17 Dec 2025 · 6 min
Michael Easter's Scarcity Brain explains how modern information exploits our evolved reward system. We consume 11-13 hours of digital content daily, equivalent to a 15th-century lifetime in a single day. People who watched 6+ hours of news coverage after the Boston Marathon bombing showed more PTSD symptoms than those who ran the race.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. I just finished my philosopher's note on Michael Easter's great book Scarcity Brain. As you know, if you've been following along, we featured wisdom from his first book called the Comfort Crisis. Check out those notes. Now. Michael is a great writer and I loved both of his books and I decided to create this plus one because I found the connection between the wisdom I shared in a recent plus one called One Coke Equals One Year of Sugar and the final big idea I featured in my note to be fascinating. Let's get straight to work. So Scarcity Brain is all about how our brains are wired to run on what Michael calls this Scarcity loop. There are three parts opportunity, unpredictable rewards, and quick repeatability. Now our modern world and the engineers behind the screens we use and the food we eat take advantage of this scarcity mindset in less than awesome ways. In the context of information overload, Michael tells us, and I quote, at the start of the 20th century, humans spent no time taking in digital information. By the 2020s, the average person spent between 11 and 13 hours of their day consuming information on screen and through speakers. Now, 40% of this content is user generated. It's the YouTube and TikTok videos we watch, blogs and Reddit threads we read, and many podcasts we listen to. He continues by saying, some scholars estimate that in one day we are now exposed to more information than a person in the 15th century encountered in a lifetime. Much of it leverages the Scarcity loop to make us feel self righteous and outraged, happy, sad or correct. All so we'll see ads, Andy says. The Columbia University media scholar Tim Wu explained, a consequence of the advertising business model is a total dependence on gaining and holding attention. This means that under competition, the race will naturally turn to the bottom. Attention will almost invariably gravitate to the more garish, lurid, outrageous alternative. This trickle of unpredictable negative information grabs us, leveraging the loop plus, he says. And this affects us. Consider immediately after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, investigated two groups. The first group was made up of people who watched six or more hours of televised bombing coverage. The second group was people who actually ran in the 2013 Boston Marathon. The findings the first group, the bombing news bingers, were more likely to develop PTSD and other mental health issues. That's worth repeating, he says. People who binge watched bombing news on TV from the comfort of home had more psychological trauma than people who were actually bombed. End quote. That's crazy. I Repeat research shows that we are exposed to more information in a single day than our ancestors from the 15th century were exposed to in their entire lifetimes. It's also crazy that people who watched six plus hours of news of the Boston Marathon bombings had more PTSD symptoms than people who were actually there. All of which brings us back to the connection we made about that single can of Coke. Remember that Wisdom gem from KC Means Great book, Good energy. She told us when a kid drinks one bottle of Coke, they ingest as much added sugar as they might have had in an entire year if they were living 150 years ago. One can of Coke equals the amount of added sugar we might have had 150 years ago. One day of normal information inputs equals an entire lifetime in the 1500s. That's crazy, right? Today's pause 1 if you feel so inspired, pause, reflect on those stats and commit to doing one thing that can help your mind and body function more naturally and optimally today.
What's up? This is Michael, President and Head Coach at Heroic One quick note before we go. I just think it's so amazing that Brian keeps reading all these books and distilling them into more wisdom in less time. By the way, thank you Brian for continuing to read the books distill them for us. I love not having to read the book, just getting them more wisdom in less time through the plus ones of Philosopher's Notes. And if you're into this kind of thing, expressing the best version of yourself and using your greatest gifts make a positive impact on the world. Make sure you head to Heroic Us to check out all the other resources that we have available to you. You can download a bunch of free goodies, including Philosopher's Notes masterclasses in our scientifically proven Heroic app. You can also explore advanced resources to help you go next level, including live and virtual workshops, working one on one with a Heroic Performance coach or even becoming a certified coach yourself as you master heroic performance, the fundamentals of Coaching Excellence and Heroic Coaching prosperity. Again, head to Heroic Us to get the ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools you need to activate your heroic potential and and change the world together. And please do hit subscribe, appreciate you have a fantastic day and see you again soon.
