WEBVTT - Learn to focus and think deeply again with Johann Hari 📚 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.320 I think when we get asked the question do we 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.440 lack focus, that question means something completely different to what 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.640 it potentially meant ten to twenty years ago. Ten twenty 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.040 years ago, it meant, so, do you lack focus in 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.800 your life or your job or whatever it might be 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.239 your career path? I think now that question can legitimately 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.720 be asked, do you lack focus? As in can you 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.200 pay attention or concentrate to anything? And I think the answer, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.440 sadly for most of us, and I'm putting my hand 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.159 up here too, is no, or at least not for 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.400 very long periods of time. And this is not just 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.159 true for us. It's true for our friends, it's true 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.839 for our partners, it's true for our kids, which is 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:48.160 really scary. So the good news is that our guest 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:52.720 today is someone who has done extensive research on focus, 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.240 attention spans and the way that we can reconnect both 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.600 to what we need to be paying attention to and 0:00:58.680 --> 0:00:59.360 to each other. 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.280 I'm so excited about this guest. 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.080 And then we're going to reflect on some of the 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.240 positive things that we've done recently and the things that 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.280 we're proud of and are worth celebrating. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:09.720 This is the wood Life. 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:11.520 I'm Sam Wood and we're going to kick things off 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.039 of our interview on focus and attention spans. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:14.640 And if there is. 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.920 One interview that I want you to listen to, this 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.680 is the one I wore to say. Definite language warning 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:23.959 on this one, so perhaps listen to it by yourself 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:37.720 before you listen to it with your kids. Our next 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.560 guest is the guest that I have been most looking 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.480 forward to speaking to since The wood Life started. He 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.200 is a New York Times best selling author and he 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:55.200 has written a recent book called Stolen Focus, which is 0:01:55.400 --> 0:02:00.440 all about our inability to focus or concentrate, and it's 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.720 all in the name that it's stolen from us. It 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.680 is none other than the absolutely inspiring and incredible Johann Harry. 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.200 Welcome to the Woodlife. Well, thank you so much. Sam. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.600 So yeah, and your latest book, Stolen Focus, is all 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:19.000 about our inability to focus or concentrate or hav an 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.919 attention span. Where exactly did this come from? 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.840 So the reason I cared about this is I could 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.640 feel my own attention going to shit. Ye know, it 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.720 felt for me like with each year that passed, things 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.320 that require deep focus that are so important to me, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.359 like reading books, having proper long conversations, watching films. We're 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.920 getting more and more like running up a down escalator, 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:43.920 you know what I mean. I could still do them, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.079 but they were getting harder and harder, and I could 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.280 see this happening to everyone around me. The average office 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.800 worker now focuses on any one task for three minutes. 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.040 For every one child who was identified with a serious 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.839 attention problem when I was seven years old, there's now 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.320 one hundred children have been identified with that problem. So 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.600 I wanted to understand what's going on here and most importantly, 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.440 what do we do about it? So I ended up 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:08.320 going on this really big journey all over the world, 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:13.040 from Melbourne to Moscow to Miami to Montreal, not just 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.520 the cities that begin with the letter M, and I 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.920 interviewed over two hundred of the leading experts in the 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.919 world on attention and focus. And I learned that there's 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.840 twelve factors that can make your attention better or can 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.320 make your attention worse. They include some aspects of our tech, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.200 but actually go way beyond it as well. But the 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.600 key thing I learned is that your attention didn't collapse. 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.800 Your attention has been stolen from you by some really 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:36.880 big forces, but once you understand them, you can start 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:37.920 to get your attention back. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.560 I'm listening to you, going, well, there's Sam the social 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.680 media person, and Sam the boss, who agrees and understands 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.320 everything that you're saying and yet still does it to 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.560 serve his own needs. And then there's Sam the dead 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.040 who's just paralyzed and paranoid about the world that these 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.800 children are coming into or are already in. And then 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.640 there's Sam the hypocrite, who is quick to say to 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.200 his sixteen year old daughter, you can't do this, and 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.520 these are the reasons why, and yet he does it himself. