Cal Newport: Deep Work, Focus, Productivity, Email, and Social Media | Lex Fridman Podcast #166

1. 0:00 – 2:15

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Cal Newport. He's a friend and someone whose writing, like his book Deep Work, for example, has guided how I strive to approach productivity and life in general. He doesn't use social media, and in his book, Digital Minimalism, he encourages people to find the right amount of social media usage that provides value and joy. He has a new book out called A World Without Email, where he argues brilliantly, I would say, that email is destroying productivity in companies and in our lives. And, very importantly, he offers solutions. He is a computer scientist at Georgetown University who practices what he preaches. To do theoretical computer science at the level that he does it, you really have to live a focused life that minimizes distractions and maximizes hours of deep work. Lastly, he's a host of an amazing podcast called Deep Questions that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to improve their productive life. Quick mention of our sponsors: ExpressVPN, Linode Linux Virtual Machines, Sun Basket meal delivery service, and SimpliSafe home security. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that deep work or long periods of deep focused thinking have been something I've been chasing more and more over the past few years. Deep work is hard, but it's ultimately the thing that makes life so damn amazing. The ability to create things you're passionate about in a flow state where the distractions of the world just fade away. Social media, yes, reading the comments, yes, I still read the comments, is a source of joy for me in strict moderation. Too much takes away the focused mind, and too little, at least I think, takes away all of the fun. We need both, the focus and the fun. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman, if you can only figure out how to spell that. And now, here's my conversation with Cal Newport.

2. 2:15 – 7:00

   Deep work

   1. LFLex Fridman2:15

      What is deep work? Let's start with the big question.

   2. CNCal Newport2:19

      So, I mean, it's, it's my term for when you're focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task, which is something we've all done, but we had never really given it a name necessarily that was separate from other type of work. And so I gave it a name and said, "Let's compare that to other types of efforts you might do while you're working and see that the deep work efforts actually have a huge benefit that we might be underestimating."

   3. LFLex Fridman2:45

      What does it mean to, to work deeply on something?

   4. CNCal Newport2:49

      I, you know, I had been calling it hard focus in my writing, uh, before that. Well, so the context you would understand, I was in the Theory Group in CSAIL at MIT, right? So I was surrounded, at the time when I was coming up with these ideas, by these professional theoreticians. And that's like a murderer's row of thinkers there, right? I mean, it's like Turing Award, Turing Award, MacArthur, Turing Award. I mean, y-y-you know the crew, right?

   5. LFLex Fridman3:12

      Theoretical computer science.

   6. CNCal Newport3:13

      Theoretical computer science. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, uh, I'm in the Theory Group, right? (laughs) Uh, doing theoretical computer science, uh, and I publish a book. So, you know, I... So, I was in this milieu where I was being exposed to people, uh, where focus was their tier one skill. Like, that's what you would talk about, right? Like, how, how intensely I can focus, that was the, the key skill. It was like your 4/40 time or something if you were a, an athlete, right? So-

   7. LFLex Fridman3:37

      So, this is something that people are actually... The, uh, the, the theory folks are thinking about?

   8. CNCal Newport3:41

      Oh, yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman3:42

      Really?

   10. CNCal Newport3:42

       Oh, yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman3:43

       Like, they're openly discussing, like, how do you focus? And...

   12. CNCal Newport3:46

       I mean, I don't know if they would, you know, quantify it, but, but focus was the tier one skill. So, you, you would come in-

   13. LFLex Fridman3:52

       I see.

   14. CNCal Newport3:52

       Here'd be a typical day. You'd come in, uh, and Eric Demaine would be sitting in front of a whiteboard-

   15. LFLex Fridman3:57

       Yeah.

   16. CNCal Newport3:58

       ... right? With a whole group of visitors who had come to work with him, and maybe they projected like a, a grid on there because they're working on some graph theory problem. You go to lunch, you go to the gym, you come back, they're sitting there staring at the same, same whiteboard, right? Like, that's the tier one skill. (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman4:14

       This is the difference between different disciplines. Like, I, I s- often feel, for many reasons, like a fraud, but I definitely feel like a fraud when I hang out with, like, either mathematicians or physicists. It's, like, it feels like they're doing the legit work. Because when you talk... Closer in computer science, you get to programming or, like, machine learning, like the, the, the experimental machine learning or, like, just the engineering version of it. It, it's, it feels like you're gone so far away from what's required to solve something fundamental about this universe. It feels like you're just, like, cheating your way into, like, some kind of trick to figure out how to solve a problem in this one particular case.

   18. CNCal Newport4:56

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman4:56

       That's how it feels. Like...

   20. CNCal Newport4:57

       Right.

   21. LFLex Fridman4:58

       And it's... Uh, I'd be interested to, to hear what you think about that, because, um, programming doesn't always feel like you need to think deeply to work deeply, but sometimes it does.

   22. CNCal Newport5:12

       Sometimes.

   23. LFLex Fridman5:12

       So it's a, it's a weird dance.

   24. CNCal Newport5:14

       Oh, for sure, code does, right? I mean, especially if you're coming up with original algorithmic designs. I think it's a great example of deep work. I mean, yeah, the the- the hardcore theoreticians, they, they push it to an extreme. I mean, I, I think it's like knowing that athletic endeavor is good, and then hanging out with a Olympic athlete. Like, "Oh, I see that's what it is."

   25. LFLex Fridman5:35

       Right.

   26. CNCal Newport5:35

       Uh, now for the grad students like me, we're not anywhere near that level, but the faculty, uh, the faculty in that group, these were the cognitive Olympic athletes. But coding, I think, is a classic example of deep work, because I got this problem I want to solve. I have all of these tools, and I have to combine them somehow creatively and on the fly. But, but so basically, I had been exposed to that. So I was used to this notion when I was in grad school and I was writing my blog, I'd write about hard focus. You know, that was the term I used.... then I published this book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, which came out in 2012, so, like, right as I began as a professor. And that book had this notion of skill being really important for career satisfaction, that, uh, it's not just following your passion. You have to actually really get good at something and then you use that skills as leverage. And there's this big follow-up question to that book of, "Okay, well, how do I get really good at this?"

   27. LFLex Fridman6:26

       (laughs) Yeah.

