97: Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle

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1. 00:00:00 Did I just stress you out with OBS Mike?
2. 00:00:02 There's a little bit of stress. I'm not sure if it's all OBS
3. 00:00:06 Long story short. Yeah, we failed with the live stream. Sorry everybody. That's all right. We'll get it figured out for next time
4. 00:00:13 I wish I knew how many times I've tried to do some form of live stream and it's falling apart
5. 00:00:19 So this is far from the first time I've had something like this happen. Just another one of those
6. 00:00:25 It's just another one of those is just the way this stuff works
7. 00:00:29 So if you joined us on twitch and helped us through some of our troubleshooting
8. 00:00:34 Thank you
9. 00:00:35 If not and you knew nothing about it, we're gonna try again next time because I won't let it go
10. 00:00:41 That's kind of how I tend to operate and I think Mike is maybe gonna be frustrated with me in the process
11. 00:00:47 But we'll try it again. We'll try it again. So
12. 00:00:49 Between here and there I guess this way we at least get to announce that we're trying this
13. 00:00:56 on the podcast and if you're interested in watching us live as we record this the goal is to
14. 00:01:02 Have video via twitch and we can have the chat and stuff happening there a hundred percent public
15. 00:01:09 we had a conversation with premium members and
16. 00:01:11 Without exception everybody said absolutely go for it make this thing public. So that's what we're trying to do and
17. 00:01:18 I think we simply tried to do too much at once here at the beginning
18. 00:01:24 So we'll make some adjustments Mike and I'll do some more testing
19. 00:01:28 We'll give it another go here in a couple weeks and
20. 00:01:31 We'll go from there. So as this releases that would be
21. 00:01:34 Who would that be it be a week from?
22. 00:01:37 When this releases I think in theory we got to check out the schedule and stuff first, but right that's the goal
23. 00:01:43 So now that's off our chest
24. 00:01:45 Take a deep breath Mike. You're right. I'm good
25. 00:01:49 All right, let's jump in to follow up. I have one
26. 00:01:54 I'll get it out of the way and then you can do your three
27. 00:01:57 that was to
28. 00:01:59 set up daily questions and
29. 00:02:02 Use those as
30. 00:02:06 journal prompts. I did do this and
31. 00:02:08 I can't say that the whole journal prompt side of it
32. 00:02:11 Turned out the way I expected because it doesn't actually work as journal prompts and just for reference
33. 00:02:19 Like here's the there are six questions that I look at at the end of the day
34. 00:02:24 Those are did I do my best to and then they all follow after that did I do my best to set clear goals today?
35. 00:02:32 Make progress toward my goals today find meaning today be happy today build positive relationships today and be fully engaged
36. 00:02:39 today, so those are six questions I run through at the end of the day lots of days here and
37. 00:02:49 Sometimes that sparks things that works out for a journal entry at the end of the day, but it
38. 00:02:54 Not always it's it's kind of just a sometimes thing, but I am doing it. So I would say that's a success thus daily questions
39. 00:03:03 There you go. I win. Can I say I win? All right. Good job, Joe. You can you have one follow up?
40. 00:03:10 I'm I'm batting a thousand right now
41. 00:03:14 Or today's follow up
42. 00:03:17 All right, so I also had a action item to create my own
43. 00:03:22 daily questions and
44. 00:03:24 I did that I'm gonna share something with you via messages that I was gonna share
45. 00:03:29 Before but then we had video issues sure I
46. 00:03:34 actually recorded a video about this I am doing this inside of Rome research thing and
47. 00:03:41 I'm using a text expander snippet and a keyboard maestro macro
48. 00:03:47 and what it does is it creates a
49. 00:03:50 section under my daily notes page in Rome and it has
50. 00:03:56 The questions and it's got a sliding scale which you can do real easily in Rome with a double curly brackets
51. 00:04:03 Slider I think is the the code
52. 00:04:07 So it's just the question and then that piece and it's all indented so it's in a block that I can grab and put inside of a separate
53. 00:04:14 Daily questions page which collects all this stuff together so I can review it
54. 00:04:18 But I like this it's a text expander snippet that I throw up there at the beginning of the day
55. 00:04:23 And then as I go through my day I
56. 00:04:25 Adjust these because I didn't like the idea of staring at a screen as the last thing that I did
57. 00:04:32 During my day
58. 00:04:33 So it forces me to be a little bit more active as I go about my day and I'm answering these things
59. 00:04:38 And not just wait till the end and say how did I do?
60. 00:04:42 Which I really like
61. 00:04:44 the other
62. 00:04:46 piece to this as
63. 00:04:48 I mentioned last time I'm kind of
64. 00:04:50 Questioning where day one fits I've been doing the kind of morning pages style
65. 00:04:56 Journaling inside of my fancy notebook and I've been doing that kind of as I go throughout the day
66. 00:05:01 That's been going really well, too
67. 00:05:03 So I feel like between that and these daily questions
68. 00:05:05 I've kind of found a journaling method that clicks for me sure sure
69. 00:05:10 And are you
70. 00:05:12 Like how does okay?
71. 00:05:14 What does the review process on that look like like do you go back and review it at all?
72. 00:05:19 I well, I never have yet
73. 00:05:22 Because I started this just a week or two ago
74. 00:05:25 But I do think that I will do this periodically as part of my personal retreat that I will go through and I will look at all
75. 00:05:33 Of the daily questions for the last couple months just real briefly maybe 15 minutes to go through all of them
76. 00:05:38 Be like why did I have so many
77. 00:05:41 Low ones in this particular area and then figure out what I can do to kind of fix that
78. 00:05:47 That's the thought process at the moment sure as with everything Mike does it's subject to change
79. 00:05:53 Okay, that's fair
80. 00:05:57 But yeah, so that's the daily questions and I shared the link to the video specifically the time is publishes
81. 00:06:04 I'll put a post up on my
82. 00:06:06 My website so there'll be a link in the show notes for people who want to see this your action it looks more impressive than it sounds
83. 00:06:13 Needs a visual yep
84. 00:06:17 The other other follow-up items I had were to
85. 00:06:21 Do the demon Simon exercise?
86. 00:06:24 I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this so I feel like I didn't give this the effort that it really should have had
87. 00:06:30 But I did think about it a little bit and I did actually have some meetings with the person
88. 00:06:36 that I
89. 00:06:38 Thought of for that particular exercise
90. 00:06:41 So the other item here pretend I'm gonna be tested at the end of every meeting this one has helped a lot
91. 00:06:48 And I don't have like specifically
92. 00:06:51 Quantifiable proof that like this changed my perspective other than how I feel the meetings went
93. 00:06:57 But this totally changed meetings for me. So this definitely had its intended effect. Nice
94. 00:07:05 Well, that's encouraging. I haven't used that at all
95. 00:07:08 Maybe that's because I haven't been in any meetings at all since we last recorded
96. 00:07:11 Not even virtual ones not even virtual woods none. I've been in zero meetings since we last I've had some virtual meetings that have really tested this
97. 00:07:20 Let me tell you
98. 00:07:23 There was one meeting the other day where the organizer and half of the people in the meeting joined the video meeting
99. 00:07:31 while they were driving in their cars, which was
100. 00:07:35 Really exciting. I bet I bet
101. 00:07:38 So that's follow-up. I guess actually one other thing I'll mention here
102. 00:07:43 I've shared this with you and I've shared it with a few other people
103. 00:07:47 I have started to make these videos about the sketch notes that I take from the sermons that I listened to and
104. 00:07:58 I shared one last week and
105. 00:08:03 Got a lot of positive feedback about it. I still am not committing to this every week yet
106. 00:08:08 I think it's still in the experimental phase, but I am recording these short walk-through videos of like
107. 00:08:15 The sermon notes that I take in sketch note form. So if you're interested in that sort of thing
108. 00:08:19 I'm gonna start posting some of those to my website
109. 00:08:22 So I'll put a link in the show notes for people who may be interested in that
110. 00:08:26 I still find it kind of hard to believe that people are interested in my sketch notes
111. 00:08:29 I never thought these would be interesting anybody but me yeah
112. 00:08:32 But people are telling me that they like them. So I'll throw it out there. Well, I think it's interesting
113. 00:08:37 It's interesting to see you talk through your sketch notes Mike shared this with me
114. 00:08:42 I think it's helpful. I think there are people that will enjoy watching those for sure cool
115. 00:08:46 So kudos to you Mike on that. Thanks
116. 00:08:49 so
117. 00:08:51 follow-ups done Mike which means we need to have a conversation yes, we do about tech difficulties or
118. 00:08:59 Maybe see now. Here's the thing like because we had technical difficulties for like 45 50 minutes straight
119. 00:09:07 because of
120. 00:09:10 That I think it's interesting that we're now going to step into a talk
121. 00:09:15 about a book
122. 00:09:18 About the problem with technology
123. 00:09:20 And how it causes problems
124. 00:09:22 It's only fitting that we had problems with it. How appropriate I know I know it's it's like perfectly
125. 00:09:29 suited for that, but
126. 00:09:31 today's book is reclaiming conversation by Sherry Turkle and
127. 00:09:35 I think we're gonna talk a lot about how
128. 00:09:38 texting is a terrible thing to do it's
129. 00:09:41 Probably the gist of the book. I think that's probably fair
130. 00:09:47 so
131. 00:09:50 Sherry's
132. 00:09:51 entire I shouldn't say entire premise, but a lot of the premise is
133. 00:09:56 Around the concept of how technology has changed the way that we talked to each other and how we have been going down
134. 00:10:03 It I wouldn't say it's in her words, but an incorrect method of talking to each other
135. 00:10:10 Which we have been doing via little computers machines
136. 00:10:15 texting
137. 00:10:17 Not face-to-face anything not face-to-face. I think is what she would be getting it
138. 00:10:21 I think she would probably be okay with phone like phone conversation. It seemed like she was okay with that to some degree
139. 00:10:28 But even that I think falls short of what her
140. 00:10:31 intent is
141. 00:10:34 overall for sure I
142. 00:10:35 Agree although I was thinking about this earlier and now that you bring it up it reminded me did she ever officially
143. 00:10:42 define
144. 00:10:45 conversation
145. 00:10:46 I don't think she did no
146. 00:10:49 Because I was the note I wrote down I was waiting for for the definition
147. 00:10:53 but
148. 00:10:55 it's kind of assumed
149. 00:10:57 which I
150. 00:10:59 I don't know how I feel about because a lot of times when you pick up a book like this
151. 00:11:03 380 pages and you couldn't give us a one paragraph the script at the very beginning
152. 00:11:07 correct and in a lot of cases like you pick something like this up and
153. 00:11:11 like it's one of the first things they want to do is define the terms and
154. 00:11:15 she did
155. 00:11:19 Oh shoot, what were the there were terms that she used oh it was intelligence
156. 00:11:23 That's what it was she was very particular about how we use the term artificial intelligence at the beginning and how
157. 00:11:31 Intelligence means more than just knowledge
158. 00:11:36 Like she was very particular about that and wanted to reclaim the definition behind intelligence
159. 00:11:41 but yet she never gave us a definition of
160. 00:11:43 conversation and
161. 00:11:46 How she wanted to you know, she never said she wanted to reclaim the definition of conversation as well
162. 00:11:50 So I don't know. I think that's interesting. It's it's fascinating to me that you picked that up as well
163. 00:11:56 Yeah, and I don't think it's completely
164. 00:11:58 Necessary like you said it's kind of implied that she's talking about
165. 00:12:02 face-to-face
166. 00:12:04 conversation in the same place where a big part of the conversation is
167. 00:12:08 recognizing people's facial expressions and stuff like that
168. 00:12:13 But it did feel weird that she wasn't talking about that specifically at the beginning
169. 00:12:18 She talked about all of the things that happen when we don't have it like we become less empathetic we become less connected less creative less fulfilled and
170. 00:12:27 She talked about
171. 00:12:30 How were page 10 we're so accustomed to being always connected that being alone seems like a problem technology should solve
172. 00:12:36 so she kind of just makes a distinction between connection and conversation but
173. 00:12:42 Never really defined what she considers to be a conversation
174. 00:12:45 So is this podcast that we're recording right now? Is this a conversation? I kind of think she would think no
175. 00:12:51 Because there's not the face-to-face aspect of it, but then you get a little bit closer like okay, so if the video actually worked
176. 00:12:59 Is that a conversation?