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.560 I think that those feelings you're having are less in 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.800 conflict than you might think. So I give tell you 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.960 this historical story. When I was a kid, I think 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.240 you're younger than me. When I was a kid, the 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.000 standard form of petrol in Australia and Britain was leaded petrol, 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.440 and a little bit before my time, people used to 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.760 paint their houses with leaded paint. And it was discovered 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.520 by scientists that exposure to lead really fucks your brain, 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.000 and particularly fucks children's ability to focus and pay attention. 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.360 And obviously, if it's in petrol is then in the air, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.640 everyone was exposed to huge amounts of lead. Right, So 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.080 a group of ordinary Australian mums banded together and said, well, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.760 why are we tolerating this? Why are we allowing the 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.080 lead industry to trash our kids' brains? And it's really 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.359 important to notice what they didn't say. So they didn't say, Okay, 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.840 here's the solution, ban or paint. And they didn't say 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:58.839 here's the solution. 0:04:58.720 --> 0:04:59.600 Ban or petrol. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.440 They said, let's deal with the specific aspect that is 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.240 so harming our kids, right, And they fought, and they fought. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.280 These mums fought for their kids, and some dads as well, 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.920 and some people who didn't have kids, and they succeeded. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:13.839 You know, you will have noticed there's no more leaded paint, 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.280 there's no more leaded petrol. As a result, the Center 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.280 for Disease Control, since the average child is now three 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.880 to five iq points higher than they would have been. 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:22.920 Have we not band led? 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:23.760 Right now? 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:28.320 To me, that's a really interesting moment. People identify something 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.760 in the environment that is harming people's attention, they single 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.479 out that thing. They don't mix it up with other stuff. 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.520 They don't overreact and they deal with it, and they 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:39.000 get it out of the environment, and it leads to 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:40.360 a really positive change. 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.080 So I think some. 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:47.159 People when they hear some of the criticisms I have, think, oh, 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.600 he's anti tech, right, Oh he's saying we've got to 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.560 get rid of our tech. That is not. I'm no 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.840 more anti tech than those mothers were anti paint or 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:54.640 anti petrol. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:54.960 Right. 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.039 So when you're saying, well, I make a living from 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.440 social media, social media is a good thing. I want 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.240 social media. I just want social media that doesn't contain 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.800 the specific aspects the harm our attention. I can go 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.800 to more detail on that. The way big tech want 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.279 us to think about this, and I'll stress again, tech 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.120 is only one of the twelve factors that arming our attention. 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.800 It's only specific aspects of our tech. But the way 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.760 big tech want us to think about this debate is 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:21.839 are you pro tech or are you anti tech? 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:22.400 Right? 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.600 And you hear that and you're like, fuck, I'm not 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.600 going to give up my phone and my laptop. I'm 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.160 not going to join the armish. I guess I'm pro tech, right. 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.000 That's not the debate. We're all pro tech apart from 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.400 the armish who bring us people no disrespect. The film 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.240 Witness lied to us. But that's not the debate. The 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.359 debate is what tech do we want? Designed for? What purpose? 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.480 Is working in whose interests? At the moment we have 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.120 tech that is designed to hack and invade our attention, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.920 we can have tech that's designed to heal our attention, right, 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.800 that's what we want. That's absolutely a world we can 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:54.279 live in. 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.080 So then to that point, yeahan, how do we we 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.480 do get overwhelmed by the power of these big tech 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.719 companies And it's almost you know, how does little old 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.279 me as an individual actually make a difference in that 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.560 fight against these tech companies When what they do and 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.120 the way they do it is so commercially driven, How 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:17.280 do we actually impact that? 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.000 So I would say, for all of the twelve factors 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.160 that are harming our attention that I write about, install 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.800 and focus, we've got to respond in two different ways. 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.160 I think of them as defense and offense. 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.040 Right, So there are loads of. 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.760 Things we can all do to defend ourselves and our 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.360 children at an individual level from these factors that are 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.440 harming our attention. So I'll give you an example of one. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:39.560 I go through dozens in the book. I've got something 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.960 called a k safe, so plastic safe. You take off 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.520 the lid you put in your phone, you put on 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:47.840 the lid, you turn the dial at the top, and 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.040 it will lock your phone away for anything between five 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.920 minutes and a whole day. Yeah, I use that four 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.520 hours a day to do my writing. I won't to 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.640 sit down and watch a film with my partner unless 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.880 we both imprison our phones in the phone jail. I 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:00.880 have my friends around for dinner unless everyone puts their 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.240 phone in the phone bit. And people freak out at first, 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.680 and I'm like, listen, you're not Joe Biden. You don't 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.520 have to give orders for what's happening in your grain. 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:09.880 The world can cope without you for an hour and 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:11.440 a half, right, And if they've got kids, I always 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.640 give them the landline number, because I'm like, look, there's 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.200 an emergency with your kids, They'll ring the fucking landline. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.440 It's okay, right, We're not that important. And at first 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.640 people are really panicked. But the pleasure of getting your 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.520 attention back is so much greater than the pleasure of 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.000 whatever shitty distraction you know you're afraid of missing. And 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.320 I would just say to anyone listening. Think about anything 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.720 you've ever achieved in your life that you're proud of, 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.720 whether it's starting a business, being a good parent, learning 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.680 to play the guitar, whatever it is. That thing that 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.720 you're proud of required a huge amount of sustained focus 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.439 and attention. And when your ability to focus and pay 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.120 attention break down, your ability to achieve your goals breaks down, 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.200 your ability to solve your problems breaks down, you've become 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.240 less competent. But when you get your focus back, you 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.959 get a feeling of being competent again. So there's all 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.800 these defensive measures. But I want to be really honest 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:08.640 with people, and we've gone right to the heart of 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.760 this at the start of the conversation, Sam, I am 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:13.880 passionately in favor of these individual changes. 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:14.559 They have helped me. 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.520 They will help you, but they will only get you 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:20.920 so far, because at the moment, it's like we're it's 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.520 like someone is pouring itching powder over us all day 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.640 and then they're leaning forward and going, you know what, mate, 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:28.520 you might want to learn how to meditate. Then you 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.560 wouldn't scratch so much, and you want to go, well, 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.000 fuck off, I'll learn how to meditate. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:33.920 That's really valuable. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.079 But you need to stop pouring itching powder on me, right, 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.120 So we have to go on offense against the forces 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.080 that are doing this to us. And that can sound 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.480 kind of fancy and abstract, but I went to lots 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:45.560 of places that I've already done it. I spent a 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:50.160 lot of time in Silicon Valley interviewing people who designed 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.240 key aspects of the world that we all live in 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.680 and that our kids are so obsessed with. You know, 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.560 there were lots of moments that really haunted me. But 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.600 one was an amazing man named Dr James Williams, who 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.520 used to be at the heart of Google, was horrified 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.920 by what they were doing, quit and became, I would argue, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.560 the leading philosopher of attention in the world. And one 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.640 day he was speaking at a tech conference and the 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.320 audience are people who literally designed the stuff that your 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:17.199 kids use. And he said to them, if there's anyone 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.839 here who wants to live in the world that we're creating, 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:21.280 please put up your hand. 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:24.320 And nobody put up their hand. 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:27.640 Right well, and I asked a lot of these people 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.960 who designed the world we live in, Okay, what's the 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.000 equivalent to the lead in the lead paint, and they 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.120 kept telling me, and for a really long time, I 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.840 just didn't understand what they were saying, right, And it 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:41.440 really took me a long time to absorb it. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:42.320 So give you an example. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.160 This guy called Azer Raskin, who designed a key part 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.440 of how the Internet works. His dad, Jeff Raskin, invented 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.360 the Apple Macintosh for Steve Jobs. And ASA said to me, 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:53.640 you want to know what the lead is, it's the 0:10:53.720 --> 0:11:00.000 current business model, right, So anyone listening, if you open Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.719 now they start to make money out of you immediately 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.480 in two ways. The first way is really obvious. You 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.760 see advertising, Okay, everyone knows how that works. Second way 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.959 is much more important. Everything you do on these apps 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:17.040 is scanned and sorted by their artificial intelligence algorithms to. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:18.560 Learn who you are. 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.559 So let's say that you click or write that you 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.280 like I don't know Pauline Hanson, Bete Midler, and you 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:28.680 tell your mum you just bought some nappies. Okay, So 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:30.960 you like Pauling Hanson, it's figured out you're probably right wing. 