The Art of Manliness - #342： Why Boredom is Good for You

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast in the age where

00:00:19.540 smartphones provide constant stimulation many of us have forgotten what it feels like to experience

00:00:24.460 the monotony of boredom and while on the surface that might seem like a good thing my guest today

00:00:29.420 highlights research that not being bored can actually make us dumber and less creative her

00:00:35.320 name is manusha zomorodi she's the host of the podcast note to self and the author of the book

00:00:39.100 bored and brilliant how spacing out can unlock your most productive and creative self today on

00:00:44.280 the show manusha shares her experience of how feeling scattered and less creative led her to

00:00:48.100 create an experiment that tested whether her lack of boredom in recent years was to blame we then

00:00:52.960 dig into the philosophy of boredom why we dread it so much manusha then goes into what the latest

00:00:57.560 research says about the benefits of boredom like increased creativity more productivity and

00:01:01.800 improve mental well-being and then she walks us through some exercises you can do to help inject

00:01:06.880 a bit more boredom in your life i know it's going to sound crazy and counterintuitive boredom is good

00:01:11.820 for you but it is after the show's over check out the show notes at awim.is slash boredom

00:01:16.620 manusha zomorodi welcome to the show oh brett thanks for having me uh so you recently published

00:01:36.360 a book bored and brilliant rediscovering the lost art of spacing out this was the impetus behind the

00:01:42.480 book was this experiment you did with your with your podcast you're the host of note to self um

00:01:47.200 wnyc and uh you had your listeners go through this experiment of kind of re-evaluating the relationship

00:01:54.720 with their digital devices i'm curious what was the impetus behind that experiment like did you have

00:02:00.480 a personal experience where you're like i need to get a handle on how my devices control my life

00:02:06.140 like a personal breakdown brett is that what you mean exactly well yes the answer is absolutely yes i

00:02:12.080 mean as you know your job as a podcast host is to come up with great ideas for your show and i a

00:02:18.420 couple years ago just had this moment where i was like i felt just dried up like there was nothing

00:02:23.760 going on upstairs it felt different than writer's block it was more like a barrenness that i felt

00:02:29.520 and so i started to sort of try and think back when had i had my best ideas in the past and it was

00:02:36.300 such a cliche it was like oh it was when i was staring out the window on a long car ride

00:02:41.600 or it's you know when i didn't have kids and used to take long showers you know or um it was when i

00:02:49.140 used to push my kid's stroller and i realized like in all those moments what was not in my hand it was

00:02:54.120 my smartphone and so i sort of thought that and now every time i have a crack in my day sort of a few

00:03:01.460 minutes here a few minutes there whether it is waiting to get my coffee or waiting to get on the

00:03:08.040 subway what do i do i look at my phone i mean we all look at our phones now and so it sort of made

00:03:13.200 me think like oh those moments in my day where i used to sort of space out they were kind of boring

00:03:18.240 maybe there was something actually super important going on and actually if i think about it i really

00:03:24.420 haven't spaced out or been bored since i got a smartphone because i never need to be and it sort of

00:03:30.160 made me sort of wonder like is that a good thing or a bad thing right and did you talk to other

00:03:36.360 individuals like in your field of people you know who are you know creative types suffering from the

00:03:41.960 same sort of like i don't have any good ideas anymore well for me you know i always go straight

00:03:46.340 to my audience and my listeners have certainly taught me that whenever i am feeling something i am

00:03:51.380 not that special i am not alone there are probably a lot of other people who are thinking the same thing

00:03:56.000 and they started sort of you know stories started coming in about people sort of wondering what was

00:04:01.400 happening to their brains when uh they were looking at their phone all the time because i think and and

00:04:07.680 what i realized was that a lot of the research is you know our experiences are vastly ahead of the

00:04:13.360 research being done in any lab so by the time they sort of figured out what the long-term implications

00:04:18.100 could be of looking at our smartphones all the time or never getting bored getting rid of a human emotion

00:04:23.980 we may have been looking at these things you know at this point like over for a decade right i mean

00:04:28.980 the first iphone came out in 2007 so i think for me it was sort of a a wake-up call like whoa we have

00:04:35.580 to start asking these questions and try to answer them um more quickly than we wait for a double blind 0.72

00:04:41.260 controlled study to come out that maybe is we do or or don't believe so yeah so i said to my audience

00:04:48.960 i was like okay how about for one week we try to tweak our smartphone habits we see if we can get a

00:04:57.420 little bit more boredom or spacing out back in our lives and and we see if it ignites something if it

00:05:03.560 jumpstarts our creativity or or something else happens and so we went on this i mean this journey

00:05:09.300 where every morning they would wake up they'd get a mini podcast uh with the science sort of explaining

00:05:15.100 either something uh neurologically that was going on in their brains or how technology was designed to

00:05:20.960 do something neurologically in their brains and then a challenge to try and change their behavior for that