177. 00:13:02 Sure. Yeah, I don't know. I think I'm not sure I don't have a book in front of me right now
178. 00:13:07 But I don't know when this was written and I think that as technology evolves the lines become a little bit grayer
179. 00:13:14 So maybe zoom wasn't a thing, you know when she she wrote this she references things that happened in like 2014
180. 00:13:20 So I think it was written probably shortly after that
181. 00:13:22 but so video calling I'm sure has has been around but I
182. 00:13:27 Think it's it'd be kind of it's one of those books where
183. 00:13:31 You have to take it for when it was written as like this is a stamp in a
184. 00:13:37 period of time and
185. 00:13:38 Then you're left with the question of like well how has her thinking on this evolved as time goes on right?
186. 00:13:44 Yeah, for sure. It was written in 2015 at least it's when it was released okay, and you know that it's a good thing to keep in mind
187. 00:13:52 that it was released in 2015 because
188. 00:13:55 it she covers a lot of the territory around
189. 00:14:00 groups that are texting each other and she paints this picture over and over and over again
190. 00:14:07 of groups of people who are
191. 00:14:09 Talking quote-unquote talking that did the thing
192. 00:14:14 and
193. 00:14:16 Yet they're not actually having a face-to-face like they are texting each other while they're at dinner or
194. 00:14:22 They're texting friends who aren't there or they're looking for a better party when they're at a given party
195. 00:14:27 And so they don't actually enjoy the one they're at there's a lot of that
196. 00:14:32 Sentiment and it's not till much much later in the book to she even reference how there's kind of a resurgence against that
197. 00:14:39 Because I've noticed that in some of the youth today
198. 00:14:42 how
199. 00:14:44 they enjoy the phone free retreats and
200. 00:14:47 and such like there seems to be people who
201. 00:14:51 Recognize that that's not the way we should be
202. 00:14:54 doing things so I don't know I
203. 00:14:57 think we may have
204. 00:15:00 stepped beyond a lot of her premise on
205. 00:15:03 this but I'm not
206. 00:15:06 Certain that we're far enough away from it to say it's a non-issue either
207. 00:15:09 We're also in the middle of a pandemic
208. 00:15:12 So even if we wanted to have face-to-face conversation that doesn't look the same right for most of the places that we would have it
209. 00:15:20 Yep
210. 00:15:21 And so there's a little bit of a grain of salt approach that you have to take when reading it right now
211. 00:15:27 Because even if you wholeheartedly believe everything that she says and this is the ideal how you're gonna implement that right now
212. 00:15:34 Like there's a whole section here devoted to education
213. 00:15:38 Who knows what schools are going to look like in the fall?
214. 00:15:41 But it's probably not gonna be what we were familiar with
215. 00:15:45 It's probably gonna be a little bit different and that is going to be working against us having
216. 00:15:51 conversation in the way that she did not define
217. 00:15:54 Where it's face-to-face no technology, but so you have to figure out how can we adapt this?
218. 00:16:00 What's the second best version of that?
219. 00:16:02 You know and I kind of wish she would have gotten into that but she really didn't yeah, and at 380 pages
220. 00:16:08 That is true. That is true
221. 00:16:11 So let's dive in here. I in the outline. I just kind of laid out the parts. There are one two three four five six parts
222. 00:16:22 about two to three chapters per part and
223. 00:16:25 Let's just kind of work through these the first of those parts is the case for conversation in
224. 00:16:32 Which she does not define conversation, but she argues for its virtues and
225. 00:16:39 The first of those is under the title of the empathy
226. 00:16:43 Diaries and this is something I think she hangs her hat on for a large part of the book in
227. 00:16:50 And so it's fitting. I think that she starts with that in
228. 00:16:53 showing how empathic qualities in
229. 00:16:57 Youth and I she's probably referring to the later part of Millennials as well would be my guess
230. 00:17:05 She doesn't ever use like generational titles that I recall, but
231. 00:17:11 She does refer to how
232. 00:17:14 using phones and computers to
233. 00:17:19 Have quote-unquote conversations
234. 00:17:21 We're losing the ability to show empathy for each other and then we can see the
235. 00:17:27 ramifications of that throughout the rest of the book and
236. 00:17:31 She just tells some stories of how you know
237. 00:17:34 There's bullies and and students who have no idea what the other students are feeling and they're talking about a party that
238. 00:17:40 90% of the group was at but that one student wasn't and that student runs away crying because they weren't there and couldn't be there
239. 00:17:49 And the students around them had no idea that that was an issue to talk like that in front of her
240. 00:17:55 so, you know that whole concept of showing empathy is
241. 00:18:00 One that she spells out very early and then talks about quite a bit throughout the rest of the book
242. 00:18:06 Yes, although with empathy specifically I
243. 00:18:11 Couldn't help but think back to our discussion on emotional intelligence. Yep
244. 00:18:18 because
245. 00:18:19 emotional intelligence is a combination of in
246. 00:18:22 Trapersonal skills so self-management skills and interpersonal skills skills for
247. 00:18:28 living well with other people and it's not just
248. 00:18:33 communication, which is where conversation would come
249. 00:18:36 but that's a part of it and I think the
250. 00:18:42 lack of empathy is
251. 00:18:45 More so an indication of a lack of emotional intelligence than it is a lack of conversation are those linked?
252. 00:18:52 Probably but I don't think there's a one-to-one
253. 00:18:56 correlation here either like one of the things that
254. 00:19:01 Employers are really clamoring for right now are these soft skills that typically don't get taught in school
255. 00:19:08 So you cannot teach these skills that doesn't mean they can't be taught by the way
256. 00:19:13 But the fact that they typically do not get taught and then you notice when they're not there
257. 00:19:19 well duh
258. 00:19:21 Yeah, it's true. I
259. 00:19:24 Kind of figured that would come up at some point whenever we have this conversation mostly because like we had
260. 00:19:29 We've talked about like the book grit or you know when we went through emotional intelligence
261. 00:19:35 There's a lot more to it than just one particular
262. 00:19:38 Aspect
263. 00:19:41 I don't want to say but but she does seem to have the viewpoint that empathy
264. 00:19:48 Yeah, I might be putting words in her mouth. I feel like her intent was that empathy is a
265. 00:19:54 deriving point for a lot of other
266. 00:19:57 In this case emotional intelligence qualities. Do you think that's fair? I'm not certain that that's a hundred percent
267. 00:20:05 Where I think empathy is required for conversation
268. 00:20:11 But I think the argument that she's kind of making is that a lack of conversation has led to a lack of empathy
269. 00:20:17 I
270. 00:20:18 Don't think that part is as clear cut as she made it sound because there's a lot of other emotional intelligence factors
271. 00:20:26 I think it's more direct if you flip it the other way around I think that's fair
272. 00:20:30 Regardless she likes empathy a lot
273. 00:20:35 So do I I think that's important
274. 00:20:39 It is important
275. 00:20:41 She tends to make it the thing throughout the book though
276. 00:20:44 so
277. 00:20:45 Keep that in mind as we as we go through here, but that's the first piece
278. 00:20:50 of the first part so that's she's using that as the jumping off point here in that
279. 00:20:58 the use of in this case texting
280. 00:21:02 would lead students and
281. 00:21:05 groups to the point where they're not being considerate of other people and that leads to a lot of
282. 00:21:12 Problems that they go through down the line
283. 00:21:17 Yep, so
284. 00:21:19 Exactly and I guess just to clarify like what I'm saying is that she's kind of using it as evidence of
285. 00:21:26 See we've lost conversation and we've lost the sympathy and that's the part that I don't think there's a real clear connection to sure
286. 00:21:32 I think it's very easy to say
287. 00:21:34 there's been a decrease in empathy and as a result we're seeing a loss in conversation and
288. 00:21:40 Because of that
289. 00:21:43 Use that as the springboard into the rest of the book, but the way she did it felt a little bit disingenuous to me sure
290. 00:21:49 Sure, so then what would you be like if that's the case then what was in your mind? What's causing that?
291. 00:21:54 Drop an empathy because like in her mind
292. 00:21:58 The lack of conversation and being face-to-face and having
293. 00:22:04 You know voice-to-voice back and forth with somebody else
294. 00:22:07 Helps you build the empathy muscle in this case. Yeah, if you're saying it's the other way around
295. 00:22:13 What's what's the trigger? Well, I think it's the prioritization of
296. 00:22:19 the
297. 00:22:21 technical skills and the
298. 00:22:23 Decreased emphasis on the soft skills are the emotional intelligence skills in general
299. 00:22:28 That is the thing that has caused us to get to the point where we're seeing a decrease in this stuff
300. 00:22:33 It's because
301. 00:22:34 We're not focusing on it and we're not developing those skills specifically and you can say
302. 00:22:40 Well, it's the phones fault because we text instead, but it's not just the phone
303. 00:22:46 It's the television. It's a whole bunch of things that have contributed to a
304. 00:22:52 culture of convenience and
305. 00:22:55 Not wanting to do the things that are difficult and maybe important
306. 00:23:01 Like conversation so conversation is one aspect of this, but I feel like she kind of ties it directly to
307. 00:23:09 Because this one piece is gone now. We're seeing empathy a decrease in empathy and a whole bunch of other things
308. 00:23:16 But I think if tomorrow we were to decide that you know what soft skills are really the important skills and
309. 00:23:23 part of that is
310. 00:23:25 part of that is
311. 00:23:28 communication in general part of that is
312. 00:23:31 Being able to work with other people in teams who are not like you
313. 00:23:36 Like there are different avenues that she would probably argue conversation plays out and all of those things
314. 00:23:43 But I think they're bigger and they're broader than that and we have to take that bigger view in order to recognize
315. 00:23:49 The true importance of these things to just say conversation is missing
316. 00:23:54 Isn't
317. 00:23:57 impactful enough for a lot of people
318. 00:24:00 because you may not have these
319. 00:24:03 real deep conversations with people like she's talking about in the majority of this book but
320. 00:24:11 You may have the need to work more effectively with some people who really rub you the wrong way like
321. 00:24:17 Simon and Nadim from triggers
322. 00:24:19 You know and soft skills can help in that particular instance. You're not going into that thinking
323. 00:24:24 You know what Nadim and Simon I really want you guys to have a deep heart-to-heart conversation like no one's gonna be like
324. 00:24:30 Yeah, let's do that
325. 00:24:32 But that may happen organically if we had a broader approach to developing these skills and
326. 00:24:39 This is where like the personal development
327. 00:24:42 space and the productivity space is really interesting to me because a
328. 00:24:47 lot of this stuff comes down to
329. 00:24:49 Well, I can play the the victim card and say all of these things have happened to me
330. 00:24:53 And it's not fair or I can take control of my future
331. 00:24:56 And I can try to make myself better and develop the skills that are gonna help me create a better future for myself and my family
332. 00:25:02 and the thing that really makes the difference in a lot of a lot of those areas is
333. 00:25:08 not learning how to code or
334. 00:25:11 Learning more facts, but it is learning these soft skills these emotional intelligence skills
335. 00:25:17 It's hard to measure the impact that they have but you can look back after a period of time
336. 00:25:23 And you can say oh, yeah, those are definitely the things that helped me get where I am today
337. 00:25:26 So you're saying it's not the phones causing
338. 00:25:29 The emotional intelligence drop the phone makes it easier to avoid
339. 00:25:34 talking about
340. 00:25:37 emotional intelligence and soft skills I feel like you just said that the phone is at fault
341. 00:25:42 No, it's it makes it easier. So it's enabling but it is not the causation
342. 00:25:47 Okay, I guess I'm not seeing the difference. So what I think I'm hearing is that the culture around
343. 00:25:55 convenience is
344. 00:25:59 Leading us to a point where we're not as considerate of
345. 00:26:02 other people we're leading it's leading to the decline of
346. 00:26:06 emotional intelligence is that fair well
347. 00:26:11 Yeah, probably she she makes a point later on I
348. 00:26:16 Don't remember exactly where it was
349. 00:26:19 But you go to I'm getting it like I'm just trying to figure out where you're saying the center
350. 00:26:23 Like what the focal point is at the beginning of all of that
351. 00:26:27 Because it sounds like it's the computers and screens and stuff that lead to that because of the convenience that they create
352. 00:26:35 It which I don't be computers and screens that is a broader category than a smartphone
353. 00:26:41 Sure, but the smartphone specifically she mentions later on
354. 00:26:46 that this
355. 00:26:49 gives us a lot of power and we have to learn how to use it
356. 00:26:53 responsibly and
357. 00:26:56 We have to put
358. 00:26:58 Intentional constraints in place to control our behavior if we can't control it ourselves
359. 00:27:04 I think back to make time by Jake Nap and John Zorotsky and
360. 00:27:09 They have a phrase in there about how the smartphone is this phenomenal technology that allows us to connect with people across the world and
361. 00:27:18 Do all these things that are good, but at the same time
362. 00:27:23 It really ends up allowing us to do a whole bunch of things that we consider bad and that's what we default to is that the phones fault?