   28. CNCal Newport6:27

       And then I look back to my grad school experience. I was like, "Huh, there's this focus thing that we used to do. I wonder how generally applicable that is into the knowledge sector." And so as I started thinking about it, it became clear there's this interesting storyline that emerged that, okay, actually undistracted concentration is not just important for esoteric theoreticians, it's important here and it's important here and it's important here. And that evolved into the, uh, the deep work hypothesis, which is across the whole knowledge work sector, focus is very important and we've accidentally created circumstances where we just don't do a lot of it.

3. 7:00 – 12:43

   Focus

   1. CNCal Newport7:00

   2. LFLex Fridman7:00

      So focus is the sort of prerequisite for basically, uh, you say knowledge work, but basically any kind of skill acquisition, any kind of major effort in this world. Can we break that apart a little bit?

   3. CNCal Newport7:11

      Yeah. So, so a key, a key aspect of focus is not just that you're, you're concentrating hard on something, but you do it without distraction. So a, a big theme of my work is that context shifting kills the human capacity to think. So if, if I, if I change what I'm paying attention to to something different, really even if it's brief, and then try to bring it back to the main thing I'm doing, that causes a huge cognitive pileup that makes it very hard to think clearly. So even if you think, "Okay, look, I'm writing this code or I'm writing this essay and I'm not multitasking and, and all my windows are closed and I have no notifications on," but every five or six minutes you quickly check like an inbox or your phone, that initiates a contact shift in your brain, right? We're gonna start to suppress some neural networks, we're gonna try to amplify some others. It's a, it's a pretty complicated process, actually. There's a sort of neurological cascade that happens. You rip yourself away from that halfway through and go back to what you're doing, and now it's trying to switch back to the original thing, even though it's also your brain's in the process of switching to these emails and trying to understand those contexts. Uh, and as a result, your ability to think clearly just goes really down.

   4. LFLex Fridman8:16

      So-

   5. CNCal Newport8:16

      And it's fatiguing too. I mean, you do this long enough, you're, you get midday and you're like, "Okay, I can't, I can't think anymore."

   6. LFLex Fridman8:21

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CNCal Newport8:22

      You've exhausted yourself.

   8. LFLex Fridman8:23

      Is there some kind of, um, perfect number of minutes, would you say? So are we talking about focusing on a particular task for, you know, one minute, five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes? Is it possible to kind of context switch while maintaining deep focus, you know, every 20 minutes or so? So if you're thinking of, like, this, again, maybe it's a selfish kind of perspective, but if you're thinking about programming, you know, you're focused on a particular design of a little bit, maybe a small scale on a particular function or large scale o- on a, o- on a system, and then the shift of focus happens like this, which is like, "Wait a minute, is there a library that can achieve this little task?" Or something like that. And then you have to look it up. This is the danger zone.

   9. CNCal Newport9:11

      Yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman9:11

       You go to the internets.

   11. CNCal Newport9:12

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman9:13

       And, and so you have to now, you... it is a kind of contact switch because as opposed to thinking about the particular problem, you now have switched thinking about, like, uh, consuming and integrating knowledge that's out there that can plug into your solution to a particular problem. It definitely feels like a contact switch, but is that, is that a really bad thing to do? So should you be setting it aside always and really trying to, as much as possible, go deep and stay there for, like, a really long period of time?

   13. CNCal Newport9:46

       Well, I mean, I think if you're looking up a library that's relevant to what you're doing, that's probably okay. And I don't know that I would count that as a full context shift because the semantic networks involved are relatively similar, right? You're, you're thinking about this type of solution, you're thinking about coding, you're thinking about this type of functions. Where you're really gonna get hit is if you switch your context to something that's different and if there's unresolved obligation. So really the worst possible thing you could do would be to look at, like, an email inbox.

   14. LFLex Fridman10:13

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CNCal Newport10:14

       Right? Because here's 20 emails. I can't answer most of these right now. They're completely different. Like, the context of these emails, like, okay, there's a grant funding issue or something like this is very different than the coding I'm doing. And I'm leaving it unresolved. (laughs) So it's like someone needs something from me, and I'm gonna try to pull my attention back. The second worst would be something that's emotionally arousing. So if you're like, "Let me just glance over at Twitter, I'm sure it's nice and calm and peaceful over there," right? That can be devastating because you're gonna expose yourself to something that's emotionally arousing. That's gonna completely mess up the cognitive plateau there, and then when you come back to, "Okay, let me try to code again," it's really difficult.

   16. LFLex Fridman10:47

       So it's both the information and the emotion?

   17. CNCal Newport10:50

       Yeah, both, both can be killers if what you're trying to do... So I would recommend at least an hour at a time. 'Cause it could take up to 20 minutes to completely clear out the residue from whatever it was you were thinking about before. So if you're coding for 30 minutes, you might only be getting 10 or 15 minutes of actual sort of peak Lex going on there, right?

   18. LFLex Fridman11:08

       Yeah.

   19. CNCal Newport11:08

       So an hour, at least you get a good 40, 45 minutes plus. I'm, I'm partial to 90 minutes as a really good, a really good chunk where you can get a lot done, but just before you get exhausted, you can sort of pull back a little bit.

   20. LFLex Fridman11:21

       Yeah. And, uh, one of the beautiful and, you know, p- people can read about in your, uh, book, Deep Work, but... and I know this has been out for a long time and people are probably familiar with many of the concepts, but it's still pretty profound and it has stayed with me for a long time. Uh, there's something about adding the terms to it-

   21. CNCal Newport11:39

       Yeah.

   22. LFLex Fridman11:39

       ... that actually solidifies the concepts, like words matter.

   23. CNCal Newport11:43

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman11:43

       It's pretty cool. And, uh, just for me sort of as a comment, there's, uh... it's a struggle and it's very difficult to, uh, maintain focus for prolonged period of time. But the days on which I'm able to accomplish several hours of that kind of work, I'm happy. So forget being productive and all that.

