The Art of Manliness - #255： The Joy of Missing Out - Getting Control of Your Digital Life

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast do you feel

00:00:18.940 overwhelmed by your digital devices do you constantly have an inch to check your phone

00:00:22.780 even when you're trying to focus on important work or interacting with your loved ones do

00:00:26.320 you find the constant onslaught of opinions coming from the digital ether psychologically tiring do

00:00:31.040 you feel like your inner life and grasp of existential meaning becomes more shallow the

00:00:34.600 more time you spend online well at one time my guest on the podcast could say yes to all of

00:00:39.640 those questions and decided to do something about it her name is christina crook and she's the author

00:00:43.420 of the book joy of missing out finding balance in a wired world and today on the show christina and i

00:00:48.480 discuss the promises and perils of digital technology her experiment with quitting the

00:00:52.780 internet for an entire month including no email and tactics you can take to master technology

00:00:57.760 rather than being its slave lots of great insights in this episode to curb your digital addiction

00:01:02.080 after the show is over check out the show notes at aom.is slash jomo that's j-o-m-o for links to

00:01:08.360 resources we can delve deeper into this topic as well as links to resources to curb your digital

00:01:12.560 addictions again aom.is slash jomo christina crook welcome to the show thank you

00:01:22.700 so much for having me um so your book is called the joy of missing out finding balance in a wired

00:01:28.380 world and it's about our relationship with digital technology um it's a topic that's near and dear to

00:01:34.900 me because i'm always thinking about my whenever i'm on my smartphone and my kids are like dad get

00:01:39.520 off your phone i'm like oh my gosh what's happened to me um and you talk about the goods and the bad of

00:01:46.120 technology but particularly the bad and what we can do to avoid the bad of technology while still

00:01:51.200 enjoying its uh benefits um but you start off in the book talking about you know one of the arguments

00:01:56.440 is that technology particularly digital technology has created new burdens in our lives um so what

00:02:04.100 sorts of burdens has digital technology given us i think the most obvious burden is the burden of

00:02:11.440 always being available you know always being on and ironically our fear of missing out you know

00:02:18.080 it drives us to miss out on a lot of moments in the real world so i think that's the primary burden

00:02:24.160 is sort of this never off culture and sort of this we almost wear it as a badge this frenzied pace you

00:02:31.840 know i'm so busy and always being hurried um you know these time-saving technologies are supposed to be

00:02:36.540 there to save us time and indeed they do but you know then it allows us to do more and more and more

00:02:42.180 each day um and obviously we'll get into a conversation about social media um but of course

00:02:47.540 it could never end you could be online 24 hours a day so i think that's the the primary burden

00:02:53.300 that i often think about and i write about in the book is this you know always on culture and that's a

00:02:59.120 very new phenomenon yeah it's psychologically exhausting yes overwhelming right and not only just being on all

00:03:07.340 the time the other thing that internet does is it just gives us as much information as we want as you

00:03:13.000 know we think that'd be a great thing but that's actually like that's not a good thing to like be

00:03:16.440 able to access anything you want to know that actually is burdensome it's true and actually studies have

00:03:22.480 shown that you actually don't have a psychological or emotional benefit to having more information if

00:03:28.720 you are unable to do anything about the information that you have um and these were studies you know

00:03:34.620 even back in the 50s with newspapers you know we think if we have more knowledge and more information

00:03:39.740 about what's happening in current affairs around the world last week's a perfect example um with the

00:03:45.160 you know the election unfolding right sometimes information especially when you're powerless isn't

00:03:50.980 necessarily um to our benefit so um i think it's really um understanding how much we can actually

00:03:58.100 consume and act upon and um interpret and understand that's a helpful way i think to think about our

00:04:06.540 media consumption right i mean one of a perfect example of having too much information not be able

00:04:11.200 to act on it is whenever whenever you feel sick or your kid's sick or complain and you go online to

00:04:16.200 like check the symptoms out and you're just given all this oh my gosh my kid has cancer and it's like

00:04:21.080 right web md web md right not always the best not always the best but but you also argue that

00:04:27.600 well tech digital technology frees us from burden so you know it saves us time we can implement these

00:04:32.540 algorithms that can help us find things faster um there's if then then this where you can kind of

00:04:37.820 create these cool little hacks to make your day more streamlined you argue that there's some burdens

00:04:43.060 that we should not want to be rid of um what's what sorts of welcome what sorts of burdens are those

00:04:49.820 that we don't want to remove from our daily lives that we actually get a benefit from and it makes life