363. 00:27:31 No, I would argue you could make the argument
364. 00:27:34 I guess that it's the app developers fault because they're praying on our our sure habitual behaviors
365. 00:27:40 But even that I think that really it's it's your fault if you don't
366. 00:27:44 Control yourself enough to to turn the thing off at dinner time like she's talking about
367. 00:27:49 And I've been there. I mean we've got action items associated with this
368. 00:27:54 So I'm kind of jumping all over the place here
369. 00:27:57 But since you since you asked I guess I guess what I'm playing me. It's fine
370. 00:28:02 We'll jump around
371. 00:28:03 I guess what I'm saying is that the smartphone is the easy thing to pick on because everybody has it and that's what everybody sees
372. 00:28:09 But if it wasn't the smartphone, it would be something else maybe in the future. It's the Google Glass or the
373. 00:28:16 Watch or whatever
374. 00:28:18 You know, it's the technology is going to change and it's going to make it easier to not be intentional
375. 00:28:25 And it's going to make it easier for companies to prey on your attention because it's valuable to them and your data
376. 00:28:31 She talks about that in here too, which I thought was interesting
377. 00:28:33 But at some point you got to say that no one's making me do this and I am going to
378. 00:28:39 Use it this way and I'm going to not allow people to do these things
379. 00:28:44 You know as we're recording this it's interesting like the privacy thing
380. 00:28:47 People for several years have kind of just had this attitude
381. 00:28:52 I think of like well, yeah, Google's part tracking all my stuff
382. 00:28:55 But I don't really care because I get a lot of benefit from it
383. 00:28:58 right and
384. 00:28:59 Hey, just got released and they have that they shame people who track you and their emails are like hey
385. 00:29:05 This this person's doing this naughty naughty, you know, the big the big banner and
386. 00:29:10 People are like oh my gosh. This is amazing
387. 00:29:13 I had no idea people were doing all this sort of thing like what happened in the last couple years that people now are so concerned about
388. 00:29:18 Their privacy. They're literally doing the same things. They've been doing for years, but now it's like well
389. 00:29:24 They shouldn't be doing this and there's got to be an alternate way to do that sort of thing
390. 00:29:28 Could we have had that earlier if people had prioritized that?
391. 00:29:31 I kind of think so and so for me personally, it's just not going to use my smartphone the way that I see everybody else doing it
392. 00:29:39 but I'm gonna be intentional and use it to
393. 00:29:41 Use the good from it and shut out the bad as much as I I can okay two things
394. 00:29:47 She refers to the Fitbit and Glass as
395. 00:29:50 Part of the book yep, and how that's an extension of what she's talking about like she does go into that and how those are yet more
396. 00:29:58 Things not just the phone so she does reference things more than
397. 00:30:03 the phone as well
398. 00:30:06 Okay, so that's and artificial intelligence and robots. Yep. She goes into a lot of that stuff
399. 00:30:11 so I can't say that like
400. 00:30:13 we're kind of pigeonholing her into
401. 00:30:17 The phone is causing this lack of conversation which causes a lack of empathy when she's not just
402. 00:30:23 Focused on the phone. That's just her main piece that she talks about for most of it
403. 00:30:29 But that's not the only thing she talks about so I don't think it's fair to say
404. 00:30:32 She's saying there's a direct correlation between phone use and a lack of empathy. I don't think that's a hundred percent fair
405. 00:30:39 Because she does reference a lot of other things that lead to similar
406. 00:30:45 issues
407. 00:30:47 What was the second point I got the first one written down and I didn't get the second one written down. Oh the data
408. 00:30:53 the privacy thing
409. 00:30:55 like today
410. 00:30:57 Like yes, they're still doing the same things as far as data collection
411. 00:31:02 I think they've started collecting away more than they were five years ago where we were whenever this book was written
412. 00:31:09 But what they're doing with it has changed significantly from then till now
413. 00:31:15 So I think you know with all of the marketing and the smart information. They're able to determine about you
414. 00:31:21 Like I think that's partially why people are now
415. 00:31:24 Having a lash back at all the data tracking just because of what folks are doing with it. I mean you think about Mike
416. 00:31:32 The tools that you use as a marketer like an online marketer
417. 00:31:36 Like sending email newsletters like it's nuts how much information those tools will give you about the people who have subscribed to your newsletter
418. 00:31:44 Like it's just bonkers and you do nothing other than set up an account and you're not even the person on the other end
419. 00:31:51 Who's setting up the data collection?
420. 00:31:53 Sure, you know, it's nuts. So anyway, that's yeah, that's that's fair
421. 00:31:58 Specifically to refer to the phone point you are correct that she does get into some other stuff later this specific section
422. 00:32:06 though
423. 00:32:07 She talks about how the first chapter she introduces fubbing which is maintaining eye contact while texting and she talks about even a
424. 00:32:16 Silent phone inhibits conversations that matter and then in the next chapter
425. 00:32:20 She talks about the smartphone genie and it grants these wishes wish number one will always be heard wish number two
426. 00:32:27 We can put our attention wherever we want wish number three. We will never be alone and then the bonus one
427. 00:32:32 We will never be bored
428. 00:32:33 so she's not saying at this point that it's only the phone but she's kind of implying that it is the phone that has gotten us here and
429. 00:32:42 I guess what I'm saying is that kind of dates this book a little bit kind of shows that it was written in 2015
430. 00:32:47 Because there's gonna be other things that are gonna replace the phone that are gonna take these exact same things to the next level
431. 00:32:55 It's gonna be an even bigger problem than it is right now
432. 00:32:57 But it's not going to be the smartphone genie. It's gonna be something else and that's totally not her fault
433. 00:33:02 She can't look into the future and predict what's what's gonna be next, but well you're looking into the future, too
434. 00:33:08 Though I'm looking into the future by looking at the past
435. 00:33:10 Sure, and like what way like what is nothing's gonna stay the same what has replaced the phone?
436. 00:33:16 Like that's that would be my question then like she's saying the phone is the central point and the biggest potential
437. 00:33:22 offender here I
438. 00:33:24 Would argue that's the same today like it's still the biggest offender correct this so I don't think that has changed
439. 00:33:32 I agree. It's the the biggest offender right now
440. 00:33:35 But she mentions the Google Glass thing for example. I kind of think that was a product that was ahead of its time and
441. 00:33:42 maybe a little bit
442. 00:33:45 Not exactly the it wasn't presented in a way that people were able to normalize it
443. 00:33:50 Like I just had this kind of creep factor into it, right? But there'll be a version of that that's more
444. 00:33:58 More approachable seems a lot less threatening and people are gonna are gonna flock to it whether it's that
445. 00:34:04 Specifically or something else, you know, there's gonna be something that will replace the
446. 00:34:10 the smartphone and I say that just because
447. 00:34:14 I've got kids who are getting older and I recognize that even the stuff that I write about this stuff for a living
448. 00:34:22 And there are things that their approach to technology is different than mine
449. 00:34:26 so she talks about like the voice assistants in the later later parts of this book and series specifically and
450. 00:34:32 I don't ever use any sort of voice assistant my kids do all the time
451. 00:34:38 I would prefer to listen to podcasts my kids watch YouTube videos
452. 00:34:43 So even though I am in this world
453. 00:34:46 I am missing pieces of it and I'm seeing like their affinity for these other things and I
454. 00:34:55 It's just gonna constantly be evolving. It's gonna constantly get worse not to sound all old man yells at cloud, but
455. 00:35:01 So the smartphone I feel like this is I
456. 00:35:07 Don't know what would have came before that that would have been level one
457. 00:35:11 That's kind of like level two level three is gonna be something else and that's really what we should be looking for
458. 00:35:16 Sure opinion. Yeah, I guess my point is that
459. 00:35:21 She's saying the phone is the center offender like it's the center like the biggest problem
460. 00:35:26 because of how much convenience it gives us and
461. 00:35:30 I guess all I'm saying is yes, you're saying it will evolve into something other than that
462. 00:35:36 I don't think she would argue with that. I'm just saying that in today's world. It's the same
463. 00:35:40 So I don't think she's wrong and saying the phone is the center point simply because it still is today
464. 00:35:46 Correct. I think it also depends on what you consider to be your world
465. 00:35:51 Like there's a whole section in here on education again jumping all over the place
466. 00:35:55 But I remember when I was in college I had a laptop, but I didn't take it to class
467. 00:36:01 there was no Wi-Fi all over the campus and I took notes by hand and
468. 00:36:06 I've often thought back and big man
469. 00:36:09 I wish I had an iPad like that would have made things way easier in the middle of a class because she was the example of a
470. 00:36:16 Class sheet taught specifically
471. 00:36:18 where the students came up and they
472. 00:36:21 apologized for texting in the middle of of class and
473. 00:36:26 I think depending on the form factor and maybe at that specific point the phone's not the thing
474. 00:36:33 Maybe it's the iPad because you can hide behind the screen
475. 00:36:35 We've all seen people take out their laptops and meetings and then you're like I wonder what they're doing
476. 00:36:39 so if that's the place where you're recognizing the effects is that
477. 00:36:46 you're attending one of these classes and
478. 00:36:49 You feel bad because you're addicted to your technology, but maybe it's
479. 00:36:55 Happening through messages on your iPad instead of the the smartphone
480. 00:36:59 I know people who are able to put their smartphone
481. 00:37:02 Away and go somewhere for an extended period of time, but they can't turn notifications off on their watch like
482. 00:37:11 This is very personal the the doors that we leave open to
483. 00:37:17 people and
484. 00:37:20 companies to
485. 00:37:22 Arrest our attention at any given moment and I think it's worth thinking through what those are for you
486. 00:37:28 But it's not always the smartphone. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I was thinking about the Apple watch a lot
487. 00:37:34 During this book just curious to see
488. 00:37:39 If it because I couldn't remember when it came out
489. 00:37:42 Has it has it been more than five years ago now?
