Joe Rogan Experience #1564 - Adam Alter

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. AAAdam Alter0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Hello, Adam.

   4. AAAdam Alter0:14

      Hey, Joe.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      How are you? What's going on?

   6. AAAdam Alter0:16

      Yeah, not too bad, thanks. Not much happening, just the pandemic.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      Uh, I really enjoyed your book, man. It's, uh, terrifying and accurate and, uh, irresistable. (laughs)

   8. AAAdam Alter0:29

      Thank you. I appreciate that.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:31

      Um, when you write a book like that, I mean, first of all, the irony is not lost on me that we're doing, uh, an electronic show about avoiding electronics. Like, it's so much-

   10. AAAdam Alter0:43

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       ... of a part of our life, the- the- our- our addiction to all these devices and games and applications and all these different things, but yet, we use them constantly. It's, uh, it's such a weird balancing act, isn't it?

   12. AAAdam Alter0:57

       Yeah, it is a weird balancing act. I think a lot of people who write about this stuff and think about it, uh, really just, uh, focus on all the negatives. There are obviously massive positives. Right? This is a time when we're being forced to- to physically distance ourselves from other people and yet, we are incredibly lucky to be able to carry on conversations like this, to be able to connect to other people through screens. And so, so screens are in many ways great, but obviously, there are- there are downsides as well.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       Yeah, the good thing is that people can work remotely and I think there's a lot of people that are recognizing that. That there's- it's not really necessary to be in a cooped up office all the time and many people are finding that they're even more productive from home. But then, you've got distractions while you're at home that you, you know, you- you could just look at whatever you want on your computer if no one's looking over your shoulder, and therein lies the problem with being connected to the internet really, right?

   14. AAAdam Alter1:48

       Yeah, I think that's a really big part of it is that the- the good stuff, the stuff that brings us value, that, uh, makes it possible to connect to people, you know, there are huge values that come from being on a screen. There's a lot of- a lot of great stuff there, but it's- it's so close in proximity to all the stuff that takes us away from what we should be doing. And so, you're constantly trying to balance these two issues.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:07

       Yeah. Um, I know several, uh, comics who write, uh, on a computer that doesn't have wifi. They've disabled the wifi on their computer just so specifically they- they can never get on the internet while they're writing because it is- it's such a pull. Like, there- there's such a- it's so difficult to imagine that people lived without it and that now that we have it, it's so difficult to ignore it, so difficult to get away.

   16. AAAdam Alter2:37

       Yeah, it's true. I- there's this- this big push in the last few decades, um, especially in the last decade called retro mania, which is this kind of falling in love with things that are past, that are from the past, things that people didn't really like at the time that much. And so now, we've got all these capacities and capabilities on screens that make them phenomenal and they can do so many more things than they used to be able to do. But like a writer who's trying to get work done, the only way to really do it sometimes is to- to roll back time 10 or 20 years. And so, there are a lot of people who do that. They'll- they'll disable the most kind of advanced features on the screens they're using because it's the only way to get past that- that hurdle of trying to- trying to do the right thing, but have the wrong thing be right there at your fingertips.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:17

       When- when you're writing a book like yours, which is, uh, warning people about technology, um, what was your motivation for doing this? Is this something that you've struggled with personally? Is this something that you've just seen other people struggle with? Like, what- what was the reason?

   18. AAAdam Alter3:34

       Yeah, it's, uh, it's definitely something I've struggled with a lot. Um, and I think a lot of us in- in academia who end up writing about topics like this focus on the things that are most- most prominent for us. Um, I remember being on a flight once, um, between New York and LA, so a good six-hour flight. And a friend had texted me and said, "You should check out a game." It was this game that he told me to check out, a game called Flappy Bird. And I downloaded this game on the runway and I remember as we took off, I started playing. And I had- I had grand designs of- of doing work, having a good nap, having some food, and I- I spent six hours playing this game, so that by the time we landed, I had done absolutely none of the stuff I was planning to do. And, um, I remember landing and- and the guy next to me actually turned to me and said, "Are you okay?" 'Cause I kind of sat there just tapping the screen like a maniac for six hours.

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:22

       (laughs)

   20. AAAdam Alter4:22

       (laughs) And I remember thinking, this is not good. If I- you know, I'm a reasonably high functioning individual and six hours just melted away. Now, you blow that up to a- a lifetime, we're spending like 15 or 20 years behind these screens. And so the question is, are we doing it in a way that's good for us or is it not good for us? And so that's what inspired me to- to research this and to write about it, to- to try to get a sense of, you know, what I think of as the biggest- the single biggest change in the way we live as a- as a planet in the last 20 years, um, and trying to get a sense of- of whether that's been mostly good, mostly bad, somewhere in the middle, or at least, you know, pushing the peop- people to think more about this thing that's occupying so much of their time, um, because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to understand better. You know, it's fine if you're gonna spend one flight doing the wrong thing for six hours if you have other plans, but expand that to the life- the lifespan, talking about 80 years or so, I think it's gonna have a huge effect on the way we live. And so, I wanted to- to understand it more deeply.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:19

       There was, uh, what- which was the game that you wrote about where the- the maker of the game, even though it was hugely successful, decided to delete it?

   22. AAAdam Alter5:28

       Yeah, that's the one that I started playing.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:29

       That was Flappy Bird? Yeah.

