Ep. 273: A Deep Response to Distraction

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Technology, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2023

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A viral video making the rounds recently argues that the key to promoting learning is to deliver education in apps that are equally addictive as social media. Cal takes a closer look at the brain science behind this claim and argues why it is fundamentally impossible to beat attention engineered apps at their own game. We shouldn’t, however, give up hope, as our brain has a completely unrelated motivation system, built on a behavior called episodic future thinking (EFT), that we can leverage to make deep activities like learning seem more rewarding than the short term distractions beckoning from our phones. Mastering the EFT system is indeed critical to cultivating a deep life.

Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo

Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia

Deep Dive: Can we make learning as addictive as social media? [2:33]

- Can I be happy in a job that doesn’t require me to learn? [33:44]

- How can I fight deep procrastination to learn better? [40:52]

- How can I identify the school for my kid to learn better? [47:11]

- How can I reflect on work concepts without feeling the urge to work? [51:48]

- How does Ultralearning apply to Slow Productivity? [55:36]

- CALL: Recommendations on learning [58:02]

CASE STUDY: Designing a system to learn [1:00:50]

The 5 books Cal read in October 2023 [1:10:14]

Links:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6FORpg0KVo

youtu.be/wmdG-uZk6JY?si=2_S6Mer1VnBJE3Wv&t=120

sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/

calnewport.com/the-father-of-deliberate-practice-disowns-flow/

ideas.ted.com/mental-time-travel-is-a-great-decision-making-tool-this-is-how-to-use-it/

Thanks to our Sponsors:

zocdoc.com/deep

hensonshaving.com/cal

blinkist.com/deep

expressvpn.com/deep

Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Cal Newport and this is deep questions the show about living and working deeply in a
0:18.0	distracted world
0:22.0	so I'm here in my deep work HQ joined as always by my producer Jesse. Jesse
0:30.8	I don't always open the curtain so to speak about the background of the show but I think
0:36.3	it's important for the listeners to know just how long you and I have been in this studio today.
0:42.0	Not recording, but essentially pressing buttons and turning dials and clicking things on computers,
0:49.0	trying to get all of our equipment to work properly.
0:52.0	Yeah. I'd say one hour. Is that fair? And then we had
0:55.8	some last week too so I put it a two for the last two hours. There's a light one of the
1:01.4	lights above Jesse right now is green which we don't know how to stop.
1:05.0	I'll tell you what a lot of this was about and I think you'll you as the audience will soon say this was well worth it.
1:10.0	This two hours of work was focused on the addition of the following new
1:15.0	thing on our show Jesse if you would please.
1:18.0	That sound effect programmed into the sound board on our mixer two hours of work.
1:27.4	I say conservatively two hours of work that try to get a introduced sound effects onto our mixers. It's harder than you would think, but we do it for you. We do it for you, dear listener. We do have a good show. Deep dive coming up, followed by some questions. I think we have a live call and a case study in the questions.
1:47.4	So stick around for that. And then in the last segment, I'll do the books I read in October so you know all longtime listeners have to stick
1:53.7	around for the books read segment there's quite a bit of visuals in the deep
1:59.8	dive today some video some articles so if you want to watch what you're hearing, go to the
2:06.0	DeepLife.com slash listen. This is episode 273, the full-length video as well as any clips from each episode or right there on the
2:15.8	episode page so just go to the page for episode 273 and the the videos will show
2:19.6	up down there at the bottom if you want to watch what you're hearing.
2:25.4	All right, so Jesse, get that sound effect button ready because we are about to go do the deep dive.
	...

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