490. 00:37:44 I think so and that's a great example because I know people who are like, huh, see I'm not addicted to this stuff
491. 00:37:51 I have notifications turned off on my phone. Yeah, but they get them all the time and they're watching and they're constantly looking at their watch
492. 00:37:57 Right, right so the net gain here is absolutely zero
493. 00:38:01 You just transferred them from one screen to another. Yeah
494. 00:38:06 Well, here's so the other piece of this very first part the case for conversation is the flight from conversation and
495. 00:38:14 We've been all over this. So I don't think we'll spend a ton of time here, but she makes the point that
496. 00:38:19 People a lot of times will have
497. 00:38:23 the phone with them and
498. 00:38:26 It allows them an exit into another world or to see what's going on someplace else and as a result
499. 00:38:35 It forces the conversation to stay light because then you can dip in and out of it without having to truly focus on the conversation
500. 00:38:42 so as a result of a
501. 00:38:45 device whether it's your watch your phone whatever it is
502. 00:38:50 Because it can connect you to some other place
503. 00:38:53 You're more likely to step away from the conversation and the face-to-face you're in right now
504. 00:39:01 Which means you're not going to go into a deep conversation because if you're floating in and out of that conversation
505. 00:39:06 You you can't follow a deep conversation
506. 00:39:08 Yep as a result of that
507. 00:39:10 So it forces you to keep a light conversation which means having a deep conversation is very difficult for people and
508. 00:39:17 leads to other issues as we'll get into in the business section
509. 00:39:21 Exactly. She also says in this section that pro conversation is not anti technology
510. 00:39:26 And I think that's an important point we look at
511. 00:39:30 All of the negative aspects of smartphones and technology a lot of times
512. 00:39:35 But if we can just learn to curb our own behaviors those aren't necessarily bad things
513. 00:39:40 She mentions that the average American adult checks their phone every six and a half minutes
514. 00:39:45 You don't have to check your phone every six and a half minutes just because everybody else does
515. 00:39:50 And if you can get that under control then you can actually do a lot of good with it for sure now
516. 00:39:57 At the very beginning of the book at the top of the table of contents
517. 00:40:01 there's a quote and this quote is referred to in the introduction of the book and it is then used as
518. 00:40:08 the section titles for four out of the six
519. 00:40:13 pieces here and
520. 00:40:16 The quote is by Henry David Thoreau from Walden. I feel like that book comes up a lot
521. 00:40:23 I really need to read this one Mike. I know you won't because it's different
522. 00:40:27 Oh, I'm picking a different book for next time. I'm not sure if you look that a yet
523. 00:40:30 I haven't looked I need to refresh the thing. I'll refresh it here shortly
524. 00:40:35 The quote is I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship
525. 00:40:42 three for society and
526. 00:40:45 the next part in the book is referred to as one chair and
527. 00:40:50 The intent is she then goes through these three different pieces here
528. 00:40:55 one is for solitude and then she also has another chapter for self-reflection and
529. 00:41:01 the intent here is that you are
530. 00:41:04 turning inwards as
531. 00:41:07 opposed to constantly being connected and I think this is where she comes up with the phrase I share therefore I am and
532. 00:41:14 what she what she means by that is that
533. 00:41:18 You don't really get to know yourself and what you think and feel about things until you've shared pictures or comments online
534. 00:41:25 on Facebook on Twitter on wherever like you have to share what you think in order for you to figure out who you are
535. 00:41:31 It's kind of your way of figuring out your identity
536. 00:41:33 Whereas if you spend time in solitude, which is her first point here
537. 00:41:38 you have the time to do the self-reflection and such which those are technically separate, but they kind of morphed together in my head but
538. 00:41:45 When you do that you have a chance to think through what you think about something and process your way of thinking about it and
539. 00:41:53 Determine what it is your opinion is on things as opposed to having to share it with the world and hope they like it and
540. 00:41:59 You know tweak everything you're saying to what everybody else wants you to say
541. 00:42:03 Thus the echo chamber Mike
542. 00:42:06 That's the echo chamber. This part made me uncomfortable
543. 00:42:10 Did you like my note under solitude
544. 00:42:14 So we
545. 00:42:17 Could I go there? I want to go there? I'm gonna go so at the very beginning we were talking about the empathy diaries and
546. 00:42:24 One of the points. This is a very small point
547. 00:42:27 This is a very small piece of this chapter, but I glitched on to it because of bookworm and
548. 00:42:32 I hope listeners will appreciate that I latched on to this the point was that reading fiction books
549. 00:42:39 Helps the reader improve empathic capacity and she just briefly mentioned how reading fiction is a way to combat the lack of
550. 00:42:47 empathy
551. 00:42:49 created by
552. 00:42:50 Constant phone use. Why do you think that is I just needed to get that out there?
553. 00:42:55 It's because you're diving into the world and seeing the thoughts and the experiences of these characters and how they're interacting with each other
554. 00:43:03 You're seeing conversations that you don't see in real life
555. 00:43:06 Yep, yeah, that's I saw that and I was like huh I wonder why and then like yeah wait, that's really sad
556. 00:43:14 Yeah, but it does go even for folks who are not fully like they're not super deep on phone use
557. 00:43:21 like even my wife is big into this and she is far from addicted to her phone and
558. 00:43:28 this is something that she
559. 00:43:31 loves to do because she gets to see the worlds of other people and it's interesting to me how often she will reference a fictional characters
560. 00:43:39 reaction to a certain circumstance and
561. 00:43:42 How she's using that to inform the way she interacts with people in real life. It's interesting to me, but
562. 00:43:48 Fictions, you know, it's dessert Mike. It's not necessary
563. 00:43:53 Well, you could make the argument. I think which is kind of how we got where we are
564. 00:44:00 That a specific conversation is not necessary to sure
565. 00:44:05 but we've seen the
566. 00:44:09 the net result or
567. 00:44:11 Again, not a direct correlation here, but we see what that lack of focus on
568. 00:44:17 conversation and other soft skills emotional intelligence skills has
569. 00:44:22 Has brought us to right so I don't know. I'm still not probably gonna read fiction
570. 00:44:30 but I did I
571. 00:44:32 Did take some time to think about why?
572. 00:44:36 She said what she said about it improving the empathic capacity
573. 00:44:40 she didn't explicitly say it but I've kind of shared what I think or why I think that is and
574. 00:44:46 I think you could get the same benefit from
575. 00:44:50 Prioritizing conversation, which is a big thing I got from reading this book not to jump all the way to the end
576. 00:44:57 But that's the big takeaway here is create more time and space for conversation
577. 00:45:02 not
578. 00:45:04 fictional conversation where you're peering into the world of other people I get I get where that's like a version of this which is
579. 00:45:09 beneficial
580. 00:45:11 But I think more beneficial at least for me is the actual conversations themselves and that's uncomfortable enough
581. 00:45:18 I heard it
582. 00:45:21 one introvert who would much prefer
583. 00:45:24 Just to send the text message then to call people and have the conversation which having read this
584. 00:45:32 I've challenged myself to do that more this week of made a couple of uncomfortable phone calls
585. 00:45:37 Which they weren't even uncomfortable
586. 00:45:38 They were just hard for me to make the call and then once I did talking to people, you know, it was
587. 00:45:44 You can look back at it and you can say well, what was I so afraid of but
588. 00:45:48 Still the the resistance and the friction is is there for me
589. 00:45:52 sure
590. 00:45:54 One of the things I don't think she called out like yes, she talks about how people were using
591. 00:46:00 phones to get away or like to avoid an in-person alive a real-time conversation
592. 00:46:06 They were using phones to get away from that because it was messy and you couldn't edit yourself
593. 00:46:11 But yeah at the same time
594. 00:46:14 I have a tendency to text be
595. 00:46:17 In a lot of cases simply because it's way faster and I don't have time for the phone call
596. 00:46:22 Sure
597. 00:46:24 I will send off the quick message like you just need to know this one thing
598. 00:46:28 And then I'm gonna go away
599. 00:46:30 Otherwise if I make the phone call, it's gonna be 10 minutes
600. 00:46:33 Well as the person who edits the podcast
601. 00:46:37 I can tell you that I understand the ability to not respond in real time and kind of self-edit
602. 00:46:44 But when you are amplifying that message and sending it out to a lot more people
603. 00:46:49 There's only so much editing can do yes, you sound like an idiot
604. 00:46:53 You're still gonna sound like an idiot when I'm done with you
605. 00:46:57 Sorry
606. 00:46:59 And there have been times where I'm editing and I'm like, uh, I wish there was an easier way to make
607. 00:47:05 What this whole point that I just made sound more intelligent, but at that point it is what it is
608. 00:47:11 and so I feel like
609. 00:47:14 forcing myself to put myself out there
610. 00:47:17 Has been
611. 00:47:18 Beneficial and helping me overcome a little bit of that
612. 00:47:21 And that's the thing
613. 00:47:24 I mentioned like this part made me uncomfortable when you were talking about not having to have all of these thoughts in public
614. 00:47:29 Because I am having more and more thoughts in public. I mentioned at the beginning. Yeah, I'm sharing the
615. 00:47:36 The sermon the sketch notes from the sermon notes that I take
616. 00:47:39 That is really scary to me that feels very
617. 00:47:44 Personal I am very much
618. 00:47:47 intimidated
619. 00:47:50 By doing that which probably means that it's a good thing that I'm I'm doing it
620. 00:47:54 But I also think that if I am able to pull this off
621. 00:47:57 an internet where I don't have to be
622. 00:48:00 so worried about every single thing that I say
623. 00:48:04 Because I share the truth and I'm not constantly editing myself and people know what to expect from me
624. 00:48:11 I obviously have to live up to my reputation and I have to have the integrity and the character to sustain this
625. 00:48:20 but
626. 00:48:21 That seems very appealing to me
627. 00:48:23 so
628. 00:48:25 I am
629. 00:48:26 I'm quickly approaching the point where I do not have an unpublished thought it feels like
630. 00:48:31 but
631. 00:48:33 if as long as I am
632. 00:48:35 True to myself in the thoughts that I publish
633. 00:48:38 then
634. 00:48:40 That I think is a a good thing and hopefully
635. 00:48:43 encourages other people to do the same and maybe
636. 00:48:47 Loses a little bit of this negative stigma attached to digital communication. Yep
637. 00:48:54 I feel like I I cannot say that I'm
638. 00:48:57 in your ballpark of no one published thought like that's a thing that content creators tend to say
639. 00:49:04 and
640. 00:49:06 I don't argue with it. Sparky says that quite a bit. I think and it's kind of a cool
641. 00:49:11 Concept but every time I've heard it
642. 00:49:14 It's come from folks who do not have strong 80d
643. 00:49:18 in any way
644. 00:49:21 I have thousands and thousands and thousands of ideas and thoughts that I'm never going to get the publishing
645. 00:49:27 This is not going to happen
646. 00:49:30 Sure, and it's I just have too much. It's the way it happens
647. 00:49:33 I do try to get around that somehow with
648. 00:49:35 Like that's one of the things I've been doing with the twitch streams
649. 00:49:39 Like folks who have been following me know I've been streaming on twitch lately
650. 00:49:43 and
651. 00:49:44 It's kind of a cool thing
652. 00:49:46 To do that because you can explore so many different ideas over the span of a couple hours
653. 00:49:52 And have conversations with people just kind of hang out and and do some of that in a granted
654. 00:49:58 It's it's kind of odd in that
655. 00:50:00 Like I'm talking into a camera, but you're talking back through a chat box like it's a little different in that scheme
656. 00:50:06 But it is fascinating to me how much ground you can cover
657. 00:50:10 in that
658. 00:50:12 In that time so it's fun. I'm planning to continue doing that
659. 00:50:15 But it is interesting how like when you have a conversation
660. 00:50:20 Like when you're trying to publish things in public like yeah, you can't edit it
661. 00:50:26 Especially when you're streaming it because that thing is recorded as you're streaming it and
662. 00:50:30 It's there like yes, you could delete it
663. 00:50:34 But you're gonna delete the whole thing you can't edit out what you're doing like it is there
664. 00:50:39 So you have to be 100 real you have to be genuine
665. 00:50:44 You have to be completely honest with people
666. 00:50:47 When they're joining you for that otherwise like if you say something that's not 100 true like there's a record of it
667. 00:50:55 Yep, and people will bring that back
668. 00:50:58 But the smartphone isn't the thing that allows you to be in authentic
669. 00:51:02 I mean I remember several years ago. I was in the jewelry store
670. 00:51:06 Shopping for a gift from my wife and the person was showing me a necklace
671. 00:51:11 And they were telling me a story of how the guy who bought this bought seven of them for all of his girlfriends
672. 00:51:18 And then they found out about each other and they all dumped him and so he brought them all back
673. 00:51:23 Wow
674. 00:51:26 Like I can't even I can't even imagine trying to keep all that stuff straight like no, thank you
675. 00:51:32 Yeah, but people do it. Yep. That they do
676. 00:51:36 So I I'm going to
677. 00:51:38 Share things but I'm going to do my best to make sure that I am sharing true things
678. 00:51:44 and not try to
679. 00:51:46 Remember which versions of myself I have promoted in different places. That's just too much work. Right?