   24. AAAdam Alter5:31

       Flappy- yeah, Flappy Bird. It's- it's- uh, he- he removed it from the market. It was an incredible thing. This guy was making an absolute killing, you know? At its peak, he was making, I think it was something like tens or hund- even hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in ad revenue, which, you know, for an indie game developer, um, you create this game, it's kind of a- a move of passion more than anything. You just enjoy pouring your- your, uh, artistic talents into making this game. You don't expect to make tons of money, but the guy was making a killing.And, um, you know, rare in this industry, and I think rare in any commercial industry, he, he had a conscience and he basically said, "I feel terrible about this." And removed it from the market. And people reached out. It was almost like he'd taken a drug away from drug users-

   25. JRJoe Rogan6:13

       Hmm.

   26. AAAdam Alter6:13

       ... because he removed it from the market, and a lot of them responded and said, "Can you just, like, give me a copy on the side?"

   27. JRJoe Rogan6:19

       Wow.

   28. AAAdam Alter6:19

       And he was pretty firm about it. He said no.

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:22

       Wow. Wow. So, what is so uniquely addictive about that one game? I know there's games like Candy Crush that you- are uniquely addictive, and, um, Subway Surfers, my wife's addicted to that game.

   30. AAAdam Alter6:35

       (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. AAAdam Alter15:00

      we use now, at least from the developer's perspective, is we- most of us resist the idea of- of having an im- implanted tech device. You know, like, we don't want something implanted in our brains yet. We're still pretty queasy about that idea. But if you ask people, 80% of adults will say that they can reach their phones 24 hours a day without moving their feet. So that's- they're- they're not physically implanted devices, but they're already basically there.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      Right.

   3. AAAdam Alter15:25

      Um, and then down the road, if you speak to people who work in virtual and augmented reality industries, they'll tell you, "You know, it's- we're only a couple of years away from this being a huge commercial success," where just as we now almost all universally from quite a young age walk around with our own s- personal iPhones and- and smartphones, we're gonna be doing the same, but they're gonna be virtual reality glasses. And so you'll be going somewhere, and at any moment in time, instead of deciding whether to live in the moment or pick up your phone, it'll be, do I want to live in this moment or live in an alternate reality where, you know, I can go exactly where I want to go, do the thing I want to do, spend time in a virtual space with exactly who I want to spend time with? I think it's going to be incredibly hard for us to- to resist the temptation to- to do that. And that's gonna create a literal physical barrier between human beings. I think we're all gonna be living in our own little universes eventually if- if things go the way they've been going.

   4. JRJoe Rogan16:14

      Well, if I was conspiratorially minded, and I kind of am, but only for fun, uh, I would think that someone has probably set that ball in motion with COVID. With COVID and the lockdown of all- it's almost like if you wanted to make a movie where, uh, artificial intelligence wanted to figure out a way to hook us deeper, artificial intelligence would release a virus.

   5. AAAdam Alter16:40

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:41

      And they would force us to stay inside. It doesn't kill everybody, but it makes people scared so you stay inside and it connects you even deeper to computers, and maybe more importantly, separates you even more from the human experience of touching and being around each other and social cues and social gathering. And it makes it even more compelling to do things virtually, more compelling to be on your computer all the time and messing with applications. And then while this is all going on, something far more immersive is released when you're already-

   7. AAAdam Alter17:14

      I- I-

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:14

      ... accustomed to it.

   9. AAAdam Alter17:16

      Yeah, I've got to say, I mean, life in the last decade in particular has- has got way stranger than fiction.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:23

       Yeah.

   11. AAAdam Alter17:23

       The real world right now, there is so much about it that just seems like it can't be real. You know, if anyone wrote a movie with the script of the last five to 10 years, people would-

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:31

       How about the last four here? (laughs)

   13. AAAdam Alter17:32

       Oh, the last four, let's pick the last four.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:34

       Just that.

   15. AAAdam Alter17:34

       People would say, "This is- this is ..." Yeah, it's not- it's nonsense.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:37

       Yeah.

   17. AAAdam Alter17:37

       Like what- what ever- it's- it's kind of B-grade Hollywood stuff that we're looking at here.

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:41

       Right.

   19. AAAdam Alter17:41

       Um, but, you know, the interesting thing about this pandemic period for me is I think it might have a weird backlash effect where we've all been forced to- to spend time on screens. Um, it's- instead of going to the screen because we- we love it and we're attracted to social media and whatever other things we're doing on screens, a lot of us are being forced to use them. And one thing that's changed is s- sentiment towards screens. I think a lot of people are just over it. And so when we are past all of this, I think there's a chance that's gonna be the catalyst to push people away from screens a bit. 'Cause if you- you know, before this, if you were- you speak to especially younger people, they'll say, and this is true for me too-I would rather just use the most remote form of communication possible, whatever's easiest. I don't wanna have to speak on the phone. I don't wanna have to see people. Let me just send a quick text or an email or a WhatsApp or whatever. And I think there's a shift now where people are, like, craving that- that true face-to-face time, where you're actually sitting in front of a person having a real conversation. And- and that's- that's been, I think, a shift in the last roughly eight or nine months.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:45

       I think there's people like you that are craving the experience of being around other folks, 'cause I think you're aware of the repercussions of this virtual experience that we're all engaging in, and the addiction to screens and screen time and phones and games and applications. But I think there's plenty of folks that are happy to just get lulled to sleep and sucked into it, and I think that's my real concern. My real concern is mindful, thoughtful people like yourself that are, you know, s- that are saying, "Listen, we need, you know, just a real experience with human beings, and we're revolting and- and leaving the..." But if you look at the numbers in terms of human beings, like what, like, uh, the average screen time, all that stuff's going up. Y- use of these things is all going up, and I think there's folks like you that would like to think that we're rejecting it, but I think it's a, it's a minority that's rejecting it. I think the minor- the majority are embracing it, unfortunately.

