Back in the day, Americans thought smoking was fine and didn’t really worry about diet and exercise. But over the last several decades a better understanding of how best to take care of the body emerged, and regulations along with them.
Now it’s time to do the same thing for the mind, argues Cal Newport, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University and best-selling author.
In a lengthy essay for the New York Times on March 27, the “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” author pointed out that addressing “digital Doritos” is vital to maintaining American’s ability to concentrate and be creative.
“We should consider taking as strong a stance against ultraprocessed content as we already do against ultraprocessed food. Which is to say: Most people should avoid these diversions most of the time. In the same way that you’re unlikely to eat Twinkies as a regular snack or still believe that Pop-Tarts provide a balanced breakfast, stop consuming ultraprocessed content. Don’t use TikTok. Don’t use Instagram. Don’t use X. Their sugar-high benefits aren’t worth the costs,” Newport wrote.
He continued his analogy with exercise: “The cognitive equivalent of aerobic activity is contemplation — the intentional focusing of your mind’s eye on a singular topic, with the goal of increased understanding. Just as the sedentary lifestyles that emerged in the mid-20th century degraded our bodies, our current lack of contemplation is degrading our brains.”
Reading, he added, is cardio for the brains.
One solution is for the government to help with the problem, Newport wrote, just like how the Food and Drug Administration banned trans fats. The professor said regulations would create a paradigm shift in how Americans look at tech if its reframed “as something that should be closely monitored, similar to such age-gated vices as alcohol and tobacco — substances we’ve learned to approach with caution.”
“In an era when technologies relentlessly disrupt our lives, it can seem that this cognition crisis is a fait accompli — a side effect of innovations that cannot be stopped. But do we really have to accept this steady loss of our thinking ability as inevitable? In a short time, we transformed the way we thought about health. I’ve come to believe that a similarly rapid revolution is possible in how we respond to our diminishing ability to think,” the professor wrote.
Read the full essay at the New York Times.
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