680. 00:51:53 Right
681. 00:51:55 Which this is a good place to jump into the two chairs part here and I think we're gonna lump this all together
682. 00:52:01 uh, but
683. 00:52:03 Two chairs is when you're interacting with other people so to go back to
684. 00:52:07 Thoreau's quotes. I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship. So this is when you're in
685. 00:52:13 Uh a relationship with one other person. So it's usually directly to one or a few other super close
686. 00:52:20 Friends a small friend group of sorts and the three parts inside of this part
687. 00:52:25 Family friendship and romance. So your close family your immediate family that you live with
688. 00:52:32 your friends your very close friendships that you have and then your romantic partner
689. 00:52:37 and
690. 00:52:39 Those three I feel like are some of the most
691. 00:52:42 I don't want to say heated but they're the the ones that you're going to have the closest ties to and be emotionally close to
692. 00:52:52 Which means that having face-to-face conversations are kind of important and
693. 00:52:59 borderline mandatory in a lot of cases and yet I was shocked Mike especially in the family section of the families that
694. 00:53:06 Would handle their fights
695. 00:53:09 in a chat box
696. 00:53:12 Yep, like that just dumbfounded me. I
697. 00:53:14 Know it under the fighting by text section is is this really a thing? Yeah
698. 00:53:19 Like this is apparently a thing. I have never heard of this. I don't know anyone who does this at least that we'll talk about it
699. 00:53:27 I I was dumbfounded by this. Have you run across any family that does this?
700. 00:53:31 No, and I can't
701. 00:53:34 Imagine doing that myself, but as I thought about this like why would they do this? I think
702. 00:53:40 that the reason
703. 00:53:44 would be
704. 00:53:46 That you want to prove
705. 00:53:48 Your point you want to prove that you are right
706. 00:53:51 So it occurred to me as I was reading this section
707. 00:53:56 That while fighting by text
708. 00:53:58 Allows more time and space to come up with an appropriate response
709. 00:54:01 It ends up being better for proving your point, but it ends up being much worse for saying you're sorry
710. 00:54:09 Which if you're really thinking about how are we going to resolve this conflict? That's ultimately what has to happen
711. 00:54:16 many of the
712. 00:54:19 The difficulties that I've had
713. 00:54:22 Not just in my marriage, but in different
714. 00:54:26 relationships have been solved when I have quit worrying about what the other person did to me
715. 00:54:32 And just apologized whether I thought it was my fault or not
716. 00:54:36 Just saying I'm sorry
717. 00:54:38 It's like flipping on a light switch and now everything is good and you completely miss that if you're doing it
718. 00:54:44 this way
719. 00:54:46 I was also thinking about the the side effect of of this being that like
720. 00:54:52 Conversations tend not to get as heated
721. 00:54:55 But in my mind, I immediately thought of well, that just means that things aren't really getting resolved
722. 00:54:59 We're planning some grass in our our backyard
723. 00:55:03 So we have grass seed that we've planted and we've gotten a lot of weeds that have sprung up
724. 00:55:09 And it occurred to me that yeah, maybe you don't have the heated discussions
725. 00:55:13 But it's kind of like using a lawnmower to run over those weeds and it may look okay for a little while but you haven't done anything
726. 00:55:20 It's still there. It's going to resurface
727. 00:55:22 I would much rather pull the thing up by the root and you don't have to worry about it anymore
728. 00:55:26 Yep
729. 00:55:28 But that's the easy way to do it at least if you're
730. 00:55:30 familiar with having those
731. 00:55:33 conversations in person
732. 00:55:35 but
733. 00:55:38 I have to admit that when I was reading through all three of these pieces family friendship romance like the
734. 00:55:44 Groups of teens that we're having conversations on text at the same time that they're in the room together
735. 00:55:51 Or looking for parties to go to or group like gatherings that they could go to and trying to figure out if that's a better one
736. 00:55:57 like i've seen that in person where
737. 00:55:59 teens are
738. 00:56:03 Trying to like they'll wait till the very last minute to commit to something because they're wanting to make sure that they pick the best
739. 00:56:09 Of anything like that's some of the convenience culture
740. 00:56:12 And the choice culture that we have like because we have so many choices
741. 00:56:16 We always want to pick the best of things like I see that a lot whenever we're buying things online
742. 00:56:21 Just kind of tangentially related like we'll do a lot of research to make sure we're getting the best option for something
743. 00:56:28 And that's not always worth all of the research it takes to go into it
744. 00:56:32 Like I could do a lot of research on finding a new wind screen for my microphone, but frankly most wind screens for microphones will do the job just fine
745. 00:56:40 So just find something that'll fit what I want and go for it
746. 00:56:44 Like that's the sort of thing you could do
747. 00:56:46 but
748. 00:56:47 When it comes to trying to find the best place to be and waiting till the last minute and then changing once you're at some place like it just seems so
749. 00:56:54 Flaky yep, and maybe that's us
750. 00:56:58 Having some experience outside of that, but that seems like it's normal for some groups
751. 00:57:04 and
752. 00:57:06 It's honestly it's sad. It's it's really sad, but
753. 00:57:08 That's what she's getting at here. This is this is what we need to stop doing
754. 00:57:14 Yeah
755. 00:57:15 People are always looking for better options, but when you do that
756. 00:57:20 You end up making it impossible for you to be content with what you actually have
757. 00:57:27 Whether that is a relationship with a significant other
758. 00:57:31 Another party you're looking to attend which she talks about in this this chapter or this section
759. 00:57:37 And I don't know as she's describing it
760. 00:57:42 Just does not appeal to me at all
761. 00:57:45 Uh another thing that really jumped out to me in this section
762. 00:57:49 Is all of the issues that people had with their phones at dinner time?
763. 00:57:54 And you may think well
764. 00:57:55 Yeah kids these days, but no it was the parents who had the issues with the phones at the table
765. 00:58:01 She shared a lot of stories about interviews that she did with
766. 00:58:04 Teenagers and college students who were like mom, please put the phone away dad
767. 00:58:11 I want to have a conversation with you
768. 00:58:13 Which really got me thinking because
769. 00:58:16 this year tobe is a teenager and
770. 00:58:20 I want to
771. 00:58:22 Create a culture in our home
772. 00:58:26 where
773. 00:58:28 He doesn't
774. 00:58:29 He doesn't have to worry about that kind of stuff
775. 00:58:33 I'm sure like there's still gonna be outside influences. I get that
776. 00:58:35 But it occurred to me as I read this that maybe a lot of this is brought in
777. 00:58:40 by
778. 00:58:42 Us as parents
779. 00:58:44 Maybe we're setting an example in our own homes of what not to do
780. 00:58:49 So one of my action items from this section specifically is no phones at at meals
781. 00:58:57 And uh, I've actually taken this a little bit further
782. 00:59:01 Uh, I won't get too crazy into the details here
783. 00:59:05 but
784. 00:59:06 We know that he told me to be a teenager at some point in the probably near future
785. 00:59:11 He's going to have a phone. We want to set an example. So no phones in the bedrooms
786. 00:59:16 Well, I use my phone for sleep tracking. So it's been easy for me to say like well
787. 00:59:21 I need my phone by my bed because I use sleep cycle and that's how I track my sleep
788. 00:59:25 but I bought this uh
789. 00:59:27 Charging station so everything stays out in the kitchen now plug the phone in there at night
790. 00:59:34 No phones in the bedrooms and he doesn't even have a phone yet, but we're setting the expectation
791. 00:59:38 Sure, and so I've had to rethink how I am tracking my sleep
792. 00:59:42 And I've started to do it with my my apple watch
793. 00:59:46 So you sleep with your apple watch then I do I put it on theater mode so the phone so the light doesn't come on and I still use sleep cycle
794. 00:59:53 Because it actually tracks like the the how deep you're sleeping and all the the rim cycles and stuff like that
795. 01:00:00 I like having that that data
796. 01:00:03 So i'm doing it that way and it means I have to charge it during the day at some point
797. 01:00:07 But it's interesting to me because for a long time I justified it and said no I got to have my phone in my
798. 01:00:13 Bedroom because i'm using it for this good purpose
799. 01:00:17 But I also realized that that meant first thing I did when I woke up as I reached for the phone
800. 01:00:22 Yep, so this has kind of forced me to break a bad habit and get a little bit creative in figuring out a different solution to this
801. 01:00:31 Now the apple watch specifically I can't the way I have it set up. I'm not checking text messages. I'm not checking
802. 01:00:38 Twitter mentions
803. 01:00:40 There's nothing that's coming in to my watch that I want to see it's really just a health device at at this point
804. 01:00:47 Where i'm using it to close my rings
805. 01:00:50 Exercise every day and also now for for sleep tracking
806. 01:00:54 And uh, i'm really happy with this experiment so far
807. 01:01:00 but that's uh
808. 01:01:02 And I had actually started before I started reading this this book but having read this section
809. 01:01:07 It kind of gave me increased motivation to make this work
810. 01:01:12 Do you feel like that still sends the right message though?
811. 01:01:15 Like if you're like say toby had an apple watch would it be okay if he slept with it?