   21. AAAdam Alter19:45

       Yeah, I think... I- I think that- that may be true. I mean, I think one of the big drivers of screen time, uh, is, you know, if you take psychological needs away from people, the things that are really important to them to function psychologically, that's when they turn to screens. That's when they turn to drugs. That's when they turn to alcohol. That's when they turn to all the things that soothe us. And screens do that. They are a kind of a non-substance way to- to be soothed. Um, that's what happened with me on that flight for six hours. It's what happens when you're on social media scrolling mindlessly, when you're watching tons and tons of videos online. All that sort of stuff is- is- is a way of soothing you. And I think people need to be soothed more than ever right now, because this is a, this is a hard time for a lot of people. It's hard financially. It's hard because you're socially distant from people. Um, it's- it's just, it just creates this kind of pall of uncertainty that sits above everything we do, and humans hate that. We don't like uncertainty. We don't like not knowing what's coming around the corner. And not just about the pandemic. I mean, politically, in a lot of different ways, there's a lot of uncertainty right now, and for- for the last while. And when you put people in that state, they're gonna turn to screens. Uh, I don't know if that's an- an enduring thing, but any time you rob people of- of well-being, of- of some sort of psychological need, they're gonna try to find it elsewhere, and one of the ways they do that is... now the easiest way to do it is to turn to a screen.

   22. JRJoe Rogan21:02

       Have you spent any time at all playing virtual reality games?

   23. AAAdam Alter21:08

       I... It's funny. I... When I was doing the research for this book, I spoke to a game designer, um, brilliant guy at NYU. He's at the NYU Game Center, named Bennet Foddy, and, um, he teaches, he teaches game design. He's designed a number of- of phenomenal games himself. And he told me something that I found fascinating and I took it on board. He- he said to me... Uh, I asked him about World of Warcraft and I said, "You know, do you enjoy it? What do you think about it?" And he said to me, "I know that if I start playing that game, I- I either don't play it at all or I'm gonna basically be giving up years of my life, and I don't have the time to do that, so I just have never even opened the game to- to play it. It's just not something I wanna do." And that's- that's how I, um, have felt about most of those experiences. I did play one virtual reality game. Um, it was with a haptic suit, so it basically fits over you. It was this Ghostbusters game. And I- I grew up watching Ghostbusters and loved it. So- so the- the ghosts fly through you and you can feel the suit compresses, and so it feels like they're actually kind of butting into you, which maybe doesn't make much sense 'cause they're ghosts. But you- you fly around with one of the little Ghostbusters guns and you're in New York City and you're running around. This was a 10-minute experience, but if you had told me that I could give up the next 48 hours of my life, put on the suit, run around, no food, just- just do this for 48 hours, it was so incredibly immersive and engaging and interesting, I would've done it. It was, it was amazing. And it wasn't even like... That's not even where we're going with this stuff. This was, you know, step one out of step 10 in terms-

   24. JRJoe Rogan22:43

       Yeah.

   25. AAAdam Alter22:43

       ... of sophistication. This is the early days. It's only gonna get more compelling.

   26. JRJoe Rogan22:47

       D- are you aware of Sandbox? Have you ever heard of the company Sandbox?

   27. AAAdam Alter22:51

       No.

   28. JRJoe Rogan22:51

       Sandbox is, uh, it's a virtual reality game destination. So you go to this place and it's essentially a warehouse, and inside of it, they have these arenas set up for games and a series of games that you play, and I playing with my whole family. We put the haptic feedback suits on, virtual reality-

   29. AAAdam Alter23:08

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan23:08

       ... helmets, and you kill zombies, you fight off skeletons on a pirate ship. There's a bunch of games, and it- it is wild. And you- you see it and you go, "I see where this is going." Like this is, right now, pretty immersive, pretty immersive, really, really fun, very engaging, exciting to do, but you know for a fact that it's just gonna keep getting better and keep getting better. And right now, it's insanely addictive. Like I get so pumped up to do it. When we d- like, I'll go with my family like every couple weeks or so, and we get so excited when we're on our way over there. Luckily, it's got a set time. It's o- it's a one-hour experience, and when it's over, it's over. But my God, you know, you're- you're in it. Like y- there's one of them where you're in a haunted house and you're fighting off zombies and they're just running at you, like hundreds of them, and you're gunning them down. It's so exciting. When they get ahold of you, you feel their touch like in- in the haptic feedback suit-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. Absolutely. I mean,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      but while it's addictive, you're also getting in shape.

   2. AAAdam Alter30:05

      Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, there's a, there's a good example. So the- there's the physical side of it, and then of course, like, the mental experience of being on, on screens can be very, very positive for us too. Um, you know, you're learning languages that you wouldn't have otherwise been able to learn. You're s- you're being exposed to people and experiences that you couldn't either experience because you live far away from them. Um, I moved to the US in 2004 from Australia, and, um-You know, it's hard to believe, it's only 16 years ago, but this is before YouTube. This is the same year that Facebook came about. Um, I couldn't really find a good enough internet connection to be able to speak with video to my family in Australia, and that only came a couple of years later. So, that's a miracle, that during this time of lockdown when we're all so far apart from each other, we are able to actually communicate through these screens in a way that's basically seamless.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:54

      Do you worry when you're researching this and you're spending all this time working on this subject, and you accumulate all this data, and you, you look at the big picture, and you look at where this is going, do you think that we are on our way to being obsolete, that human beings are going to be either replaced or we're going to have some sort of a very bizarre symbiotic relationship with electronics, where we're not, w- like, we're not what we think of as people right now?