00:05:26.560 day and and then they would report back and you know at first i thought like oh i don't know like

00:05:31.140 a couple hundred people will do this with me but we had 20 000 people sign up to do that one week

00:05:35.680 they sort of gave us a week of their lives and um and so the book is based on what i learned from that

00:05:41.400 week um taking what listeners told me worked what they told me didn't work tweaking it codifying it

00:05:48.060 and then combining it with a ton more research um and interviews with cognitive psychologists

00:05:52.580 neuroscientists marketers uh digital marketers um more stories from people uh also technologists

00:06:00.500 and the data that we got from that week because uh irony of ironies we actually partnered with a

00:06:06.280 couple apps that measured how much time people were spending on their phones um and so we had a ton

00:06:12.640 of data coming in that could show you know which days were more successful than others and what the

00:06:17.160 final results were that's awesome and we're going to get into some of the science that

00:06:21.160 you've uncovered in some of the data that you were able to uh gather with this experiment but you

00:06:25.980 also cool like you get philosophical with boredom right like that people don't realize that boredom

00:06:31.660 this is something that's been a conundrum for philosophers going back a couple millennia i mean

00:06:36.640 what's the philosophical history of boredom like what how do philosophers describe boredom there's two

00:06:43.440 different kinds there's situational boredom where you're uh i wish that this you know play would end

00:06:49.120 but then there's the existential kind where you're kind of like whoa what is this life that i'm living

00:06:55.900 um so i you know i think it's what you talk a lot about on the podcast is uh this idea of looking for

00:07:01.080 meaning and and trying to live about your best life sort of thing um so it's and it's not easy right

00:07:07.760 it's not easy to confront um the unknown and to think through what what what you're gonna do next but

00:07:16.080 but actually boredom can be very helpful with that right so like how have researchers today

00:07:22.220 how have they described the feelings of boredom right because it's like we all kind of we know

00:07:26.260 what it feels like but then i don't know how do you get more descriptive with that feeling is it like

00:07:31.280 you'd rather be doing something else is it yes so okay so i think like for well first of all i should

00:07:37.640 say that we are at an extremely exciting um moment in neuroscience really you know in the last 10 years

00:07:43.900 what with fmris and the ability to sort of track how the brain and networks work it's it's really

00:07:48.540 exciting and so they've just started to really understand what happens in our brains when our

00:07:53.900 mind begins to wander and then it turns out like let's say you're folding laundry um and you're doing

00:07:59.480 something super repetitive that doesn't require you to actually think about your actions or um you know

00:08:05.720 just sitting and looking at the wall and spacing out you activate a network in your brain called

00:08:11.720 the default mode and they now understand that in the default mode that is when we do some of our

00:08:18.500 most creative thinking most original thinking we take disparate ideas and then push them together and

00:08:25.680 and come up with new concepts we create a sense of self it's self french referential processing

00:08:33.940 literally creating a coherent sense of ourselves we do something called theory of mind where we

00:08:39.400 imagine what others are thinking we develop empathy for them and we do something that i found

00:08:44.600 incredibly interesting called autobiographical memory and planning which is when we look back at our

00:08:50.580 lives we sort of take note of the highs and the lows we build a personal narrative we take lessons from

00:08:56.980 that and then we look forward we have something called perspective bias look into the future

00:09:01.220 where we build uh what we imagine our lives could be and we set ourselves goals and we break down the

00:09:08.300 steps that we need to take in order to reach those goals so you know incredibly important things like

00:09:14.460 you know you could argue that this is what makes humans human um this ability to to think of who am i what

00:09:22.180 what is my place in the world um but it's also you know being bored is why do we look at our phone so much

00:09:30.080 because being bored kind of sucks like it it hurts at first it's difficult it is a painful process

00:09:36.140 sometimes um but i think it it's it's getting through that initial period and this is why i was 0.88

00:09:43.340 so insistent because i did have listeners who were like god man why do you have to use the word boredom

00:09:47.860 couldn't you just you go straight to daydreaming use something a little more positive and i was like

00:09:52.200 no because i think we've lost the this capacity to sort of sit through the yucky part and that yucky part

00:09:58.380 is you can't you can't skip it like you must pass through it in order to get to the good stuff and

00:10:03.960 so my thinking was no let's let's not vilify it in some way it is not a disease to be bored um it is

00:10:12.900 actually something that maybe we need to name and get more of in our lives well and speaking of how

00:10:19.020 yucky feeling boredom is you talk about the the links people will go to avoid boredom like you did

00:10:24.860 you mentioned this research this study where people had the option to shock themselves my god

00:10:30.020 i love this research it's yeah it's it's really um it's very famous in the psychological world which

00:10:37.320 it was by tim wilson at the university of virginia and he asked people to come sit in a room and they

00:10:43.960 could either just sit there and relax or they could shock themselves and you know sitting there like

00:10:50.920 this is a very plain room like they made the room the most bored there was nothing to look at it had

