51. NICHOLAS CARR: The Case for Adding Friction

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

[00:00:00] Michael: The more digitally mediated our lives become, the less access we have to the things that make us human. Deep thought, skilled work, genuine connection, physical presence. Why is it that the tools we use to connect, create and get things done, keep quietly replacing the experiences that were supposed to enhance?

[00:00:23] What can we do about it? Hi, I am Michael Hyatt.

[00:00:28] Megan: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller,

[00:00:30] Michael: and you’re listening to The Double Win Show.

[00:00:32] Megan: We’re excited today to share with you our recent conversation with Nicholas Carr.

[00:00:37] Michael: Nicholas Carr is an American journalist and author focused on the human consequences of technology.

[00:00:42] He wrote Super Bloom. How Technologies of Connection tear us apart. That’s his most recent book. His book, the Shallows, which I read in 2010 when it first came out, is Subtitled What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, and it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. He’s also the author of The Glass Cage.

[00:01:01] Utopia is Creepy, which I just happened to order today and several other books. But earlier in his career, he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. He writes the long running blog, rough type, and publishes work on his site about tech, culture, and society. Here’s our conversation with Nicholas.

[00:01:25] Nicholas, welcome to the show.

[00:01:26] Nicholas: Thanks very much. It’s my pleasure.

[00:01:28] Michael: We’re very excited to talk about this topic because we suspect that we’re afflicted with some of the things that you talk about, and in fact, the first question I wanna ask actually wrote down, because I wanna get this right, so let me just read it.

[00:01:41] I said I built a business. Teaching people how to be more productive. And I’ve spent the last decade using every digital tool available to scale that message. But lately I’ve noticed something unsettling, very systems that amplify my voice, seem to be fragmenting my attention and eroding the depth I used to bring to my work.

[00:02:01] Does that sound like the paradox you’re describing in Super Bloom, or am I just getting older?

[00:02:05] Nicholas: No, it very much does sound like the paradox. I’m talking about it, you know, I talk about it at a personal level and at a social level, but at a personal level, I think that’s exactly it. We want everything to be more efficient and that’s kind of natural.

[00:02:17] In the modern world. We’re busy, there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot we have to pay attention to, and so we grab any tool that helps us become more efficient in any way. But I think what we’re starting to learn, because many people like you and like me, have this sense that as everything speeds up, we seem to be able to do more.

[00:02:37] But actually. Somehow our, our attention gets fragmented and we’re not thinking as straight as we used to or whatever. And I don’t think it’s age, you know, I think the basic mistake at a personal level is the assumption that human attention, human thought, human communication always gets better as it gets more efficient.

[00:02:55] What I argue is that at a certain point, we simply overload our natural mental and psychological capacity to communicate, to process information, to make coherent thoughts. And at that point, a reversal takes place in faster communication, faster flow of information, actually undermines, understanding, undermines productivity, and in the worst case scenario can start undermining relationships as well.

[00:03:22] Michael: I think for me, one of the things I’ve begun to realize is that the tools we use and you write about this shaped the way that we think and behave. And I always thought that the transference was the other direction that it was. Me using the tools to make an impact on the world, on other people, but it’s really having an impact on me as well.

[00:03:42] Nicholas: Yeah, and I, I think, you know, I, I’m certainly not the first person to, uh, made this point. It’s kind of, if you look at a lot of. Philosophy about technology and about media. It’s kind of an undercurrent of it all, that we create the tools to do some particular function, job, whatever it is. But as we use the tools, they also shape us.

[00:04:04] And I think that’s particularly true of information technologies, communication technologies, media technologies. ’cause these are the tools we use. To think with, to express ourselves, to communicate with others. And I think if you stand back and just think about a simple example, you know, in my lifetime we’ve gone from when we wanted to correspond with somebody who wasn’t near us.

[00:04:27] We went from letters or phone calls to emails, and now everybody’s texting. And if you look at all of. The content of all of those things. It, it’s all us trying to accomplish the same thing. But if you look at a text, it’s sloppy, it’s short, it’s compressed, it’s often hard to understand. It’s abrupt, very different from, you know, if you sat down and wrote a, a letter by hand.

[00:04:49] So that’s a simple example of how the technology we use shapes, what we do, what we think, and how we communicate.

[00:04:58] Megan: I love that you brought up the idea of texting because it made me think of my teenagers and, you know, 90% of our, our communication when they’re not at home is through texting. You know, God forbid you have to pick up the phone and call your teenager, you know, they’re probably not gonna answer.

[00:05:11] Um, but that made me think about social media and of course there’s been so much work around the negative impacts of social media on teenagers, and I think for those of us who are parents, this is something we thought a lot about and we’re trying to kind of stumble our way through, you know, because we know it affects how they see themselves, their identity, all of that.

[00:05:30] But what about adults in social media? And I asked because about a year ago I decided to get off of Instagram and I’ve not been back on, it’s been about a little more than that now. I’m still on Facebook and I was thinking last night, I don’t think this is doing me any favors. Um, so I’d love to just hear your thoughts on that.

[00:05:46] Nicholas: What I’ve always been uncomfortable with is whether we’re talking about the internet in general or social media, is framing it in purely generational terms. ’cause this is often a way for adults to say, oh, kids these days, you know, they’re, they’re always on their phone. Uh, they’re always texting, they’re, they’re always using social media.

[00:06:04] But this is really a society wide phenomenon. And it’s true that the way kids use the technologies tends to be more intense and tends to be more kind of casual than adults, than their parents. But nevertheless, I think use of all of these things, and particularly social media, has similar effects no matter how old you are.

[00:06:26] And I think we, we run into this. The same problem with adults, and in some ways, maybe because adults are pressed to think, you know, about their jobs, about politics, about complex things in ways that kids aren’t always, that if our dependence on social media, not only to entertain ourselves and inform ourselves about what celebrities are doing, but to inform ourselves, you know, as our default way of getting news, of hearing public commentary, of communicating with colleagues at work.

[00:06:59] I do think there’s a danger here that it does have an effect of creating more superficial exchanges of information. You have to be fast, you have to be compressed. You can’t get into nuance. And so here I think we see this phenomenon that I, that’s at the center of my book, which is more communication means less understanding.

[00:07:18] We’re so drawn to the flow of information makes everything so easy, but I, I think sometimes we need to step back and, and really ask ourselves. Is this the right way to communicate? Particularly if I wanna, if I’m engaged in some complex task that requires coordination with other people?

[00:07:33] Megan: Yeah. You know, I even had this experience last night, um, at the time of this recording, the kidnapping case of Nancy Guthrie’s Big news.

