Solid read: https://markmanson.net/attention-diet Over the last year I had read a few things similar to the points here and went on an “low information” diet (Tim Ferriss quote?).
I don’t miss the global news. It only got me angry.
The point of learning something is to take action and create positive change in the world. If I learn about things I don’t plan to take action on,
if that sounds uneducated, another reason to learn something is to gain empathy and change my perspective. However, the global news is generally biased by the wars for subscriptions between a handful of editors.
Niche news is far more educative. I’ve subscribed to blogs, to specific influencers in my field, etc. I’ve learned things from these people that I can apply that day in my job. I’m subscribing to things that feed my career.
long form content is far better way to understand current events. If you want to understand the state of the world, read a book on it. Most major geopolitical events are insanely complicated and cannot be surmised in 126 characters. Read a few books on the things you care about.
there’s so much thought put into even a low quality book. Think about it: most books get reviewed by editors in the very least. They probably get read once or twice at least by the original authors. So what would be a better time for your energy - a low quality book or a set of posts on LinkedIn likely generated by ChatGPT or Jasper.ai? If a low quality book > than a tweet, surely 30 min a day of a high quality book (easy to find) is worth more than most low quality content.
I broke my iPhone in 2020 and waited 45 days for a replacement. But it wasn’t fully broken - the screen was hopelessly shattered on the bottom half where typing is required. So I kept it in my drawer and only used it when I needed to. The risk of using it? Getting a shard of glass stuck in my finger. I wish I still had that to some degree because it forced me to be focused. I realized very few people texted me anything urgent that couldn’t wait a few days. I could still call people with Siri, but nobody called. We’re optimized to be addicted. That’s literally the goal of these phones and the apps on them. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just not in our best interest.
I tried using a junk $40 replacement phone I found in my closet while waiting those 45 days to get my iPhone replacement. The phone was from 2015 when I got married - it was a teaser phone from the cell company. It probably downloaded at 2 mbp/s. Any time I clicked a link I had to wait 15-20 seconds for the page to load.
I was amazed. I was shocked this piece of junk actually could take notes. Could email. Could browse the internet. But I also learned not to click on things unless it was worth 30 seconds of my time.
How do I spend my time now? Not wisely enough. A lot of things should be done on a computer. Most things should be planned. Few things are urgent. Fewer are essential.
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Bryan lives somewhere at the intersection of faith, fatherhood, and futurism and writes about tech, books, Christianity, gratitude, and whatever’s on his mind. If you liked reading, perhaps you’ll also like subscribing: