“What do you see?”
The question took me a bit by surprise. I was just settling in for lunch with my friend Dan. Pleasantries had been exchanged, and I was scanning the menu when he’d reached his wrist across the table and held it where I couldn’t miss it.
“Uhm, your arm?”, I tried.
“No. Well, yes, but I meant my watch. Know what it is for?”
I was pleased to have a quick answer: “To tell you the time?”
“Correct. I just bought it. Cost next to nothing. It tells me the time. Nothing else.” He paused briefly, and then added, “Oh, and I just bought one of those analogue alarm clocks too. Know what it is for?”
I had a good feeling about this one. “To wake you up in the morning?”
“Absolutely. You are getting the hang of this now. Know what it doesn’t do?”
Plenty of things came to mind, and I was momentarily stymied by the sheer number. My hesitation prompted him to answer for me:
“No e-mail. No social media. Nichts weather, nada news, nyet navigation. My watch tells me the time, and the alarm clock wakes me up. That’s it. My phone can do both of those things impeccably, but once the phone is open I’ve noticed it gets a bit unpredictable as to when it gets closed again.
“I’ve taken to calling them ‘defeat devices’. Not in the tricksy automobile industry sense of something that prevents an emissions control system from working on a car, but in the sense that using them keeps me from opening my phone. That is their real value, because once that particular device gets opened, who knows when I’ll next come up for air.”
Dan Glaser is a neuroscientist, director of the Science Gallery in London and a seriously smart guy who – as a result – is pretty tuned into what is happening to our brains in a world of incessant digital stimulation. If he is taking these kinds of steps to protect his brain, I’m interested.
We moved on to other topics, but as many of my clients are struggling with this issue this conversation stuck with me. After lunch I got to thinking a bit more about what he had said, and realised that – perhaps due to my age, but mostly because I don’t like my phone gobbling my attention all the time – I’m actually using ‘defeat devices’ in a few areas of my life.
Apart from an anachronistic attachment to the timepiece on my wrist, there are at least three areas where I’m consistently using things to keep me from opening my phone.
1. Paper for note taking – if you’ve been in one of my seminars you’ll know that I’m still a major user. I love, love, love the jotter I carry around in my back pocket. As a result, it is probably one of the things that I get asked most often in a seminar: “Why would you write that on paper when you could just put it into your smartphone or xPad instead?”
Well, apart from the cultural appropriateness of grabbing a device while in a meeting or conversation (“Is he checking his mail while I’m talking to him?”), I find it less of a disruption to simply make a note on paper. It is significantly quicker on the front end, and – more importantly – it keeps me from seeing all the little red update dots on various apps that will then be pulling on my attention for the rest of the conversation I’m actually in.
2. Books, newspapers, magazines – yes, there is more, better, faster and more searchable news and information on my device, but frankly in the world we now live in that is not really a plus. I need curated content, and am happy to pay to not have to sift through all the junk. More important still, I can tell where I am in the document, and I know when I’m finished. Psychologically, those are both big wins.
3. Camera – of course my phone can take pictures. But, once it is open, who knows where I’ll fetch up next. A bit like the tourists on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence in Tim Harford’s recent piece for the FT Weekend. In his article, “How we can resist the seduction of the mobile phone”, he arrives at one of the most picturesque places in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, only to find masses of tourists staring at their phones. The phones were opened to take a picture of the amazing surroundings, then sucked in their owners to the point that they became oblivious to those same surroundings.
Of course the real defeat device for my smartphone would be my old dumbphone.
My old Nokia 6210 made calls.
Know what it doesn’t do?
hmmm… somehow this post follows a trend to “be special because you’re not connected”. In the end the smartphone only leverages deficiencies that are already there. If you are easily distracted, you are also by opening up an email on your laptop while creating that utterly important presentation. For me it’s a question of self discipline and it’s clearly not the devices fault (here comes the old adage: knifes do not kill people, people kill people”)…
As with every gadget, no matter if digital or analogue, you have the power to utilize in the way you find appropriate. I personally like these gadgets, as they – just to name a few – give me much better insight into my training status, if I will waste 30 minutes in a traffic jam, if I should pick something up from the grocery store or if someone can jump in for a friends duty because their kids are sick.
Just my 0.02 though…
Hi Phil, thanks for sharing your perspective. I wasn’t hoping to suggest that anyone is special simply because they are not connected, merely that we might want to make more conscious choices about how and when we engage with various tools. Self discipline goes a long way, but employing it is a lot easier if I construct an environment where some behaviours are more likely than others. I am dramatically less likely to eat cake if it is not in the cupboard, or to stab someone when I’m angry if the knife is not on my person.
Written in Spanish with the Google translator:
I have found that YouTube notifications can be reduced, 2 examples using Google Keep to save WEB links: 1) I have searched and saved links to online stations of various musical genres, when I want to listen to a type of music I use no longer what I search on YouTube but I use one of the previously saved stations.2) I saved the links to the favorite videos pages and I have removed the subscription, now when I want to sit down to watch my favorite videos I go through the saved links. Now as the notifications disappear and the need to enter the YouTube page to watch a video has decreased the number of hours of guided navigation by the YouTube recommended.
Escrito en español con el traductor de Google:
Yo he encontrado que las notificaciones de YouTube se pueden reducir, 2 ejemplos usando Google Keep para guardar enlaces WEB: 1) He buscado y guardado los enlaces a emisoras en linea de varios géneros musicales, cuando quiero escuchar un tipo de música uso ya no lo busco en Youtube sino que uso una de las emisoras guardadas previamente.2) He guardado los enlaces a las paginas de vídeos favoritas y me he retirado de la suscripción, ahora cuando quiero sentarme a ver mis vídeos favoritos recorro los enlaces guardados. Ahora como las notificaciones desaparecieron y la necesidad de entrar a la pagina de YouTube para ver un vídeo a disminuido la cantidad de horas de navegación guiada por los recomendados de YouTube.
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https://misprecisionesjuancarlos.blogspot.com/
Clever. Nice one Juan Carlos. We need to find ways to turn down the continuous encouragement to consume more digital noise (of which music is only one kind). Thanks for sharing the idea.