[00:07:42] It’s all over social media. Um, and I don’t know why, but I have been just like glued to that story and I just, I feel anxious about it. Again, at the time of this recording, we don’t know how that turns out, what turns out to be the, the cause and so forth. But I have found that following that story for which I have no personal connection, obviously just my human empathy, but I have also no control over, I feel physically anxious when I think about it.

[00:08:07] Right. And it was a kind of a wake up call last night as I was following, you know, the details of that story and just thinking, this is so easy to get sucked into. And I think. So unhealthy. Not that we don’t care, of course we care, all those kinds of things, but it’s a unique phenomenon that kind of doesn’t have a human scale to it.

[00:08:25] Like we weren’t meant to be concerned about things at this level. Right?

[00:08:30] Nicholas: Yeah. And when we’re exposed to them, we’re naturally concerned. I, I mean, it’s a compelling, disturbing story, but there are no end to compelling, disturbing stories in the world. And I, I don’t think human beings evolved to have to be concerned about so many different things, most of which are far out of our individual control, and kind of be updated on them all the time.

[00:08:55] And you do get into this loop of, of kind of, you find yourself scrolling through, you know, news stories or whatever you mentioned Instagram. Instagram is the one kind of social media media that I’ve had for quite a long time. I, I just used it, you know, in the beginning I had like 12 people. I followed family members just for photos and stuff, but then Instagram switched to the, the feed that just gives you, you know, stuff that, not from your, the people you follow, but whatever they think is gonna grab your attention.

[00:09:23] And sometimes even though I, I know what’s going on, I find myself just sitting there kind of scrolling through it without it, even though it doesn’t even mean that much to us. So, yeah, compelling things like the kidnapping, assuming that’s what it is and everything are grabbing our attention, but also a lot of trivia that doesn’t matter.

[00:09:41] That, and we have to recognize that, you know, these platforms, social media platforms are designed with the endless scroll and the endless automatic play loops and stuff. They’re designed to very, very carefully to keep us. Scrolling whether what we’re looking at is important or completely unimportant.

[00:10:00] Michael: The biggest challenge to that for me is that it’s like we’re outgunned outmanned, you know, against these algorithms and billions of dollars of research that go into them. And so I’m beginning to think maybe the Amish are right. There’s no moderation here because the dopamine is so powerful that it’s not like I can go into Facebook and just say, oh, I’m just gonna do this for a few minutes once a week or even once a day.

[00:10:28] It’s just like I get sucked into a vortex where my thinking gets hijacked. I dunno what to do about that. I mean, is there, is there a middle way where there’s appropriate use of social media and how do you control that and fight back knowing that your brain is being hijacked, uh, by the very. Technology that you’re using.

[00:10:46] Nicholas: It’s very different as all three of us have been talking about. You know, we’re doing things that we don’t really want to do because I think that these, these technologies and their design tap into very, very deep instincts. One is the seeking instinct. We like other animals. We want to know everything that’s going on.

[00:11:03] I mean, in evolutionary terms, that’s how you stayed alive. So anything new in your environment, you wanna know about it. And so we’ve created this new digital environment where there’s always something new, there’s always lots of things new. And, and so it taps into that deep instinct. And, and it also taps into our social instinct.

[00:11:19] We’re very social animals. And because social media is often about us in some way, how our posts get reacted to and how our pictures get reacted to, that’s also very compelling. So at this point, and it takes a big effort because you’re, in some ways, you’re excluding yourself from the social world when you back away from these technologies.

[00:11:39] But I do think that. Simply limiting the number of platforms you’re a member of or you follow in trying as best as possible to limit your time, you know, is our basic things we can try to do. There’s also broader issues about how these platforms are designed. There’s one theory that the big, one of the big problems is that they take all friction out of socializing, all friction out of thinking, because.

[00:12:07] You think, oh, we don’t want friction. And, but actually it’s making an effort when it comes to very human things like socializing, communicating with others, making an effort, having to do some work, maybe even having to pay a little money for a stamp to put on envelope. All of these things deepen our connection to what we’re doing.

[00:12:26] And getting rid of all the friction makes everything very fast, but it also makes everything superficial. So there’s one, one philosophy is we should put friction back. Into the design of these things. So there’s limits on how often, you know, something can be retweeted or reposted. There’s a delay between when you send out a post or a comment and when it appears, so you can change your mind and stuff like that.

[00:12:49] And I think those are good ideas. But here too, we come up against these big, established, powerful businesses and that’s the last thing they want to do is get people to slow down and be more thoughtful. So it’s really a conundrum at a personal level and at a societal level about now that we’ve enmeshed ourselves in this world, how do we extract ourselves?

[00:13:10] You know, even just a little bit. Not entirely.

[00:13:12] Michael: I’m just curious, just as a follow up, you know, you wrote the shallows in what, 2010?

[00:13:18] Nicholas: Yeah.

[00:13:18] Michael: And you were talking even then about what screens are doing to our brain and now we are, are here 16 years later. Were you too optimistic or too pessimistic when you wrote that?

[00:13:27] Nicholas: I don’t think I was too pessimistic. The shallows came out of my own early experience, spending a lot of time online because I, I really felt it, you know, I was writing about technology back then. I was spending a lot of time, this was with the laptop or desktop browsing the web, surfing the web as we used to say.

[00:13:43] And I did feel that my ability to sustain my attention was being eroded. You know, I used to love reading books and long articles and it was became a real struggle. Mm-hmm. And so I really do think, and continue to think that the more we use the technology, the more it shapes the way we think. So I think if you look at everything that’s happened, uh, in the last 15 years, we’ve switched from desktops and laptops to phones, which are always with us, always connected, always pinging us with new.

[00:14:12] New notifications, new information. So I think, uh, the phenomenon or phenomena of distraction and interruption and how it undermines thought that I described in the shallows has gotten worse simply because we’ve switched to a new device for connecting the phone. And you know, back then Facebook was new and you had to go online in a browser, you know, on a, on a laptop to see it.

[00:14:37] We’ve switched to a new device. The phone that’s always on, always connected and social media has become much, much more important. It’s turned into apps that are always there. It, and it’s been ruthlessly designed to grab our attention. So unfortunately, this is one of those things where there’s a kind of, in many ways I wish I was wrong because my life and the, and I think society would be better.

[00:15:00] On the other hand, I’m kind of happy that I was right, simply because I was making an argument. But yeah, I think, I think things, I think what I was concerned about then. Are much magnified today.

[00:15:12] Michael: Where do you think we’ll be in five years given the investment that’s being made into AI and how fast AI is improving?

[00:15:20] I mean, I spend a lot of time in AI and it just seems like every day there’s a new announcement, there’s something better. So where does it, where does this go?

