Avoiding Distractions & Doing Deep Work | Dr. Cal Newport & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Summary

In this insightful discussion, the speaker addresses the impact of digital distractions, particularly social media, on deep work and cognitive functioning. They share personal strategies to minimize these distractions, such as abstaining from social media, which significantly reduces the allure of the internet. The conversation delves into the anxiety of disconnection, the potential behavioral addiction to smartphones, and the benefits of limited digital engagement. The speaker emphasizes the importance of establishing boundaries with technology to enhance productivity and mental clarity.

Takeaways

• 📚 The importance of deep work is emphasized, suggesting practical steps to achieve it.
• 🔌 The speaker works with a connected laptop but finds the internet less distracting due to the absence of social media.
• 🚫 A key technical decision for the speaker to enhance focus was eliminating social media, which are designed to be highly engaging distractions.
• 🌐 The speaker suggests that the internet is not inherently interesting, and without social media, there's less compulsion to check it frequently.
• 📅 The speaker discusses the concept of FOMO (fear of missing out) and its counterpart, the fear of missing something important or urgent.
• 📵 The speaker doesn't experience anxiety from being disconnected, having adapted to periods of being offline.
• 📱 The speaker acknowledges the existence of a phone but doesn't feel the need to constantly check it, especially during focused work.
• 🤔 The speaker speculates that people's worry about missing out or emergencies might be a form of behavioral addiction.
• 🧠 The discussion touches on whether phones and social media act as an extension of our brains, storing information and identity.
• 🎯 The speaker leans towards a pessimistic view of phone and social media usage, likening the feeling of needing to check them to moderate behavioral addiction.
• 💡 The speaker shares personal anecdotes about managing phone usage to enhance productivity, highlighting the benefits of working without constant digital distractions.

Q & A

What is the speaker's approach to deep work and digital distractions?

The speaker practices deep work by eliminating social media from his digital environment, which reduces the urge to check his devices and allows him to focus on his work without distractions.

How does the speaker describe the impact of social media on attention?

The speaker suggests that social media platforms are specifically engineered to capture attention and pull users back to them, creating a cycle of digital distraction.

What does the speaker believe is the root cause of digital distraction?

According to the speaker, the root cause of digital distraction is not the internet or phones themselves, but the specific products and services designed to be highly engaging and addictive.

How does the speaker manage to stay productive without constant internet access?

The speaker stays productive by setting up his environment in a way that there is not much on the internet that interests him, thus avoiding the cycle of checking various sites and reducing the urge to be online.

What is the speaker's perspective on the fear of missing out (FOMO) and its counterpart?

The speaker acknowledges FOMO but also introduces the concept of a fear of missing something bad, which is an anxiety that drives people to constantly check their phones and social media for emergencies or important updates.

How does the speaker handle the anxiety of being out of touch with his phone?

The speaker does not suffer from the anxiety of being out of touch because he recognizes that periods of disconnection were normal before smartphones and that emergencies did not lead to disastrous results.

What does the speaker suggest about the relationship between people and their phones?

The speaker suggests that some people may have a moderate behavioral addiction to their phones, experiencing physical symptoms when disconnected and relief when reconnected.

How does the speaker view the role of phones and social media in our lives?

The speaker views phones and social media as potentially being extensions of our brains, containing information and being a part of our identity, but also acknowledges the risks of addiction and the need for balance.

What cultural changes does the speaker predict regarding internet usage, especially for the younger generation?

The speaker predicts that cultural norms will change, and unrestricted internet usage may not be given to children at a young age but rather be more carefully managed, possibly starting post-pubescence.

How does the speaker's experience with reducing phone usage affect his productivity?

The speaker finds that reducing phone usage significantly increases his productivity, as it eliminates the constant network switching and allows him to focus on deep work.

What strategy did the speaker use to minimize phone distractions in his lab?

The speaker gave his phone to someone in his lab and promised to give everyone a $100 bill if he asked for it back before 5:00 PM, which helped him to stay focused on his work.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Deep Work and Digital Distractions

The speaker discusses the concept of deep work and the practical steps to achieve it, emphasizing the importance of being offline and avoiding social media. They argue that digital distractions are not caused by the internet or phones themselves, but by specific products designed to re-engage users. By eliminating social media, the speaker finds the internet less interesting and less of a distraction. They also touch on the fear of missing out (FOMO) and the anxiety of missing something important, but note that they personally do not experience these issues. The speaker suggests that people catastrophize the idea of being without their phones, but historical context shows that people have survived without constant connectivity. They also hint at the idea that not being constantly connected might be a blessing, especially for public figures.