00:04:54.980 more flourishing i came across this idea from a philosopher named albert borgman and he writes

00:05:01.180 about this idea of good burdens you know techno optimists are looking to looking to a future where

00:05:07.180 we're free you know of the burdens of work so they're constantly creating new technologies to

00:05:11.780 automate and expedite but there are some burdens we should not want to be rid of and so borgman talks

00:05:17.400 about you know the burden of preparing a meal and getting everyone to show up and at the table and sit

00:05:22.600 down and eat it or the burden of reading poetry to one another or going for a walk after dinner you

00:05:27.640 know they may seem burdensome at first but it's actually just a task of getting across a threshold

00:05:34.020 of effort and as soon as you've crossed that threshold the burden disappears so you know we

00:05:38.720 shouldn't want to be rid of the burden of relationship and having people rely on us actually there's huge

00:05:45.420 value in in that and um in terms of our emotional um and mental health um you know we can't live in

00:05:52.520 isolation um and our connections online only take us so far so i think the good burdens that i'm often

00:05:58.580 thinking and writing about is the good burdens of people of community and of also of physical work

00:06:03.580 there's real benefits to physically moving our bodies and doing physical labor i was out raking a ton

00:06:10.740 of leaves this morning and someone was saying don't you hate that don't you hate that job and actually

00:06:15.280 i really enjoy it i like getting i like to physically work my body um it's the athlete in me you know and

00:06:21.640 so we shouldn't want to be rid of all of these stuff you know we could say they're burdensome things but

00:06:27.340 really again it's coming back to the idea of it's only a burden until we get up across a certain

00:06:32.540 threshold of effort right so it seems like these burdens um or embracing these burdens is embracing

00:06:39.060 an embodied sense of ourselves right i feel like the internet disembodies us we can be anywhere

00:06:45.480 anything we want right no one on the internet knows you're a dog um right the old new yorker

00:06:51.000 cartoon so but how so how does this disembodiment that occurs when we use digital technology how does

00:06:57.260 it make us existentially miserable even though it's touted by these techno utopiast is it oh this is

00:07:02.300 going to be fantastic i think it's that things remain really elusive there's sort of two things i want

00:07:08.260 to touch on here um there's a great quote i love for from the comedian louis ck he says that the worst

00:07:15.080 thing happening to this generation is that they're taking discomfort away from themselves you know when

00:07:20.340 we're you just touched on it with this disembodiment that we experience being online you know things

00:07:26.600 remain really elusive and um david sachs just came up with a new book called the revenge of analog and he

00:07:32.980 talks about you know that we're developing an appreciation for analog things like a paperback

00:07:39.100 novel is a better option for us because it actually cannot interrupt our reading you know to tell us

00:07:45.220 the weather and so um because the internet is literally endless and i think we're going to get

00:07:51.000 a little bit later into the conversation on sort of time and space but you know boundaries less is the

00:07:57.020 strategy for survival and even thriving in the digital era so um things are really elusive online

00:08:02.720 you know we think you know we talk about building trust and building our brand online and being you

00:08:07.860 know i'm air quoting right now the word authentic right that overplayed word um but really it's often

00:08:14.000 in an effort to build a brand a personal brand or professional brand and so we can only really trust

00:08:20.120 that um persona the things people are putting out on social media or their blogs or or whatever

00:08:25.800 to a certain extent right it's but it's a bit elusive because we don't actually have in most

00:08:30.420 cases a face-to-face relationship with that person so i think that really does play into this sort of

00:08:35.520 existential thing that's happening in terms of you know embodiment and disembodiment and you know

00:08:41.300 we're human beings we were you know we're here in a in time and space in a physical world and i believe

00:08:48.440 that's where we need to really exist primarily um and that saves us from a lot of you know the mental

00:08:54.420 mental health issues that come with being overly exposed to being online right i love your point

00:09:01.420 about um it makes it makes life too easy so we think that's that'd be a good thing but yeah psychologists

00:09:07.020 are finding that and we need a bit of stress in our life to actually be healthy if we take that stress

00:09:13.080 away we feel just unmoored i guess is a good word to say yeah um so you know you talked earlier about

00:09:23.660 some of you know these techno utopiest i think that's what nicholas carr calls them um you know

00:09:30.360 they're they're talking about this future where you know there's ai is going to take over and we'll be

00:09:34.880 living in virtual reality and there's these there's all these benefits of the internet that sound amazing

00:09:39.200 but what are some of these touted benefits of digital technology what of what what which ones are

00:09:46.380 that which one of them are actually illusions like when you actually embrace it you're like man this is not