[00:15:32] Nicholas: Two years ago, I ire, I was really trying to be skeptical about AI and to argue that, you know, as being overhyped, uh, in everything. And I still think there’s probably some overhype there, there’s probably some over investment, which may play out in nasty ways, but, but I do think, and I think your experience is, is representative, that it’s incredibly useful just on a task by task basis.

[00:16:00] I might wish that people. Weren’t using as much or won’t in the future, but I think they will and I, I think that’s the reality. So the big question is, you know, there are, I think there are ways to use. AI wisely to see it kind of as a testing board to get feedback on your own ideas. But then this is the problem with automation in general.

[00:16:23] There’s also a, a bad way to use it, which is simply to offload everything onto the machine. So, oh, I don’t need to read anymore. I can get AI to gimme a summary. I don’t need to write anymore. I can get AI to crank something out. And then, I mean, the danger is it becomes, you stop practicing things that are actually important, communicating, forming your own thoughts, reading, making sense of what you read.

[00:16:47] And so my fear is that if we simply rush forward and just start adopting it for everything, we’re gonna become lesser people as a result, less capable, less thoughtful, again, maybe more efficient because the machine is doing all your writing and communicating for you. But somehow, you know, my fear is that life, because we’re not really practicing the skills.

[00:17:10] That are most fulfilling to us in the long run, that life becomes more efficient, but less satisfying.

[00:17:25] Megan: Okay. I think that is a great place to kind of shift our, our conversation a little bit to trade-offs. You know, we’ve, we’ve talked a lot about why someone would wanna use a lot of digital technologies and screens and AI and all the things. And I think especially as we were talking before we started, our audience feels that tension between the scarcity of time, that is just the reality for all of us and tremendous demands on our life.

[00:17:53] Not to mention our own aspirations and, and desires and so forth, you know, but for somebody who says, sure, you know, there’s downsides, but on balance, I think the trade offs are worth it. You know, I’m more informed, I’m more connected, more productive than I’ve ever been. What are they not seeing? That you see as you think about human flourishing for people?

[00:18:15] Nicholas: You know, I’ll start by saying that I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna say that everybody who has an experience that is different from my own is, is wrong. A lot of people on the planet, they use these technologies in different ways. They have different personalities, they have different goals for themselves, and for some people it may be ideal and so be it.

[00:18:32] But I do think that what people need to pay attention to is being conscious of what gives them satisfaction, what gives them fulfillment. Is it just juggling lots of information and sending out messages very quickly? Or is it struggling with difficult concepts? Is it struggling to express yourself in a clear.

[00:18:54] Meaningful way to people who are important to you or to your or to other people in general? Is it, and once you first think about, you know, what gives me satisfaction in life? I think you often find that it’s grappling with hard things, mastering difficult skills that you can then build on in the future.

[00:19:12] It’s not simply taking the path of least resistance. And so one of the big problems is because our phones are there, our computers are there all the time because AI now is there all the time. We’re encouraged to take the path of least resistance all the time. And if people can just step back and say, when is efficiency good?

[00:19:33] When is getting something done as quickly as possible, the best way to accomplish it? And when. Is the product going to be better in my own experience, better if I actually put more effort into it, if I work at it? And just beginning by making those distinctions gives you a a sense of, okay, where can I use the technology, whatever it is to automate these things?

[00:19:54] And where should I step back and either use a different tool or use my own inner resources to get something done? We’ve fallen into a kind of trap of thinking that. Computers and phones are an all purpose tool. They’re always there and somehow because they’re more efficient, they’re always the best tool to use.

[00:20:13] And, and I think that’s a false assumption. And if we can get back to thinking more clearly about, you know, what’s the best tool for each particular job or task, and when, when should we use new, no tool at all. We’d be able to be more diligent and thoughtful about how we use these very, very, very powerful technologies in a way that benefits us rather than simply undermines our best intentions.

[00:20:39] Megan: Do you have any rules for yourself as you’re kind of grappling with those questions? Like any kind of rubric that you use that helps you to determine the answer, knowing that maybe less for you given all the work that you’ve done, but for most of us, the impulse is always gonna be to choose less friction and more speed, you know, given all the choices on the table, how do you navigate that?

[00:21:02] Nicholas: I struggle with this too because I find, I find this flow of information and, and new experiences and novelty very, very compelling as, as all people do. But I guess I’ll, I’ll just give a couple of particular ways that I, I try to deal with it that may be applicable to other people. One thing is that this really, you know, started, I started thinking about this very soon after smartphones arrived, is that immediately people assumed that this is a device that they should have with them all the time.

[00:21:34] They should carry it with them no matter what they’re doing. When they go to bed, they’ll put it on their bedside table, or if you’re a kid, you’ll put it under your pillow or whatever. So it’s always there and it’s always, even when we’re not using it, it’s always intruding on our thoughts because we’re thinking about looking at it and I thought, you know, this is such a powerful technology that.

[00:21:53] This assumption that we should have it with us all the time is a big mistake. So, you know, one thing I do at a very simple level is I ask myself, do I really need my phone for this next thing I’m gonna do? If I’m going out, out to dinner with my wife or a group of people, do I wanna bring my phone? Is that gonna make the experience better?

[00:22:12] Or should I leave it behind? If I’m going out for a walk, do I wanna bring my phone knowing that, you know, I’m gonna start pulling it out to do something completely trivial or silly? Or should I leave it behind and simply go out and take a nice walk and look around? So just stopping and saying, you know, does this technology in particular the phone, but it can be whatever.

[00:22:32] Is this technology gonna really make my experience? Better or is it going to intrude on it and make it worse? And then, you know, having, having the courage, because nobody likes to be disconnected these days, but having the courage to just say, I’m not gonna bring it with me. I’m gonna go out and do this on my own without this aid in my pocket or in my pocketbook.

[00:22:51] Um, and then just another one is that, and this relates to ai and it sort of comes back to what I was talking about earlier. I try to think about what things are really satisfying for me to do and to struggle with. And I’m a writer and one of the first things AI has been adopted for is doing your writing for you.

[00:23:10] And it’s quite good, you know, for a lot of students, I think they can pump out a paper with AI that’s better than they could do, frankly. And so it’s very, very enticing. But what I realized is, you know. This work, the work of writing is very important to me. And so I’m gonna draw a line there. I’m not gonna use, I’m not gonna ask AI to write stuff for me.

[00:23:30] Even if I get stuck as I do quite often and have to really work on the words and try to get them right, I’m not gonna bypass that struggle because I, I think ultimately, even though it takes more time, and it can be frustrating, when I get to the end of it, I produce something better, something that’s more my own and something that’s more satisfying to me.

[00:23:50] And so for me it’s writing, but for other people it might be very, very different things. And if you can just identify what things that I do am I proud of doing and do I really enjoy doing, even if it’s frustrating at times and, and not fall back on technology to make those activities more efficient.

