apple juice

I’ve been reading and listening to Cal Newport for almost a decade now, and I’m a big fan of his work. His books, including Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and A World Without Email have been foundational in my thinking about how we use technology in our work and in our daily lives. He has a popular podcast as well, which I listen to regularly, much to my kids’ chagrin.

So, I was pretty excited to see his byline on the front page of the NYTimes Opinion section today – Stop Filling your Mind With Digital Doritos.

(I have no idea why they change the online title of this article to be worse… or at least more boring.)

It is quite a long essay, ironic, perhaps given that the thesis is that we’ve lost our ability to concentrate. It is well worth a read, because while he mostly focuses on education and the working world, there is a broader point about our society’s ability to focus and hold deep complex thoughts. Look no further than our current AI-Slop Social Media administration and I hope you begin to see the problem of placing people who are not deep-thinkers in charge of our government.

A diminished ability to use our brains also has concerning personal effects. Thinking is what lets us make sense of information in a complicated world. As president, Abraham Lincoln used to regularly retreat to his cottage, on the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home in the heights above Washington, to find the solitude needed to think intensively about the decisions facing him as commander in chief. A contemporaneous letter from a Treasury employee visiting Lincoln at the cottage during these years describes finding the president “reposed in a broad chair, one leg hanging over its arm. He seemed to be in deep thought.”

This was one of my favorite quotes from the article, mostly because the thought of how President Lincoln was sitting in this chair thinking makes me laugh.

I’m interested to know someone’s earnest argument against this article. I don’t believe that “It’s too hard” to make these changes is a valid argument. There’s a lot at stake. I’m interested in building a coalition here.