00:09:51.260 really a good thing this is making my life more terrible yeah i think the internet as a whole does

00:09:57.720 not sell a universal promise except perhaps that you can find literally anything there but i think

00:10:04.160 it's the specific websites and platforms that tout the benefits of being there but it's all driven

00:10:09.560 by the bottom line and we know this right the reason why facebook has added all of these real-time

00:10:16.240 updates to their website you know you can see these green dots of when your friends are online and you

00:10:21.780 know real-time posts and all of this is because they're designed to keep you there for as long as

00:10:26.920 possible so i mean as much as it's a huge value to literally access the knowledge of the universe

00:10:33.000 through a portal in front of our faces you know um it is endless and it it could go on forever and so i think

00:10:41.520 for me the real um way of breaking out of that is viewing the internet for what it is it's a tool

00:10:48.860 you know it's a tool to connect us to information to people um and when we keep it sort of in mind as

00:10:56.900 it being a tool and we're not being used by it but we're actually choosing to use it i think that's a

00:11:02.420 really helpful way to keep that boundary so let's get to that this idea you mentioned earlier about

00:11:07.140 disrupting our sense of space and time how has the web done that oh man when to it's so oftentimes i

00:11:15.580 don't know if you ever feel this but you know you can be surfing the web and almost feels like

00:11:19.240 you trend you know you've you've gone beyond the limits of space and time you know we can talk to

00:11:24.900 people in real time um like my sister in australia on the other side of the world um it's phenomenal what

00:11:30.740 it enables but it does and i've got young kids and i'm gonna give an example with with kids my kids

00:11:37.500 are ages three five and seven um and and studies show that when we spend more and more time in front

00:11:45.140 of screens it actually makes the physical world seem boring and dull you know and even muted because the

00:11:52.780 colors are not as vivid and and things move more slowly and so i think that it's important that we

00:11:59.120 realize that the limits of time and space are actually to our benefit and um when we were

00:12:06.420 talking about earlier about the techno optimism of you know finally breaking free of the limits of the

00:12:11.900 body um is that actually what's best for the human person is that really what's best for people to

00:12:18.500 flourish i don't believe that that's true right and you mentioned earlier how we everyone talks about

00:12:23.700 feeling really rushed and busy which is weird though because you know studies have shown we actually have

00:12:28.100 more free time um than our grandparents did um right yeah despite that we still feel like oh my gosh

00:12:35.200 i don't have any time to do anything um just this week i did a screening with a filmmaker named

00:12:41.580 suzanne crocker she does this um beautiful documentary called all the time in the world and it's actually

00:12:46.960 but a family that goes completely off the grid for nine months in the yukon um wilderness and

00:12:54.060 they talk about how they spend actually up to half of their day preparing food right that's the real

00:13:02.100 cost of actually eating and preparing food um and pretty much all of that is erased and with our

00:13:09.140 modern day conveniences you know this morning i threw you know toast into a toaster and it was done in

00:13:14.420 two minutes um you know so the more time-saving devices we have they just allow us to do more so we do

00:13:22.420 um but often we're filling that time with passive hobbies you know like watching netflix or um

00:13:29.100 scrolling through our social feeds so um we have more margin more margin but we fill it we fill it

00:13:36.540 yeah the web makes it easy to fill very easy to fill yeah i've had moments where i'm like oh i'm gonna

00:13:41.500 get so productive i'm just take a little five minute web surfing break and it's an hour later i'm like oh my

00:13:46.020 gosh what just happened i can't believe that happened it happened happens to us all i thought

00:13:51.840 another interesting idea you hit on was that you know living our life on the web can actually reduce

00:13:57.540 our sense of self which is weird because on the web it's we're creating ourselves all the time with

00:14:03.060 our facebook profile with the the images we decide to post on instagram like we want to fashion this

00:14:08.820 really cool image um but how can that act of creating ourself on the web actually reduce our sense of

00:14:15.760 self and identity i was thinking about this question i think the most dark example for me

00:14:23.220 is um in japan they have a term for a person who basically spends their entire lives in front of

00:14:29.760 in on the internet and they're called hikaromi and um i don't know if you've heard this term before but

00:14:35.500 basically they're completely socially isolated individuals who no longer leave their homes and

00:14:41.620 there's actually millions of people like this um in japan um internet addiction is extremely high

00:14:48.780 in asia and it's increasing all the time and um in terms of their sense of self their entire sense

00:14:54.740 of self for these individuals is found on the internet and some of them are internet superstars you know