[00:24:09] Megan: I think what I hear you saying is just that struggle can actually be part of the joy.

[00:24:15] Our, our work. You know, I think about my marriage, for example, been married for 17 years to my husband Joel, and you know, that has not come without its challenges of course, or parenting. I have five kids. If I could suddenly remove all the friction from those two contexts, in some ways that would be very enticing.

[00:24:33] You know, on the other hand, the friction has shaped me, just like these tools shape us. You know, for better or worse, the friction, I think, also can shape us for probably for better or worse, right? Um, but it’s easy to think that it’s always for worse and that we should try to eliminate it. And I think that’s, uh, maybe not a nuanced enough perspective.

[00:24:53] And so I, I appreciate you highlighting that.

[00:24:56] Nicholas: Yeah, no, I think that’s absolutely right and we, we have to, everything we know about, you know, the way the brain works, the way we learn, you don’t learn by having something, having a technology do something for you or ease the work. The way we learn, the way we master a skill, any skill is by actually practicing it.

[00:25:14] Getting in there, coming up against friction, coming up against barriers and overcoming them. That’s the only way to raise your level of mastery or expertise. And once you’ve raised that level, no matter what it is, then that gives you a new baseline to raise it again. And that’s a very satisfying process.

[00:25:30] That’s how we become masters of some task or experts. And if you just go the path of release of least resistance at the very beginning and relieve yourself of having to do the work necessary to have that kind of deep learning, then you never get that deep learning and you’re stuck at some lower level of effort and expertise.

[00:25:50] And so you never get the joy of becoming talented.

[00:25:54] Michael: Who would’ve thought that in 2026, not taking your phone with you or deciding to write on your own with the out the aid of AI or something else would be an act of courage and defiance, but it kind of is. It’s kind of a revolutionary act. I, I was thinking, as you all were talking, it’s almost like there are these two unspoken values that have become the super values that regardless of your religion, your upbringing, your ethnicity are, are sort of the governing values of modern society.

[00:26:26] And those are fast and easy. And so it’s like they, they operate unconsciously, but we always gravitate toward those two things. I spent most of my career in the book publishing world in various roles as editor and marketer and chief executive and so forth. But you know, I can remember when the Kindles came out, you know, everybody was forecasting that that was the end of publishing.

[00:26:48] It actually didn’t hurt it at all. In fact, it, I think helped it. What could be the end of publishing though book publishing at least is what AI makes possible with just in time learning. In other words, I read a book in the hopes that somehow this information will serve me in some way in the future. I don’t really have a, a specific problem I’m trying to solve.

[00:27:10] It’s just information that I’m putting sort of in the pantry in case I need it. But with ai, I find myself reading less because it’s right there to inform me on the specific problem I’m dealing with right now. So, I, I don’t know if you have any thoughts about the future of publishing or said you’re a writer yourself.

[00:27:31] Where do you think that’s going? Long form communication.

[00:27:34] Nicholas: Yeah. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going in a good direction. It, and I do have to say, you know, going back to what, what you just said about the arrival of the Kindle when I wrote the shallows. A lot of which had to do with reading. That was 2010, I think the Kindle had come out in 2007 or something.

[00:27:48] And if you looked at that point at adoption of eBooks, it was going, it was skyrocketing and print books were flat. So I actually have a chapter in the shallows, which is chapter, which I think I, I get things wrong unfortunately, that basically took these trends and thought they’d continue in, in the same way in that eBooks would just take over.

[00:28:08] ’cause that’s what it looked like at the time. And in fact, you know, as you said it, that didn’t happen. Uh, eBooks became kind of like audiobooks. They’re, they’re out there. Some people like them, some people who are print readers will get an audiobook or a ebook for a particular purpose, but it didn’t undermine print books.

[00:28:24] And I do think print books printed on pages encouraged the deepest immersion in the work. But I think what we’re seeing today is, is one thing exactly what you said, which is you can get an immediate answer, um, without having to go through the process of reading. What might feel at the time, like extraneous matter to whatever you’re trying to accomplish.

[00:28:47] And so this is, there’s always been a tension, I think, in views of books or essays or whatever between, you know, the medium of writing as an information delivery device. You’re, I’m going to read because I need to get this particular piece of information. I need the author to communicate it really quickly so I can get it and then move on to the next thing.

[00:29:06] And reading as an experience that mm-hmm. The experience can be fulfilling in and of itself. But also, as you said, you’re learning things you didn’t set out to learn, but is gonna fill your storehouse of, of knowledge that you can then draw on in the future. And, you know, my, my view of learning, uh, of reading is very much the second thing.

[00:29:26] There are times when I just want an answer, but you need to learn to appreciate reading, not simply to get an immediate answer. To build up your store of experience, your store of knowledge. And I do think that now, particularly with ai, that the first kind of idea of reading that I talked about, which is, you know, written materials as information delivery devices like phones or, or, or whatever is taking precedence.

[00:29:51] And so even for kids in college, I need to write a paper. That’s the product I need to get certain amounts of information to put into that paper. So I’ll just use AI to do the reading for me to start making connections for me. And that’s actually, ideally, that is not what writing a paper in college is about.

[00:30:10] Right? It’s about grappling with hard ideas that you read. It’s about using your own mind to figure out how to, how to put these things together. The paper doesn’t really matter. It’s the act of being able to write the paper that matters. And we’re kind of turning that all around with, with ai. And so it really, I do really think we’re at a, at a crucial point now in the future of books and long form reading in general.

[00:30:32] I don’t think they’re not gonna survive. But the question is, how big of an audience are they gonna have in the future? How, and I think if you just look at, you know, the recent declines, rapid declines in the number of young people who read for pleasure, whether it’s in the US or the uk, there’s, there’s a lot of very deep res, uh, survey research out.

[00:30:51] It’s really plummeting very, very quickly. And to me, you know, I hope I’m, I turned out to be wrong again as I kind of was with eBooks 15 years ago. But it really seems we’re we’re reaching a turning point where, you know, as some, put it, we’re moving into a post literate society.

[00:31:08] Michael: Well, and unfortunately that has broad societal implications, including the ability to manipulate the masses because people can’t think, they don’t have the reasoning capability to argue against something, someone who’s screaming the loudest or has the greatest reach.

[00:31:26] And that’s, to me, the ultimate. Of this, which I don’t like. Yeah, a bit.

[00:31:31] Nicholas: If you don’t build up this store of knowledge, just through reading and, and, and paying attention to other things, you don’t build up the context in which to filter the new information that comes to you. So you, you lose your skepticism.

[00:31:45] You, you lose your ability to think critically. And I agree that has big, profound consequences for society.