   4. AAAdam Alter31:25

      I, I don't worry about humans being replaced as much as I worry about humans becoming just isolated entities. Like, I think humans, for all of evolutionary history, have always been in groups, in tribes. They've had to come together. They've relied on each other. They've formed coalitions. I, I worry that the way we get most of the psychological needs met, the psychological nourishment, it used to require getting together as a species, coming together in certain ways. And I think when you can get so much of what you need from a device that you strap onto your face, that basically separates you from everyone else around you, um, I, I do worry about that. And, uh, I, I also think there are certain critical periods in, in maturation and development for kids when they learn how to interact with other people. They learn how to, you know, work out the difference between someone being angry and someone being afraid. They work out, you know, if you take another kid's toy, the kid's gonna bop you on the head and say, "That's not okay." You've gotta learn that stuff through trial and error. And I think because kids are placed in front of screens at such a young age, many of them, and because these devices are gonna remove us from the, the contact with other people, I, I just think we're becoming m- a much more isolated species. We used to call humans the social animal. That's still true, for sure, but it's a, it's kind of an impoverished, stripped-down version of what it means to be social if you compare it to even 20 years ago.

   5. JRJoe Rogan32:47

      Yeah, that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about us being almost obsolete, is that, uh, I worry about the advent of AI, and I worry about things like Neuralink, where you're increasing the bandwidth that human beings have to access information. And I'm not exactly sure what kind of an effect that's gonna have on human beings, but I'm positive that whatever effect it initially has is gonna exponentially increase over the next few decades. And then, I'm, I'm worried that, like you said, most people's phone is n- never more than, uh, a hand, like a arm's reach away.

   6. AAAdam Alter33:25

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan33:25

      You wake up in the morning. It's right there by your bedside. People are always constantly checking their pockets when they get up from the dinner table. They always wanna have their phone. How long before we let them stick that thing in us? How long before you have a chip that, that sits in your arm or something real simple that'll just, you know, goes under your skin in a very easy way and doesn't... it's not very painful, but you have some access to everything that you want, and then slowly but surely, we start replacing body parts? (laughs) I mean, I'm-

   8. AAAdam Alter33:54

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan33:54

      ... I'm ge- genuine, genuine... I know it sounds science-fictiony and ridiculous, but I'm genuinely worried that what we think of as human beings now, this is like a legacy version of human beings, and that 20, 30 years from now, it's gonna be obsolete.

   10. AAAdam Alter34:10

       Right. I mean, just go back 20 years. Go... Imagine you could, you could go back to the year 2000 and speak to people and say, "Hey, you're gonna go to the restaurant, and everyone's gonna be sitting isolated, looking at a small device, and then they're gonna go home, and they're gonna spend four hours looking at that device, and then they're gonna wake up in the morning and look at that device." I've, I've been asking this question of thousands of people. Um, I, I basically asked them from age 13 up to people in their 90s, "Would you rather now have your phone broken, so you can have your phone shattered in front of you, or would you rather have a broken bone in your finger?" And older adults say, "I would rather have a broken phone." But if you ask teens and adolescents, about half of them say, well, they want to bargain with you first. They're like, "When I've broken my hand, can I still swipe my phone?" But a lot of them will say, "I, I would rather have a broken bone in my hand than a broken phone." Now, imagine going back 20 years and saying to people, "There's gonna be this little device, and people are gonna be willing to have body parts broken to preserve the integrity of that device, and it's gonna be worth only a few hundred bucks." People are gonna say that... people would say, "That's crazy." And I think this has been, like, a long, 20-year process of desensitization.

   11. JRJoe Rogan35:17

       Yeah.

   12. AAAdam Alter35:18

       You know, the, the stuff that we're willing to do now, we're willing to give up four, five, six, 10 hours of our days to screen experiences that, at the end of the day, we look back and say, "Man, I didn't really want some of those experiences. That wasn't good for me. I don't feel happy or better off." So you, you extrapolate. You look forward. I mean, this is the beginning of an incredibly long road or a tall mountain. We're just at the very base, and we're moving upward. And that's why talking about VR and AR and Neuralink and all of the kind of, um, you know, augmented reality, uh, uh, artificial intelligence that's around the corner, all of that stuff, we're gonna look back at this, and this is gonna look quaint in the same way that looking at people watching TVs in the '50s, looking at that little square wooden box looks quaint. We're there. We... it feels like we're at some destination, but we're on the road, and it's still very early on that road. And this is one of the really important reasons I think for thinking so carefully about this stuff, because if we don't, if we don't think about it now, if we don't think about how to manage it in our own lives, it's gonna affect us as individuals and in our small communities, but I think it's gonna affect the, the whole planet o- on some level. So it's really important to, to at least be mindful about the choices we're making.

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:28

       I agree with you every step of the way. But my, my concern is that it doesn't matter what we're saying here-... that this is, uh, like, we are, like, holding a thousand bison as they run towards the cliff. We're like, "Guys, this is a cliff. Guys, behind me." And they, they're just pushing us back and we can't stop it. That's what it seems like to me. I, I, I un- I agree with everything you're saying, and I bet this is gonna resonate with all the people that are listening and watching this right now. They're gonna go, "Yeah, he makes a good point." And then they're gonna grab their phone and go, "Huh, who's calling me? Who's texting me? What's this? What's that?" And they're gonna get-

   14. AAAdam Alter37:02

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan37:02

       ... sucked right back into it.

   16. AAAdam Alter37:05

       Yeah. I, I, They will. And, um, and this is the, this is the kind of eternal problem with this, um, that, uh, we, we, we are up again... I'm sure Tristan Harris said this to you the other day, um, that we're up against very powerful, impressive foes, and they know all the right bu- buttons to push. And if they don't know, they'll collect data to be able to answer that question, and then they'll, they'll institute those practices in their products, and they'll, they'll put those features into their products that seem most capable of, of, uh, you know, bypassing our resistance.