00:15:01.340 they're known um you know known in the sense of they are they have a um a presence on the internet um

00:15:09.620 but they're actually not known in their physical sense by anyone or at least only by a couple of people

00:15:17.280 within um this place that they dwell in and they never leave um and so i think that i mean that's such

00:15:24.300 an extreme example but there is a sense that we are losing parts of ourselves to constantly presenting

00:15:32.100 a particular self online and another example is kendall jenner actually um from you know the kardashian

00:15:39.200 clan just recently as of a couple within the last couple of weeks actually it has uh gone off

00:15:46.000 instagram and she she just felt like it was becoming way too consuming and she wanted to step away and i

00:15:53.380 think that there is a growing sense that we can't present our entire selves on the internet we simply

00:16:01.340 can't because we're living breathing people and so um i'm actually really thrilled and excited that

00:16:06.820 that's becoming a bigger conversation and more and more people are sort of queuing into that right

00:16:10.400 and i feel like too you need us you need you need privacy to sort of experiment and figure out what

00:16:15.360 yourself is instead of trying to figure it out online so i feel like online like you can't you can't

00:16:21.560 you can't experiment online like once it's online it's there and if you decide to change people

00:16:26.720 will be like wait no there's no takesy-backsies like you were like this person you know a week ago you

00:16:31.940 can't change your mind now but with when you have a sense of privacy a sense of i don't know i don't

00:16:37.700 know secrecy i mean that sounds kind of bad but like you can experiment with your identity a bit

00:16:43.040 i know i had i i like that you touched on that because i actually had a bit of a breakthrough

00:16:48.580 myself about three quarters of a year ago we made a very big decision as a family and i automatically

00:16:54.960 felt like i needed to broadcast it to the world because you know that's what you do when you make a really

00:16:59.400 big decision as as you know an individual or a family you kind of tell people and you know publicly

00:17:04.920 doing it on the web has become the norm and i realized through some conversations with some

00:17:09.220 really good friends you know i can actually hold this close this is actually a personal thing that i

00:17:13.940 can sort of hold sacred and keep keep to ourselves and and there's nothing wrong with that you know and

00:17:18.920 and we can actually take our time in choosing what we share and we might ultimately choose to not

00:17:23.240 share certain things and that's that's our right and um i think that's very healthy right but

00:17:29.320 yeah i think there's yeah there is a norm where you have to share everything i remember with the

00:17:32.580 election taylor swift's fans got really upset that taylor didn't share who she voted for

00:17:37.880 and it's like she doesn't have to tell you you know that's her it's her thing what goes on in the

00:17:42.460 voting booth gets to stay in the voting booth um so going back to parenthood you're you're a mom

00:17:47.560 of three children um i'm a dad i have two kids um and that's like technology and kids it's like the

00:17:53.140 thing i'm always thinking about i'm like man is my am i letting my kids spend too much time on the

00:17:57.320 ipad um and how is my behavior uh with technology influencing my kids what does the research say

00:18:04.260 about how a parent's use of digital technology influences their children's use of digital

00:18:10.120 technology um so there's you know a growing body of research which is which is wonderful to see and i

00:18:17.960 mean i think across the board we're seeing that um it's kind of a case of monkey see monkey do you

00:18:23.660 know this isn't new what children see their parents doing is what they want to be doing there's little

00:18:28.100 kids who you know they hold a banana to their ear because they see their parents holding a phone to

00:18:32.780 their ear you know as early as one year old um you know if we if children are seeing their parents

00:18:38.680 constantly on their devices it is there's a draw there's a draw for them wanting to use it there's

00:18:44.520 conversations around it and then there's increasing battles around it um there was a new study that came

00:18:50.920 out just a couple of months ago around um i think it came out from the pediatricians association in

00:18:57.360 the u.s and it actually um lowered the age of introducing tv and tablet uh use to i think from

00:19:05.980 age two down to maybe one or one and a half um but if you read between the lines which i did in this study

00:19:12.180 um the the difference was yes you can do it when they're younger but you need to be sitting

00:19:18.640 with them and engaging with them of what about what they're doing and what about what they're

00:19:23.780 watching and listening to on the devices and on on the television and on the screens um and there's

00:19:29.900 when we're engaging with them we a know what they're watching right i don't know if you ever run into this

00:19:35.440 where you kind of hear from the other room you know some squawking and a television show from

00:19:39.800 netflix that you've never heard before and it's like what are you what are you watching um we need to

00:19:44.660 be paying attention to what our kids are consuming that's extremely important um another piece is you