[00:31:52] Michael: I was heartened by the fact that Barnes and Noble announced that they were gonna open 60 new stores this year, which I don’t know what’s driving that, but bring it on more of that.

[00:32:02] Nicholas: Yeah. I, I, you know, and I think a lot of smaller bookshops, uh, independents have, have thrived, but I hope they’re still selling books and not just coffee and stuff.

[00:32:14] But still it’s, it’s, you know, it is heartening that there is still a literary society out there. How quickly it’s shrinking is. Is worrisome to me, but it’s there.

[00:32:25] Megan: Nicholas, I was just thinking as you were talking that one of the things I’ve noticed is that there seems to be a counter movement at play, and I, I’m sure you’ve thought a lot about this.

[00:32:37] I think about Substack for example. You know, a place where, again, long form writing not only has a place, but I think is celebrated in many ways and at least the, um, you know, the little parts of that that I’m a part of, I, I routinely see thoughtful work that people are putting out. For example, um, another place we see this.

[00:33:01] In the analog movement we love around here, books like The Revenge of Analog and the Future is Analog. And those have been very influential in our product philosophy at Full Focus, um, to the point that really the revenge of analog was heavily influenced the creation of the full focus planner. And we decided not to create an app.

[00:33:20] I was telling you before we, we began recording, um, we, we spent a million dollars on the development of an app and ended up abandoning it because we felt that it wasn’t ultimately in the best interest of the people that we serve and their attention and ultimately their flourishing, you know, that a physical analog tool is valuable.

[00:33:37] I’m curious kind of what you’re seeing with regard to, to the counter movement and kind of what some of the answers that people are having to these issues.

[00:33:49] Nicholas: 15 years ago when I wrote the shallows. There weren’t a lot of people worried about what was going on. We were still in the very, the very honeymoon phase with Silicon Valley, with the internet, with the web, and so, so criticizing it or, or raising, raising concerns about it as I tried to do was, seemed weird, I think it’s fair to say.

[00:34:10] And so today it doesn’t, I mean, there’s much more skepticism, there’s much more critical thinking about the technology. There’s much more awareness that, you know, for all the good it can do us, it can do us a lot of harm as well. So I think at that level, you know, we are more aware of both the good and the bad of the technology, which is a good starting point for, for having a counter movement.

[00:34:32] I still think that the tide is with the technology in, in the companies who, who. Manipulate the technology. But I do think, you know, and you’ve pointed out some examples, that there are attempts to go beyond simply saying, oh, I’m worried about this to actually saying I’m gonna change my habits, or I’m gonna change my behavior.

[00:34:51] I think it’s still kind of small, but I think it’s growing. You know, I’ve become, as I’ve written about this, you know, more and more up to the present, I’ve become convinced that that the problems that the technology creates, there are personal problems and their social problems. We not only carry our phones with us all the time, society as a whole has decided that everything has to be done online.

[00:35:11] Even if you want to stop or pull back, you’re gonna face all sorts of barriers because you’re expected to be online. So if this is gonna change, it’s really gonna change because of a counter-cultural movement. ’cause this is how, this is how these big kind of social things tend to change. And I do think that once you get this kind of orthodoxy.

[00:35:33] This kind of expectation, this kind of oppressive expectation that you need to use this particular tool for everything, this particular technology that does often result in a countercultural movement, often from the young who just say, no, we’re not gonna do it anymore. So I do think that’s possible, and I hope that in some form, some productive form, it does emerge because I do think it we need more than just individuals at this point.

[00:36:01] Making better choices, even though that’s important, if we’re really gonna change the path we’re on and use the technology, I think in a wiser way, it really does have to be a cultural social change.

[00:36:13] Megan: It’s funny, you know, um, yesterday our team, it was a beautiful day. It was unusually beautiful day here at the end of winter, and we sat outside and had lunch and we were talking about grocery delivery like on Instacart.

[00:36:25] And we were, I was saying something about, you know, I decided to use it less and I was realizing I was spending a bunch of money I didn’t need to spend. And our youngest team member, uh, Hannah and Hannah will listen to this and she’s gonna chuckle. Uh, but she said, guys, I gotta tell you, I’ve never used grocery delivery.

[00:36:41] And we were all like, what are you talking about? We, you know, we couldn’t believe that anybody, all of us in our forties and fifties, you know, were like, this is amazing. Someone’s never used grocery delivery. But it reminds me of my, um, 24-year-old son. Who’s very concerned with doing things with his hands.

[00:36:58] And I just think that 30 and under generation are thinking about this. You know, the ones that grew up with phones from the time they were tiny are like, there’s a dark side to this that maybe mom and dad don’t even understand fully, but they get it in a unique way. And I find it fascinating. I sent my family last night, uh, an article from Substack about a show that I love on the BBC that’s called All Creatures Great and Small.

[00:37:25] I don’t know if you’ve watched it. It’s a lovely show. Yeah. Uh, there’s a, um, I’m gonna link to this in the show notes, but there was an article on Substack that a woman named Julie Kiker published called Live A Quiet Life and Work With Your Hands, 12 Lessons on The Good Life from Jane Harriet’s Derby.

[00:37:42] And it’s just a beautiful explanation I think of. Contrary to perspective, to what you’re warning against, you know what this could look like. And obviously it’s not gonna look like the Yorkshire Dales in 1930 and 1940, but I do think we need models of that. What, what are some models that you have for what this could look like in our modern context?

[00:38:06] Nicholas: Yeah, as it happens, my wife and I are in the middle of the latest season of, of the show right now. So I know what you’re, I know what you’re talking about. Um, and, and I do think, I do think everything you just said there, there is very important because. One of the dangers of this screen-based life that we haven’t talked about is that it, it steals from us certain levels of sensory engagement with the world.

[00:38:30] You know, we’re constantly using our near focus vision and we’re listening to things and stuff, but we’re. There’s no texture, there’s no kind of shifting between the distance and, and what’s close in vision. The smells of the world and stuff are, are, are, are at a distance. And I think there’s a lot of joy in connecting to the world with all our senses that if we’re constantly, if we constantly have this little rectangle of glass in front of us, we we’re losing.

[00:38:57] So I do think anything that brings us back to using all of our senses on a regular basis and, and that can be hobbies. You know, maybe you, you knit, uh, or maybe do woodwork, uh, or whatever. The more we can achieve a greater balance in our sensory engagement with the world, the better. And I think this is particularly important for parents raising young children, is to make sure.

[00:39:24] That they interact with the world in lots of different ways, in lots of ways that are are manual, that, that, that put you in touch with the texture of the world and, and stuff. Because I do think that, that those habits that you make when you’re very, very young tend to stick, stick with you. And so if a, if a child uses a computer or a tablet or a phone for a little bit, uh, during the day, you know, that’s fine.