05:02

🛡️ The Impact of Social Media and Technology on the Brain

This paragraph delves into the dual perspective of technology's role in our lives. On one hand, there's the optimistic view of technology as an extension of our cognitive abilities, akin to an additional cortical area that provides access to vast information and a sense of self. On the other hand, there's a more pessimistic view that suggests a moderate behavioral addiction to devices like smartphones, which can induce physical reactions similar to those of a gambler away from their addiction. The speaker acknowledges the advantages of these tools but points out the disadvantages and the difficulty in balancing the two. They predict a cultural shift towards more careful and restricted internet usage, especially for younger generations, due to the认识到 the impact of unrestricted access on brain development and social identity. The speaker also shares personal anecdotes about reducing phone usage to increase productivity, highlighting the benefits of working without the constant distraction of a phone nearby.

Keywords

💡Deep Work

Deep work refers to the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks. In the video, it is the central theme where the speaker discusses practical steps towards achieving deep work, emphasizing the importance of minimizing digital distractions. The concept is illustrated by the speaker's preference for working in an environment with a laptop but without the pull of social media or constant connectivity.

💡Digital Distraction

Digital distraction denotes the interruption of one's attention by digital devices or services, particularly social media. The speaker argues that it's not the internet or phones themselves that are problematic, but rather the specific products designed to capture our attention. The script provides the speaker's personal experience of eliminating social media to reduce these distractions and enhance focus.

💡Social Media

Social media is a collection of online platforms that allow users to create and share content or participate in social networking. The video discusses the role of social media as a major source of digital distraction, with the speaker sharing their decision to abstain from it to improve concentration and productivity. The script also touches on the anxiety some people feel when disconnected from social media.

💡FOMO

FOMO stands for 'fear of missing out,' a term that describes the anxiety that an individual might miss out on an enjoyable event or piece of information. In the script, the speaker mentions FOMO as a driving force behind the constant checking of social media and phones, suggesting an alternative anxiety of missing something important if not engaged online.

💡Cognitive Worker

A cognitive worker is someone whose primary job involves mental or intellectual tasks, often requiring deep thought and focus. The video script highlights the speaker's identity as a cognitive worker and the technical decisions they made to enhance their cognitive work, such as avoiding social media.

💡Behavioral Addiction

Behavioral addiction is a term used to describe a pattern of behavior that is similar to substance addictions, where an individual feels compelled to engage in a certain activity, such as using a phone or social media. The speaker in the video draws a parallel between the need to check phones and the symptoms of moderate behavioral addiction, suggesting that the absence of these devices can cause discomfort.

💡Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with reward and pleasure. In the context of the video, the speaker explains how digital devices and social media are engineered to trigger dopamine responses, creating a feedback loop that reinforces the desire to use these platforms, thus contributing to behavioral addiction.

💡Task Switching

Task switching refers to the act of moving attention from one task to another. The script discusses how phones are adept at inducing task switches, which can be cognitively expensive in terms of time and energy. The speaker contrasts this with deep work, where minimizing task switches can lead to more productive sessions.

💡Network Switching Cost

Network switching cost is a metaphorical term used to describe the cognitive load and time required to shift focus from one task to another. The speaker in the video emphasizes that the constant switching between tasks induced by phones and social media can be detrimental to deep work and productivity.

💡Cyborg

The term cyborg, short for 'cybernetic organism,' is used in the video to describe the concept of humans integrating technology into their lives, such as using a phone as an extension of their brain. The speaker discusses this notion to explore the relationship between humans and technology, particularly how devices like phones can be seen as part of our cognitive processes.

💡AI

AI stands for 'Artificial Intelligence,' which is the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence. The speaker mentions AI in the script, indicating their involvement in the field and suggesting a broader conversation about the integration of technology, such as AI, with human life and cognition.

Highlights

The importance of deep work and practical steps towards achieving it.

The impact of being offline on productivity and focus.

The role of social media in digital distraction and its engineered pull on users.

The lack of social media as a key technical decision for a cognitive worker.

The Internet's reduced appeal without the cycle of distracting sites.

The concept of FOMO and its counterpart, the fear of missing something bad.

Adapting to periods of being out of touch without dire consequences.

The historical context of smartphone usage and its relatively recent emergence.

The psychological impact of phone dependency and its comparison to behavioral addiction.

The physical and emotional responses associated with phone usage and loss.

The comparison between the cyborg imagery and the pessimistic view of phone addiction.

The role of dopamine in the anticipation and delivery of engaging stimuli on phones.

The balance between the advantages and disadvantages of digital tools.

The potential cultural shift towards more restricted internet usage for younger generations.

The idea of smartphones as an extension of our brains and the implications of this.

The personal anecdote of managing phone usage to enhance productivity.