00:19:51.800 know once you've opened the door it's very difficult to close it and the studies are showing more and

00:19:58.460 more that introducing you know tech as as late as you possibly can is actually to the benefit of children

00:20:05.500 and have they done any studies yet about what you know technology used by children what it's doing

00:20:12.360 to kids because it's so new that we have these you know the generation of kids who have just been

00:20:15.340 raised on it i mean they have i mean and i they have like i think i've seen baby carriers with like

00:20:19.820 ipad holders where they you know the parent can like put an ipad in front of their baby and so

00:20:23.800 they're immersed in this since you know birth even though you're supposed to do it you know not

00:20:27.840 introduced until one but have we found any studies of what this is doing to kids is it affecting

00:20:32.460 them in any way it is it is it is reducing attention spans and and again the longitudinal studies are still

00:20:39.320 not fully there because we have to remember that it was only you know only 10 years ago that someone

00:20:45.860 did the first tweet you know social smartphones were not even in common use you know until about 10 years

00:20:52.680 ago and so the longitudinal studies are not there you know they are for television and i mean studies

00:20:59.160 that are you know the longer studies uh you know there's there's one very famous one with sesame street

00:21:04.380 that track sesame street from you know the 50s through till you know recently like today and

00:21:10.940 basically um they watched how it sped up over you know over time it used to be extremely slow and it's

00:21:18.040 actually painfully slow to watch now but it's you know the the screen change times have have

00:21:25.200 increased five times fold and um it is increasing um it is reducing attention spans in children and it also

00:21:33.500 goes back to this whole thing about um how it affects the relationship with the natural world you

00:21:39.100 know it is more difficult for kids to um engage in outdoor and imaginative play when they are in front

00:21:47.100 of screens for a long periods of time because they are used to being fed right the the material and and

00:21:55.500 um and the storylines and the characters um and so you know studies across the board definitely

00:22:02.700 advocate for limiting our our children's you know screen time i think there's other studies too that

00:22:09.180 that show that suggest that uh screen time also might decrease empathy because kids get less practice

00:22:15.900 reading faces and so they have a harder time with that yes um there are definitely studies um that talk

00:22:23.660 about that and actually um they there's a study that i write about in my book um that shows that

00:22:30.940 reading people is actually a learned skill um a study looked at individuals judging forced and genuine

00:22:37.420 smiles and found that older adult participants outperformed young adults in distinguishing between

00:22:43.420 posed and spontaneous smiles which suggests that with experience and age we become more accurate at

00:22:49.820 perceiving true emotions and actually that's decreasing because kids are growing up in front of smartphones

00:22:57.820 actually communicating almost entirely through text messages and emoticons and um i have an aunt who's

00:23:05.340 actually a theater actress and she coaches um uh younger actors that are up and coming and she's noticing

00:23:13.900 um and this is actually across the board in um in the theater industry is these younger actors that are

00:23:20.540 coming up are actually having difficulty um with facial expression and tone of voice and body language

00:23:26.540 which are essential to you know communication obviously and storytelling and as a performer that's the

00:23:31.900 tools of their trade so um you know that plays into their ability to even negotiate deals once they're in the workplace

00:23:39.900 um but but definitely in terms of empathy when we are you know looking at a screen and we and then we look

00:23:45.980 at someone's face and we actually can't read the emotion in them or we're not looking at them long enough

00:23:51.660 to even notice if they're struggling or um you know having a hard time then that that affects not only the

00:23:59.580 individual but it affects you know communities so we're gonna have a future of movies and plays with bad acting in it

00:24:06.940 i hope not um so i'd like to get your take you talk about a little bit but i mean what's your take

00:24:15.020 on artificial intelligence and virtual reality how are these going to compound the problems we're

00:24:19.980 already seeing with you know the technology of the web um honestly i think that it is going to

00:24:30.460 to it's going to explode i really do think that virtual reality in particular i just came off of

00:24:37.340 i was speaking at a a tech conference just out of toronto in september and um they had a lot of vr

00:24:44.540 people up there and you know it's it's quite phenomenal how much the technology has advanced

00:24:51.500 um and we're already seeing it in in quite um thorough use in the porn industry and in multiplayer role

00:24:58.940 playing games and i think that um we are going to see virtual reality really um coming on the scene

00:25:07.020 i don't think it's going to be sort of a passing passing fad um and the fear for me is that it takes

00:25:12.140 people so completely outside the breathing physical world that it will be increasingly difficult to be

00:25:17.500 satisfied with you know our muted and comparatively slow reality that we live in and then with ai i guess