[00:39:53] But make sure that that’s balanced with very different ways of interacting with the world and different ways of using your mind and your hands and, and all your senses. This

[00:40:08] Michael: in super bloom. You open with this story about a scene of influencers trampling a poppy field to get the perfect selfie. You know, there’s something about digital technology. That can make us trample the very thing we came to see. You know, you’re, you’re in some beautiful situation. Like we were in Peru a few, few years ago and, and it was just amazing.

[00:40:29] We were hiking like at 12,000 feet. It was absolutely gorgeous and it was amazing how many tourists were experiencing that through their camera, through their phone, camera. They weren’t even present experiencing it, and it’s just such an odd behavior, although I certainly engage in it myself.

[00:40:47] Nicholas: Yeah.

[00:40:47] Michael: But it’s, it’s almost like people don’t believe it until it’s digital.

[00:40:50] Nicholas: Right. I think we’re so, we’re so immersed in media. These days, and it used to be, you know, through television and stuff, you were immersed in TV for maybe a few hours, you know, during prime time, few hours. And you were just watching it, you weren’t creating it. Now, you know, with the internet and with social media, we’re immersed in media as never before, and, and we’re producing it, we’re consuming it.

[00:41:14] And I do think that it, and I think this, you know, that story of the, the super bloom where people go out, they’re drawn to what they think is the beauty of this natural display and they end up trampling it because they wanna get, they wanna get a, a selfie shows how very easy it is to start to see the world.

[00:41:32] As something as the way it will look when it comes through your screen rather than for itself. And so you begin to see images of things and you lose sight of the thing itself. And I think that’s, that’s a very dangerous, a very big danger these days. And I think we all fall into it. Um, we’ve all become kind of, social media has, has turned us all into kind of media producers and, and the content of the show is our life itself.

[00:41:58] And that can lead to this kind of behavior where not only are you portraying yourself through a screen, but you’re thinking of yourself as somebody who’s portrayed through a screen rather than as a real person in a real setting. And so, yeah, that, I mean, that’s why I started with that story because I think if you, at a very, very high level of what it means to be a human being, what it means to have a self, I do think the technology is even intruding on us there.

[00:42:23] And not with our best interests in mind.

[00:42:26] Michael: Like we’re all living the Truman show.

[00:42:27] Nicholas: Right.

[00:42:28] Megan: Nicholas, you talk about. Something called frictional design. So basically kind of speed bumps for digital life. And you know, like we talked a little bit earlier about delays before posting and limits on forwarding and all that.

[00:42:44] I think you’re right, the likelihood that the tech industry does something like that, maybe we get some of that stuff for kids, you know, that slows the kids down. What are some practical ways that we can do that for ourselves that actually work? You know, I know there are just devices, different kinds of devices that you can get that are less smart, so to speak, you know, other, other things, but like what, what actually works here to help us not be kind of zombied in this space?

[00:43:15] Nicholas: Yeah, I mean, and this is kind of an irony, but there are now smartphones that basically act like dumb phones. You know, people will turn off the color on their smartphones because black and white is less engaging. There’s also lots of. Lots of software programs now that will regulate your ability to use social media, which I think is kind of an irony to use the software to prevent you from using, using software.

[00:43:37] Um, and, and I’m a little suspicious about those things because, because I wonder how long people really stick with them. I’ve tried them once and I didn’t stick with ’em, and, but, but they work for some people, so I don’t want to denigrate them. And if they work for you, they work for you because at least at one level it shows how powerful a hold the technology has on us that we have to use more technology just to break that hold even for short periods of time.

[00:44:00] I do think it, it comes down to, to really making some sacrifices and saying, I’m not going to have accounts on Instagram and Facebook and X and Snapchat, and it’s thrown away a lot of social media. And I’m using social media because social media, I think is the most. Aggressively designed to grab and hold our attention, um, and, and bring that away.

[00:44:29] And by putting away, I mean, I mean, closing your accounts and getting the apps off, off your phone, and then a fairly simple thing. But, but again, it’s, you know, the technology industry makes it more difficult than it should be, is turning off notifications for a lot of, uh, these, uh, these apps. Because what, what notifications tend to do is.

[00:44:50] Instead of you choosing what you’re gonna look at from moment to moment and what app you’re gonna use or whatever, suddenly the, the technology is controlling what you’re looking at. ’cause it’s constantly beeping at you. It’s kind of buzzing at you, giving you no notification. So simply giving yourself more control over your experience and what you’re looking at from moment to moment and not allowing the technology to do that for you.

[00:45:13] And then, you know, just going back to something you already mentioned is spending a significant portion of your day without the technology at hand. So your experience take on a kind of different tone and a different texture and different pace. If this was easy, we’d all have a very good relationship with the technology.

[00:45:31] It’s very, very hard, both because we’re, we’re up against very sophisticated designs that are based on very sophisticated knowledge of human behavior. And we’re also up against a long-term social trend that says we need to do everything online, every, everybody needs to be accessible all the time and connected all the time.

[00:45:49] Megan: You know, one of the things that I’ve experienced myself, and I’ve tried a number of different times to dramatically reduce my phone usage. I’ve tried. Different apps. I have not tried the dumb phone, but I’ve tried different apps. I’ve tried all kinds of, you know, more analog things. At one time I was like having the paper delivered to me, you know, and I thought, that’s how I’ll get my news.

[00:46:14] I’ll, I’ll read the paper. And none of it has worked. Well, I mean, certainly the, the thing that has worked the best, and maybe the only thing that has worked is saying, for example, on Instagram, I’m just not on it like at all. It’s like an all or nothing thing, right? But what I have experienced is when I try to limit my time online, I’m immediately faced with dopamine seeking drive.

[00:46:39] Um, to talk about it kind of scientifically with anxiety, with a sense of restlessness. It’s very unpleasant. I mean, it’s like, I, I know why I am, I’m doing what I’m doing right? What I don’t know how to do well, and I imagine our listeners feel the same way, is put something in that spot. Right. To be able to backfill that time with something that settles me in the same way that honestly, the devices and the algorithms are doing.

[00:47:11] Do you have any thoughts on that?

[00:47:12] Nicholas: I mean, there’s also another thing that makes it difficult to back away is that often you face resentment from the other people who are used to interacting with you in these modes. True. I, I mean, my, my classic examples with Facebook, which I, I stopped using a long time ago.

[00:47:28] Nobody wishes me Happy Birthday anymore. You don’t get cards or anything, and since you’re not on Facebook, it’s, well, to heck with it, I’m, you know. Right. I’m not gonna say Happy birthday. No luck. So there are sacrifices, but it’s true that, you know, there’s this, you often hear, oh, well the, the. Computer technology makes everything so efficient.