   25. CNCal Newport12:05

       Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman12:05

       I'm just satisfied with my life. I'm... I feel, I feel fulfilled.... it's, like, joyful. And then I, I can be... I'm less of a dick to other people in my life afterwards (laughs) . It's a, it's a beautiful thing. And the, the... I f- I find the opposite when I don't do that kind of thing, I'm much more irritable. Like, I feel like I didn't accomplish anything and there's this stress that then the negative emotion builds up to where you're no longer able to sort of, uh, enjoy the hell out of this amazing life. So, so in that sense, deep work has been a source of a lot of, uh, uh, uh, happiness. I'd love to ask you, how do you... Again, you cover this

4. 12:43 – 19:38

   Time blocking

   1. LFLex Fridman12:43

      in the book, but how do you integrate deep work into your life? What are different scheduling strategies that you would recommend, just at a high level?

   2. CNCal Newport12:50

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman12:51

      What are different ideas there?

   4. CNCal Newport12:52

      Well, I mean, I'm a big fan of time blocking. Right? So i- if you're facing your work day, don't allow, like, your inbox or to-do list to sort of drive you. Don't just come into your day and think, "What do I want to do next?"

   5. LFLex Fridman13:05

      Yes.

   6. CNCal Newport13:05

      I mean, I'm a big plan of saying, "Here's the time, here's the time available. Let me make a plan for it." Right? "So I have a meeting here, I have an appointment here. Here's what's left, what do I actually want to do with it? So in this half hour, I'm going to work on this. For this 90-minute block, I'm going to work on that. And during this hour, I'm going to try to fit this in and then actually, I have this half-hour gap between two meetings, so why don't I take advantage of that to go run five errands? I can kind of batch those together." But blocking out in advance, "This is what I want to do with the time available." I mean, I find that's much more effective. Now, once you're doing this, once you're in a discipline of time blocking, it's much easier to actually see, "This is where I want, for example, the deep work and I can get a handle on the other things that need to happen and find better places to, to fit them so I can prioritize this." And you're going to get a lot more of that done than if it's just going through your day and saying, "What's next?"

   7. LFLex Fridman13:51

      A schedule every single day kind of thing? So it's like try to, in the morning, to try to, uh, have a plan?

   8. CNCal Newport13:57

      Yeah. So, you know, I do a quarterly, weekly, daily planning. So at the semester or quarterly level, I have a, a big picture vision for what I'm trying to get done, you know, during the fall, let's say, or during the winter. Like, I want to... These are... There's a deadline coming up for academic papers at the end of the season. Here's what I'm working on. I want to have this many chapters done of a book, something like this. Like, you have the, the big picture vision of, of what you want to get done. Then weekly, you look at that and then you look at your week and you put together a plan for like, "Okay, what am I gonna... What's my week gonna look like? What do I need to do? How am I gonna make progress on these things? Maybe, maybe I need to do an hour every morning or I see that Monday is my only really empty day, so that's going to be the day that I really need to nail on writing or something like this." And then every day, you look at your weekly plan and say, "Let me block off the actual hours." So you, you do that, that three scales, the, the quarterly down to weekly down to daily.

   9. LFLex Fridman14:47

      And we're talking about actual times of day versus-

   10. CNCal Newport14:50

       Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman14:50

       So the alternative is... What I end up doing a lot, and I'm not sure it's the best way to do it, is, uh, uh, scheduling the duration of time. This is the, this is called the luxury when you don't have any meetings. I'm like religiously don't do meetings (laughs) .

   12. CNCal Newport15:07

       All, all other academics are jealous of you, by the way (laughs) .

   13. LFLex Fridman15:09

       Yeah, (laughs) I know. No Zoom meetings. Uh, I, I find those are... That's one of the worst strategies, uh, tragedies of the pandemic, is both the opportunity to... Well, okay. The positive thing is to have more time with your family, you know, sort of reconnect in many ways and that, that's really interesting. Uh, be able to remotely sort of not waste time on travel and all those kinds of things. The negative is the (laughs) ... Actually, both those things are also sources of the negative. Uh, but the negative is like, it seems like people have multiplied the number of meetings because they're so easy to schedule.

   14. CNCal Newport15:45

       Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman15:46

       And there's nothing more draining to me intellectually, philosophically. Just my spirit is destroyed by even a 10-minute Zoom meeting. Like, what are we doing here?

   16. CNCal Newport15:59

       What's the meaning of life? (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman16:01

       Yeah.

   18. CNCal Newport16:01

       What is this all about?

   19. LFLex Fridman16:01

       Yeah, I have... At every Zoom meeting is I have an existential crisis, so... (laughs)

   20. CNCal Newport16:05

       Kierkegaard with the internet connection.

   21. LFLex Fridman16:08

       Uh, (laughs) . So, uh, what the hell were we talking about? Oh, uh, so when you don't have meetings, there's a luxury to really allow for certain things if they need to, like the important things, like deep work sessions, to last way longer than you, uh, maybe planned for. I mean, that's my goal, is to try to schedule... The goal is to schedule to sit and focus for a particular task for an hour and hope I can keep going.

   22. CNCal Newport16:39

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman16:40

       And hope I can get lost in it.

   24. CNCal Newport16:41

       Yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman16:42

       And, uh, do you, do you find that this is at all an okay way to go and, uh, the time blocking is just something you have to do to actually be an adult and operate in this real world? Or is there some magic to the time blocking?

   26. CNCal Newport16:58

       Well, I mean, uh, there's magic to the intention. Uh, there's magic to it if you have varied responsibilities, right? So I'm often juggling multiple jobs essentially. There's, there's academic stuff, there's teaching stuff, there's book stuff, there's the, the business surrounding, you know, surrounding my, my book stuff. But I'm of your same mindset. If a deep work session is going well, just rock and roll and let it, let it go on. So like, one of the, the big keys of time block, at least the way I do it, so I even, you know, sell this planner to help people time block. It has many columns because the discipline is, oh, if your initial schedule changes, you just move over one... Next time you get a chance, you move over one column and then you just fix it for the time that's remaining. So in other words, there's not ex- there's no bonus for, "I made a schedule and I stuck with it." Like there's actually, there's not like you get a prize for it, right?

   27. LFLex Fridman17:48

       Yeah.

   28. CNCal Newport17:48

       Like for me, the prize is I have an intentional plan for my time and if I have to change that plan, that's fine. Like, the state I want to be is basically at any point in the day, I've thought about what time remains and, and gave it some thought for what to do. Because I'll do the same thing even though I have a lot more meetings and other types of things I have to do in my, in my various jobs and I basically prioritize the deep work, uh, and then get yelled at a lot (laughs) .