00:25:25.980 my big question is why i wish more people were asking this question like why are we working so

00:25:32.220 hard to create a ai why are we creating robots to replace humans i don't really fully understand like

00:25:39.100 i understand the thrill of invention but i don't really understand you know when isolation is already

00:25:44.620 up so high when employment is rising because like we talked about earlier we have more and more time

00:25:49.900 saving work more work is automated why are we working so hard and and literally spending trillions

00:25:56.540 of dollars on on developing these technologies i it's a big question mark for me to be honest

00:26:03.260 right we're removing burdens that we might not want to be rid of right right yeah getting back to

00:26:09.020 that conversation for sure yeah um so part of your book you took a 31 day break from the web so you

00:26:16.140 wanted to see if you can kind of disentangle yourself from digital technology and what that

00:26:19.500 would do you even took a break from email um what was that experience like i mean at the beginning

00:26:24.540 did you have like this like really strong itch the first few days where you're just like i had to get

00:26:29.100 back on i gotta check i'm missing out like what was it like yeah so um well first of all if you're

00:26:35.580 going to be off the internet for 31 days and you might have heard of the story of baratunde thurston who's

00:26:41.100 probably the most famous person who went off the line um for about the same amount of time you know you

00:26:45.500 really have to prepare you have to get map books because you can't google map you need a thesaurus

00:26:50.780 if you're a writer because you can't use a thesaurus online um you know you have to tell people because

00:26:56.380 all of a sudden you're virtually disappearing from the face of the earth um you know there's

00:27:01.740 a lot of preparations that need to be made i had set up a blog uh about the experiment which of course

00:27:07.340 i was not updating but i had a friend who was going to be updating it because i was sending these

00:27:12.300 letters by mail each day and she was going to scan and post them anyways i was feeling on day one and

00:27:18.780 day two the writer and editor and me really wanted to edit and make some tweaks to the content on the

00:27:26.060 blog and i found that very frustrating at first it was it was very limiting and that was probably the

00:27:32.060 first um you know run and i had in terms of wanting to be online and feeling like i was missing out

00:27:38.220 and i was you know wondering you know what people were posting on social who was getting my automatic

00:27:43.020 email responder um i would say that lasted a couple of days but really quickly it turned into this massive

00:27:51.820 experience of freedom it just felt super freeing to be completely unable to do those things it was just

00:28:00.620 off the table um and and the biggest thing i would say also that i discovered during those 31 days was

00:28:08.620 just a quietness a quietness of mind my my mind was just completely free of the chatter that i normally

00:28:16.700 fill it with um through searching on online and and reading you know my social apps and and all of that

00:28:24.140 and even online articles that are constantly coming out so i really dug into deep thinking and reading

00:28:31.180 and i got a lot done it was a very productive i still had two little kids at that time um sort of

00:28:37.820 underfoot but i got a lot done it's quite it's it's shocking actually when you take the web completely

00:28:44.700 off the table how much time it fills in a day right and you know nicholas carr in his book the shallows

00:28:50.380 talks about how you know the web changes our brain like makes our attention span shorter even for

00:28:55.020 adults um did you notice that your ability to concentrate like did it go up when you took a

00:29:00.860 break from the web like you got back your ability to sit down and read a book for an hour uninterrupted

00:29:05.500 absolutely yeah um i did you know i i would read books at long length um i would sit and write and and

00:29:14.460 not lose my train of thought because i wasn't you know even for as a writer you would know this you

00:29:19.900 know even you you go to research um something so you're you know you're you are you know doing

00:29:25.580 your work but you're researching and one thing links to another um i did not have that ability

00:29:30.380 um i could i could research in books but that's a very very different experience so absolutely my

00:29:36.140 ability to focus um was it was hugely increased during that time and then what was it like when you

00:29:42.300 got when you started introducing the web back and did like it did that this thing is the

00:29:47.260 superpowers you developed by taking your your 31 did they just go away immediately or did it kind of

00:29:51.820 take a while it took a while um i mean i came back with a pretty clear strategy for how i wanted to

00:29:58.140 come back you know it's sort of like if you did a water fast for 31 days you know you wouldn't want

00:30:03.260 to have like a cheeseburger as your first meal um well maybe you would but uh i didn't i chose to

00:30:09.420 sort of take it to ease myself in um the first thing i did want to check was email because i am a

00:30:14.700 free i do freelance right and and i i knew there would probably be some work related things i needed

00:30:19.580 to to to give my attention to there but i i immediately spent about half a day unsubscribing

00:30:26.860 from um a massive amount of um newsletters and emails that i'd subscribed to over time or

