A must read for those itching to learn why they have a love hate relationship with technology. All ideas are presented alongside their empirical findings, including where the scientific community has a consensus, and where it does not.

Many of these ideas are present in other self help books, like: sleep more, eat well, work less, and make time for slowness (yoga, meditation, nature walks without audio) and play. But the studies and storytelling in this book make it worthwhile nonetheless for those who are already familiar with this list.

“Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone”.

On relating to others:

“It’s worth thinking deeply about how other people live and how their minds work. They have complex inner lives, just like you.”

I found this idea particularly interesting. How there is research that the more fiction novels you read, the better you are (on average) at reading other people’s emotions (but not for nonfiction). This improvement in our ability to empathize was also found in children who consumed more long-format TV series, or movies. But not shorter shows.

This helps explain why our societies are becoming ever more divided. Our media is continuing to become compressed, from TV series, to YouTube, down to Tik Tok. It’s no wonder people have less empathy for each other than ever before.

Technology has overrun us:

It used to be that technology was created to be an extension of us. That is what a paintbrush is, or a musical instrument. In a way, so too are light bulbs (light to be together, or engage with ___), automobiles (moving us faster from A to B), or the internet (connecting us to those far away).

But our internet giants have discovered their recommendation systems can keep us scrolling forever. Keeping us engaged with content that we don’t realize is influencing us. Making us less empathetic (see section above). Causing us to move faster. Multitask more. All in the name of engagement.

Keeping people in the digital realms is good for business. But it’s making us less human. I’d argue, more so than any previous innovation.

Basic takeaways:

• Slow down, do one thing at a time, sleep more.
• Remove noise from your environment. (don’t live within 50 meters of a major road!)
• Mind wander more. Especially in a forest.
• Find your flow states.
• Introduce 4 day work weeks.
• Let kids run around, explore, and think for themselves.

Some Bookmarked ideas

• Yoga, meditation, walking in the forest, etc. are incredible practices to train your attention and focus. “Slowness nurtures attention, and speed shatters it”.
  • “I realized that my desire to absorb a tsunami of information without losing my ability to focus was like my desire to eat at McDonald’s every day and stay trim - an impossible dream.”
• “There’s broad scientific evidence that if you are sitting in a noisy room, your ability to pay attention deteriorates, and your work gets worse”
• “We often seek relief from distraction by crashing (say in front of a TV). But if you only break away from distraction into rest - if you don’t replace it with a positive goal, you are striving toward - you will always be pulled back to distraction sooner or later. The more powerful path out of distraction is to find your flow.
• “When people are kept awake, one of the first things to go is their ability to focus.”
• “Mind wandering is a different form of attention - and a necessary one.”
  • “In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.”
• “In Canada, a study found that people who lived within 50 meters of a major road were 15 percent more likely to develop dementia than people who did not.”

4/5.