   17. JRJoe Rogan37:37

       Yeah.

   18. AAAdam Alter37:38

       Um, I, but I, I do think... I'm, I'm a little bit hopeful. I'm hopeful because a lot of this is gonna depend on, on, uh, I think two things. You know, there are kind of top-down influences and bottom-up influences. The bottom-up is grassroots. The fact that we're talking about this is a big step forward from where we were just three or four years ago. So in 2014, I was preparing to write this book, and some of the people I spoke to about it said, "This is a storm in a teacup. No one cares about screens. They're all good. There's nothing to worry about." They were already doing a lot of the same things they're doing now. We just weren't really sensitive to those issues. Now, between 2014 and 2017, when the book actually came out, sentiment sh- swung dramatically. Suddenly, just, I'd say millions and millions of people started to care about this issue. And now it's many, many millions, maybe even billions of people who are really paying attention to it. So it's good that at least awareness is there. That's something, that's the first step. And then the top-down influence is can you shape how, how companies use email? You know, like, if you can get, uh, a lot of the biggest companies to start saying, "Hey, you know what? Email is kind of destroying the lives of our workers, maybe we're gonna try to institute a policy where when they go on vacation, they absolutely don't have to check email." There are these, these, uh, companies in, in Germany, in particular, and other parts of Europe that, that have this vacation policy where when you go on vacation, every email that comes into your inbox is automatically deleted. So your inbox, the way it looked the day you went on vacation does not change until you get back from your vacation. So you don't need to check it while you're away. And so that's the top-down influence. And then, you know, the question about whether... You know, it's a really, really hot button issue. Should, should governments intervene? Should they start changing, uh, the way tech companies operate? Should they legislate how we use these products? For, for very understandable reasons, I think a lot of people bristle at the idea that government should get involved. Um, but these are questions, they're open questions, and some of the countries around the world have said, "Yeah, government should probably get involved. We should s- I- it's not gonna fix itself, and it's not gonna be fixed by grassroots pressure, by consumer pressure, so we're gonna have to do something from the top down," which is how a lot of governments deal with drug issues. They go to the source.

   19. JRJoe Rogan39:46

       I think it's a real problem if you let the government intervene in something just because you think it's addictive. I think if, if you're dealing with s- issues of censorship on social media and things along those lines, I think yes. I think the government should probably... they should probably figure out some sort of revision to the First Amendment, because it seems like these platforms, it's not as simple as this is a private company, b- because this is a private company that has immense influence over the way the world communicates. It's just too big of a pipeline to say, "This is just a private company, and we can decide who's on our platform and who isn't." Because you're seeing things censored by ideology, and you're seeing this polarizing effect that that has between Democrats and Republicans in the United States and the right and the left and... But that's one subject. That's just about free expression and free speech, which is a cornerstone of our democracy, a cornerstone of our culture. But addiction? Like, here's the thing. If you want... if you wanna be competitive, there's no way you're going to allow emails that come into your inbox to be deleted when you go on vacation. If you're one of those people that's all about kicking ass and taking names and our company's going to the top, you're not gonna allow that. Because what if that email gets deleted and that email could have critical information that could help your company, and that could be the next level, and you can get that promotion you've been, uh, working towards? And people are not gonna go for that in America. They might go for it in Germany, and good luck to you. But in America, in competitive business practices, I just, I can't imagine that people are gonna agree to something like that. And the idea that... uh, I don't think that you're suggesting this necessarily, but that the government should step in and say, "Hey, you know, when you're on vacation, you get two weeks of vacation every year. And when you're on vacation, all your emails get deleted." People are gonna go, "Fuck you. I need those emails."

   20. AAAdam Alter41:38

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan41:38

       "What are you, crazy?"

   22. AAAdam Alter41:40

       Yeah. I, I, I don't believe they should do that. I think that's absolutely absurd. Um-

   23. JRJoe Rogan41:44

       What do you think they should do?

   24. AAAdam Alter41:46

       But I-

   25. JRJoe Rogan41:46

       When, when you say the government, like, w- w- what-

   26. AAAdam Alter41:48

       Yeah. It's a-

   27. JRJoe Rogan41:48

       Intervie-

   28. AAAdam Alter41:50

       Y- uh, one, one thing they could do is they could intervene with protected classes, like kids.

   29. JRJoe Rogan41:54

       Okay.

   30. AAAdam Alter41:54

       Right? So kids are incredibly vulnerable on screens. A friend of mine who writes about these issues, Nir Eyal, talks a lot about, um, protected classes and that we have, we have to have separate laws for, for people who... like if, if they wanna sign u- if, if a- an adult wants to sign up and say, "Look, I need help. I'm addicted to screens. I'm spending 12 hours a day on them. I, I want some help. Can you help me?" Or, or for kids who are also a protected class, perhaps the government could intervene and say, "We need ways to ensure that we're protecting these, these classes of people who basically e- either they've identified as needing help or they are kids and by definition need some help." So the government might intervene there. I, I mean, this is, this is the thing about this issue.I've been thinking about it for six years. There is no magic silver bullet.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. AAAdam Alter45:00

      what's going on here."

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:01

      Right.