00:10:55.560 like really dull gray walls um and but rather than just sit there and be bored people um shocked

00:11:03.140 themselves they one guy did it like 190 times like gave himself a zap rather than just sit there with

00:11:09.960 their thoughts um so yeah so that's what that's a good one uh there's a lot of research about how just

00:11:17.620 people and i i think it's interesting like we're starting to see what happens um why we keep our

00:11:23.480 smartphones out on the table when we are meeting someone for coffee you know because what happens

00:11:29.000 like the minute the conversation gets boring or somebody uh isn't quite concise uh or or or you know

00:11:36.560 our phone buzzes it's it's great because who needs to be bored even when we're face to face with

00:11:42.040 someone but there's another study that says um the quality of conversation goes down even if a phone

00:11:49.000 is just within sight of two people having a conversation um it's kind of a fascinating if

00:11:55.680 you want to get into it about how they measured that but um but yeah so this idea that the smartphone

00:12:00.660 acts as sort of uh an interrupter of human connection right i mean because besides talking about

00:12:07.960 how this the smartphones deprive us of boredom and boredom is what allows us to do this mind

00:12:13.500 wandering and basically helps us create meaning in our lives you talk about how the other ways the

00:12:17.920 smartphone disrupts us and that you talk about social connection yeah how did they figure out so

00:12:21.800 i mean i thought that was interesting just the mere presence of a phone even if it's silent just

00:12:26.100 like it messes conversation up it makes people feel less connected you gotta you gotta love

00:12:30.360 scientists right that they have to prove these weird things that you and i normal people like

00:12:35.060 sense is kind of true like i'm i mean we all know that when we go out to dinner people have their

00:12:40.260 phones out and they're sort of looking at them and stuff but for them to prove it they literally put

00:12:45.560 people in like cafe settings and um measured and had them have conversations and put the phone there

00:12:54.520 and put it across the room or took it away and then had people uh sort of rank the quality of their

00:13:00.560 conversation which is really interesting there is actually a boredom researcher dr sandy

00:13:04.880 man at the in the uk who used paper cups to she got people extremely bored and then asked them to

00:13:12.740 come up with different ways to use paper cups like they came up with like plant holders or you know

00:13:19.700 sandbox toys but then when they got really really bored they started coming up with more creative ideas

00:13:25.840 like a madonna bra or earrings or musical instruments and so yeah scientists have um wonderful

00:13:34.480 and and wonderful ways of proving what i sometimes think we our intuition uh already knows right and

00:13:42.240 what's what's even scarier is like what's this doing to kids right because like i think all of us who

00:13:47.160 were alive before smartphones like we know what it feels like to be bored we know that feeling but

00:13:53.060 like kids like my my children have been they've been exposed to ipads since they were you know two or

00:13:58.700 three how old are your kids brett uh six and four got it yeah well you know we've all seen the kid who

00:14:08.440 picks up a device and knows immediately how to use it right which is kind of awesome and amazing that

00:14:15.140 how quickly they pick things up but i mean to me what you're describing so we had a number of

00:14:21.000 classrooms across the country do the board and brilliant um project uh in together as classrooms and

00:14:27.660 also a bunch of colleges did it um and i heard from one teenager who was like i don't know this

00:14:33.040 feeling is really i don't recognize it feels weird i was like what like boredom um and yeah

00:14:39.440 you're right like they if you are i don't know a teenager and you have a smartphone and you may never

00:14:47.180 have experienced boredom which i find a little worrying and quite extraordinary and as one teacher

00:14:54.380 told me he in florida i was like so what were the cumulative effects of like doing the project

00:14:59.740 together of changing your smartphone habits and he's like well what i saw was actually more eye

00:15:06.580 contact amongst the kids because i think they started to realize how much um not only are they on their

00:15:13.200 smartphones personal smartphones but actually the classroom this day to this day and age is is mediated

00:15:19.220 with screens you know they're on ipads in class they're looking at smart boards they are uh on

00:15:25.300 their computers there's there is not a ton of um face-to-face interaction and so for me i think part

00:15:32.960 of it is that younger people these days are extremely performative right they're they're doing things for

00:15:38.360 instagram they're it's not that they're not acting they're definitely acting they're they're doing

00:15:42.260 things for instagram or facebook or snapchat or whatever it might be but it's those subtle effects

00:15:49.120 as as sherry talks about like the combination of um the way someone moved their hand and the way that

00:15:55.820 they look at you or the pacing of their sentence and combining that all together and that's when you

00:16:01.380 really understand a human being but it requires patience right sometimes people don't and sherry talked

00:16:08.080 about this with me is that she found that her students really wanted to talk to her they preferred

00:16:13.240 email because they could uh write their sentences make them perfect edit them before they got them to

00:16:18.560 her and she's like no because when you talk to me and i see when you stumble or you have a hard time

00:16:24.360 explaining something or you work your way towards uh completing a thought or an idea in person that's when

