https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TAmY56aFV2J6Byn0qg94H?si=N84_etF6QZSXnThLl0itWQ

Smartphones and social media

• Smartphones become very uninteresting and actually useful when there are no social media apps as nothing is pulling on your attention.
• Not very good at text messaging. Looks only a few times after long intervals.
• When working, smartphone is nowhere near him.
• We estimate the degree to which our problem with digital distraction is not the internet or our phones. It is social media. He doesn’t have a cycle of sites that he goes through. The only places he can go to are his email or NYT. These places are not that interesting.
• What about emergencies? Emergencies rarely happen. We didn’t have phones with us for a very long time. It is okay to have periods of time where you’re out of reach: e.g. when in office, or when you’re with someone. You’ll be back in touch in some time. And that gap is okay.
• What Andrew likes about social media?
  • The questions that he gets in the comments. They carry the significance of asking questions in a real classroom. Comments also often carry interesting ideas.
• Phone is almost like an extension of our brain. It becomes a piece of neural machinery.
• There is also the other side to this where there is a feeling of moderate behavioural addiction. This side is more true that most of us like to admit. These addictions build feedback response loops and get the dopamine system going as there is anticipation on what’s on it. It has been engineered to give us very highly engaging stimuli.
• Younger generations are being raised in an environment with phones. They have never seen life without social media. But he believes that the cultural norms are going to change. E.g. giving unlimited, unrestricted internet access might make more sense to give post-puberty, once the brain has developed more and they have more social entrenchment, where they’ve develop some sense of their identity, etc.
• People typically go to the other side (no social media) and find that it is actually fine.
• Keeping phone away and not checking social media improves his productivity tremendously. He doesn’t work long hours. He is good for 4-5 hours a day of actually producing good stuff.

Kids & internet usage/smartphones/video games

• 16 is probably going to be the right age to give children smartphones/unrestricted internet access.
• There is a bit of a gender divide: in young adolescents, social media is a signal for cognitive distress among girls vs video games are the bigger culprits for boys.
• In social media, the content is of concern. Whereas with video games, the time is of a bigger concern that content. More solvable: no games that are online or free (that means the business model would be optimised for increasing their time spent playing the game), stay away from addictive games.

Filling the void