   3. AAAdam Alter45:01

      And so you can understand the psy- psychological hooks that are embedded. But as I've been speaking about this to, you know, audiences for the last three or four years, everyone wants a solution. Um, and, uh, you're right. M- there are gonna be a lot of people who are just like, "I don't care about this. I'm fine. I'm happy. I- just leave me alone," and that's fine, but when I'm in front of audiences, and they can be anything from, you know, t- p- people who work in the tech industry to the parents of kids, to school districts, to big companies. I mean, it just, it varies pretty dramatically, but one of the things I always say is, "Tell me, all of you, from one to ten, how big an issue is this for you, and how much do you want it to change?" And most people fall at the top half of the scale. They're at, like, a six or a seven or an eight. Now, they're in front of me, right? So it's possible that that's just what they're saying in that moment, and in fact they... w- when it comes to- push comes to shove, they're not gonna do that much about it. But the, the solutions that I'll share, or the suggestions that I'll share, they're incredibly straightforward. They're things like cultivate a habit where you don't have your phone at dinnertime. This is not a high-tech solution to a high-tech problem. It works. You know, like, I've, I've managed to do this. A lot of the people I know have managed to do it. And even these small interventions, they're very analog. They're just like, "Put your phone in a drawer for a couple of hours a day. Don't put your phone in the bedroom."

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:20

      Yeah.

   5. AAAdam Alter46:21

      Um, that stuff matters, and I think the best we can do, the best I feel that I can do right now, is to talk to the end consumers of tech, and if they want to hear the message and they want to hear that this is a concern and what you could possibly do about it, that's great. If they don't, I'm not a proselytizer. I'm not, I'm not trying to convert every- anyone to my view. I just wanted to put this out there and to have people say, "Oh. Yeah. This is a thing." And it seems like people are on board with at least that part of it. They... but like you and I, they're not sure what to do about it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:49

      One of the things that's helped me immensely is doing this podcast, because while I'm talking to people like you for hours, there's no phone. There's no, no distractions. And it's one of the things that I love about wearing the headphones and just sitting across from someone, uh, y- in this case virtually, but most of the time in person, talking to someone. It's just a conversation. That's, that's all it is. There's no, there's no checking the phone, and that is so rare. It's, it's such a strange time where checking a phone becomes, like, one of the most common activities that a person does throughout the day. If you- if- j- if you just looked at how many times a person checks their phone throughout the day versus all the other things they do, have a glass of water, go to the bathroom, the- all the- the various things that people do every day, that's at the top of the list. And again, like you're saying, 10 years ago, no one would have ever imagined that was the case.

   7. AAAdam Alter47:47

      No. Yeah. Y- I mean, I can't imagine there are too many people in the- on the planet who spend more time in conversation than you do. Um, and, you know, there's incredible benefit to that, and most people, when they have th- uh, those deep conversations with other people, they recognize that benefit. They enjoy it. Um, and so, you know, one of the, the pieces of hope is that... You know, if you tell people, "Try to try this for a while. Try this for a week. Don't have your phone at the table when you're having dinner," it's hard at first for people who are always used to just kind of s- mindlessly scrolling through dinner, but most people end up finding that there's quite a lot of benefit to it, and they enjoy it. So part of this is to get people to have the experience of what the other side could be. Um, but, but yeah. I- y- you're right. These, uh, these conversations are rare, and, and, uh, for most people, and picking up the phone is, is one of the most common things we do. We spend, on average... the average American adult spends four, four or more hours a day on, on a, a cell phone screen.It's a huge amount of time, and most people don't... can't believe it.

   8. JRJoe Rogan48:46

      Yeah. It's, it's hard to imagine when you look down at that number and you go, "What?" 'Cause you, you just think of it in these little tiny chunks, like, "Oh, a few minutes here or there."

   9. AAAdam Alter48:54

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan48:54

       But those few minutes, you know, there's 60 minutes in an hour, they add up quick. And, uh-

   11. AAAdam Alter48:58

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan48:59

       ... uh, mo- D- w- d- when you were... What was the most disturbing thi- when you were researching this and you're looking at all these trends, what was the mor- most disturbing aspect of it for you, if there was a most?

   13. AAAdam Alter49:11

       There were two. Um, the one was the... you know, there are people who play video games more than they would like, but then there are people at the very top end of that spectrum who are just absolutely helplessly addicted, you know? They'll, they'll play, they'll play games for five weeks straight, put on 50 pounds, lose their hair, sit in diapers, have... pay someone to bring pizza boxes to their room till the- there are just piles and piles of pizza boxes.

   14. JRJoe Rogan49:40

       (laughs) .

   15. AAAdam Alter49:40

       I met some of these people and spoke to some of them, and those stories I just found completely shocking. You know, I was sitting-

   16. JRJoe Rogan49:47

       Well, tell the story about the football player, if you would.

   17. AAAdam Alter49:50

       Yeah. I mean, he's the, he's the one I'm thinking about now. This, this guy who just, um... he basically told me... he was a, he was a very strong student. He was, uh, in college. He was a straight A student, and, uh, was on the football team, so he was a student athlete. Very bright, very capable, and slightly lonely. Felt a little bit distant from other people and started playing World of Warcraft, formed a guild, played with some other players, and just found that experience just incredibly immersive and rewarding. Uh, he loved the social aspect of it more than anything, and he felt a sense of, of, uh, obligation, I guess, that, you know, there were people playing at different parts of the world. He was playing with people around the world. And so when it was nighttime where he was, other people would be playing because it was daytime where they were, and so he started to stay up later and later and later. His, his sleeping hours shrank, um, and he ended up flunking out of college. This happened twice, actually, because he relapsed after he got treatment. But he flunked out of college. Um, he put on... h- he told me, I think he said he put on 40 pounds of fat in a period of five weeks.

   18. JRJoe Rogan50:58

       (laughs) .