   29. LFLex Fridman18:11

       Yeah. Got it.

   30. CNCal Newport18:11

       So that's kind of my strategy, is like, "Just be okay, just be okay getting yelled at a lot."
5. 19:38 – 29:13

   Deadlines

   1. CNCal Newport19:38

      (laughs)

   2. LFLex Fridman19:38

      What about deadlines? Can we, um... Okay, so this is like a therapy session, um-

   3. CNCal Newport19:43

      (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman19:44

      Is, uh, why... I- it seems like I don't- I only get stuff done that has deadlines. And so, the- one of the implied powerful things about time blocking is there's a kind of deadline, or there's a artificial or real sense of urgency. Do you think it's possible to get anything done in this world without deadlines? Why- why do deadlines work so well?

   5. CNCal Newport20:06

      Well, i- I- I mean, it's a clear motivational signal, but in the- in the short term, you do get an effect like that in time blocking. I think the- the strong effect you get by saying, "This is the exact time I'm gonna work on this," is that you don't have the debate with yourself every three minutes about-

   6. LFLex Fridman20:21

      Yeah.

   7. CNCal Newport20:22

      ... should I take a break now, right? Like, this is the big issue with just saying, "You know, I'm gonna go write. I'm gonna write for a while and that's it," because your mind is saying, "Well, obviously we're gonna take some breaks." Right? "We're not just gonna write forever, and so why not right now?" (laughs) And you have to be like, "Well, not right now. Let's go a little bit longer, five minutes." They're, "Why don't we just take a break now? Like, we should probably look at the internet."

   8. LFLex Fridman20:38

      Yeah.

   9. CNCal Newport20:38

      Now you have to constantly have this battle. On the other hand, if you're on a time block schedule, like, "I've got these two hours put aside for writing. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. I have a break scheduled over here. I don't have to fight with myself." Right? And maybe at a larger scale, deadlines give you a- a- a similar sort of effect. It's, "I know this is what I'm supposed to be working on, because it's- uh, it's due."

   10. LFLex Fridman20:58

       Perhaps, but what you're describing is a much healthier sort of, uh, giving yourself over, and you talk about this in- in The New Email Book, is the process. I mean, in general, you talk about it all over, is- is creating a process, and then giving yourself over to the process. The... But then you have to be strict with yourself.

   11. CNCal Newport21:17

       Yeah. But what are the deadlines you're talking about? It's like with papers? Like, what- what's the main type of deadline work?

   12. LFLex Fridman21:23

       Uh, well, so papers, definitely, but, you know, publications, like say this- this podcast. Uh, I have to publish this podcast next- early next week. One, because your book is coming out, I'd love to (laughs) sort of, uh, support this amazing book, but, the- uh, the other is I have to fly to Vegas on Thursday to run 40 miles with David Goggins, and so I want this podcast, this conversation we're doing now to be out of my life.

   13. CNCal Newport21:54

       Yeah.

   14. LFLex Fridman21:55

       Like, I don't wanna be in a hotel in Vegas-

   15. CNCal Newport21:57

       Yeah.

   16. LFLex Fridman21:57

       ... like, uh, editing the- like, freaking out while David Goggins is yelling.

   17. CNCal Newport22:00

       On hour- on hour 43-

   18. LFLex Fridman22:02

       Yeah. (laughs)

   19. CNCal Newport22:02

       ... of your- of your marathon thing-

   20. LFLex Fridman22:05

       Exactly.

   21. CNCal Newport22:05

       ... (laughs) that you're doing.

   22. LFLex Fridman22:05

       But actually, it's possible that I still, uh, will be doing that, you know, because it's- that's not a hard, that's a softer deadline, right? But those are sort of- life imposes these kinds of deadlines.

   23. CNCal Newport22:15

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman22:15

       Um, I'm not- so yeah, papers are nice, because there's an actual deadline.

   25. CNCal Newport22:20

       Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman22:20

       Uh, but I- I'm almost referring to, like, the pressure that people put on you, "Hey man, you said you were gonna get this done two months ago."

   27. CNCal Newport22:28

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman22:28

       "Why haven't you gotten it done?"

   29. CNCal Newport22:30

       I don't- see, I don't like that pressure.

   30. LFLex Fridman22:31

       Yeah.
6. 29:13 – 31:55

   Do less, do better, know why

   1. CNCal Newport29:13

      But here, okay, here's the complicated thing though. Like, you can think about in your own life, starting the podcast is one of these just cool opportunities that you put on yourself, right?

   2. LFLex Fridman29:21

      Yeah.

   3. CNCal Newport29:22

      Like, you know, I could have been talking to you at MIT four years ago-

   4. LFLex Fridman29:24

      Yeah.

   5. CNCal Newport29:25

      ... and been like, "Don't do that." Like, "Your research is going well," right?

   6. LFLex Fridman29:27

      Yeah.

   7. CNCal Newport29:28

      But then everyone who watches you is like, okay, this podcast is... The direction that it's taking you is like a couple years from now, it's gonna, it'll be something really monumental that you're prob- this is gonna probably lead to, right? There'll be some really... It just feels like your life is going somewhere-

   8. LFLex Fridman29:41

      It's going somewhere, it's interesting.

   9. CNCal Newport29:43

      ... really cool, yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman29:43

       Unexpected, yeah.

   11. CNCal Newport29:44

       Yeah, so how do you balance those two things? And so what I try to throw at it is this, this motto of do less, do better, know why, right? So-

   12. LFLex Fridman29:52

       Do, what's that?

   13. CNCal Newport29:52

       Do less, do better, know why. It used to be the motto of my website years ago. Um, so do a few things, but like an interesting array, right? So I was doing, uh, MIT stuff, but I was also writing, you know. So a couple things were, you know, they were interesting. Like have, have a couple bets placed on a, on a couple different numbers on the roulette table. But not too many things. And then really try to do those things really well and, and see where it goes. Like with my writing, I just spent years and years and years just training. I was like, "I want to be a better writer, I want to be a better writer." I started writing student books when I was a student. Um, I really wanted to write hardcover idea books. I started training. I would, I would use like New Yorker articles to train myself. I'd break them down, and then I'd get commissions with much smaller magazines and practice the skills. And it took forever until, you know... But now today, like I actually get to write for The New Yorker. But it took-... like, a decade. So a small number of things, try doing them really well. And then the know why is have c- a connection to some sort of value. Like, in general, I think this is worth doing, uh, and then seeing where it leads.