The benefits of working without a phone nearby and the increase in work output.

The impact of phone-induced task switching on focus and productivity.

The underestimated effect of phone usage on time and cognitive resources.

The personal experience of reduced phone usage leading to a clearer mental state.

Transcripts

In terms of deep work and getting a little bit back

to kind of practical steps towards deep work,

Yeah. I also have to ask you,

'cause I didn't earlier, when you are on your laptop

in your library with your fireplace and these books,

it's a beautiful image actually

that you've drawn for us in our minds.

Is the wifi connection to your computer activated

or are you offline?

It's connected because it doesn't really matter to me,

you know, because what's drawing my attention?

I mean, the most important decision I think

I made, technically speaking, to be

a cognitive worker is the lack of social media.

Like I think we underestimate the degree to which

our problem with digital distraction

is not the internet, it's not our phones.

It is specific products and services

that are engineered at great expense to pull you back to 'em

When you take that away, the Internet's

not that interesting, like I don't have

a cycle of sites to go to, you know,

I can check my email, but I don't really know

where else to go, I mean, I could go

to the New York Times, I guess,

but then you've seen the articles, right?

They change it once a day, there's just not much...

I've set things up, so there's not much

that's that interesting to me.

We've all heard of FOMO, fear of missing out.

I feel like there's the other thing

which is fear of missing something bad, right?

There's sort of like an anxiety,

a more primitive anxiety within us

that if we are not engaged on social media

or looking at our phone often or texting often,

that it's not that we'll miss the party,

we'll miss the emergency.

You don't seem to suffer from those kind of everyday ills.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't happen that much.

I mean, I have a phone, you know,

A standard...

No, I mean, I have my phone,

I guess if I'm working away from it,

yeah, I guess it's true, if there's an emergency.

But this was the case for a very long time, right?

We didn't have smartphones 'til really relatively recently.

This is, you know, 15 years ago.

So we were just used to this until yesterday,

essentially, that there's just periods of time

where you're out of touch.

Like you're at a restaurant with someone,

you're out of touch until you get back to your office.

Like we were okay, you know, we weren't plagued

by emergencies that that led to disastrous results

because we couldn't hear about it right then.

You go to the movies like, you're out of touch, right?

And it'd be a couple hours 'til you were in touch again.

And so, you know, it's not something

that's affected me as much.

So maybe I'm working without my phone nearby,

a lot of people have this response,

they begin sort of catastrophizing,

like, what if this happens or this or that.

And I'm thinking, you know, I survived,

before that my parents survived without that,

my grandparents survived without that.

I don't worry about it as much, you know.

And some of this maybe is just,

this doesn't upset people as as much as it used to,

the fact I don't use a lot of these apps or have my phone,

but it really does upset people, right?

There's, well, what about this, what about that,

what about this, and I don't know how much of this

is just maybe I'm oblivious and how much of this

is people back sliding explanation

for why they do need their phone,

why they do need to look at it all the time.

But I get a lot of it.

Yeah, well maybe they're upset and you don't know

because you're not looking at your phone.

That's right, hey, I'll tell you what,

that's a blessing not knowing how upset people are at you.

Yeah, it's a blessing as a semi-public figure,

I'll tell you that.

Oh yeah, I can comment on that, but I won't.

I am on social media and I do enjoy it.

I sort of got started posting on Instagram

and then expanded to other platforms,

including the podcast, but there's a threshold

beyond which it becomes counterproductive,

for sure. Yeah.

I think there's information there that...

Like questions that people ask are often informative.

It's sort of like ending a class

and asking are there any questions?

Sometimes the comments that people bring back

are truly informative towards both

where they might have some misunderstanding,

but also sometimes some really terrific ideas.

Yeah. So there's that.

But I completely agree that this is a very precarious space.

And I'll just relay a quick anecdote.

Years ago I gave a quick lecture down

at Santa Clara University, south of Stanford,

and I was talking about this issue,

I recommended your book, and a student came up afterwards

and he said, "You don't get it."

At that time, I was in my early 40s.

He said, "You don't get it, you know,

"you grew up without social media..."

Yeah. "And the phone,

"and so you've adopted it into your life.

"But we grew up with it and when my phone,"

he's speaking for himself in the first person.

"When my phone loses power,

"I feel a physical drain within my body.

"And when it comes back on, I feel a lift within my body."

So I'd love your thoughts on whether

or not you think the phone

and, perhaps, social media as well are

in some ways an extension of our brain,

it's almost like another cortical area,

that contains all this information.

It's a version of us, this gets into notions of AI

that we can talk about as well.

I know you're involved in AI and writing about AI.

But, you know, to me, when the phone is used

in that way, it really is almost like

a piece of neural machinery of sorts.