   19. AAAdam Alter50:58

       Spent five weeks straight sitting at the screen, playing the game 23 hours a day, he said. Between 23 and 24 hours a day. Um, he told me he didn't use a diaper and that that accounts for the hour a day (laughs) , but he didn't bathe. Um, and he had... he paid this doorman to bring up boxes of pizza, so that's what he was eating. He was eating, eating basically pizza three times a day, and he was unrecognizable by the end of it. Uh, looked different, failed out of school. That, that to me was... that was the... one of the two most shocking things, was hearing these stories from people face-to-face explaining what they'd gone through. It's just... a- and there's no substance involved, you know? You hear these kinds of stories from, from substance abuse, um, but, but the idea that an experience can be compelling enough to have the same effect on some people, I found that really shocking.

   20. JRJoe Rogan51:44

       Yeah, and the, the fact that he relapsed too. Like, he, he got over it, recognized that there was a giant issue, and then the lure of it drew him right back to the computer.

   21. AAAdam Alter51:55

       Yeah. He, uh, he went for treatment. He went for a dose of treatment. It was expensive. Um, he was lucky that his family could afford it. Um, he went to this, um, facility, uh, just outside of Seattle called reSTART. Um, and they, they take in mostly young males, and they, they teach them how to cook and clean and, you know, all these things that, uh, seem to kind of pass by a lot of people and being self-sufficient and not, not just being stuck in front of the game. Um, they expose them to nature. They get them outdoors. They teach them how to play sports. They get them to exercise a little bit. They feed them healthy meals, all this sort of stuff. So he went and he did this for a few weeks, and at the end of it he thought, "Okay, I'm gonna go back to the life I had before, and I'm, I'm not gonna play this game. I'm not gonna play World of Warcraft." And for a while, it worked. But one of the things... one of the mistakes he made is that he basically went back to the exact context he had been in when he had that a- addiction in the first place. And so soon enough, you know, a period of loneliness, he was inspired to just fire up the game, and he said, "You know, I was just gonna play one more time." Suddenly it happens all over again, which is what you hear from people who are... uh, have, have drug abuse issues as well. Um, you, you can't... you obviously can't just do it one more time, and so he had to go back to the facility. Now this time when he finished his treatment, instead of going back to college, he, uh, he actually stayed out there. He, he lives and s- stayed out in, uh, in Washington State.

   22. JRJoe Rogan53:17

       So, he's clean now. Do you... are you still in touch with this guy?

   23. AAAdam Alter53:22

       He is. He's clean. He's a tremendously successful guy. He's a businessman. Uh, he's doing very well. Um, and yeah, he, he's doing well, and I think a big part of what helped him was just completely removing himself from the context that was problematic for him. That seemed to be a huge part of, of what allowed him to get past it.

   24. JRJoe Rogan53:40

       There's a certain aspect of, of, of people when they get addicted to things that w- I've, I've heard people try to figure out what that is or why people get obsessed with certain activities, and they think that it's some- th- that it's... you're hijacking or the games are hijacking some, uh, positive evolutionary trait where you get obsessed at trying to get good at things that will help your survival. Like, be a better hunter, learning how to fish, learning how to fight off your enemies, and becoming obsessed with these things has allowed people to thrive and survive and procreate. And that-

   25. AAAdam Alter54:24

       (clears throat)

   26. JRJoe Rogan54:24

       ... somehow or another these games hijacked. Is that accurate? Am I...

   27. AAAdam Alter54:28

       I, I find that explanation really compelling. I, I mean, if you think about it, if you are driven towards mastery, towards completing goals rather than leaving them incomplete, that's gonna predispose you for a lot of the right kind of traits to succeed, especially going back thousands of years. You know, if you are on a hunt-... and you decided, "Oh, no, I'm good. I'm done. It's not gonna-"

   28. JRJoe Rogan54:49

       Yeah.

   29. AAAdam Alter54:49

       "... work out today." You know, if you were that person and you didn't succeed and your ancestors don't ex- your, your, um, your, uh, progeny don't exist. There's no one here to speak for you. But if we exist today, that's because our ancestors were the ones who said, "Actually, no, I'm tired, I'm done, but I can't be done because I need to complete the goal. The mission's gotta be complete." And so there's, there's this overhang of this now, which is, as you say, the, the unproductive part of that, is that we, we are really bad at letting things go as a species. You open up a loop for me and you don't tie the loop off, I hate it. Don't tell me half a story. Don't teach me half a skill. Don't tell me to read half a book or watch half a movie. Humans hate that. We all hate that.

   30. JRJoe Rogan55:32

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:22

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. AAAdam Alter1:00:00

      it's about the challenge. And stripping it of its, of its beauty, like making it in a place that's not beautiful, it's a city block, makes no sense. That, that then just kind of exaggerates that it's all about completing the quest.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AAAdam Alter1:00:11

      And the only reason people will do that is because that- there is that part of us, that's an extreme expression of that, that tendency. But we all have some of that in us. And e- especially people who are high on conscientiousness, who are kinda tenacious. That- there's something about that that's really compelling and it's, it's hard to ignore.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:28

      Yeah, there's something about completing tasks that gives you this little spark of dopamine, right? This little-

   5. AAAdam Alter1:00:35

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

      Th- something g- gets you excited. And the more difficult the task, the better the feeling is when you've completed it. I've never run an ultra-marathon, but I gotta ima- What is the longest you've ran- you ran?

   7. AAAdam Alter1:00:48

      Um, I absolutely punished myself running the New York City Marathon 10 years ago. It was hell. I remember I crossed the finish line completely depleted. And, uh, I know this, this sounds, sounds a bit silly after we've been talking about the Sri Chinmoy 3,100 Mile Challenge, but after 26 miles, I was just done. Um, and I hadn't eaten enough food. I remember crossing the line and this woman put a medal around my neck and she said, "How, how did that feel?" And I said, "That was hell. I'm never gonna run another marathon."