00:16:32.200 i understand what you're going through and i understand better how i can help you um and so

00:16:37.460 yeah i think it's this patience with human fallibility or human mistakes that kids don't

00:16:44.480 have to have because now they take a 10 pictures or you know and i do this too i'm on instagram take

00:16:50.700 10 different pictures choose the best one put the best filter on it find the best hashtag and

00:16:54.680 and oh my gosh look at that look at my amazing life it's awesome you mentioned well yeah speaking of uh

00:17:00.360 you know instagram one of the benefits of smartphones we have a great camera with us pretty much at all

00:17:05.060 time and people take pictures all the time but you highlight research that's actually hindering our

00:17:09.580 ability to actually be in the moment even remember this stuff we're taking pictures of yeah this is

00:17:14.700 super interesting research um going at fairfield university and and the woman professor linda hankwell

00:17:21.320 calls it the photo impairment effect and this is basically the idea that when we go about our day and

00:17:28.140 taking pictures all the time um we're outsourcing our memory we're literally literally saying to our

00:17:33.320 brain like don't you don't have to remember this my camera's got it thanks um which can be great if

00:17:38.260 you are trying to remember like oh don't forget you parked in section d13 you know and you want to

00:17:44.560 use that as a memory aid but let's say you're spending a day at the beach and you've outsourced all

00:17:51.040 your memory of your day with your family to your camera and you know i i know from my listeners and

00:17:57.100 from a lot of people we have thousands thousands and thousands of these pictures that we don't

00:18:02.340 usually actually go back and look at she also found that one way to really not remember something

00:18:09.360 is to put yourself in the photo because you start to look at yourself from a third person you take

00:18:15.660 yourself out of the moment um in that you start to like let's say you're you want to take a picture

00:18:21.700 next to a statue um if you're in the photo you're thinking of what the photo is going to look like

00:18:26.440 instead of actually being there next to the statue in the moment but there was good news too from

00:18:32.200 professor hengel which is that if you want to improve your memory when you're taking photos

00:18:36.200 use uh macro basically smartphones do this really well zoom in on a very specific detail really think

00:18:45.220 through about how you're framing something and zoom right in and that will actually help you

00:18:49.780 remember it better so there is also the photo enhancement effect but i just find it fascinating i mean

00:18:55.600 we're we're i'm taking photos like i just dropped my kids off after school it's like the first day of

00:19:00.460 school and i was like oh i gotta capture the moment you know it was like um my kids were like please

00:19:07.360 put the phone away they hate it they they're not i mean my kids are seven and ten and i wonder if this

00:19:13.020 is a generation who's gonna be like uh stop taking photos already enough is that why taking selfies

00:19:20.320 feels weird like i i've never like you know because you when you're in once you're in the picture like

00:19:25.080 you look at it differently like i've i think i've taken one selfie and i haven't done it again because

00:19:29.440 it just made me feel weird it is a weird feeling right well i think you know whenever i think of

00:19:35.460 selfies i think of what i learned about snapchat which um and i think this speaks to the technology

00:19:41.560 about it being designed to make really encourage the behavior of of and not to use the word addictive

00:19:50.240 because the the jury's out on whether it's addictive clinically or not but um and do you know about

00:19:55.500 snapchat streaks brett oh yeah i do okay so basically you start a streak with a friend and that means that

00:20:01.480 every day you send each other um a goofy selfie and it sounds benign right except that snapchat gamifies

00:20:08.860 it so that you collect points and uh emojis and emoji stickers and trophies and those sorts of things

00:20:16.380 and it has also become a thing for kids where you're like don't break the streak right because

00:20:20.940 if you break the streak like let's say you're going for 300 days that you're sending these selfies back

00:20:25.600 and forth if you break the streak that means that like whoa you something happened and your friendship

00:20:31.000 might be over and so you start to think about um it just sort of combines all these things that

00:20:37.720 we've been talking about waking up taking a selfie taking yourself out of the moment when you could

00:20:42.360 just kind of be lying in bed and and thinking about what you're going to do that day or maybe remembering

00:20:47.760 a dream or whatever but you wake up you take a selfie you put yourself in sort of looking at yourself

00:20:52.580 this performative aspect you're collecting points you're basing a friendship not on any sort of real

00:21:00.120 eye contact either um i mean that's not to say that like snapchat isn't fun and and great and and you

00:21:06.040 know as you know from the book like i am not anti-tech i love my phone i just don't think that

00:21:12.340 the answer also is on or off i i'm not a fan of detoxes i feel like you know what we're talking about

00:21:19.180 is self-regulation right is saying like recognizing like actually i really like that first 15 minutes of

00:21:25.900 my day to be spent quietly or i've used my phone uh enough i'm starting to get that yucky feeling

00:21:33.300 uh i recognize this feeling and i i need to put it away and and make some time for something else