812. 01:01:20 if
813. 01:01:22 He doesn't necessarily have it set up the same way you do
814. 01:01:25 Depends if you're asking me that question now or in five years
815. 01:01:30 Well, you were talking about setting up the habits now
816. 01:01:33 Yeah, that's true. Well as the apple watch currently exists. I think I would be okay with that because you're not doing like
817. 01:01:40 Video calls you're not surfing the web from an apple watch
818. 01:01:43 But if you're able to do those sorts of things then that kind of defeats the the purpose of the rule with the phone
819. 01:01:49 So again, is this what we're doing right now subject to change?
820. 01:01:52 Yep
821. 01:01:54 But I think the big thing is just eliminating the phones right now that is the thing
822. 01:01:58 That is the attachment device for both my wife and myself
823. 01:02:02 So
824. 01:02:03 We're keeping them out of the bedroom and it's felt really great
825. 01:02:07 Good work. Yeah, I want to do this as well, but I
826. 01:02:10 It would be very easy for me to just say I'm going to charge it downstairs. I don't use sleep cycle on it
827. 01:02:15 I use a pen and paper tracker
828. 01:02:17 Of course
829. 01:02:20 And we'll go dot com
830. 01:02:23 It's just kind of weird to me how that came out
831. 01:02:26 Um, yeah, I don't I don't use sleep cycle at all anymore. I used to
832. 01:02:32 But the whole tracking thing on it. I I sleep better without tracking and it seems like but
833. 01:02:37 Anyway, I am joining you with the whole no phones at the dinner table
834. 01:02:42 Concept as a result of this the whole parent stories
835. 01:02:46 piece of this
836. 01:02:49 was disheartening
837. 01:02:51 the number of
838. 01:02:52 Kids who wanted to have conversations with their parents but couldn't because mom and dad were on their phone
839. 01:02:58 So
840. 01:03:00 I have been since reading that part. I've been leaving my phone
841. 01:03:03 In the bedroom as weird as this is it goes to the bedroom whenever we go to dinner because then I can't even hear it ring
842. 01:03:08 so
843. 01:03:10 Yeah, nice. That's that's where it goes
844. 01:03:13 Um, one other piece that came from oh no this came from the next section
845. 01:03:17 So we can go into three chairs unless there's something else you want to say about two
846. 01:03:21 Uh, yeah, my other action item here and actually before I get there, I just want to
847. 01:03:25 Iterate I guess that the no phone it meals the no phones in the bedroom really this is tied to the same idea
848. 01:03:33 Of creating the time and space to have the conversations where appropriate so
849. 01:03:38 dinner time specifically this is the one where
850. 01:03:42 if I am intentional in seeking the conversation it happens but
851. 01:03:47 Usually
852. 01:03:50 What ends up happening is
853. 01:03:52 We try to get people to the table at the same time doesn't always work
854. 01:03:56 So it's kind of like hurting cats
855. 01:03:58 Sure, some people are reading some people aren't
856. 01:04:00 I tend to be
857. 01:04:02 One of the I tend to be one of those people that just kind of like wolfs down their food and then
858. 01:04:06 you know
859. 01:04:08 The temptation is to leave or to check my phone and I want to curb that behavior specifically
860. 01:04:14 And that's kind of related to the second one too. I don't really do this a lot
861. 01:04:18 My kids actually are instigators of this because they'll have a question about something
862. 01:04:22 And they'll they'll be like oh take out your phone and search for figure out the answer
863. 01:04:26 So the second one here is no internet searches and conversations
864. 01:04:29 Sure, I don't typically do this like I said especially
865. 01:04:33 With other adults but my kids totally can get me to do this
866. 01:04:37 Anytime so I want to I want to stop that and teach them that if you don't have an answer to something immediately
867. 01:04:45 That's okay. You can just talk about it. You can change your opinions later
868. 01:04:49 Right, right. We've been teaching our girls to say I don't know
869. 01:04:53 Like it's oh, it's okay to say you don't know
870. 01:04:56 Like it seems like in a lot of our culture. It's not okay to say you don't know the answer to something
871. 01:05:00 Sure, everybody wants to be perfect in the communication with another person so they will look things up and have a perfect
872. 01:05:08 streak of always having the answer for things but
873. 01:05:11 you know, that's
874. 01:05:14 It's not who we are like we forget things. We don't know everything. It's okay to say I don't know
875. 01:05:18 So we've been trying to teach our girls that which means I have to say I don't know more
876. 01:05:22 Which I don't like to do so anyway three chairs
877. 01:05:25 I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship three four society, which is where we start talking about education
878. 01:05:33 and work
879. 01:05:35 Which is very fun
880. 01:05:37 It's
881. 01:05:39 The education piece starts off talking about
882. 01:05:43 online classes, which
883. 01:05:45 Perfect timing for us considering the entire world is doing online classes right now. Yep, so
884. 01:05:53 It's like okay. All right online school
885. 01:05:56 It's not working
886. 01:05:59 So
887. 01:06:01 It's entertaining to see her opinion on that and how
888. 01:06:04 We've been deep in it now
889. 01:06:08 Granted, it's july so a lot of this is past like a lot of school has let out
890. 01:06:13 Uh, I say that and yet
891. 01:06:15 We are transitioning our homeschool into a year round homeschool. So
892. 01:06:20 That's another thing happening
893. 01:06:23 um
894. 01:06:25 But yeah education I think it's interesting to see how technology has been slowly working its way into
895. 01:06:30 Education and she does point out a number of places where that's a problem
896. 01:06:36 and students
897. 01:06:38 Are either drawn to or were pulsed by the concept of doing
898. 01:06:43 classes in person
899. 01:06:46 So, I don't know I thought it was an interesting section. I feel like you have a lot of thoughts on this might I could potentially have a lot of thoughts on this section
900. 01:06:54 Uh
901. 01:06:57 So
902. 01:06:59 One of the things I wrote down in the previous section
903. 01:07:02 Just a question in my mind node file is how do you maintain conversation and community in it in the time of social distancing?
904. 01:07:09 Yep, I don't think there's an easy answer to this
905. 01:07:12 Which is why I said at the beginning like you kind of have to take this with a grain of salt because even if you were
906. 01:07:17 100 on board with everything that she's outlining in this book
907. 01:07:20 You can't do it all right now
908. 01:07:23 uh
909. 01:07:25 But I also think that maybe some of this is just
910. 01:07:30 due to the defaults that we accept with the
911. 01:07:34 technology itself
912. 01:07:37 so
913. 01:07:39 For example, there's a whole section in the education
914. 01:07:42 education chapter on Elizabeth
915. 01:07:45 And Elizabeth, I believe was a college student who had notes on Plato's republic in her phone
916. 01:07:51 But she had skimmed the chapter and she didn't really remember anything
917. 01:07:55 She went and had the conversation and didn't have her phone with her so she didn't have access to her notes
918. 01:08:00 as a result her grade suffered and
919. 01:08:04 That got me thinking back to a
920. 01:08:09 couple of different things the first one being
921. 01:08:13 my whole journey with sketch noting
922. 01:08:16 and uh, I feel like now I
923. 01:08:19 hadn't really
924. 01:08:22 Heard about that when I was in school and I don't think I would have tried to do it
925. 01:08:26 While I was in school because I would have tried to just capture all the facts and then review everything before the test
926. 01:08:31 I was a pretty good test taker, but after the fact short term memory. I couldn't remember anything
927. 01:08:37 I realize now that sketch notes
928. 01:08:40 Force me to synthesize the information and not only
929. 01:08:43 Restate it my own words, but to create a mental picture of the thing
930. 01:08:49 Which means that I retain a lot more information from things
931. 01:08:52 Which is great if you're not intending to go back and review things all the time
932. 01:08:57 But even if you are
933. 01:09:00 I think that this has a lot of long-term benefits
934. 01:09:03 So I'm kind of in a position where I just wanted to get more out of the sermon notes that I was taking
935. 01:09:08 so sketch noting was the
936. 01:09:10 Low-risk thing to try and very happy with how that has helped me out over the last several years
937. 01:09:17 Uh, I also think that you have to think about
938. 01:09:21 How and why you take notes
939. 01:09:24 And in education setting again, it's easy to just take the notes based on what the teacher said because you want to capture everything
940. 01:09:30 That might be on the test
941. 01:09:32 And I don't think that's a great way to do it
942. 01:09:34 Maybe there's no way to avoid that, but for where I am right now
943. 01:09:38 Uh
944. 01:09:41 I bring up room all the time
945. 01:09:42 But I feel like that has forced me to think about things differently
946. 01:09:46 And in a very good way it feels like the next generation of note-taking where it's not a filing cabinet where stuff just ends up in
947. 01:09:53 And if I get inspired I can go find something later because I know exactly where I put it
948. 01:09:58 But it allows me to synthesize things and connect things after the fact
949. 01:10:04 And it helps me not just to collect facts, but to actually learn
950. 01:10:08 So if education if the goal of education
951. 01:10:11 And I think maybe self-education is really the place where you have more control over this
952. 01:10:17 Not group education
953. 01:10:19 But if your goal is to learn there are things that you can do using technology to make that more effective
954. 01:10:25 But again, that's not what most people are going to do in a school setting
955. 01:10:30 It's not what most distance learning programs are going to look like
956. 01:10:34 And I'm not sure that there's anything specific you can do in those situations
957. 01:10:39 Other than to make the best of of what you've got
958. 01:10:42 There's a lot there Mike
959. 01:10:44 Yes, yes there is. Sorry
960. 01:10:46 I don't think I have
961. 01:10:48 A lot more to add to the education piece. I think the work side of it is the one that's
962. 01:10:54 Of most interest to me because she refers to
963. 01:11:00 This concept of doing remote work
964. 01:11:03 And that's such a big thing right now as well
965. 01:11:06 and
966. 01:11:09 shows how
967. 01:11:11 It's important to do these face-to-face meetings and she gives the example of how certain leaders are the best
968. 01:11:16 Whenever they are the ones setting up the face-to-face and able to drive those and do those well
969. 01:11:21 and
970. 01:11:23 yet she goes through
971. 01:11:25 the downsides of meetings and how people use it as time to catch up on their email
972. 01:11:30 Which is absolutely true 100% in the corporate world that is
973. 01:11:34 Three-fourths of the meetings that you're in is people on their computers doing things that are outside of that room
974. 01:11:40 Which is very similar to what the students were doing with texting
975. 01:11:43 You know, they're checking in on all the stuff
976. 01:11:46 It's elsewhere as opposed to focusing in on the conversation you're having right there in the room
977. 01:11:51 I remember I had a
978. 01:11:53 Supervisor at one point that would very frequently require
979. 01:11:56 Phones and computers left outside the room when we were going to brainstorm and the only thing that was allowed in the room
980. 01:12:01 Were whiteboards and whiteboard markers
981. 01:12:05 And that's how we did things now
982. 01:12:10 That was the one and only supervisor I've had that would do that
983. 01:12:13 and
984. 01:12:14 Ever since then it's been stuff on computers and phones ever since but
985. 01:12:19 We always accomplished way more in those particular
986. 01:12:22 meetings. I think that's what she would argue for
987. 01:12:26 But I don't think that's the norm at all given the mass amount of email that is required and the expectation of instant replies
988. 01:12:35 That a lot of businesses and companies put on their employees
989. 01:12:40 Even the requirement to have the little green dot showing up all the time and making sure it doesn't turn yellow
990. 01:12:46 Like that is a thing
991. 01:12:48 And I don't think companies realize
992. 01:12:51 The downside that comes from that and yet it's a requirement
993. 01:12:56 But so let me ask you a question here
994. 01:12:59 Because in the education section she mentions there's two choices for teachers
995. 01:13:03 They can change the students to fit the environment or they can change the environment to fit the students
996. 01:13:07 Let's take that approach to the workplace. Okay. Okay. Now
997. 01:13:12 You are a manager who's hosting a meeting and you want it to be an effective meeting. Yes
998. 01:13:18 Do you
999. 01:13:20 require that people leave
1000. 01:13:22 their devices
1001. 01:13:24 outside of the office
1002. 01:13:26 Or do you solve a different problem and maybe
1003. 01:13:31 It's the email thing if that's what people are feel compelled to check or maybe it's the
1004. 01:13:35 the company message thing
1005. 01:13:38 Do you think this is company culture or the device?
