Penn professor Angela Duckworth recently delivered a commencement speech at Bates College. Her advice to graduates? Be judicious on where you leave your smartphone. Trivial at first, but surprisingly insightful on closer look. After all, it has been found that the mere presence of a phone within reach significantly diminishes your brainpower. Americans are now expected to spend about 17 years of their adult life looking in front of a screen. What are the implications for our politics?
Smartphones, and addictive algorithms in particular, are fragmenting everyone’s attention. Everyone is getting dumber, and because everyone is getting dumber, nobody is noticing it. I feel bad for Gen Z, the generation that we treated as guinea-pigs. I feel bad for myself, as I struggle to not check Instagram for a new dopamine hit. Knowing how these things work does not shield yourself from addiction.
If the most consequential decision you can take is where you place your phone, I suspect the second most consequential one is if and how to train your attention.
More coming.