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.280 If you like bet Midler, and a man's figured out 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.840 you're probably gay. And if you've got nappy, you' bought nappies, Okay, 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:38.000 it figures out you've got a baby. 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:38.280 Right. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:42.720 It's learning tens of thousands of things like this about you. Now, 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.800 partly that's to sell that information to advertisers, because you 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.840 are not their customer. You are the product they sell 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.720 to their real customer. So people making nappies want to 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.559 advertise to people who've got babies. They don't want to 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.240 waste their money talking to me, I don't have a baby, right. 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.280 But more importantly, they're gathering all this information to figure 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.480 out the weaknesses in your attention so they can keep 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.120 you scrolling. Because the longer you scroll and the longer 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.240 your kids scroll, the more money they make. And every 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.480 time you close the app, their revenue stream disappears. So 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.600 all of their AI, all of their algorithms, all of 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.200 this genius and Silicon Valley is geared towards doing one thing, 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.200 figuring out how do we make you and your kids 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.840 pick up your phones as often as possible and scroll 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:25.720 as long as possible. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:26.560 That's it. 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:28.199 All they care about is how do we get you 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.400 to scroll the most? This is what they say, right, 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.440 They admit it when you talk to them they admit 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.240 it publicly, right, but social media doesn't have to work 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.400 that way. So ASA said to me that business model, 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.440 the kind of fancy term for it is surveillance capitalism, 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.439 the idea that you know, they surveil you to figure 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.360 out the weaknesses and sell you. Right, he said, just 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.760 ban it, just like we said we don't let you 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.840 put lead in lead paint. Just ban that business model. 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.240 So one different business model is subscription. Everyone knows how 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.520 Netflix works. You pay a certain amount, you get access. 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.000 Or think about the sewers. Right before we had sewers, 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.680 we had shit in the streets, people got really ill. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:08.480 And actually, starting in Melbourne, it was one of the 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.199 first sewers in the world. They built sewers. And now 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.920 we all own the sewers together, and we all maintain 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.400 the sewers together. Right, you own the sewers in Melbourne. 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:16.720 Right. 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:19.680 It may be that we all want to own the 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.839 sewage pipes together to stop us getting cholera. We might 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.280 want to own the information pipes together to stop us 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.360 getting the equivalent of cholera for our attention. And I 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.200 would argue for our politics. But whatever alternative they moved to, 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.079 all the incentives change Suddenly the incentives are not how 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.440 do we fuck Sam's attention and keep him scrolling? Suddenly 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.679 it's like, oh, Sam's our customer. Now what does Sam want? 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:44.000 Oh? 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.640 It turns out Sam feels good when he actually meets 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.640 up with people offline and looks into their eyes. Okay, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.640 let's design our app not to keep people scrolling, but 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.160 to get them to actually meet up. Oh, turns out 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.520 Sam wants to be able to pay attention. Let's design 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.599 our app to heal attention, not to hack attention. Technology 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.480 to do that exists right now. My friends in Silicon 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.439 Valley lecturists don Aarrez could. 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:04.000 Do that in a week. 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:04.360 Right. 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:06.880 The reason it doesn't happen is because the incentives aren't there. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.320 But we can make the incentives be there. Right, We 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.560 can fight for this, just like you know, the lead 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.600 industry was never going to go. You know what, guys, 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.240 I think we've just made enough money. Let's stop doing this, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.440 but let's start it works, right. They had to be 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.960 made to do it. These social media companies had to 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.120 be made to do it. The acts existed for one 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.200 point four million years before anyone said, should we put 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.600 a handle on this thing? The entire Internet has existed 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:36.200 for less than ten thousand days. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.240 Right, we can sort this shit out. Human beings have 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:39.960 dealt with much. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.920 Bigger things than this, Right, But we've got to decide 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.480 that attention is something we value, and then we've got 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.920 to actually fight to do it right. And actually the 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.280 tech is only one of a whole series of changes 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.040 we have to make. The food we eat at the 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.480 moment is profoundly harming our ability to focus and pay attention. 