PNTV: Irresistible by Adam Alter

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another episode of Philosopher's Notes. TV Today, another great book, Irresistible by Adam Alter. Irresistible Subtitle the Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. This is a fantastic book. I picked it up after a conversation with Cal Newport, whose big new thing is digital minimalism. Go Google Cal Newport. Digital minimalism. Check that out. And we were talking about this, the c. What was it? CVS, 60 Minutes, brain hacking episode. If you haven't watched that yet, that is worth a view. And the fact that our technology is becoming more and more addictive. We know that, but this book walks us through what's going on from a business perspective and the fact that the businesses are basically built these attention economy. Businesses who make money on mining our attention don't always have our best interest in mind, shall we say? They want to get us hooked and addicted to the their apps and everything else that they're producing. So it is what it is, but we want to be smart about how we interface with technology. I highly recommend the book. And if this sounds like an appealing subject, I think you'll enjoy it as well. As always, we've got the Philosopher's Note. Bunch of big ideas. Five of my favorites here. Let's start at the top. So the first big idea is you versus one thousand, versus a thousand what? Versus a thousand really smart programmers who are trying to get you addicted. So anytime you're on your smartphone and you're using an app or you're doing whatever, just know that there are roughly a thousand people on the other side of that screen trying to get you hooked on whatever it is you're doing. Now, of course, technology can be used for wonderful things. That's fantastic. And it can be used in manipulative ways to capture and then mine our attention again. We just want to be aware of that. And Adam tells a story in the prologue to the book. He starts off with Steve Jobs 2010. He's launching the iPad, right? And he goes off about how the iPad is just incredible. It's better than anything for email and for pictures and for surfing the web and for anything you want to do, right? It's the iPad you want to use to rock it. So he gives this big speech, but this. But then if you go behind the scenes like Walter Isaacson did and hang out with his family, what you'll learn is he doesn't allow his kids to use this amazing iPad. His own kids can't use the iPad. And Adam says, that's a little weird when you think about it. And if you look a little bit deeper, you'll see that a lot of leading Internet CEOs and moguls, these leading thinkers on technology and the Internet and all this, don't allow their kids to use the things that they're creating. And it kind of makes you say, hmm, what's going on with that? And Adam says, think about that for a moment. The most vocal techno lovers in public, in private, are technophobes. And he says that wouldn't be okay if the biggest religious proponents, for example, and religious leaders didn't let their kids practice their own religion at home. We think that was a little odd, but yet we don't even really think about it when it comes to technology. So we want to think about that. And he uses the example, he says, you can look at it as the cardinal rule, as he says, of drug dealing, don't get high on your own supply, is how he compares what these technologists are doing with their own technology. They're not using their own stuff. So we want to think about that. In our household, I talk about it in the note. I've built and sold two Internet companies building a third using digital media as hopefully a force for good. Right? And sharing wisdom that's worthwhile in our attention spans, Right? But in our household, we dramatically limit the amount of screen time that we have as parents, Alexandra and I, and that we allow our kids to have. We have two kids, five years old and nine months old at this point. Our five year old thinks he's never watched a cartoon. He's never watched an animated movie. The longest thing he's watched on a screen is like a TED Talk or a cooking class. He thinks the movie Frozen is that one little song. Whatever it is, I don't even know what it's called right now. Let it go. Is that what it is? He thinks that's the whole movie, Right? And the reason we're doing that is science is unequivocal. Our attention, which is what all these companies are trying to mine. Our attention and our ability to put it where we want, when we want, for how long we want, is our greatest asset when it comes to us creating lives of meaning and flourishing and actualizing our potential. So as human beings committed to that and as parents committed to helping our kids flourish and actualize, we protect their attention. And we are professional optimizers. So we deliberately go to the extreme and make it a radical experiment, but we dramatically limit it. So you want to think about that? Go check out the episode on brain hacking. Remember about 60 Minutes. Remember you versus a thousand people. We'll leave it at that. The second idea here is slavery. So do you know what the ancient Latin etymology of the word addiction comes from? Neither did I until I read this book. But long story short here, if back in ancient Roman times, you owed someone money and you couldn't repay your debt, you were sentenced to addiction. You were sentenced to addiction until you repaid that debt. So now we think of addiction as a strong connection to something, a compulsive connection to something. But back in the day, it literally meant you were a slave to someone else until you repaid that debt. So you want to think about that as you get in your hop onto your smartphone. Next time, think about whether or not you are a slave to those thousand