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

      (laughs)

   9. AAAdam Alter1:01:14

      And she said to me, "That's what everyone says, but I'll see you next year." And I've got to say, I have stuck to that.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:19

       (laughs)

   11. AAAdam Alter1:01:19

       I am never running (laughs) another marathon. It nearly killed me.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:24

       Did you just not prepare enough for it?

   13. AAAdam Alter1:01:27

       No, I prepared really quite well for it, but what I didn't prepare for was the ordeal of trying to get to the starting line in Staten Island. I mean, it's, it's hell. So I, I ate my breakfast at what? 3:00 AM. And then the race begins at something like 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, depending on which, which wave you're in. And so I had some food with me, but I just didn't, I didn't budget for that six or seven hour period. So I remember being at the starting line and being absolutely famished.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       Oh.

   15. AAAdam Alter1:01:53

       I was starving.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:55

       That's terrible.

   17. AAAdam Alter1:01:55

       Which is a terrible place to begin. So I was, I was the guy running along the course, just like asking spectators if they had food, like mashing bananas in my face. I was, I was just eating constantly throughout that whole race because I was so hungry. (laughs) So that was my biggest problem. I mean, I think I should probably do another one where I, I, uh, get, get the right nutrition because I, I'd probably be able to do a lot better and enjoy it a lot more. And I, I do run a lot. I still run pretty regularly around where I live, like between eight and 12 miles, but the idea of training for another marathon. I also have two young kids, it's just not something I have that much time for right now.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:29

       Why did you eat breakfast so early?

   19. AAAdam Alter1:02:33

       Because that's when I left home. The bus, you had to take... So this, the way it worked was you had to go uptown. I lived downtown in Manhattan. You had to go and get a bus at 3:00 AM that took, I don't know why it took so long, but it took forever to get to Staten Island. It's cold because it's November in New York. It was just unpleasant. I, I think I, the key is to run a marathon that, that you just show up, you drive your car to the marathon starting line, you get out and you start running. (laughs) That's what I need to do next time, because the New York City Marathon is an incredible spectacle. Millions of people watching. It was, it was one of the most fun experiences I had for the first eight of the 26 miles. Um, but then it went downhill.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:03:10

       How long did it take you to complete it?

   21. AAAdam Alter1:03:13

       I, I, it's funny, I trained and I wanted to run a sub 3:30, um, and all my training runs had been consistent with that. And then the day of the race, I, I could tell by halfway through, it just wasn't going to happen. And so I was approaching the four... I started running with the guy who's holding the sign that says 3:30. And, you know, this is a pacer. He said to me, "I'm going to run this in 3:29." And I said, "How can you guarantee that?" And he was like, "Well, I can run a 2:16. I should be okay." So, so I started running with him and then he, he just receded into the distance because I couldn't keep up by about mile nine or mile ten. And then the 3:40 went by and the 3:50 went by. I realized I was staring at four hours and right at near the end of the race, a friend of mine ran on and said to me, "You're looking at a 4:01." And I was, I was pissed. I was not happy because I wanted to run a sub four. I basically said to myself, if you don't run sub four, you have to do another one. So I ended up just finding some hidden store of energy and ended up running a 3:57.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:04:13

       Wow. One of the things you talk about in your book is the addiction that people have to fitness devices, to these-

   23. AAAdam Alter1:04:21

       Yeah

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:21

       ... watches and iPhones and I wear a Whoop strap.

   25. AAAdam Alter1:04:25

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:04:25

       Um, and you know, a lot of people that wear these things, they start counting steps and they, they start looking at how many calories they've burned. Um, I was in a Sober October contest a couple of years back with my friends. We were using, uh, the MyZone, uh, chest strap app and it calculates points based on how many minutes you are at 80% or above max heart rate. And, and we were killing ourselves, just putting in six, seven hours of cardio a day, like just madness. Um, your, your take on them was mostly negative, right? You were, you were... Is that a fair assessment?

   27. AAAdam Alter1:05:10

       I've r- Yeah, that's fair. I've revised my position on this. I think the bigger issue in the US is, and in the world in general, in the developed world, the bigger issue is that we're sedentary as a species. We don't exercise enough.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:21

       Right.

   29. AAAdam Alter1:05:21

       So if these devices are pushing us to do more exercise, that's good. But then there are people like you, like me, I am an absolute slave to my Garmin watch. And if I take it with me on a run, it's game over. Like I, I could be at the beginning of a run, I'll be standing at the end of my driveway about to go and I'll say to myself, "You are going to run slowly. You're going to do a slow, long run." And 30 seconds later, I'm tearing down the street because I'm looking at my watch, which is saying to me, "Oh, you're running just over seven minute pace. You should probably dial it down to 6:50," or something like that. And I, I cannot resist it. So I, if I want to run and enjoy it, I just can't take the watch with me. So my take is negative just because I think, in the book at least, um, I have a positive feeling about them in general, but they are, they're just really, really hard to resist. Um, and even if you give yourself a bit of self-talk, you're like, "I'm not going to pay attention to it," it ends up being the case that you, you fall in line. Um, I never last more than 10 minutes without looking at my watch and saying, "All right, it's time for me to really pick things up a bit."

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:06:29

       Is... That seems... It's, it's... I get what you're saying, but I feel like the addiction to fitness is probably one of the best addictions you could ever have in terms of the overall quality of life improvement, the actual benefit to it. But you are still dealing with this weirdness, right? You're compelled.

Episode duration: 2:02:19