   14. LFLex Fridman30:50

       And so, uh, the choice of the few things is grounded in what? Like, a little, like a, like a little flame of passion? Like, a love for the thing? Like, a sense that you say you wanted to write and get good at writing. You had that kind of introspective moment of thinking, "This actually brings me a lot of joy and fulfillment."

   15. CNCal Newport31:10

       Yeah. I mean, it gets complicated, 'cause I wrote a whole book about following your passion being bad advice, which is, like, the first thing I (laughs) kind of got infamous for.

   16. LFLex Fridman31:18

       (laughs)

   17. CNCal Newport31:18

       I wrote that back in 2012.

   18. LFLex Fridman31:20

       Yeah.

   19. CNCal Newport31:20

       But, but, uh, th- the argument there is, like, passion cultivates, right? So what I was pushing back on was the myth that the passion for what you do exists full intensity before you start, and then that's what propels you. Where actually the reality is, as you get better at something, as you gain more autonomy, more skill, and more impact, the passion grows along with it. So that when people look back later and say, "Oh, follow your passion," what they really mean is, "I'm very passionate about what I do, and that's a worthy goal."

   20. LFLex Fridman31:46

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CNCal Newport31:47

       But how you actually cultivate that is much more complicated than just introspection's gonna identify, like, for sure, you should be a writer or something like this.

   22. LFLex Fridman31:54

       Es- So I was actually quoting

7. 31:55 – 45:58

   Clubhouse

   1. LFLex Fridman31:55

      you. I was, uh, on a social network last night, uh, in, c- Clubhouse.

   2. CNCal Newport32:00

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman32:00

      I don't know if you've heard of it. I was, uh-

   4. CNCal Newport32:01

      Wait, I have t- I have to ask you about this, uh, because I v- I was invi- I'm invited to do a Clubhouse. I don't know what that means.

   5. LFLex Fridman32:07

      (laughs)

   6. CNCal Newport32:07

      A, a tech reporter has invited me to do a Clubhouse about my new book.

   7. LFLex Fridman32:10

      Ah, that's awesome. Uh, well, let me know when, 'cause I'll show up if you ever do it.

   8. CNCal Newport32:14

      Wh- But it, well- Well, what is it?

   9. LFLex Fridman32:15

      Okay, so first of all, let me just mention that I was-

   10. CNCal Newport32:17

       Okay.

   11. LFLex Fridman32:17

       ... in a Clubhouse, uh, room last night, and I kept plugging your exactly wha- exactly what you said about, uh, passion. So we'll talk about it. It, it was a room that was focused on burnout.

   12. CNCal Newport32:28

       Okay.

   13. LFLex Fridman32:29

       Uh, but first, Clubhouse is a kind of fascinating place in terms of ... L- your mind would be very interesting to analyze this place, because, you know, we t- we talk about email, we talk about social networks, but Clubhouse is something very different. An- and I've encountered it in other places, Discord and so on, that it's voice-only communication.

   14. CNCal Newport32:52

       Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman32:52

       So it's a bunch of people in a room. They're just, you know, eyes closed. All you hear is their voices.

   16. CNCal Newport32:57

       Real time?

   17. LFLex Fridman32:58

       Real time.

   18. CNCal Newport32:59

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman32:59

       Live. It only happens live. You're technically not allowed to record, but some people still do, and, you know, especially when it's big, um, big conversations. But the whole point is it's there live. And there's different structures. Like, on Discord, it was so fascinating. I h- I have this Discord server w- that would have hundreds of people in a room together, right? We're all just little icons that can mute and unmute our mics.

   20. CNCal Newport33:22

       Okay.

   21. LFLex Fridman33:23

       And so you're sitting there not ... So it's, it's just voices, and you're able, with hundreds of people, to not interrupt each other. Well, first of all-

   22. CNCal Newport33:35

       Huh.

   23. LFLex Fridman33:35

       ... like, as a dynamic system-

   24. CNCal Newport33:36

       Yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman33:36

       ... like-

   26. CNCal Newport33:37

       You see icons, just, like, mics muted or not muted, basically.

   27. LFLex Fridman33:40

       Yeah. Well, so everyone's muted-

   28. CNCal Newport33:41

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman33:41

       ... and they unmute, and they start ... it starts flashing.

   30. CNCal Newport33:44

       Yeah.
8. 45:58 – 52:25

   Burnout

   1. LFLex Fridman45:58

      The reason I brought it up is we, uh, there's a room, there's an entire club actually on burnout, and I brought you up, and I brought David Goggins. This is the process I go through which is, you know, my passion goes up and down, it dips, and I don't think I trust my own mind to, uh, to tell me whether I'm getting close to burnout or exhaustion or not. I kind of go with the David Goggins model of, I mean, he's probably more applying it to running, but, uh, when it feels like your mind can't take anymore, that you're just 40%, uh, at your capacity.

   2. CNCal Newport46:38

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman46:38

      I mean, it's just like an arbitrary-

   4. CNCal Newport46:40

      Right.

   5. LFLex Fridman46:40

      ... level.

   6. CNCal Newport46:41

      It's the Navy SEAL thing, right?

   7. LFLex Fridman46:41

      The Navy SEAL thing.

   8. CNCal Newport46:42

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman46:43

      I mean, you could put that at any percent, but it is remarkable that if you just take it one step at a time, just keep going, is, it's, uh, similar to this idea of a process. If you just trust the process and you just keep following, even if the passion goes up and down and so on, then ultimately if you look in aggregate, uh, the passion will increase.

   10. CNCal Newport47:04

       Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman47:04

       Your self-satisfaction will increase.

   12. CNCal Newport47:05

       Yeah. I think, and if you have two things, this has been a big strategy of mine, so that you can, what you hope for is off-phase.