1006. 01:13:42 I think it's both
1007. 01:13:45 I think there's a an overarching culture that leads to that
1008. 01:13:50 And then businesses assume that that's what they should be doing
1009. 01:13:54 So they don't bother to change it. So I think there's potential where you could like
1010. 01:14:01 I
1011. 01:14:02 In order to break that you have to break the culture
1012. 01:14:04 I think which then will change the meeting structure because if you break the culture of meetings as well
1013. 01:14:09 Meetings are not updates. They're times when you go and make decisions or solve difficult problems together
1014. 01:14:16 Which is borderline impossible when you have people
1015. 01:14:21 Disconnected and floating in and out similar to what you were talking about earlier like when you have your phone around
1016. 01:14:27 It forces the conversation to stay light because you can't go deep because your your attention is too fragmented
1017. 01:14:34 This is very similar because if you're focusing on email or you know thinking about the things you have to do whenever you get done
1018. 01:14:42 You can't go into a deep brainstorming session or a time to
1019. 01:14:48 Figure out what the best answer is given a situation or decide on
1020. 01:14:52 Whatever it is you're trying to decide on
1021. 01:14:55 You can't do that if you're
1022. 01:14:57 Only halfway there like if you're only partially paying attention like it just doesn't work
1023. 01:15:02 So I think you do have to break that
1024. 01:15:04 Right. So I kind of set you up with that question. That's fine
1025. 01:15:07 Because that I think that is the heart of the argument I was making at the beginning of this episode
1026. 01:15:16 Where the smartphone is the portal into the things
1027. 01:15:20 But it is not the things themselves that are causing the anxiety of i've got to go check that
1028. 01:15:25 You still whether you have a smartphone or not
1029. 01:15:28 Feel compelled to check your email. You still whether you have a smartphone or not
1030. 01:15:32 Feel compelled to go check what's on facebook and all of the other
1031. 01:15:36 Endless feeds the smartphone is kind of the scapegoat because it's the thing that gives you the instant access to those things
1032. 01:15:44 But in a work setting
1033. 01:15:46 The more socially acceptable version of that is the laptop or the tablet or whatever
1034. 01:15:52 and so it kind of depends on the
1035. 01:15:54 The circumstances like the the external atmosphere
1036. 01:15:59 But there's a deeper problem here
1037. 01:16:02 And for a work for someone in a workplace environment
1038. 01:16:06 It can be difficult because you just say well
1039. 01:16:09 This is the culture where I work the only way to solve this is for me to get a different job
1040. 01:16:14 I can't get a different job really if you really wanted to you could
1041. 01:16:17 If it would paint is sufficient change will come
1042. 01:16:20 But for most people it just hasn't gotten to that that level yet, right?
1043. 01:16:26 It's not important enough for them to find a job where there's a more calm company
1044. 01:16:30 Culture which is completely fine
1045. 01:16:33 We're making these decisions all the time as to what we want to what is really important to us
1046. 01:16:37 But you could make the same
1047. 01:16:40 choice about any of the other areas
1048. 01:16:43 That she talks about in this book
1049. 01:16:46 Even with your family, I think that there is there is choice there. You're not just subject to
1050. 01:16:53 the
1051. 01:16:55 The pull and the allure of the the device there are things that you can do to change the culture
1052. 01:17:00 in your family there are things you can do to change the culture in your friendship circles
1053. 01:17:05 And yeah, maybe those are hard choices to make but if you care enough about
1054. 01:17:12 About stuff you'll you'll make those choices. Sure. Yeah, I think that's a good point
1055. 01:17:17 But I want to let's go let's go into the next section because I think this will circle back into that
1056. 01:17:21 Uh the path forward
1057. 01:17:23 And then she talks about the public square which is primarily geared towards
1058. 01:17:28 The information you post online is public like whether you think it's private or not it's public
1059. 01:17:34 and
1060. 01:17:35 The tracking that these companies do is just
1061. 01:17:38 bizarre whenever you start digging into it and
1062. 01:17:42 I think that there is a
1063. 01:17:45 Fair number like a fairly large population today. I don't know if it was
1064. 01:17:51 Whenever she wrote this, but today I feel like that tracking and that data
1065. 01:17:57 awareness
1066. 01:18:00 Is leading pretty large groups of people to I don't want to say rebel but to change culture and alter that
1067. 01:18:08 This might be while we were talking about how we don't know
1068. 01:18:10 Families that do chat to solve issues like we don't maybe that's because we've gotten past that
1069. 01:18:18 Back at the very beginning. I was saying, I don't know if we're completely
1070. 01:18:21 You know, we haven't gone to the succession of what she's referring to in this book
1071. 01:18:27 But I think we've maybe taken that next step
1072. 01:18:31 We're not completely removed from it, but I think we maybe have taken that
1073. 01:18:36 Next piece and embraced it because I think we've become aware of what these devices are doing
1074. 01:18:41 But I think it's
1075. 01:18:43 I think we're right at the tip like at the very beginning of that
1076. 01:18:47 I think we're just now starting to see that become more of a thing like look at the whole mindfulness
1077. 01:18:52 and digital minimalism concept like even like with analogjo.com with
1078. 01:18:57 I have a survey that I asked people to fill out whenever they join
1079. 01:19:01 the community the the team there and
1080. 01:19:06 one of the things that comes up over and over and over again that people are asking about with
1081. 01:19:11 You know wanting to explore analog productivity like it has to do with
1082. 01:19:15 Calming the crazy and not wanting the digital products to change all the time like wanting to find tools and
1083. 01:19:22 stability
1084. 01:19:24 and keep things from being chaotic
1085. 01:19:27 That's a lot of what
1086. 01:19:30 People are looking for because they're trying to find the separation from all of the digital
1087. 01:19:35 Which is fascinating to me. Maybe that's just because I'm focused on that. That's my echo chamber
1088. 01:19:39 But it is interesting. So the other thing
1089. 01:19:43 in this section here about the the data and the privacy
1090. 01:19:49 They talk about how
1091. 01:19:52 Technology causes us to give up privacy for convenience
1092. 01:19:57 And this is the thing that I feel like she really nailed this
1093. 01:20:02 This is exactly what has been happening for a long time and all of a sudden it seems like now stuff's coming to the forefront
1094. 01:20:08 And maybe it's just because
1095. 01:20:11 In my own echo chamber ww dc just happened and so far
1096. 01:20:15 I've got a whole bunch of stuff where they're blocking tracking and hate came out recently
1097. 01:20:19 By the base camp people and they've got the big notifications like so and so I was trying to track you with this we stopped them though
1098. 01:20:26 And I feel like the response to that sort of stuff has been extremely positive whereas
1099. 01:20:32 Even a couple of years ago people were like, yeah, whatever no big deal
1100. 01:20:36 like now for whatever reason
1101. 01:20:38 People are kind of pushing back on this a little bit, which I think is a
1102. 01:20:43 A good thing
1103. 01:20:45 They mentioned she mentions on page 306 that
1104. 01:20:48 These days the most important data to those who watch us are the data trails
1105. 01:20:52 We leave as we go about the business of our daily lives
1106. 01:20:55 And I think a lot of people don't recognize
1107. 01:20:58 the true value of the data that they are
1108. 01:21:02 willingly
1109. 01:21:04 giving some of these
1110. 01:21:06 companies so
1111. 01:21:08 Whatever sort of tech defaults and standards can be raised to protect people's privacy. I think this is a good thing
1112. 01:21:15 Sure. I think there's so she goes into this last part. I'm just gonna jump in here and then we can
1113. 01:21:21 Work towards wrapping up
1114. 01:21:25 the the last part is called a fourth chair
1115. 01:21:27 with a question mark
1116. 01:21:30 and
1117. 01:21:30 The chapter title in here is the end of forgetting
1118. 01:21:33 So think about the section we were just talking about the data that's being collected all of these devices
1119. 01:21:40 Capture data store it goes into a database and then it becomes something that can be used
1120. 01:21:45 Uh to do analysis later on
1121. 01:21:48 All of that data is captured by these machines, but this fourth chair
1122. 01:21:53 is an extension of
1123. 01:21:55 the
1124. 01:21:58 quote by thorro
1125. 01:22:01 and throws
1126. 01:22:02 Uh peace was he was talking about these three chairs, but she says that she wants to think about the fourth chair
1127. 01:22:08 Which is in her mind kind of a philosophical one in that it's this chair of communicating with machines like having a conversation with a machine
1128. 01:22:18 This is where
1129. 01:22:20 Siri and the the google piece and
1130. 01:22:24 Dare I say all the dingus names?
1131. 01:22:27 Hello google
1132. 01:22:29 Many of them you can trigger for people who are yep listening to this
1133. 01:22:33 Alexa play baby shark. So this is
1134. 01:22:37 Sorry team too far
1135. 01:22:41 the
1136. 01:22:43 This this whole conversation with the devices themselves like actually having these conversations
1137. 01:22:49 And she goes into a lot of things where this is becoming a relational type
1138. 01:22:53 uh
1139. 01:22:55 Peace that I think could be dangerous
1140. 01:22:58 I think she would agree with that
1141. 01:23:01 It it's something you have to be careful with but it is something that you need to be aware of that
1142. 01:23:05 We're starting to go down that path at least we were five years ago
1143. 01:23:08 We're quite a ways down it, but I think you had a good point earlier Mike and that
1144. 01:23:11 Like your kids talk to like they use use voice assistance, but we don't really I rarely do
1145. 01:23:18 I even have
1146. 01:23:20 You know mindset to do the whole talk to Siri instead of you know
1147. 01:23:24 Calling it out. I won't say it. I mean type
1148. 01:23:28 Yeah, the top yeah type to Siri. Sorry
1149. 01:23:32 But yeah, that's what I use it for and then I set up like little shortcuts almost like text expander to trigger shortcuts like Siri shortcuts
1150. 01:23:39 That's what I use it for but I never talked to it. That seems weird
1151. 01:23:43 Yeah, I agree
1152. 01:23:46 This chapter was interesting. I didn't like it at the end of the book here though
1153. 01:23:52 So
1154. 01:23:54 I get why it's here. She's taking the chair analogy to a logical conclusion
1155. 01:24:00 But I feel like the nick of time chapter from the path forward section
1156. 01:24:05 Would have been a great place
1157. 01:24:08 To end this because this is where i'm page 318. She talks about I was looking for this code earlier
1158. 01:24:14 We don't have to give up our phones, but we have to use them more deliberately
1159. 01:24:17 So again, she's calling out the phones kind of specifically throughout the meat of this book, right
1160. 01:24:21 But then she gives a whole bunch of like action items for this slow down create sacred space for conversation
1161. 01:24:29 Talk to people you don't agree with
1162. 01:24:30 Think of unit asking as the next big thing challenge the view of the world as apps choose the right tool for the job
1163. 01:24:35 Learn from moments of friction
1164. 01:24:37 That would have been an awesome ending to this book
1165. 01:24:40 But that's not how she ended it
1166. 01:24:44 By talking about robots and AI
1167. 01:24:46 Yep
1168. 01:24:48 Yep, I feel like there are a lot of places we could go with this, but I feel like it's a good place to stop Mike
1169. 01:24:53 Sure
1170. 01:24:54 So should we do action items? I got a couple let's do it which we've talked about
1171. 01:24:59 Already to some degree, but no phones at the dinner table
1172. 01:25:03 So mine's going to the bedroom when we're eating
1173. 01:25:06 and then the second is
1174. 01:25:09 And she references maybe I didn't talk about this point
1175. 01:25:12 but saying texted instead of talked it's pretty common for
1176. 01:25:16 Folks to refer to talking to someone when actually like in reality they sent emails back and forth or they sent text messages back and forth
1177. 01:25:26 We'll oftentimes say oh, yeah, I talked to Steve and he said
1178. 01:25:29 Well, I didn't actually talk to him. I had a text conversation with him. Yeah
1179. 01:25:34 So I I feel like I want to be clear about
1180. 01:25:36 How I actually did because I feel like it's a little bit deceptive
1181. 01:25:41 With that and that's not my intent. So I'm going to try to be quite a bit better about that and just be aware of it
1182. 01:25:46 I like it. That's what I got. All right, my action items no phone at meals
1183. 01:25:53 And no internet searches and conversations mentioned both of those what we were recording so
1184. 01:25:59 Uh, don't need to say anything extra about those. I think but this this book
1185. 01:26:07 gives you
1186. 01:26:10 Very clear. I feel like if you were to read this there's going to be one or two things that you're like, oh, yeah
1187. 01:26:14 I should make this this change great, right?