00:21:39.680 yeah i mean there was going on that track there you you interview some like monks of some i can't

00:21:45.780 remember if they're zen or they were catholic um but they use social media they use smartphones

00:21:52.100 and uh you ask them like so how can you do this you know what's going on there and they basically said

00:21:57.740 it's just it's like a distraction like any other distraction like a distracting thought

00:22:01.980 right and like that really convicted me because i always i put up these like crazy

00:22:05.680 tools to make sure i don't check websites at certain time when i think like okay i should be a

00:22:11.220 little more mindful i don't need all this stuff i just need a little self-regulation yeah and i think

00:22:15.260 you know there's a as many people in the industry say like oh well the technology is not making you

00:22:21.660 you know check twitter a million times a day and i kind of disagree with that i think you know right

00:22:27.260 now the business model uh for most of these platforms and apps is our is our attention that

00:22:32.740 phrase attention economy that we are paying um for with for these services with our eyeballs every

00:22:39.620 day in and out and so that's why they want you to keep coming back i mean yes facebook wants to

00:22:45.100 connect you with people you love but they also want you to spend time with them on the facebook

00:22:48.940 platform you can't pay for facebook even if you want to um and so as they collect our behavior

00:22:55.880 and parse it and turn it into dossiers of data that they then sell on to advertisers um i think

00:23:02.300 we have to question you know what is our time worth i think it it it needs it and it's not your fault

00:23:09.700 if you feel like you're coming back over and over again to the instagram these these these platforms

00:23:15.580 are built to make you do that it is their business model but you know similar to sort of like cigarettes

00:23:22.340 when we started to understand that um these companies were not being completely honest about

00:23:29.560 the effects of of you know and i'm not saying all tech companies have like malicious intentions but i

00:23:36.540 think that we have to be more honest about what the business model is and and how we are sort of

00:23:41.760 um paying with our time and with our personal information for these things right i mean there

00:23:47.620 are some companies that are sort of i know there's a company called dopamine i mean that's what

00:23:51.320 it's called and like they basically yeah they help apps learn how to be more addictive so they have

00:23:57.380 they know you know how to tweak algorithms to send updates at certain times so the app becomes more

00:24:03.400 something that people want to want to check you know and and like as podcast listeners or makers

00:24:08.600 rather you and i like you know what do we want people to do we want listen people to listen to our

00:24:13.260 shows um i i told and and i have ads on my show so like this i i i'm i understand that this is an issue

00:24:21.380 but i think we need to be more sort of um upfront about it and and explain to kids how these things

00:24:29.340 are made and built and paid for so that they are making smarter wide-eyed open uh choices for themselves

00:24:38.180 speaking of like you don't like detoxes i love how you highlight this summer camp where you know

00:24:43.180 most summer camps they have like this like strict no technology rule right no devices they when you

00:24:48.160 get there they're going to take your smartphone put it in a you know a safe for the rest of the summer

00:24:52.380 but this one summer camp decided no let's have like anything goes you can bring your device

00:24:56.920 etc why did they do that and what were they hoping what were they hoping to accomplish with that

00:25:01.940 new rule oh i love this guy so it's a camp called long acre camp it's actually in western

00:25:07.260 pennsylvania really rural and this camp has been in this guy matt smith is his name he's the camp

00:25:12.760 director it's been in his family for 40 years and he was just sort of thinking you know what the

00:25:18.720 purpose of the camp they call it long acre leadership camp and you know he was like what is leadership

00:25:23.680 in this day and age it's understanding how to um to sort of set goals and and be a good example to

00:25:32.360 other kids right and he's like so this whole what are kids mostly thinking about right now

00:25:36.940 they're mostly thinking about their smartphones whether it's games or social media or whatever

00:25:41.860 but he was seeing that taking away the smartphones like summer camp what would happen they would just

00:25:47.480 go home and then get back on their devices and nothing would change they wouldn't have learned

00:25:53.240 any better habits or ways of self-regulation it was again back to the on or off switch so he was like

00:25:59.700 you know if there's one safe place where you should be able to sort of experiment with your behavior or

00:26:05.460 try out new things um it should be summer camp so he had kids come to camp and the first week they

00:26:12.360 had to turn in their phones and they had to go like you know tech free and they all got to know each

00:26:17.880 other and you know this way that people could make friends and all those sorts of things and then he was

00:26:21.640 like okay after the first week he gave the phones back to the kids and as one girl told me you know

00:26:27.460 she must have been 14 she was like all hell broke loose people grabbed their phones they curled up in

00:26:33.740 like various like cabins and corners and she said she felt like she had fallen into like a time machine

00:26:41.660 like she completely lost track of time she went on all her social media thing um thing she was seeing

00:26:47.140 what all her other friends were doing in other places and it kind of made her feel bad um she also

00:26:52.780 like didn't talk to her friends who were there with her that she'd made at camp and and all the

00:26:58.120 kids came back together and they sort of you know he and matt i give him a lot of credit for this he

