren’t addicting.

I believe a better title would be about “today’s smart phone” assuming we will still have smart phones in the future but they won’t be designed to be addicting anymore.

emiliobumachar• 7 years ago

Automobiles are not addictive in the medical sense, but consider that, all else being equal, heavy car users will, much faster than others, lose the capacity to walk long distances.

Dylan168072• 7 years ago

People take the freedom of moving faster in a car, then get houses that are so much further away from everything that the time savings disappear and they are completely trapped using the car for everything. It's not addiction but it's close in a lot of ways.

checker659• 7 years ago

I think we'll look at headphones / earphones like cigarettes as well.

ChrisLTD• 7 years ago

Can you expand on that?

superhuzza• 7 years ago

- Common habit

- Probably more damaging to our ears than we expect

- Damage is cumulative and takes a while to show the effects

bregma• 7 years ago

I find my smartphone is incredibly hard to light and always goes out unless I draw on it really hard. Also, until I switched to a brand that used USB-C for its charger cable I seemed to put the wrong end in my mouth the first time every time.

ape4• 7 years ago

Those Popsockets are held with two fingers like a cigarette.

everdev• 7 years ago

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.

bluedino• 7 years ago

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

lm284694• 7 years ago

Well, between smartphones, desk jobs, lack of proper physical activity there is definitely more people with rounded shoulders and "smartphone necks". And to be honest I don't think anyone read the newspaper for 3+ hours a day [0]

It's especially damaging for kids (still growing + somewhat more malleable bones / joints).

[0] https://www.emarketer.com/content/mobile-time-spent-2018

seandougall• 7 years ago

I was kind of with him right up until this:

But if you ask yourself who's the healthiest person you know, almost certainly they subscribe to some sort of named philosophy that helps them make consistent and value-driven decisions about what they eat and how they move. Maybe they're vegan or paleo.

Maybe I’m an outlier, but that tends to be more true of the least healthy people I know.

Named philosophies with strict rules give you far more opportunities to measure your failures. It’s too easy to slip, notice you’ve slipped, and figure, “well, I’ve done that much, I guess I’m just off the wagon today.” (Not to mention that vegan and paleo both leave room for some wildly unhealthful decisions without breaking the rules.)

It seems like his philosophy isn’t as strict as that, though. I like the approach in large part because it isn’t like going vegan or paleo. As with so many things, it’s all about finding moderation and an approach that you can stick to sustainably.

skohan3• 7 years ago

That could be a result of selection bias as well though. People who are already healthy are probably less likely to reach for extreme diets than people who are unsatisfied with their health.

Void_• 7 years ago

Healthiest person I ever knew was my gradma. She sure as hell wasn't vegan or paleo.

She was Catholic and she was practicing the virtue of temperance every day.

We often adopt lifestyles, we do certain things, in order to become healthier, fitter, smarter, richer...

She wasn't doing it because who she wanted become. She was doing it because of who she was.

kevin_thibedeau2• 7 years ago

She wasn't doing it because who she wanted become. She was doing it because of who she was.

So she would have had no problem stopping such behavior without fear of repercussion? If not then the motivation is not solely self directed. Many people are engaged in virtuistic pursuits because of fear or selfishness. Their outward actions can't always be taken at face value.

rthomas6• 7 years ago

Wouldn't that just mean her named philosophy was Catholicism?

bmj• 7 years ago

http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

markdog12• 7 years ago

Great read, thx.

You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly.

efields• 7 years ago

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 smartphone: watch video, read the news, social media, browse the web, read a book.

Sometimes some people want to Do Work™ on their phone, but the vast majority of the people don't want that, at least outside of their preferred work hours.

I try to do more and more with my Apple Watch/AirPods only, and it's starting the feel like the future depends less and less on having a smartphone. In our Star Trek utopia, your wearable would let you go up to any screen and access your stuff, and these would be in convenient locations, like a public transit stations, cafes, etc.

You'd do work on a purpose built machine for the work you do, one with a lot of buttons if you type a lot, one with a stylus and weird knobs if you do precision work.

The personal smartphone as it currently exists is this weird mandatory liability we're all burdened with, costly in time, attention, and money. They're worse than cigarettes because at least you can carry on a conversation while smoking.

scottlocklin• 7 years ago

Some people never got one.

People (in physics grad school in the 90s mind you) made fun of me when I had an HP100LX (a pocket sized DOS-5 machine you could carry around) for writing fortran code in microemacs or doing Derive/mathematica trace formulas while away from the terminals. It was also a good PDA and had an ebook reader for killing time on the bus. When I saw people with the early smart phones doing vastly worse than me nerding out on my HP, I knew there was no way I'd get one of those things. I'm on the bloody internet all day as it is for work; no reason to be more connected.

com2kid3• 7 years ago

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 where nearby gas stations are, checking when a store closes, comparison price shopping, checking nutrition facts, there are many uses for a smart phone outside of the ones you listed. And, as always, the long tail is long.

erikpukinskis3• 7 years ago

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

mark_l_watson2• 7 years ago

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.

rekshaw• 7 years ago

I think the right comparison is instagram, not smartphones.

chatwinra• 7 years ago

Maybe he's on to something. Ban on indoor use of smartphones?

gnicholas3• 7 years ago

I was recently searching for a metal box that I could put my iPhone in when it's time for me to focus on family. After seeing a few vintage cigarette boxes pop up in the search results, I realized that sticking my phone into a box built for cigarettes would be a helpful reminder of how addictive my phone can be. I even considered getting a Camel-brand tin, but decided to get something classier/more subtle.

fhood• 7 years ago

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Richmond-Straight-Cut-Cigarette-Tin...

gnicholas3• 7 years ago

Yeah I searched Etsy and eBay. It was hard to find one that was big enough for my iPhone 7 Plus and my wife's SE (in a thick case). I eventually found a few brass and bronze candidates that were big enough and quite handsome.

sonnyblarney• 7 years ago

I think cars would be a better analogy.

Something very useful but with negative externalities we did not predict.

kevin_thibedeau2• 7 years ago

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.

taude2• 7 years ago

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.

anu7df• 7 years ago

After buying two of Cal Newport's book, with an honest attempt to read it fully, I decided to never ever buy another one of his "creations". His books can be compressed to 2 pages without ANY loss of information. So much so, that I am left wondering, is this the quality of the work that comes out of Deep Work and such.

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

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