0:14:57.360 --> 0:14:59.760 The way we work is harming our ability to focus 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.280 and pay attention. That the complete transformation in childhood that's 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.520 happened in the last two generations is really harming our 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.520 children's attention. These are big things, but we can fix 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.960 big things right. We can put them right, but we 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:14.640 had to resolve to do it, and we have to 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:15.760 fight like hell for them. 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.160 That's given me a lot, and it gives me a 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:20.480 lot to think about it, but it gives me a 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.400 vote of confidence. I just know even our listeners might 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.120 be thinking, God, this is bigger than I even thought 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.080 it was, and it's so overwhelming, and it's so scary, 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.200 and it's so intimidating, particularly for parents. 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:33.280 So you know, I would say. 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.280 Sam, right and I had that feeling sometimes, right, And 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.880 there were times in the research of the book, you think, 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.280 oh fucking hell, are we trapped in the fucking matrix here? Yeah, 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.040 But when I think about that, I think about my 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.160 friend Andrew Sullivan was diagnosed as HIV positive at the 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.600 height of the AIDS crisis in nineteen ninety four. His 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.160 best friend Patrick had just died of AIDS and he thought, well, 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:53.680 that's it. I've got a couple of years to live. 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.440 It's over. No one knew about the new treatments that 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.040 were about to come online, and he thought, Okay, before 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.360 I die, he quits job, and he thought, before I die, 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.000 I'm going to do one last thing. And he decided 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.240 he was going to write a book about a crazy 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.440 utopian idea that no one had ever written a book 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.880 about before. And he was like, look, I'll never live 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.520 to see this happen. No one alive today will ever 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:16.800 live to see it happen. But maybe someone somewhere down 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.440 the line will pick up this idea. The idea that 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:20.920 he was the first person to ever write a book 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.080 about was gay marriage. Right, And when I get depressed 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:25.960 and think, oh God, we're up against something big here, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.800 I tried to imagine going back in time to when 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.360 Andrew was writing his book Virtually Normal in nineteen ninety 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:31.840 four and. 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.480 Saying to him, Okay, Andrew, you're not going. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.400 To believe me, but twenty six years from now you'll 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.480 be alive. That would have completely blown his mind. B 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.080 you'll be married to a man because that'll be legal. 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.480 And see, I'll be with you when the Supreme Court 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.280 of the United States quotes from this book you're writing, 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.640 when it makes it mandatory for every state in the 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.560 United States to introduce gay marriage, and the next day 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.800 you're going to be invited to have dinner with the 0:16:57.840 --> 0:16:59.840 president in a white house lit up in the colors 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:02.760 of the rainbow flag to celebrate what you and millions 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.080 of other people have achieved. Oh and by the way, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:10.040 that president he's going to be black, insane. 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.040 So you had two thousand. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.600 Years of gay people being burned, imprisoned, treated like shit, 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.520 you like in every human society basically, and in the 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.600 space of a few generations, the whole fucking edifice falls 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:25.600 right and we get to I'm not saying there's not 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.119 still problems with homophobia. There is, of course, but you know, 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:34.040 staggering staggering progress. Right, amazing changes can happen. The forces 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.640 that are sucking up our attention are very real, these 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.480 twelve factors, they are very real. They are really debilitating. 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.040 Some of them have very powerful forces behind them. But 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.400 we can prevail over those forces like we prevailed over 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.240 a lot of shitty forces in the past. Right at 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.159 this moment, I've got a god son. I call him 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.200 Adam in the book, it's not his real name. When 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.720 he was nine, he developed this brief but incredibly intense 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.560 obsession with Elvis Presley. When I used to tuck him in, 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.640 he would get me to tell tell him the story 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.920 of Elvis's life. One night, I mentioned Graceland, where Elvis lived, 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.680 and his eyes like wined. He said, God, yeah, will 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.680 you take me to Graceland one day? And I said, sure, 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.240 the way you do with nine year olds. No, next 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.800 week it will be fucking Legoland or Lapland or whatever. 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:16.520 And he looked at me. 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.440 So intensely, and he said, do you swear you will 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.480 take me to Graceland? And I said, I absolutely swear. 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.000 And I did not think of that moment again for 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:29.320 ten years, until so many things had gone wrong. So 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.359 he dropped out of school when he was fifteen, and 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:33.760 by the time he was nineteen. This will sound like 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:36.240 an exaggeration, it isn't. He spent literally almost all his 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.000