[00:47:47] It frees us up to do more meaningful things. And then, as you said, what it really, for most, most people, what it frees them up to do is less meaningful things to, to go on their phone and, and then when they, when they don’t do it, then as you said, there’s this hole there. And I do think, and, and again, you know, these things are hard, but I do think seeing that panic and that pain as perhaps an opportunity, um, to say, what can I do that is gonna be meaningful to me?

[00:48:12] How can, how can I best spend my time? I often think about kids with. With, uh, phones or tablets. You know, when I was growing up, there was kind of a, a, a rhythm to your day that there were times when you were with your friends and you were playing and you’re goofing off and you’re having fun. And then you’d go home and you’d be in your room and you’d, you couldn’t socialize.

[00:48:32] And at first you said, oh, I’m bored. And, but then you, you kind of had to learn how to amuse yourself. You had to learn in the act of fi, figuring out how to amuse yourself often revealed to you activities or hobbies that were fun and that you really enjoyed. And so that kind of sense of boredom or panic or, uh, oh gosh, I, I need to do something that can be an opportunity that motivates you to explore other things you might be doing.

[00:48:58] And you’ll probably find something that you really, really like. But it is, you have to get over that initial, you know, fear of missing out and panic and, oh gosh, there’s new information out there and I’m not getting it. Which is a real right, really, you know, a, a kind of. Drag on your nervous system. I mean, it really is.

[00:49:16] Megan: I think that’s really true. What I find is I do well during the day. Like I garden, I love to walk. Like I, if I can be outside, I’m just fine. I am. I’m my happiest. When I’m outside, I’m the most regulated in terms of my nervous system. Like it. To your point earlier about being in a sensory rich environment like that is key.

[00:49:34] Where I personally struggle is at night when I’m tired, you know, I put my kids down to bed. It’s been a long day at work. Um, or maybe something stressful has happened and I just kind of wanna. Zone out, so to speak. That’s where it’s the hard, like that’s where I’m most vulnerable. And I, I feel like that’s where I’m looking for, um, a good solution in those moments because I don’t, whereas like if it’s the afternoon, I might welcome the friction of gardening and the physical nature of that, or a walk, or, you know, doing something outside with our kids at night.

[00:50:07] The friction feels like something I don’t want, and that’s a, that’s an easy place to fall into the trap of the kind of mindless scrolling or consumption of media

[00:50:16] Nicholas: in, in many ways it’s the worst time because it’s time leading up to bedtime. And so, yes, you know, this is a, a mental stimulant and it gets everything going.

[00:50:24] You’re thinking about, you know, you’re thinking about the news, you’re thinking about crimes that are, you’re following, you’re thinking about people saying things you disagree with politically, and so it intrudes on your sleep. And so yeah, it, that is a big challenge. You can always, you can always rewatch the earlier seasons of all things great and small.

[00:50:40] Megan: Yes, actually, and I’ve, I’ve watched even the original one from the eighties, I think. And that one is also delightful, though, harder to understand.

[00:50:48] Nicholas: Yeah.

[00:50:49] Michael: And we have to put on subtitles for sure. So Nicholas, I think as we wrap this up, one of the questions I have, if you could leave us with maybe two or three practical tips, there would be guidance for people that are compelled by this, but maybe they’ve tried, you know, not using social media hasn’t worked.

[00:51:06] They eventually returned to it. They’ve tried limiting their screen time, but that really hasn’t worked. And asking for a friend, well, what would you give us? Tip?

[00:51:16] Nicholas: Yeah. So, so, uh, and we, we’ve gone over some of those ways that if you could do them and keep doing them, w would help. But often we, we fall back into bad habits.

[00:51:26] I guess I’ll just leave with, with one thing and that is that it, and this has been a long-term problem that. People have been talking about since that book, bowling Alone a long time ago, is that as media and computer technology and smartphones become more dominant in our lives, we, we have less face-to-face interaction with people close to us, uh, neighbors and stuff.

[00:51:45] And so I, I think one of the most powerful ways to kind of fight back is to join in local, local groups and get involved and maybe start them, you know, maybe it’s a book club, maybe it’s a gardening club, whatever. Maybe just, you know, going out every once in a while and having a lunch or a drink or something with other people in some ways that, that gives you the social interaction that people often become dependent on their devices for.

[00:52:12] So it, it fills that hole and it also, I think, fills it in a richer way than, uh, than the screen will ever do. So it’s a way to remove yourself from. Screen life in a way that’s very stimulating, in some ways more stimulating than what a screen could ever do. And it also helps with this broader problem of us, of people, of society becoming more fragmented and, and people being less tuned into their local community, which I think is, is another big problem that we face.

[00:52:41] So somehow, you know, going out and being with people in, in, in one way or another, I think in, in some ways is the best way. Because you don’t lose anything. You in fact gain a lot.

[00:52:52] Michael: You know, I’ve noticed when I try to remove something, it leaves a vacuum and it eventually pulls me back into it. But I were replace something with something else.

[00:53:00] Like last night I met with the men’s group. We go fly fishing once a year and we get together monthly for, uh, just to check in with each other. And so we did that last night and I noticed that I didn’t miss social media, I didn’t miss any other kind of media during that entire time. I was completely engaged.

[00:53:17] I went to bed. Deeply satisfied in a way that social media and other kinds of media don’t leave me. So I think you’re spot on there. Thank you.

[00:53:26] Nicholas: Yeah. We forget about the power of actually being with other people.

[00:53:31] Michael: Nicholas, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for giving us this time. We’ll go ahead and talk about your books in the show notes.

[00:53:37] We’ll link to all those. But if people wanna find all things related to you today, is there sort of a one stop. Spot that they could go to connect with all the things that you’re doing.

[00:53:46] Nicholas: Yeah, I, of course have a website, so you can go to nicholas carr.com and that’ll tell you what I’ve written and other things I’m doing and you’ll get a good overview.

[00:53:56] Michael: Fantastic. Thanks again.

[00:53:58] Nicholas: You’re welcome. Thank you.

[00:54:09] Megan: Okay, dad, what did you think about that interview with Nicholas?

[00:54:12] Michael: I thought it was fantastic, and part of the reason I thought it was fantastic is because I realize how unconscious my use of technology is. It’s become so much a part of how I think and move in the world. That the thought of sort of dialing that down and using less technology kind of makes me anxious.

[00:54:33] Megan: Yeah,

[00:54:34] Michael: and I’ve been a tech enthusiast for as long as I can remember. My dad, believe it or not, who’s now 91. Got me into tech back in the seventies when he bought a Radio Shack computer. And I’ve never been the same. I enjoyed it. He enjoyed it. And I use tech like crazy now, but I realized that not all the glitters is gold.