00:30:32.940 inadvertently as you know that happens um inadvertently got on you know lists um i realized

00:30:38.700 that even though i don't read those emails you know they blip across my radar that is attention

00:30:44.220 even for that millisecond that i'm giving to it to delete it or archive it or you know just pass it

00:30:49.180 by um so i unsubscribed from a huge amount of email um i i actually implemented new email strategies in

00:30:57.980 terms of um not checking it you know 12 times or 50 times a day um i was checking it sort of two times

00:31:05.500 a day um that honestly has crept up but that is a practice that i returned to when i noticed that i am

00:31:11.660 i am losing my focus um and i'm not getting the kind of work that i want to get done um so yeah

00:31:18.540 those were some of the steps that i took when i came back but it did creep back i'm not going to

00:31:24.060 lie it did creep back and i so for me that the fast is really a touchstone for me to go back to

00:31:29.900 remembering what it was like during that time and remembering you know the the practices that i came

00:31:35.820 back to the web with and trying to return to those things well so you know you don't advocate that

00:31:40.620 people completely ditch the internet in your book um but you you talked about putting constraints

00:31:44.780 you just mentioned a few of the constraints um unsubscribing from list but what are some other

00:31:48.860 things that people can do to put constraints on the you know what is effectively infinite um

00:31:55.500 culture information that's on the web mm-hmm i think it's it comes down to i mean we could talk

00:32:02.380 about all of the time-saving apps that are out there and and all of these types of tools and they

00:32:07.020 are out there and i'm happy to talk about them but i really think it comes down to a more of an internal

00:32:13.100 um understanding of ourselves and and our purpose in the world you know we aren't just here to consume

00:32:19.180 for consumption's sake you know we are here for relationship and meaningful work um and there's

00:32:25.100 things that we want to do you know there's things that we want to do with our lives and so i think we we

00:32:29.340 look at the internet for what it is like i mentioned before that it's a tool you know that's really

00:32:33.980 helpful i kind of have a few things that i wanted to mention um you know using the internet as a tool

00:32:39.660 putting people first like truly putting people first in every instance having a meeting being

00:32:45.580 with your kids being with your partner you know valuing the human person in front of you over the

00:32:51.340 gadget in your hand they just are more valuable you know the person on the other side of the world

00:32:56.140 that's tweeting in that moment they are also a valuable human being but the one that's sitting in

00:32:59.900 front of you you know give them your full attention um another thing is practicing

00:33:04.940 discipline i've already touched on this but you know having um times built into your week that are

00:33:10.700 just completely tech free um i love to tell the story of tiffany schlain she's the founder of the

00:33:17.020 webby awards and her and her family practice a technology what they call technology shabbat they're jewish

00:33:23.660 from friday sundown to saturday sundown every week you know and she's the founder of the webby

00:33:28.780 awards i sort of feel like if she can do it we can do it um she's lots of excuses to be constantly on

00:33:34.860 social um but they carve that out and that is like a core piece to her week um as a reset to really um

00:33:42.940 be deeply um with her family and with herself um with her community and um i i came across the article

00:33:51.340 on the art of manliness website maybe i can give a plug for it but it's your uh article about fomo

00:33:56.220 and you've got four really great questions there and um i just had a couple more questions

00:34:01.500 if i may sure yeah i'd love to your list and um a great question to ask before you post something

00:34:07.660 online is who is this for you know is this for you is this for promotion is this for ego um you know is

00:34:15.980 this to promote something like it you might have a really good answer to that question but asking that

00:34:21.100 question first you know who is this for um the second question is what could i have been doing

00:34:26.540 with this time you know what if if we've you were talking about you know you go to check social for

00:34:32.540 five minutes and you know an hour later you know don't beat yourself up about the hour but ask yourself

00:34:38.780 at the end of the hour you know what could i have been doing with that time that's time um that you

00:34:43.740 could be giving to things that you really want to do and the last question might be a bit you know

00:34:49.340 strange especially for a very manly podcast but the question is um what brings me delight you know

00:34:55.580 what are the things that really delight me and what are the things i really want to be

00:34:59.580 doing with my life and and who are the people and the relationships that delight me and that comes

00:35:04.460 um from a quote from marcus aurelius that says a man's true and i'll leave it as a man in this case

00:35:10.860 a man's true delight is to do the things he was made for um and so yeah this idea of delight my book's

00:35:18.140 called the joy of missing out for me this conversation keeps coming back to joy and delight

00:35:22.140 you know what are the things that really delight us what are the things that really bring us joy i