00:27:04.160 sort of let them figure out what should the rules be for themselves and um and so they sort of started

00:27:10.200 to figure it out that you started to get dirty looks if you were on your phone too much or some

00:27:15.040 people said you know i don't want my phone and gave their phones back to the camp later they were

00:27:20.940 like actually i like the way things were before um so i think the idea being that like not only at

00:27:27.300 the end of camp should you have gotten a ton of exercise and fresh air and made new friends but

00:27:31.460 if you take back new life skills that you understand your own behavior better that you know when to use

00:27:38.100 your smartphone so that it helps you that it's like a tool rather than like a taskmaster then he felt

00:27:44.180 like you know that was his job as someone who works with young people to help them to do that and and

00:27:49.740 you know i think about when i was like 13 years old there's no way that i was being asked to regulate

00:27:55.200 my own behavior like kids are today mine was like should i go for a bike ride i guess so you know maybe

00:28:01.140 we snuck some cigarettes on the golf course or something like that but these kids have incredibly

00:28:05.480 powerful tools in their hands and and parents who don't know how to use them that much better than

00:28:10.960 they do and what we're asking for is a generation to grow up a lot faster than i think we previously had

00:28:17.120 too which i guess happens every generation the difference being though that this tool is being

00:28:21.240 updated constantly and personalized to each of us all the time i think that's what makes it different

00:28:26.420 than like when cars were a thing or the radio came out or tv was a thing these tools are constantly being

00:28:33.000 updated to hijack our attention and to keep us coming back and they are personalized to us and they

00:28:38.560 know everything about us yeah that's scary when you stop and you think about you have that existential

00:28:43.400 moment that amazon and google and facebook know so much about you so if you don't recommend you know

00:28:49.140 quick cold turkey social media detox etc like what are some just brass tacks things that you found that

00:28:54.940 worked with yourself and your listeners on sort of getting a handle on their their technology use

00:29:00.720 yeah so actually we turned it into a seven step thing and what i tried to do was make it so that

00:29:06.520 um it sort of takes an aspect of all the things that we talked we've talked about and and tries

00:29:12.360 like a little tweak so for example um day three you know for is called photo free day and the idea is

00:29:20.480 like don't take any photos that day and for young people that is extremely challenging to go for a day

00:29:26.140 um without taking photos but from what we heard from them um you know it literally they were using

00:29:32.140 their eyes differently they were seeing and experiencing the world differently and and i think

00:29:36.440 anybody can try a day right you know one day is all we're asking you to do and as one professor put it

00:29:44.420 to me he's like you know i felt like my my students had been talking about this they knew that like

00:29:50.180 these things were happening to them but they didn't have the like the the permission

00:29:55.920 and the very specific structure to try um a change and so i think by saying like we've tested this

00:30:03.960 here's what here are the rules just for one day try no photos all day long and then observe your own

00:30:10.360 behavior and what we have since seen um or day three delete the app that app take the app that is

00:30:17.380 driving you bonkers bananas we all have that one app take it off your phone just for the day and like

00:30:23.080 one guy said to me this was when we he first did the project he's like actually i've taken

00:30:27.320 six apps off my phone i was like all right dude whatever you need to do he took off instagram and

00:30:33.020 snapchat and facebook and twitter and i don't know whatever else and um he got back in touch last week

00:30:38.460 actually and he was like i after that one day i decided to always keep them off my phone he didn't

00:30:44.720 you know kill his accounts he just decided that he preferred using them on a laptop because then he would

00:30:51.700 just keep track of the time that he spent there and it didn't turn into a time suck and he also

00:30:55.700 started to realize that for him he said i think he said nine times out of ten when i'm on facebook i

00:31:01.380 feel bad about my life i don't really want to feel that way i feel pretty good about it when i'm not on

00:31:06.560 there and so for for him it was a permanent change but there were other people who said like

00:31:11.120 oh actually i like not having twitter on my phone i'm gonna do it once a month just to remind

00:31:15.740 myself that i'm in charge of twitter it's not in charge of me and so i think what we're doing is just

00:31:19.860 saying like these little tweaks can actually make big changes in your life and and the neuroscience

00:31:25.780 explains why they make big changes in your life so just try it see what happens yeah what was your

00:31:32.180 app that you deleted oh my god two dots do you know that game i don't know that game i read about it but

00:31:37.180 i don't know what it is i am not a gamer this dot this this dots this dots spread this game just

00:31:45.160 became like my scotch and soda you know like i would put the kids to bed and just 0.86

00:31:51.120 play this stupid game for like three hours and i i was ashamed of myself like i'd hide it from my 0.91

00:31:58.100 husband i felt like god i could be learning like a new language no i'm connecting dots in this game 0.99

00:32:03.500 and so i actually confronted the maker of the game and i was like man you're ruining my life and he's

00:32:10.280 like well you know you have to be able to put it down and figure it out i was like yes but