[00:54:57] And that is especially true when it comes to technology. And so I think it’s super helpful to have somebody who’s kind of a critic of that. He appreciates it and uses it, but he also sees the implications of it. And I, I found that worth discussing and worth pondering further.

[00:55:13] Megan: Yeah, I feel like I’d kind of go through phases where I’m more and less conscious about my engagement with technology.

[00:55:21] I find that the more time I’m spending outside, which, you know, I talked with Nicholas about a little bit in one of my questions. The more I don’t like need technology and I think the need. It’s a sort of scary word to use, but I think it’s right. There’s a compulsive nature to it that I think kind of can only be broken with multisensory experiences.

[00:55:43] I can’t remember the exact language that he used, um, but he talked about that, you know, that what, what we’re made for and what we crave are these deep, rich, multisensory experiences, and they’re kind of the only thing that compete, can compete with the digital technologies, particularly social media, which is so addictive and so designed to be compulsive by nature.

[00:56:07] But this was a good reminder that it’s time for another check.

[00:56:12] Michael: Yes. Another reset.

[00:56:14] Megan: Another reset.

[00:56:15] Michael: Well, I, I sometimes feel like we’re fighting our own biology because digital technologies give us not just a dopamine hit, which we can get from other things like actually writing or actually working out, you know, those lead to their own dopamine hit.

[00:56:31] It’s delayed.

[00:56:33] Megan: It’s like slow dopamine.

[00:56:34] Michael: Yeah. Not fast, slow dopamine. And so, you know, I think all things being equal, we’re gonna give ourselves to the things that are fast and easy. And I really think that that two value system that’s governing a lot of our lives is also worthy of examination. Because not all things that are fast are good, and not all things that are easy are good.

[00:56:55] And yet we keep advocating. Some people have written books on this about, you know, making it easy, making it faster. And I saw an ad in my Facebook feed today where somebody was talking about how you could build a website in 12 seconds and somebody said, I don’t think that’s a metric that really matters.

[00:57:14] Right. You know, because if we’re gonna build a website, we want a beautiful website. If we’re gonna write a book, we want a thoughtful book. And fast is not equal value.

[00:57:21] Megan: You know, it’s so interesting. I didn’t bring this up while we were talking ’cause it’s kind of just occurring to me now. But at some level.

[00:57:29] This is an issue of grappling with our own mortality.

[00:57:33] Michael: Yes.

[00:57:35] Megan: The reality, the inescapable reality that we have less time on earth than we would like or feel entitled to. You know what I mean? Like I don’t care how old you are, if you’re 25 or 85 or 45, you probably feel like you don’t have enough time. And so we’re constantly trying to find ways to do more with the time we have and not have to face the reality that it’s just not gonna be as much as we want, no matter what.

[00:58:03] And I think the refusal to admit that keeps us from being able to enjoy and be good stewards of the time that we have. And by accepting our limitations rather than pretending they don’t exist, you know, or pretending that we can cheat biology or those kinds of things. You know, for example, it would be so much more valuable to have far fewer social interactions that meaningful and in person.

[00:58:29] Than endless ones online. You know, we say we don’t have time to get together with people, but how many hours a day are we spending scrolling on our phones? Like we do have time. We’re just not using the time for the things that really matter. ’cause it’s so addictive and we don’t even realize that we’re doing it.

[00:58:47] But I think that’s an important part of this conversation, is the only way you can go slower, which I think is where so much of the juice of life, like anything that’s actually good is probably slow. Mm-hmm. Like what is good that’s fast, really not food, not relationships, not experiences, like none of those things.

[00:59:07] You’re never like, you know, what I need is a really fast date with my spouse, you know, or really fast experience of worship or a really fast meal. It’s like those are compromises usually in quality for speed. But the only thing that allows us to go slow is just say, you know, I’m gonna say no to a lot of other things so I can say yes to this thing fully.

[00:59:28] Michael: You know what kind of creates a witch’s brew is this denial of mortality and our own ambition. And let me explain, right? I think because we’re exposed to more, more things, we have more ambition now, we see, oh, what’s, what is it like to visit Japan or Scotland? And now suddenly that goes on our bucket list.

[00:59:50] And then we realized that coupled with our own mortality, it’s like, man, if we’re gonna experience all this stuff, we better hurry up. You know, we gotta do more faster. And in the doing of that, we rob ourselves of the joy of the things that we are doing. And I think for me, and man, this is so much easier said than done.

[01:00:08] You know, I’m trying to come to grips with the fact that I’m not gonna be able to accomplish everything I dream of in my life. And I’d rather do a few things well than try to do everything poorly and not really be present. And I think all of this wars. Presence with us being present to the people that we love, that we say we love, and to the experiences that we say we value.

[01:00:30] You know, if you go to on a tourist trip to some beautiful place and you’re just flying from one location to the next, are you really enjoying it? Are you really experiencing it? You know, just because you’ve got it on your photo reel doesn’t really mean much when you can’t even remember how you experienced it when you were there.

[01:00:51] Megan: Absolutely. Well, that’s kind of what I thought of when I read the Substack newsletter or, or article that I mentioned during the show. You know, live a Quiet Life and work with Your Hands. You can look it up if you will put it in the show notes as well. 12 Lessons of the Good Life From James Harriet’s Derby, um, by Julie Kiker.

[01:01:09] And that’s really what she’s talking about is like when you kind of make your life smaller in certain ways, you actually make it richer. It’s counterintuitive, but I think there’s really something to that. And I just encourage you, if you, if you haven’t watched All Creatures, great and small, do it. ’cause I think it’s a good, it’s not a total analog.

[01:01:28] ’cause obviously it’s, you know, almost a hundred years ago, uh, not quite, but, you know, 1930s, 1940s. But it’s a good picture of what it could look like to have a rich life that’s very local. That’s not all the things you just mentioned, you know, and it can be deeply satisfying. And I find the older I get, the more that’s what I want and the less of trying to do all the things in the bucket list.

[01:01:53] Michael: I’m so drawn to that kind of thing. And I think that’s why people are watching that, that series is because it does connect with something deep in our experience that we want more of. It’s more satisfying than all the short-lived digital hits that we get.

[01:02:11] Megan: I hope you guys enjoyed the show as much as we did and had some similar ahas.

[01:02:17] Um, we’d love for you if you did rate the show for us. Uh, let us know what you think. That helps us get more visibility for the show so that people who are interested in human flourishing and living a rich life and winning at work and succeeding at life, all those things can find these conversations. So we’d be grateful if you’d help us out by doing that, and we look forward to seeing you next week.

[01:02:38] Thanks so much for joining us.