In this monologue, the speaker argues that while smartphones offer many benefits, most people misuse them by allowing social media to dominate their attention, focus, memory, and dopamine. He distinguishes fleeting mental pleasure from genuine happiness and warns against treating the phone as a necessity akin to breathing. The speaker describes an "intensely focused state of distraction" caused by constant scrolling, which impairs memory formation and makes multitasking impossible. He raises concerns about early exposure to phones in children, questioning whether they will retain meaningful memories or develop a deep connection to nature. By contrasting tech‑immersed lives with those of people who spend time outdoors, practice hands‑on skills, and embrace boredom, he suggests that stepping away from screens fosters creativity, long‑term memory, and a richer sense of self. He does not advocate abandoning phones entirely, but calls for mindful, purposeful use.
Chapters
There is so many benefits of simply owning a phone, which goes beyond maybe the risk of owning a phone. But most people use their phone and they basically trade their attention span, their attention, their focus, their limited time, their memory, everything, their connection with other people, their dopamine levels, simply to be able to scroll on social media. Most people don't realize this is the cause that's coming with using things like social media that gives fake happiness. Pleasure of the mind is not happiness. That's one of the best quotes I've ever heard. Don't mistake happiness with pleasure of the mind or stimulation of the mind. I don't advocate just getting rid of your phone or or abstaining from your phone, but most people act like it's so essential and they can't live without it, and it's like their whole life turns around their phone. Because I'm not trying to insult anyone or insult my past self because I used to do that, but literally, if you go on your phone first thing in the morning and last thing at night, or anything like computer, laptop, or something, then like, is your friend your best friend? Like, is your phone your best friend? Is your phone literally like something you must do in order to breathe, in order to sleep properly, in order to be healthy? You know, it brings actually the opposite for most people. And I'm not— like I said, I'm not advocating getting rid of your phone because It can bring you so many good benefits. We just talk about business, or it can just talk about knowledge. It brings a lot of benefits, but most people don't use it for the benefits. Do you realize that you can't literally just go in nature and just walk in nature and having fun doing that? Or just playing a board game, like playing cards, literally you cannot have fun doing that just because of your mindless consumption of social media. And basically just going on the internet, watching YouTube and Netflix, your dopamine levels, like I said, you traded your dopamine levels for social media and things like this so you can have access to those things. I'm not saying like you literally gave your brain to people so you can spend time on social media, but you understand that you literally did that. When you are on your phone, the problem is you are in an intensely focused state of distraction. Now let me repeat: an intensely focused state of distraction. And if you don't pay attention to the world around you because you are in an intensely focused state of distraction, you're not going to remember much about anything. You're not going to remember much even about the things that you actually paid attention to. Like I said, you don't, you don't have, you cannot have too many thoughts and too many infos at the same time. Cannot have two thoughts at the same time. That's why multitasking is bullshit. You cannot have too many things to think about at the same time because you're not gonna form memory. To form a memory, you need time and mental capacity, but that's another video, okay? You won't remember much about your life. That's why I kind of want to see, like, I want to see what's going to be the impact of young people that have a phone at like 1 year old or even like 5 years old. I want to see the impact on their life. Are they going to remember much about their childhood? Are they going to be able to have some nostalgia or be able to know things and remember things for future usage? If it's just, they know, okay, this type of tree, and nature can like gives this type, like gives oxygen at that time in the day. Like just simple things like this. Like most people that live with technology don't know those things. But I know someone, for example, that didn't live with technology for his whole life, just living in a forest, not in forest literally, but near a forest. And he knows about everything, the small things about nature. He knows how to make a sword literally. You see what I mean? You, when you don't, when you are, and when you are embracing boredom, that's when you get creative. That's when your thoughts or your mind, your memory has time to form those long-term memories that you can remember from your childhood. And okay, to do, let's say, make a sword, I know how to make it because I've made it in the past and I remember how I did it. So, get out of this intensely focused state of distraction.