Yeah, I mean, there's two ways of looking at it.

Yeah so there is the sort of cyborg image, I suppose, right?

Like you're extending, you're plugging into

this neuro sphere like you have

this sort of digital network extension

of information and what's going on.

There's also the much more pessimistic view,

which is, you know, that feeling is the feeling

of a moderate behavioral addiction, right?

So you'll hear the same thing from a gambler,

"When I'm away from being able to play, right,

"to make my bets or do whatever,

"like I feel not myself and then,

"when I'm around it and I can play

"and make some bets, play some poker, whatever it is..."

The feeling of the chips.

"I feel myself," that chips, right, like they would say.

So both of these things could be true.

I think the moderate behavioral addiction side

is more true than a lot of us want to admit, actually.

Like it does feel bad because moderate behavioral addictions

build these feedback response loops,

and then you get the dopamine system going, anticipation,

because what's on there is things

that have been engineered that you're going to get

this sort of highly engaging stimuli.

And then you see the deliverance of that stimuli, right?

This really nice piece of glass on a piece of metal.

I'm going to press this sort of carefully,

this icon whose colors have been chosen

because we know it's going to hit various parts

of our neural alert systems to be as engaging as possible.

And I'm going to see something in there

that's going to generate some sort of emotional response.

So of course, when you see that thing sitting there,

you want to use it and when you can't,

it's a stymied dopamine response.

You're like, "This is not good, I'm uncomfortable."

And I think that's a big part of it as well,

because, you know, I've had this argument with some people.

And, by the way, I see both sides of this.

Like there are great advantages

to what people are doing with these tools.

It's just that it's all mixed up

with all these disadvantages and it becomes very difficult.

It's like the alcohol in the neighborhood bar's too potent,

you know, and people are going there to socialize

and they're coming home at three in the morning, you know,

passing out, you know, it's like the balance is off.

Not that there's not something good there,

but the balance is off so it

becomes pretty difficult to navigate.

So I think some of that's what's going on,

especially with the younger generation

that was raised on it which is why, by the way,

I think the cultural norms are going to change around this.

I think we're going to think about unrestricted internet usage,

not as something that we just sort of bequeath

on youth as they become 10 years old,

but something that we're actually much more careful about.

Probably something that's going to be

post pubescence going to make a lot more sense,

once you've had more brain development,

once you've had more social entrenchment,

you sort of understand your identity, et cetera.

Because we recognize, you know, the flip side

of plugging this thing into your brain is,

yeah, you have access to more information,

but it also pumps that into your brain.

So, I don't know, I lean a little bit heavier towards

the pessimistic read because I know too many people,

because of my books, who've really reduced

the impact of these things in their lives.

And on the far side of that transformation,

they don't, typically, report

a great impoverishment in experience.

They don't report, I'm less mentally agile.

The information at my fingertips is less,

I'm missing out on life, there's typically this coming out

of the fog on the other side of it

where they're like, "Oh, this is fine."

So, you know, I'm a little bit suspicious about

exactly what this mechanism is.

Yeah, I think you're right about

the moderate behavioral addiction piece.

Years ago when I was starting my lab,

I had grants to write and I found the phone

to be pretty intrusive for that process.

So I used to give the phone to somebody in my lab

and announced to everyone in my lab that if I asked

for it back prior to 5:00 PM that day,

I would give everyone in the lab, I think it was $100 bill,

my lab was pretty big at the time.

Yeah. I was a junior professor.

They did not do... Sorry, academic institutions not

to be named, pay us very much

despite what people might think.

And it was difficult.

Several times Yeah.

Throughout the day or more I was like,

"Ah, I really want to look at that thing."

But at the end of the day,

I'll tell you that no one got paid, I got my phone back.

But it's wonderful the amount of work

that you can get done when that thing is out of the room.

I mean, it's my superpower, right?

I don't work that hard in the sense

that I don't do long hours,

like I'm not constitutionally suited for long hours.

This was never my thing, my brain tires, right?

I mean, I'm good for four, four and a half good hours

a day of actually producing good stuff

with my brain, probably, max.

But, you know, I don't use my phone that much.

I don't use the internet that much,

and I prioritize it, and a lot just gets done.

It just sort of piles up over time, you know?

And there's this sense of like, you must be burning

the midnight oil and you have all these things going on.

But again, people I think underestimate,

they underestimate the impact of this.

It's not just the accumulation

of time you spend looking on your phone,

it's also this network switching cost, right?

Because like the phone is very good at inducing

a network switch, and that's a expensive, time consuming,

energy consuming, neuronal operation.

Task switching? Yeah.

I'm going to switch my focus

of attention from this to that.

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