   13. LFLex Fridman47:12

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CNCal Newport47:12

       Off-phase alignment, like that, uh, sometimes it's in phase and that's a problem, uh, but off-phase alignment's good. So okay, my research, I'm struggling, uh, but my book stuff is going well, right? And so when you, when you add those two waves together, like, oh, we're doing pretty well, and then, uh, in other periods, like all my writing, you know, I feel like I'm just not getting anywhere, but oh, I've had some good papers and I'm feeling good over there.

   15. LFLex Fridman47:32

       Yeah.

   16. CNCal Newport47:32

       So having two things that, that can counteract each other. Now sometimes they fall into sync, and then it gets rough. Then when, (laughs) , you know, when everything, because everything for me is cyclical, you know, good periods, bad periods with all this stuff. So, uh, typically they don't coincide, so it helps compensate. When they do coincide, i- you get really high highs, like where everything is clicking, and then you get these really low lows where like your research is not working, your program is not clicking, you feel like you're nowhere with your writing, uh, and then it's a little rougher.

   17. LFLex Fridman48:00

       Is, do you, do you think about the concept of burnout? Because I've, so I personally have never experienced burnout in the way that folks talk about, which is like it's not just the up and down, it's like you don't want to do anything ever again.

   18. CNCal Newport48:14

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman48:15

       It like, it's, it's, and for some people it's like physical, like to the hospital kind of thing.

   20. CNCal Newport48:19

       Yeah. Uh, so I do worry about it. So when I used to do student writing, like writing about students, so student advice, it, there, it came up a lot with students at elite schools, and I used to call it deep procrastination, but it was a real, really vivid, very replicatable syndrome where they stop being able to do schoolwork.

   21. LFLex Fridman48:39

       Yeah.

   22. CNCal Newport48:40

       Like this is due, and the professor gives you an extension, and the professor gives you an incomplete and says, "You got it. You, you, (stuttering) you're gonna fail the course. You have to hand this in." And they can't do it, right? It's like a, it's a, a complete stop on the ability to actually do work.

   23. LFLex Fridman48:52

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CNCal Newport48:52

       So I used to counsel students who had that issue, and often it was a combination of, at least it was my-... best analysis is, you have just the- the physical and cognitive difficulties of, th-they're usually under a very hard load, right? They're doing too many majors, too many extracurriculars, just, you know, really pushing themselves. And the motivation is not sufficiently intrinsic.

   25. LFLex Fridman49:11

       Right.

   26. CNCal Newport49:11

       So if you have a motivational center that's not completely on board, so a lot of these kids, like, e- when I'm dealing with MIT kids, they would be, you know, their whole town was shooting off fireworks that they got in, they were everyone's hope that they were going there, uh, and that they're in three majors, they don't want to let people down, but they're not really interested in being a doctor or whatever. So your- your motivation is not in the right place. The motivational psychologist would say the locus of control was more towards the extrinsic end of the spectrum, and you have hardship.

   27. LFLex Fridman49:36

       Okay.

   28. CNCal Newport49:36

       And you could just fritz out the whole system. And so I got- I would always be very worried about that, so I think about that a lot. I do a lot of multiphase or multiscale seasonality. So I'll go hard on something for a while, and then, for a few weeks, go easy. I'll have semesters that are hard and semesters that are easy, or I'll take the summer really low. So on multiple scales. And in the day, I'll go really hard on something, but then have a hard cutoff at 5:00. So, like, every scale, it's all about rest and recovery.

   29. LFLex Fridman50:01

       Mm-hmm.

   30. CNCal Newport50:01

       Because I really want to avoid that. And I do burn out. I- I burnt out pretty recently, I get minor burnt-outs. Like, I had a paper, a couple papers that I was trying to work through for a deadline a few weeks ago, and I wasn't sleeping well, and- and, um, there's some other things going on, and it just, it knocks me out. I get sick usually. That's how I know I've pushed myself too far.
9. 52:25 – 1:00:10

   Boredom

   1. CNCal Newport52:25

      Like, the characters in that are just driven to the, like, extremes of ... I just bought three books on boredom the other day. Uh, so now I'm really interested in this topic, because I- I was anxious about my book launch happening this week. So I was like, "Okay, I need something else to ..." So I have this idea for a- a ... I might do it as an article first, but as a book. Like, "Okay, I need something cool to be thinking about." Because I was worried about, like, "I don't know."

   2. LFLex Fridman52:48

      Oh, yeah.

   3. CNCal Newport52:48

      "Is the launch gonna work? The pandemic, what's going to happen? I don't know if it's going to get there." So I ... This is exactly what we're talking about. So I went out and I bought a bunch of books, and I'm beginning, like, a whole, uh, sort of intellectual exploration.

   4. LFLex Fridman53:00

      Well, I think that's one of the profound ideas in Deep Work that you don't expand on, uh, too much, is, uh, boredom.

   5. CNCal Newport53:08

      Yeah. Well, so the Deep Work had a- a superficial idea about boredom, which- which was ... I- I had this chapter called Embrace Boredom, and a very functionalist idea was basically you have to have some boredom in your regular schedule or your mind is going to form a Pavlovian connection between, "As soon as I feel boredom, I get stimuli," and once it forms that connection, it's never gonna tolerate deep work. So there's this very pragmatic treatment of boredom, of your mind better be used to the idea that sometimes you don't get stimuli, because otherwise, you can't write for three hours.

   6. LFLex Fridman53:39

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CNCal Newport53:39

      Like, it's- it's just not gonna tolerate it. But more- more recently, what I'm really interested in boredom is it as a fundamental human drive, right? Because it's incredibly uncomfortable.

   8. LFLex Fridman53:49

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CNCal Newport53:49

      And think about the other things that are incredibly uncomfortable, like hunger or thirst. They serve a really important purpose for our species, right? Like, if- if something is really distressing, there's a reason. Pain is really uncomfortable because we need to worry about getting injured. Thirst is really uncomfortable because we need water to survive. So what's boredom? Why is that uncomfortable? And- and I've been interested in this notion that boredom is about driving us towards productive action, like, as a species. I mean, think about it, like, what- what got us to actually take advantage of these brains? What got us to actually work with fire? What got us to start shaping stones and the hand axes and figuring out if we could actually sharpen a stick sharp enough that we could throw it as a melee weapon or a- a distance weapon for hunting mammoth, right? Boredom drives us towards action.