1188. 01:26:17 So I like the action items that came out of out of this book and I feel like anybody who reads it is going to get something
1189. 01:26:23 Yeah
1190. 01:26:24 Yeah, for sure
1191. 01:26:26 as for style and rating
1192. 01:26:28 Like the style of the book
1193. 01:26:30 It's long. I feel like there are a lot of pieces that are drawn out longer than they should be
1194. 01:26:35 It was pretty common for me to feel like I read five pages that are recovering all the same thing
1195. 01:26:40 So that part I struggled with I feel like it should not have been 350 380 pages, whatever it was
1196. 01:26:46 I don't think it should be quite that long to me. It feels like it should be a standard
1197. 01:26:50 200 250
1198. 01:26:53 So that part I took exception with
1199. 01:26:55 Um other than that like I feel like it was pretty easy to read like as far as the the actual style itself goes
1200. 01:27:02 I think it just got long
1201. 01:27:04 As for a rating
1202. 01:27:06 I feel like I have a lot of complaints
1203. 01:27:08 uh, I question some
1204. 01:27:10 Pieces, I think you have a good point with
1205. 01:27:13 The culture versus the phone like i'm not sure the phone is all of it. I understand why she picked on it
1206. 01:27:20 Uh, but I I think it can go beyond that so
1207. 01:27:25 As far as where I want to put it
1208. 01:27:28 like I don't think this is one that
1209. 01:27:32 Like this is not going to be the one if i'm trying to show someone that
1210. 01:27:36 You need to think about your technology use
1211. 01:27:40 I don't think this is the book I would send people to
1212. 01:27:44 I think I would send somebody to something like digital minimalism for that
1213. 01:27:49 At the same time
1214. 01:27:51 She's making the point that face-to-face conversation has suffered
1215. 01:27:55 I don't think I would argue with that particular point
1216. 01:27:58 I don't know that we've run across a book that
1217. 01:28:02 talks about that specific dynamic
1218. 01:28:04 And how we have stepped away from face-to-face conversation and some of the potential benefits of
1219. 01:28:10 holding real-time
1220. 01:28:12 uh communication
1221. 01:28:14 Like I don't think we've really done that so I think there is some value in that particular piece
1222. 01:28:18 Overall though, I I don't think
1223. 01:28:21 Like this is far from a five star, but I think I would put it at 3.5
1224. 01:28:27 Like I just don't see it
1225. 01:28:30 Up in that top tier
1226. 01:28:32 Level of books so I think it has to go somewhere close to the middle and
1227. 01:28:35 I'll put it at 3.5. That's just what it feels like it should be
1228. 01:28:39 All right
1229. 01:28:42 Well, I
1230. 01:28:43 Really enjoyed this book
1231. 01:28:45 It uh
1232. 01:28:46 Took me a really long time to get through it as a long one partly because it is so long
1233. 01:28:53 But partly because
1234. 01:28:56 I didn't want to skim anything or miss anything
1235. 01:28:59 Right, uh, I'm not doing a good job of describing this because I don't skim
1236. 01:29:04 Books generally zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance. I did skim sections of that
1237. 01:29:09 Hit the hit to admit it
1238. 01:29:12 But uh when when I'm really engaged with the book
1239. 01:29:15 I almost like slow down intentionally because I don't want it to end
1240. 01:29:19 And for the beginning part of this book, that's exactly what happened to the point where I'm like, oh my gosh
1241. 01:29:25 I have to have this done in 48 hours and there's 200 pages left. Yep
1242. 01:29:29 So I feel she did a really good job
1243. 01:29:32 Bringing me in
1244. 01:29:34 I really enjoyed all of the stories from all of the conversations that she had
1245. 01:29:39 It's kind of hard to describe the style of this book because it's not really like a scientific study
1246. 01:29:46 She does share some statistics
1247. 01:29:48 It's more so she did all of these interviews with all of these people and then she's sharing like specific anecdotes from those conversations
1248. 01:29:54 To support some points, which I feel like she did a really good job of
1249. 01:29:58 I think this is a really easy
1250. 01:30:01 Read other than the length. I feel it's a very important read even though I railed on it at the beginning about how like conversation
1251. 01:30:09 Is really just one aspect of like the bigger picture when it comes to a lack of soft skills and emotional intelligence
1252. 01:30:15 It really challenged me to up my conversation game as I mentioned
1253. 01:30:20 I made some phone calls this week where in the past
1254. 01:30:24 I probably would have sent some text messages been like, nope
1255. 01:30:26 I gotta push myself to where I'm a little bit uncomfortable and
1256. 01:30:30 Every single time I've done that it's been been great
1257. 01:30:34 So I want to continue to do that don't have an action item specifically associated with that
1258. 01:30:38 But do want to share that like just even thinking about
1259. 01:30:40 The importance of conversation has already produced good fruit in in my life
1260. 01:30:46 So there are little nitpicks I have with some of this stuff
1261. 01:30:50 It definitely doesn't need to be like you said 360 something pages
1262. 01:30:53 I did not like the last section with the fourth chair
1263. 01:30:57 Like I said at the end of the path forward. I feel like that was a great spot to kind of wrap things up
1264. 01:31:04 With here's what you need to do with all this information that you just gathered
1265. 01:31:10 And then going into the fourth chair at the end of forgetting feels a lot of like pie in the sky hypothetical
1266. 01:31:18 I don't know it felt unnecessary to me. So maybe stop there if you want
1267. 01:31:23 You're gonna pick this one up. But I think this is uh, not
1268. 01:31:27 not
1269. 01:31:29 a typical
1270. 01:31:31 Bookworm book. I should say it like it it felt uh
1271. 01:31:34 And she references the the shallows which we had read earlier and I did not like that book
1272. 01:31:40 But this one I really did enjoy
1273. 01:31:42 Uh, this one felt like a breath of fresh air. So I'm really glad you picked this one
1274. 01:31:45 I'm gonna rate this at four stars actually 4.0
1275. 01:31:47 Awesome. So I am going above joe on his book. That's interesting. I feel like it usually goes the other way for sure. Yeah
1276. 01:31:55 All right, well we can put it on the shelf. What's next mike?
1277. 01:32:00 The next book
1278. 01:32:03 Is the crossroads of should and must by elle luna?
1279. 01:32:06 I picked this
1280. 01:32:08 Before I really dug into what this is
1281. 01:32:11 I'm not sure if you had a chance to look at this at all
1282. 01:32:15 But this is a different type of book
1283. 01:32:18 It is very visual and even though it is something like 160 pages
1284. 01:32:22 This is going to be a very quick read
1285. 01:32:25 Okay, this is kind of the anti reclaiming conversation
1286. 01:32:29 It's gonna be right a nice break after
1287. 01:32:32 This lengthy tome. So we have to get twitch working for next time then is that what you're saying?
1288. 01:32:38 Mm. I suppose. Yeah
1289. 01:32:40 Hmm
1290. 01:32:41 Interesting. Okay
1291. 01:32:43 Looking forward to it. I have it on order and I don't have it quite yet. It's supposed to be here. I think tomorrow
1292. 01:32:47 Monday one of those two
1293. 01:32:48 So yeah, that'll be interesting
1294. 01:32:50 Uh following that
1295. 01:32:53 Did you know that patrick lincey only has a new book out? I did not what is it? It's called the motive
1296. 01:32:59 Why so many leaders abdicate their most important responsibilities?
1297. 01:33:04 And this is from february of this year
1298. 01:33:07 So it's only a few months old
1299. 01:33:10 And uh, I want to go through it
1300. 01:33:12 So the motive by patrick lincey only I feel like we like his books
1301. 01:33:17 but
1302. 01:33:19 This was brand new so we'll see awesome. It doesn't have a number in the title. So I'm not sure how that's gonna go
1303. 01:33:24 He usually has the three the five the four like he always has something
1304. 01:33:29 But this one is just the motive. So we'll see
1305. 01:33:33 Uh got any gap books
1306. 01:33:35 not at the moment
1307. 01:33:37 but if I get to one
1308. 01:33:39 I will
1309. 01:33:40 Mention it next time. I don't like sharing gap books that I aspire to read because usually I don't get to those
1310. 01:33:45 I'd rather share the ones that I have read as gap books or at least started and I have not started any
1311. 01:33:50 Yeah, I barely got this one done. This is down to the line. I know this is a long one for sure. So
1312. 01:33:56 anyway
1313. 01:33:58 Uh, thank you to folks who attempted to watch us live and watch this debug
1314. 01:34:03 Unsuccessfullyly, we'll try again next time
1315. 01:34:07 So twitch.tv/bookwormfm
1316. 01:34:09 Uh, I'm sure there'll be a link in the show notes for that
1317. 01:34:12 Uh, yes, we'll give that another shot and big thanks to
1318. 01:34:16 Folks who are premium members on the club bookworm.fm/membership
1319. 01:34:22 membership and
1320. 01:34:25 In that premium membership you get access to all of mics mind node files
1321. 01:34:29 Which I don't think have gone away in the world of his paper explorations
1322. 01:34:33 and
1323. 01:34:34 At the same time you get a premium bookworm wallpaper
1324. 01:34:38 Access to a premium area in the club. There's a few gap book episodes
1325. 01:34:43 I did a while back if you're interested in those those are shorter like 15 minutes or so
1326. 01:34:47 but
1327. 01:34:49 Those are in the archives from probably well over a year ago at this point, but
1328. 01:34:52 Anyway, if you would like to support the show help us keep the lights on bookworm.fm/membership
1329. 01:34:58 And we would love to have you a part of that premium club
1330. 01:35:02 Awesome. So if you are reading along with us pick up the crossroads of should and must by allyluna
1331. 01:35:08 And we will talk to you in a couple of weeks