people and their executives who are trying to hack your attention and decide whether or not you want to be an active or passive, rather, participant in that. And again, technology is awesome. We want to use it mindfully. I personally have fun seeing if I can rewind time. So I'm living like it's 1899, or even 1999 for that matter. While using technology is good for all it can do, us connecting right now is obviously amazing, but all the other little things that it can do to our attention is not so amazing. So anyway, slavery, ancient Rome, you were addicted, sentenced to addiction. The third big idea here, Adam makes the point. He talks about technology and behavioral addictions. He makes the point that addiction is about more than just your personality. So we all have addictions, right? Some of us on the more mellow extreme of the spectrum, and some of us on the more extreme end of it. Subtle to extreme spectrum of addiction, but common humanity. All of us have certain addictions in our lives. And again, people are deliberately trying to get us addicted to their stuff. But we want to embrace that, that common humanity. Shame isn't going to help the process. And realize that it's not just our personality. Our environment plays a big role in this. The people with whom we spend a lot of time, the technology we use and how we use it, our environment makes a difference. So things like you can buy your willpower at the store is how we talk about it. When we talk about nutrition, you have a tough time with your Cheetos, right? You eat too much junk food. Well, you don't want to buy it, then bring it home. Then try not to eat it. When you're feeling tired and cranky and you want to buy your willpower at the store by not buying it in the first place, that's where you want to play the game. Create an environment at home that's healthy. That makes it easy to avoid the addictions, right? Well, same thing with technology. I'm totally addicted to my smartphone, like we all are, pretty much. So what do I do? I have very bright lines. We're going to talk about this in the last idea, but my iPhone is currently stored in the closet in my office and in airplane mode, turned off in the back, top shelf. I don't want it around me. I don't want my environment to trigger me to do the things I don't want to do. So we need to realize that our environment is influencing us in ways we may not be aware of and then take proactive steps to engage in the process of disconnecting from that slavery. So then our fourth big idea is 6 plus 4 leads to 100 equals 11. What does that mean? Some stats for you in terms of how our behavioral addictions can be measured. So how long do you think the average worker at the average company in America, how long does it take them to check their email? So an email arrives in their inbox. What would you guess is the average length of time it takes for them to open that email? Insert Jeopardy music here. What's your guess? Six seconds is the average for 70% of the people check their email within six seconds. Six seconds. Think about that. It would be funny if it wasn't so crazy. Boom. Emails in. Boom. I'm checking it. 70% of people check their email within six seconds. And you might be one of them. And if so, let's reduce. Get rid of your push notifications that your email arrived. Ding. You don't need to check it. Within six seconds, that email will still be alive and. And still around. If you waited 60 seconds or six hours or even six days to check it, maybe that's a little long for most of us. But it's not going to expire in six seconds. And I've said before that if you want to get a ton, I think it was a month back in your year, right? The amount of time you would get back by simply turning off your email notifications is crazy. Why? Because every single time you pull your attention away to check that email, you. You just interrupted yourself from a task and Adam walks through the math on it. If you spaced out your email checks by a certain period of Time X minutes throughout the day, you would literally make it completely impossible to do anything of depth, anything of meaning. And in Peter Drucker's PNTV on the Effective Executive, we talked about the fact that your first step in time management is to track your time. You should track how many times you check email and you'll notice that you're interrupting yourself. And what Drucker said was first step, track, then manage, eliminate the distractions and then consolidate. Turn off the email, turn off the smartphone and go deep. That's six seconds. And then if you do the math on how much time people spend engaged on their smartphones, what you'll find is that the majority of people spend four hours a day on their smartphones and it's a quarter of their waking lives. More time on their smartphones than anything else in their life except sleep. Right? Even some people interrupt their sleep to check their smartphone. He says if you do the math on that, you'll arrive at 100 hours per month doing things like checking your email, checking in on your social feed, news, surfing around, that sort of thing. Right? 100 hours a month, he says you add that up over the course of your life and you wind up with 11 years that's being dissipated on your smartphone and you get back to here. Attention economy. Our minds have been hacked. Take back that time. And this is my fun game. My way to rewind time to 1999, 1899 if I can. Right? I don't do the Internet anymore. I don't turn on my phone. I haven't turned it on in a week. I've structured my life where I don't need to do that. The only thing I don't do, email. And again, I realize I'm extreme, but. But I've got my systems and our team doing certain things, so I don't need to do that. And I only use the Internet these days for truly mission critical stuff.

