An Antidote to Your Frenetic Mind

It is no secret that our 21st century lives are oriented around devices and technology.  It is the present and the future.  There is no escaping it, nor should we try to.  At its best, technology can amplify our own potential, provide comfort and connection, and make our lives exponentially more information-rich than the pre-computer days.

But we also all know that it is always a trade-off.  Our time spent using devices - primarily our phones, laptops, and smart tvs - now largely surpasses our time spent not using them.  This new metaversal reality gives most of us an initial feeling of dread, reminded of the many dystopias depicted in pop culture about such a future. 

However, at this point, that view seems unbearable myopic, if not plainly irrelevant, given where we are and where we are headed as human civilization.  Now that information-rich, hyperconnected technology is a mainstay, it is time to take a more nuanced and surgical view of its impact on our lives.

The Era of Breadth

When one considers the sheer amount of information that we have access to, it is impossible not to feel like we as individuals are much more well-informed today than we have ever been.  Social media, RSS feeds, and the like allow us to scan and consume across a seemingly vast and more diverse set of sources and topics than ever before.

But if we are being honest with ourselves, we can admit that our consumption of “information” has largely been distilled down to bits and pieces.  We primarily scroll through headlines and social posts without actually taking in information with any nuance or depth.  This is not all on the user, of course.  

The internet is now driven by advertisers, which means an overemphasis on what will get you to click and/or watch versus what will truly inform or challenge what you will think.  Moreover, we all have been living through the age of “disinformation” and know that not all of what we see was human-generated or meant for the true purpose of increasing our knowledge or well-being.

In fact, recent studies (here and here) estimate that somewhere between 50-75% of all internet traffic is generated by automated “bots” versus actual human users.  We can feel it too.

The endless two-factor authentications.  Password leaks and resets.  Never-ending pop-ups to get us to sign up for info (before we’ve gotten the info we came for) or to get us to sign away our data.  Honestly, it’s getting pretty irritating - but that is besides the point.

In a world rich in information, we as individuals consume an extremely wide breadth, but it comes at the cost of depth.

As just a few minutes on Twitter/X, Facebook or Reddit comment sections will show you, this breadth is not the same as knowledge and understanding.  In fact, the ability to regurgitate headlines (e.g. “I read somewhere…”, “I saw recently…”, etc.) is now being used as a stand-in for real knowledge and understanding.  It’s easier to scroll than it is to read.

Again, this topic is well-documented and debated ad nauseam, with one side seeming like older generation Luddites and the other seeming like vapid, young punks (neither being accurate).  

But where this topic is most interesting and relevant is for you as the individual.  What does this reality of breadth over depth do to your own level of knowledge and understanding?  Has it helped you achieve your goals?  Does it make you feel more informed or just more stimulated?

A Frenetic Mind

It is becoming a cliche to discuss “phone addiction” - or the nagging compulsive instinct to reach for our phones at any brief stoppage of stimulation from other objects in our lives (usually other devices).  That is why I think it is more important to talk about how this compulsion makes us think and feel.

The scrolling phenomenon combined with 24/7 connectedness impacts the pace of our thoughts much more than people make mention.  When our brains get used to going from headline to video to post to headline to video to text to email to text to headline and so on - our minds become accustomed to that pace of neural firing.  It is why so many find it hard to sit still or watch longer movies or break most routines of any kind.  Our minds have become a merry-go-round and once the music slows and we begin to come to a stop, it's easy enough to pop another quarter in and keep the ride rolling (excuse the mixing of metaphors).

But fast-paced thoughts become exhausting.  Bouncing from one subject to the next might trigger a dopamine blast, but eventually our brains start to hurt.  We all know that blegh and sluggish feeling that arrives at the end of a scrolling session or the day itself.

Moment to moment, when our minds go from post-pinball back to rest, we now get uncomfortable in the stillness and the lack of mental movement.  Not “doing” something starts to feel “wrong” or “unproductive” or as if you are missing out on the world as it is rushing by.  Too much stillness leads to feelings of unease or - everyone’s favorite condition today - anxiety (nice job Big Pharma).