00:35:25.900 think those are really our our guiding guiding principles for the ways that we should be spending

00:35:31.900 our time i love that so yeah when you say yes to technology you're probably saying no to the thing

00:35:36.700 that will actually give you delight right well i mean you mentioned specific you know tactics and

00:35:43.420 strategies i mean i mean any tools that you found found that are useful to constraining your web use

00:35:50.060 or how much you use digital technology yeah i have a very analog way of doing things um i actually write

00:35:56.540 a list on a physical piece of paper of the things that i want to get done online before i start before

00:36:02.700 i turn my screen on on my computer um and i try and check that list off uh as quick as possible and

00:36:09.020 then and then move on to other things that's really been um a really good practice for me uh i think

00:36:15.260 also using your auto responder not just for vacations but um for sort of setting expectations

00:36:23.020 for people on when you will return email um even if you return email four times a day you know having

00:36:28.460 it in that you know you check it and return it at 11 and 1 and 3 every day it could be once a day

00:36:34.940 it totally depends on the demands of your work but using auto responders um and also you know you've got

00:36:42.780 a lot of people that are in leadership roles i imagine on this podcast and i think it's really

00:36:48.780 important if you're in a leadership role if you're a ceo or you're a manager of any type to really lead by

00:36:55.900 example um if you are sending an email to your um you know your staff at on sunday at 3 pm

00:37:05.180 they're going to get that email and if you're in that role and you're senior to them they're going

00:37:09.740 to feel like they have the obligation to respond to it immediately you know if you don't want them

00:37:14.780 to respond to it immediately write that explicitly in the email or don't send the email until monday

00:37:20.220 morning you know when when you want them to return it i think we really need as a culture a work culture

00:37:26.380 and also as just a community as a community globally to set parameters around our technology use and it

00:37:33.340 really does come down to leading by example so those are some of the things i would suggest

00:37:37.660 that's fantastic and one thing i love about your book christine is that you uh you look to a lot

00:37:41.740 of these great thinkers i'm about to ask you a question i didn't ask you or put in the email so

00:37:46.700 if you have a hard time coming up with an answer that's fine um but you you have these thinkers like

00:37:52.460 you mentioned borgman i never knew who the guy was but now i've i've bought his books and i'm

00:37:56.620 going to check him out i mean are there any other thinkers um philosophers that you have looked to to

00:38:02.860 sort of guide how you use technology and maybe they've had some insights that our listeners could

00:38:07.900 probably get something from absolutely um i'm looking at my bookshelf right now but i actually

00:38:14.380 also have recommended books at the end of my book wendell berry wendell berry is just a delight to read

00:38:20.700 his uh series of essays what are people for is um informed so much of my writing um and and i

00:38:28.620 encourage you to read all of wendell berry's work um you know sherry trickle her alone together and

00:38:35.500 her reclaiming conversation are both really important books um and i would say if i was to recommend

00:38:41.820 any book if you're just going to read one uh jean vanier's becoming human it was a lecture series that

00:38:48.700 he did here in canada the massey lecture series but it's um a book now and again it's called becoming

00:38:54.460 human and um yeah that book is a powerful book about you know coming closer um to ourselves and

00:39:02.540 to each other and what it really means to be human so those were my recommendations fantastic that's

00:39:08.700 great um we'll link to those in the show notes well christine this has been a great conversation where

00:39:12.620 can people learn more about your book and your work um well my book is available

00:39:18.380 you know wherever good books are sold um but they can find more information at jomo book dot com

00:39:25.420 and i'm just about to launch a new initiative called daily jomo um and you can find that at

00:39:31.420 dailyjomo.com and you can sign up to get fun prompts to get you away from your screen

00:39:37.420 and sort of to retool your relationship with digital so uh i i do hope that you head over there and uh

00:39:43.020 and thank you so much for having me well you're very welcome thank you so much it's been a pleasure

00:39:47.660 my guest today was christina crook she's the author of the book joy of missing out it's

00:39:51.340 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also find out more information about her

00:39:55.020 book at jomo book dot com

00:40:08.620 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:40:12.700 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com our show is edited

00:40:16.540 by creative audio lab here in tulsa oklahoma if you have any audio editing needs or audio production

00:40:20.620 needs check them out at creative audio lab dot com and as always i appreciate your continued

00:40:25.660 support of the art of manliness podcast love your reviews that's one of the best things you can do

00:40:29.580 to help the podcast out as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is

00:40:33.740 brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#255： The Joy of Missing Out - Getting Control of Your Digital Life

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