   10. LFLex Fridman54:37

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CNCal Newport54:38

       So now, I'm fascinated by this fundamental action instinct, uh, because I have this theory that I'm working on, that we're out of sync with it. Just like we got ... We have this drive for hunger, but then we introduce junk food and got out of sync with hunger and- and it makes us really unhealthy. We have this drive towards action, but then we- we overload ourselves and we have all of these distractions, and then that causes, uh ... It's like a cognitive action obesity type thing-

   12. LFLex Fridman55:01

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CNCal Newport55:01

       ... because it short circuits the system that wants us to do things, but we put more things on our plate than we can possibly do, and then we're really frustrated we can't do them, and we're- we're short-circuiting all of our wires. So it all comes back to this question, "Well, what would be the ideal?"... the ideal sort of amount of stuff to do and type of things to do.

   14. LFLex Fridman55:18

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CNCal Newport55:18

       Like, if we wanted to look back at our ancestral environment and say, "If I could just build from scratch, what type, how much work I do and what I work on," to be as in touch with that as, like, paleo people are trying to get their diets in touch with that. And so now I'm just, but see, this is, I'm just, it's something I made up.

   16. LFLex Fridman55:33

       Yeah.

   17. CNCal Newport55:34

       But now I'm going deep on it. And one of my podcast listeners, I was, I was talking about it on the show, and I was like, "Well, I, I keep trying to learn about animals and boredom." And she sent me this cool article from-

   18. LFLex Fridman55:43

       (laughs)

   19. CNCal Newport55:43

       ... an animal behaviorist journal about what we know about human boredom versus animal boredom. So trying to figure out that puzzle is, uh, the wave that's high, so I can get (laughs) through the wave that's low of, like, "I don't know about this pandemic book launch," and, you know? (laughs)

   20. LFLex Fridman55:57

       Yeah.

   21. CNCal Newport55:57

       And, and my research, I'm, my research is stumbling a little bit because of the pandemic, and so I needed a nice, you know, high. So there we go. There's a case study.

   22. LFLex Fridman56:05

       Well, the, it's both a case study and a very interesting set of concepts, 'cause I didn't even realize that it's so simple. I'm one of the people that, uh, has a interesting push-and-pull dynamic with hunger, trying to understand the hunger with myself. Like, I probably have an unhealthy relationship with food. I don't know. But there's proba- probably a perfect... That's a nice way to think about diet as action. Th- there's probably an optimal res- diet response to the, the experience that our body's telling us, the signal that our body's sending, which is hunger.

   23. CNCal Newport56:43

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman56:43

       And in that same way, boredom is sending a signal. And most of our intellectual activities in this world are creative activities, are essentially a response, uh, to that signal.

   25. CNCal Newport56:56

       Yeah. And, and think about this analogy that we have this hunger instinct that junk food short-circuits.

   26. LFLex Fridman57:03

       Yes.

   27. CNCal Newport57:03

       Right? It's like, "Oh, we'll, we'll satisfy that hyper-palatably," and it doesn't end up well. Now think about modern, attention-engineered, digitally-mediated entertainment. We have this boredom instinct. Oh, we can, we can take care of that with a hype- a hyper-palatable alternative. Is that gonna lead to a similar problem?

   28. LFLex Fridman57:22

       So I've been fasting a lot lately, like, uh, I'm doing, um, eating once a day. I've been doing that for over a month. Just e- eating one meal a day, and primarily meat. But it's very, uh, fasting has been incredible for me, for focus, for well-being, for feel... I don't, I don't know, just for feeling good, okay? We'll put on a chart what makes me feel good. And, uh, that fasting and eating primarily a meat-based diet makes me feel really good.

   29. CNCal Newport57:51

       Hmm.

   30. LFLex Fridman57:52

       And so... But that ultimately, what fasting did, I haven't fasted super long yet, like a seven-day diet, which I really would like to do. But even just fasting for a day or for 24 hours gets you in touch with your, with the signal. It's fascinating. Like, you get to listen to your, learn to listen to your body that like, you know, it okay to be hungry. It's like a little signal that sends you stuff.
10. 1:00:10 – 1:10:04

    Quit social media for 30 days

    1. CNCal Newport1:00:10

       But so two years ago, I had a book out called Digital Minimalism. And one of the things I was recommending that people do is basically a 30-day fast, but from digital personal entertainment, social media, online videos, anything that captures, uh, your attention and dispels boredom. And people were thinking like, "Oh, this is a detox." Like, I just want to teach your body not to need the distraction of this or that, but it really wasn't what I was interested in. I, I wanted there to be space that you could listen to your boredom. Like, okay, I can't just dispel it. I can't just look at the screen, and revel in it a little bit and start to listen to it and say, "What is this really pushing me towards?"

    2. LFLex Fridman1:00:47

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CNCal Newport1:00:48

       And you take the new stuff, the new technology off the table and sort of ask, "What is this? What am I craving?" Like, what's the activity equivalent of 2,000 calories of meat with a little bit of green beans on the side? And I had 1,700 people go through this experiment, like spend 30 days doing this. And it's hard at first, but then they get used to listening to themselves and sort of seeking out, "What is this really pushing me towards?" And it was pushing people towards connection. It was pushing people towards, "I just want to...... go be around other people. It was pushing people towards high-quality leisure activities. Like, "I want to go do something that's complicated." And it took weeks sometimes for them to get in touch with their boredom. But then it completely rewired how they thought about, "What do I want to do with my time outside of work?" And then the idea is, when you're done with that, then it was much easier to go back and completely change your digital life because you have alternatives, right? You're not just trying to abstain from things you don't like. But that's basically a listening-to-boredom experiment, like, just be there with the boredom and see where it drives you when you don't have, you know, the digital Cheez-Its. Okay, so if I can't do that, where is it going to drive me? Well, I guess I kind of want to go to the library, (laughs) which came up a lot by the way. A lot of people rediscovered the library, you know?

    4. LFLex Fridman1:01:57

       With physical books?