Anxiety is certainly a real thing and can be quite debilitating - but I believe that for most of us, it is of our own making.  The more comfortable we get in the frenetic metaverse, the less comfortable we get in the idyllic universe.

Books (in any form) - An Antidote & Advantage

As human beings, we need stimulation.  We need to escape.  We need time to ourselves.  We need moments to feel calm and at ease.  

Furthermore, as individuals in society, we have practical needs too.  We need to make a living.  We need to take care of our own health and well-being and that of our families.  We need to achieve and build connections, which means we need knowledge and skills.

Unfortunately, the evolution of the internet and the user experience of scrolling (reminder that product designers choose that method for their applications, it is not some sort of “natural” thing) has not developed with many of those ends in mind.  

This is where books come in.  And I do not mean only physical copies of books.  E-readers and audiobooks are just as good.  (Cliffnote-style apps are not :)

Books can provide depth, escape, and stillness all at the same time.  But the biggest benefit to books today that no one talks about is that they give you a significant advantage.

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”

Very few people read anymore.  It is a fact.  A recent poll by YouGov of American reading habits for 2023 found the following:

“If you read or listened to only one book in 2023, then you read more than 46% of Americans. Reading five books puts you ahead of two-thirds of U.S. adult citizens. Readers of 10 books are in the 79th percentile, while Americans who read 20 or more books read more than 88% of their peers.”

Naturally, I recommend reading the article - some interesting charts in there!

Point being, if you are reading even a modest amount of books per year, you are ahead of the vast majority of your peers - and both the knowledge and the restored mental pace can do wonders for you personally or professionally.

While everyone else is scrolling themselves into a frenzy, you can sit back, sip a coffee, and get lost in a romance or a utopia or the research behind how our feelings are actually determined by how we talk to ourselves.  And these can be your experiences that are unique to you.  When combined with your own life experience, the knowledge or ideas of a book can take on a whole new perspective for yourself and others.

But what if I “hate reading”?

No one hates reading.  It is just an excuse we tell ourselves for not picking up something that requires a little effort.  What we hate is feeling dumb or stupid or embarrassed - and reading something slowly has been associated with those things because little kids used to tease each other about it.  Thank god we are letting small children determine how we should feel about ourselves!

The reality is twofold:

• You may prefer listening - Auditory learning is very much a thing and our education system overemphasizes text-based learning.  Listening to a book on the treadmill or walking around the neighborhood or staring at the ceiling can be amazing.

• You haven’t found your genre/authors yet - Like music, books require that you develop your own taste.  I personally can tear through books on entrepreneurship and personal improvement, histories of leaders or ventures, and most recently, sci-fi novels. But I have never been drawn to things like romance or action adventure novels or non-fiction about a myriad of topics.  It is natural to have your own taste, so stop judging yourself for it and just go for it.

Social Media Isn’t Going Anywhere

Have you ever had the pleasure of standing next to a river and watching the water rush by?  It is pretty remarkable when you think about it.  You can stand there all day and the water keeps coming.  Even in the middle of the night, when most living creatures are asleep, the river keeps running.  You wake up and it’s there, gushing as it always does (ignore droughts/global warming for a second).

Social media is just like that.  It is literally a “stream” of never-ending content, each article or video just another drop of water to be followed by another and another and another.  It is never-ending.  

Didn’t catch the “news” today?  Well trust me, there will be more news tomorrow.  

Afraid you will miss your friend’s latest update?  How many crazy, incredible and noteworthy things worth remembering do you do each day?  Then I am sure whatever they have been up to is nice, but not significant.

What is significant is your mind and your time.

Once you internalize the never-ending river of information online, you can begin to realize that you don’t need to “tune in” all of the time.  It’ll be there when you get back.

Try choosing yourself and dive into a book.  Even if you only go 2 pages at a time, it will be time well spent doing something different!

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