00:32:15.260 but i i i can't you know and then i i tried to convince myself that i was actually increasing

00:32:21.860 my spatial awareness and getting better at other um i don't know i thought like maybe it was helping

00:32:28.320 me in some way and so i reached out to some people who are specifically studying games who were like

00:32:33.920 yeah no you're not like you're not moving through the world more efficiently you're just getting

00:32:38.860 better at connecting virtual dots on your screen that's what you're getting better at so um so i

00:32:45.420 took it off my phone um for a long time but then i uh look what a confession to make i did put it back

00:32:52.040 uh but for science brett for science for science of course so so what happened after you put it back on

00:32:58.660 well okay so here's the story is i was talking to game designer um jane mcgonigal she's at the

00:33:05.400 institute for the future she's awesome and i was telling her like um i had a flight i'm a nervous

00:33:11.720 flyer and i had a really long flight to go on and she's like well you know what you could do there are

00:33:16.380 ways of using games productively you could put two dots back on your phone i was like what really

00:33:22.700 she's like yeah like what's the alternative that like you drink your way to australia or you you know

00:33:30.220 take a sedative or like she's like we don't why why go that direction when just playing two dots 0.99

00:33:37.000 takes you out of a situation and calms you she's like i think that that's a fair use situation and

00:33:43.100 and she told me also about a lot of other research about ways that we can use games um more productively

00:33:48.860 so the research is starting to show that like if you are trying not to be um to drink or not to smoke

00:33:56.140 or compulsively eat 10 minutes playing a game you know you got to set a timer though you got to set

00:34:01.140 a timer 10 minutes is an optimum length or if you are trying to switch gears mentally and and calm

00:34:08.160 yourself down 20 minutes is an optimal length i mean it's it's all very nascent research but i think the

00:34:14.540 point is with all these things it's not good or bad or on or off it's like ways it's it's subtle it's

00:34:20.660 there are ways to use these things so that they help you they and they don't hurt you and that's

00:34:26.120 hard to do you have to be very um purposeful about your habits which is tough we're all busy you know

00:34:32.340 yeah that was the big takeaway from this book was that technology isn't bad you just have to be

00:34:35.880 mindful about it and all everything you do with yeah did you did you make any changes brett i gotta i

00:34:41.060 gotta ask have i mean well no so like i so my personal thing is i i have like these crazy setup on my

00:34:47.160 laptop i use this app called uh what's it called here find focus it's for mac and so i set it to

00:34:53.800 where i can only access like twitter and like my you know my dumb sites my like my dorking around

00:34:58.960 sites is what i call them every 45 minutes i can access them for 15 minutes and then so for 45 minutes

00:35:04.520 i can do whatever and then i have like a device on my my android called app block so it blocks me

00:35:10.440 from instagram until like four o'clock so i i i'm i'm one of those people like i i'd rather

00:35:15.900 add constraints than self-regulate because i feel like self-regulation can also exhaust you mentally

00:35:22.500 so i just don't even have to worry about it but i think that's really interesting to me because like

00:35:26.280 you are somebody who is super tech savvy you you know you put out a podcast you're in this world right

00:35:33.080 but what was surprising to me was how many people don't know the basics like how to turn off

00:35:38.820 notifications on their phones or change the settings and like the idea of somebody installing

00:35:44.740 more technology to help them deal with their technology blows some people's minds they're like

00:35:50.500 wait what so i think you know we are in the minority the majority is struggling and and has no

00:35:57.740 idea uh maybe not no idea i want to give them more credit than that but is struggling and is looking

00:36:03.200 for very simple non-tech ways to make change um right so another like just simple way that i kind

00:36:10.600 of came across and i experimented with last week was when i didn't want to use my phone i would just

00:36:14.620 turn off wi-fi and mobile data and so i could get text messages and i can call but i couldn't do

00:36:20.020 anything else and even just like going through that hassle like oh i want to check instagram okay i

00:36:25.100 turn on my mobile like even the hassle of that sort of like okay it's not even worth it so i don't do it

00:36:29.540 yeah like i set up little roadblocks for myself too or i put um apps that i shouldn't really be

00:36:36.280 using i'll put them in a folder called productivity um just to be like are you really being productive

00:36:42.280 like just little like moments where i sort of mess with myself to remind myself like actually you know

00:36:48.140 or even you know i used to think that the best use of my time was answering all my email on the ride

00:36:55.160 home but actually having written this book and done the research i am better off like staring at

00:37:01.520 people's shoes all the way home the chances of me coming up with a better idea um or solving a

00:37:07.700 problem or even just being you know more available to my children and maybe making them a dinner that

00:37:14.460 i've you know i would have like ordered pizza i came up with an idea for a healthy dinner like

00:37:18.940 that is far more productive and creative um yeah maybe i'll have more emails to answer in the

00:37:25.460 morning but like in the long i gotta we gotta play the long game right man you know it's something i