    5. CNCal Newport1:01:58

       Physical books. So, like, you can just go borrow 'em, and, like, it... there's, like, low pressure, and you can explore, and you bring 'em home, and then you read 'em, and you can, like, sit by the window and read 'em. And it's nice weather outside, and I used to do that 20 years ago. They're listening to boredom.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:02:11

       So, can you maybe elaborate a little bit on the different experiences that people had when they quit social media for 30 days? Like, is that... if you were to recommend that process, what is ultimately the goal?

    7. CNCal Newport1:02:23

       Yeah. Digital minimalism, that's, that's my philosophy for all this tech. Um, and it's working backwards from what's important. So, it's... you figure out what you're actually all about, like, what you want to do, what you want to spend your time doing, and then you can ask, "Okay, is there a place that tech could amplify or support some of these things?" And that's how you decide what tech to use. And so the, the process is, let's actually get away from everything. Let's be bored for a while. Let's, let's really spend a month getting... really figuring out, what do I actually want to do? What do I want to spend my time doing? What's important to me? You know, what makes me feel good? And then when you're done, you can bring back in tech very strategically to help those things, right? And that was the goal. That turns out to be much more successful than when people take a abstention-only approach. So, if you come at your tech life and say, you know, whatever, "I look at Instagram too much."

    8. LFLex Fridman1:03:10

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CNCal Newport1:03:10

       Like, "I don't like how much I am on Instagram. That's a bad thing. I wanna reduce this bad thing. So, so here's my new thing. I'm going to spend less time looking at Instagram," much less likely to succeed in the long term. So, we're much less likely at trying to reduce this sort of amorphous negative because, you know, in the moment, you are like, "Yeah, but it's not that bad, and it would be-"

    10. LFLex Fridman1:03:27

        Right.

    11. CNCal Newport1:03:27

        "... kind of interesting to look at it now." When you're instead controlling behavior because you have a positive that you're aiming towards, it's very powerful for people. Like, "I want my life to be like this. Here's the role that tech plays in that life." The connection to wanting your life to be like that is very, very strong. And then it's much, much easier to say, "Yeah, like, using Instagram is not part of my plan for how I have that life, and I really want to have that life. So, of course, I'm not going to use Instagram." So, it turns out to be a much more sustainable way to tame what's going on.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:03:53

        So, if you quit social media for 30 days, you kind of have to do the work-

    13. CNCal Newport1:03:58

        You have to do the work.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:03:59

        ... of thinking, like, "What am I actually..."

    15. CNCal Newport1:04:01

        Yeah.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:04:01

        "What makes me happy in terms of, uh, these tools that I've previously used?" And when you try to integrate them back, "How can I integrate them to maximize the thing that actually makes me happy?"

    17. CNCal Newport1:04:11

        Yeah. Or, "What makes me happy unrelated to technology?"

    18. LFLex Fridman1:04:14

        Right.

    19. CNCal Newport1:04:14

        Like, "What do I actually... what do I want my life to be like? Well, maybe what I want to do is be out, you know, like, outside in nature two hours a day, and spend a lot more time, like, helping my community, and sacrificing on behalf of my connections, and then have some sort of intellectually engaging leisure activity, like I'm reading or trying to read the great books, and having more calm, and seeing the sunset." Like, you, you, you create this picture, and then you go back and say, "Well, I still need my Facebook group because that's how I, I keep up with my cycling group. But Twitter is just, you know, toxic. It's not helping any of these things." And, "Well, I'm an artist, so I kind of need Instagram to get inspiration. But if I know that's why I'm using Instagram, I don't need it on my phone, it's just on my computer, and I just follow 10 artists and check it once a week." Like, you really can start to plan-... It was the number one thing that differentiated in that experiment, the people who ended up sustainably making changes and getting through the 30 days and those who didn't, was the people who did the experimentation and the reflection. Like, "Let me try to figure out what's positive," they were much more successful than the people that just said, "I'm sick of using my phone so much, so I'm just gonna white-knuckle it. Just 30 days will be good for me. I just gotta... I just gotta get away from it or something." That doesn't last.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:05:17

        So, you don't use social media currently?

    21. CNCal Newport1:05:19

        Yeah.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:05:20

        Of... Do you find that a lot of people going through this process will, uh, will seek to basically arrive at a similar place, to not use social media primarily?

    23. CNCal Newport1:05:30

        About half. Right. So, so about half when they went through this exercise... And these aren't quantified numbers, you know, this is just... they sent me reports and-

    24. LFLex Fridman1:05:39

        Right.

    25. CNCal Newport1:05:39

        Yeah.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:05:40

        That's pretty good though. So, 1,700?

    27. CNCal Newport1:05:42

        Yeah, yeah. So, so, so roughly half probably got rid of social media altogether. Once they did this exercise, they realized, "These things I care about, I don't... uh, social media is not the tools that's really helping."

    28. LFLex Fridman1:05:52

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CNCal Newport1:05:53

        The other half kept some... There were some things in their life where some social media was, uh, useful.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:05:58

        Mm-hmm.
11. 1:10:04 – 1:35:12

    Social media

    1. CNCal Newport1:10:04

       people. Now, do you think social media as a medium changed the cultural standards? And, and, and I mean it in a... d- have you read Neil Postman at all? Have you read like, uh, Amusing Ourselves to Death? He was a social critic, technology critic, um, and wrote a lot about sort of technological determinism. So it... the ways... which is a, a really influential idea to a lot of my work, which is a, actually a little out of fashion right now in academia. But, uh, the ways that the, the properties and presence of technologies change things about humans in a way that's not really intended or planned by the humans themselves. And he's... that book is all about how different communication medium like fundamentally just changed the way the human brain understands and operates. And so, he sort of gets into the what happened when the printed word was widespread, and how television changed it. And this was all pre-social media. But this is one of these ideas I'm having, is like, what... the degree to which... and I, I get into it sometimes on, on my show. I get into a little bit. Like, the degree to which like Twitter, in particular, just changed the way that people conceptualized what, for example, debate and discussion was. Like, it introduced a rhetorical dunk culture-

    2. LFLex Fridman1:11:06

       Yeah.

    3. CNCal Newport1:11:06

       ... where it's sort of more about tribes not giving ground to other tribes, and, and it's like, it's a complete... uh, there's different places and times when that type of discussion was thought of differently, right?

Episode duration: 3:03:04