Why?

Because I'm all in on the wildly important goal we talked about in the 4Dx and throughout all these episodes. And I realized how addicted I am. So I make really bright lines and I go off reclaiming 11 hours of time. It's amazing what you can do with when you don't dissipate your energy there. And I'm having fun playing that game. Join me, please. Fifth big idea here is Pickles. So again, the book is about behavioral and technology addictions, et cetera. And he tells stories about addiction recovery centers. And one of the great pieces of wisdom from one of the therapists at These centers was the idea that your brain is like a cucumber. And. And once it's pickled, it's pickled. Right? So if you have an addiction for smartphones or the Internet, or fill in the blank. And again, we all have different addictions, common humanity, no need for shame. But once you've been addicted in a certain way, it's as if your brain went from being a cucumber to being a pickle, and you can't unpickle a cucumber. And he quotes this one individual who recovered from whatever addiction, and he said that the most dangerous part of the process of recovery for someone who's coming through and recovering from an addiction is the moment you feel like you've beaten the addiction. The moment you think you've beaten the addiction, you're like, ah, it's no big deal. I got this. I can have another drink. I can go use my smartphone in a certain way again, or I can get that app, or I can get back into email regularly. It's not a big deal. I'm over it. I've conquered that addiction. That's the most dangerous moment in the recovery process because your brain's pickled, and you've created a certain set of habits and ways of being that you can't undo. And Adam says that that's a confronting fact. It's a confronting reality. So make a list of your pickle jars. These are my pickle jars. Right. And don't open them. Don't have the humility to realize that you just don't function well in those particular domains. For me, it's the smartphone. It's the Internet. I had to cut a ESPN out of my life years ago because I would go there and I would just refresh. Feeling stressed? Need a little break? Oh, I'll go check out espn. I've already looked at ESPN two, three, four, five times a day. I don't need to go look again. My brain was pickled in that domain. I don't go back. News is a similar thing. The smartphone's a similar thing. What is it for you? What are the domains in your life where your brain has been pickled? Respect that. Don't open the pickle jars. Remember the six seconds you can go longer than six seconds before responding to your email. Four hours in your iPhone. I state a personal opinion here. Not okay. 100 hours a month, 11 years of your life dissipated in that way. Bring it back. Focus it in something meaningful. Remember, addiction is about more than just your personality, the environment, et cetera. Let's set it up so we are not in slavery. Sentenced to addiction. Strong connection. Not what we want. You versus a thousand people. Brain hacking. Check it out. Digital minimalism. Check it out. In this book, if you're feeling it. There you go. What was the idea that jumped out and landed? How can you go from theory to practice on it? Get on that and make today another awesome day. See you.

Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule.

Of course it's too late to go.

Back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up. But if you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on how to optimize your life and pull out the big ideas that can really change your life. You know those sections you underline and asterisks and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those awesome ideas to other great books and helping you actually apply the wisdom to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I've distilled hundreds of great books into 20 minute super practical summaries. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in hour long Optimal Living 101 classes on everything from productivity, purpose and confidence to nutrition, goal setting and conquering procrastination. Helping you optimize every facet of your life so you can actualize your potential. You've got a personal trainer. I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient wisdom plus modern science plus practical tools. That's what our Optimized membership program is all about. If you're feeling it, we'd love to have you join us.