00:37:31.920 did too is like one of the things you suggest is like notice how you spend your time with your devices

00:37:36.240 and email on my phone i notice that i read it but i don't answer it and i'll wait till i get home on

00:37:43.580 my laptop and then i'll answer it and so i'm like what's the point of having email on my phone

00:37:47.580 so i'm thinking about just deleting my email app because like it doesn't do anything for me

00:37:51.600 well that would be radical i would love to hear what happens you might get a lot of people are

00:37:55.380 pissed off at you who are like man don't you read your email well i mean i i read it on my phone and

00:38:00.440 then i'll wait two hours you know when i'm back at my laptop to answer because i i don't answer i don't

00:38:05.960 for some reason like i don't like typing on the phone with my thumbs so i think that makes perfect

00:38:11.860 sense like if you want to send someone a coherent response it helps to have a keyboard absolutely

00:38:16.560 well manush what's going on with the experiment so i mean right now has it just been broken down

00:38:21.120 into steps that people take are you still doing you still running the experiment gathering data

00:38:25.460 on your listeners yeah so the latest is um in the book we lay out the i sort of took what i learned

00:38:31.820 when we did the first project with the 20 000 people in 2015 i took all that took all the feedback

00:38:36.740 added more research and interviews and turned it into sort of the seven sort of steps you can take

00:38:42.260 and one of the apps that we initially partnered with it's called moment um it's a great guy

00:38:48.880 software developer who's just did this as a side project for himself he lives in pittsburgh

00:38:53.620 he has turned uh he's created a bored and brilliant program in the app so you can um download the app

00:39:01.460 moment there's a bored and brilliant site uh within it that you can sign up for it'll guide you through

00:39:06.980 the steps while also measuring how many times a day you pick up your phone just to check it and how

00:39:12.280 many minutes a day you spend on your phone to see if it is effective for you um but i should say like

00:39:17.800 in the original project we only collectively we only shaved six minutes off our daily phone usage um

00:39:27.700 and i was really bummed i was like what everyone's telling me they're having this amazing experience

00:39:33.260 how is it possible that we only cut down six minutes but then i went back to the neuroscientists

00:39:39.580 and the cognitive psychologists and they just kind of laughed at me they were like do you know

00:39:43.920 how difficult it is to change people's behavior much less do it in one week the fact that people felt um

00:39:52.360 so um passionately that they were willing to sign up for this project for a week and that they reported

00:39:58.660 back in our survey results that 90 of them felt that they had more power over their phone um that

00:40:05.080 was an incredible feat that people felt that they had the ability to master their phone as opposed to

00:40:14.320 being um dictated to by it um and so really to me it's also the stories that are peppered throughout

00:40:20.740 the book of people's changes that they've made in their lives um some of them are you know small like

00:40:26.600 one woman told us that now she like goes up and down the subway stairs when she's waiting for the

00:40:31.920 subway to get a cardio workout instead of looking at her phone but then like another woman this woman 0.99

00:40:38.300 in wisconsin um she was going through a breakup when bored and brilliant happened um and she had to decide

00:40:44.680 whether to sell the farm or not and she decided to keep it and now once a month she opens it up to

00:40:50.900 the community in wisconsin and she has something called make time where people come to the farm 0.96

00:40:55.420 they hand over their devices they can take a nap some people bring their sewing machines other

00:41:00.700 people paint um she decided that for her not only was she going to be a farmer but that she was going

00:41:06.540 to turn it into a place where her community could come together to do some creative thinking and

00:41:10.520 problem solving so that she renamed her farm the make time farm which is kind of amazing so

00:41:15.800 lots of really interesting stories right and that story wouldn't have happened unless she was bored

00:41:21.320 right she got the idea she was bored well manush has been a great conversation besides a note to

00:41:26.640 self where else can people find out about your work in the book yeah so i'm um i'm on book tour i'm

00:41:31.920 doing we're doing a lot of other fun things with our listeners i'm at manushz.com and the podcast is

00:41:39.000 note to self radio.org come join us and check us out uh we're having a lot of fun and and rethinking

00:41:46.160 how we live in this crazy accelerating world fantastic manusha marodi thank you so much for

00:41:51.040 your time it's been a pleasure thanks brett my guest today is manusha marodi she's the author of the book

00:41:54.760 bored and brilliant it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also check out

00:41:58.620 our podcast note to self just check it out on itunes stitcher wherever else you listen to podcasts

00:42:02.820 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash boredom where you can find links to resources

00:42:07.380 bring delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:42:22.260 for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:42:25.580 artofmanliness.com so you've got something out of it i'd appreciate if just take one quick minute to

00:42:29.720 give us a review on itunes or stitcher helps us out a lot as always thank you for your continued

00:42:33.400 support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:42:36.760 we'll be right back and see you next time

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The Art of Manliness - September 26, 2017

#342： Why Boredom is Good for You

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