> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
I hate this thing. I don't think it added anything to this article to conflate this "study" - did no one stop to think your brain isn't firing on all cylinders when the AI is doing the work because that's what the whole point of AI is?
It's supposed to free up your mind to attend to other matters.
We're not building muscles like we used to when we use tractors and heavy machinery instead of building houses brick by brick by hand either. So what?? Attend a gym and read something technical and dense.
> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
The study wasn't great but don't outsource your thinking.
The study (if we assume it was good) told students the objective of their task was to generate a factual essay about topic X. The study then measured how much they learned about the topic at the end, but the students who used ChatGPT "learned" less and remembered their own essay less despite an equally passable essay. I want the alternative version of the study where the students are told the essay is practice, and their success will be graded on how much they've learned about the topic.
I imagine you could conduct a similar study challenging students to complete math tasks with and without a calculator and then ask them how much of their multiplication tables they've learned afterwards.
If you want to learn and grow as a person, along some dimension, you need to practice. Growing requires repetition and reflection and to experience the feedback loop of improvement. Outsource thinking for whatever task you don't want to do when the only result you care about is the only outcome. Don't outsource practice and learning if you want to improve. Only you can make the decision on when each situation applies in your day. Maybe you want to be better at some task at your job, but maybe you just need to get through the task and move on.
Speaking about not outsourcing practice reminds me of the physical analogue...
I have heard about people talk about "farmer's strength" to reference a very natural functional strength that is earned by the gruelling and diverse physical demands of doing farm labour for a lifetime.
Now people have invented various training regimes to try to reproduce that kind of strength outside of the original farming environment.
Edit - As an aside, it just occurred to me that I am both a functional strength and functional programming proponent (facepalm). Perhaps in the future after people seeking to strengthen their minds through via mental gymnastics, FP will see a renaissance
Yep it's always a bit cute and funny, when you consider the absolute necessity of dopamine in basically every functionally relevant neural activation. Talk to a parkinson's patient about your 'dopamine=bad' fluff. Ugh. They may as well just have titled it "Protecting My Attention At The {Insert Arbitrary Hormone or Neurotransmission Chemical} Carnival"....
> They may as well just have titled it "Protecting My Attention At The {Insert Arbitrary Hormone or Neurotransmission Chemical} Carnival"....
I disagree. I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of the readers here would have known in the context of that headline exactly what "The Dopamine Carnival" meant, without needing any specific positive or negative implications about dopamine in general or it's actual biochemical mechanisms. It's blatantly obviously about social media and mobile apps that are intentionally designed to manipulate your brain and its reward system.
Sure, but “computer does all of the logical inference by hand and it turns out your brain isn’t needed” is awfully a big confirmation bias in favor of people who have left LLMs work in their favor.
> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
I have always assumed that this was done to drive app usage. Companies hope that if you use an app regularly you'll keep it on the home screen of your phone, and it becomes a foothold into your most intimate device.
> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
Muggings and kidnappings, as bad as they are, can't really be done at scale.
That device a) has some kind of secure enclave, hopefully, and more importantly b) restricts your ability to run arbitrary code off the internet to the point that everyday users probably can't do it. I don't like it, but they do it because it's effective.
I have at times carried a Firefox Phone and a Pinephone, and deeply enjoyed asking work or other people who insisted I needed to download an app to do (whatever) "Where I can get your app for my phone? No, it's not an iPhone. No, it's not an Android phone either."
(Lately I've been using "It's a work phone, I'm not able to install apps on it, you'll need to run your app past our corporate IT and Security team.")
> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer [...]
Because MFA requirements have never been about security, only security theater. It's the modern version of the "you must change your password every 30 days" rule.
Wat? If my laptop gets infected and the bad actor tries to access my (insert account protected with MFA here), their ability to do harm is limited by spreading things across two devices.
It does not defeat the purpose as your MFA code/prompt as you are still protected even if someone has your password. The only slightly lesser protection is that if someone gains local access to your machine/password manager then everything is compromised vs. having your codes on your phone, but this should be very, very far down the list of security concerns for the majority of people.
The most realistic security threat for OTP's is that they can be phished in a few ways which is the same problem if you're using MFA stored on your desktop or phone. Hence the preference for physical security keys / passkeys which are impossible to phish.
Most banking apps here only allow their own app as a 2-factor authentication, not even TOTP is allowed. (I think they make it to increase user engagement.)
The worst one is Mercado Libre, which also requires you to use your phone to "scan" your face every time you log in with a new device. My friends were locked out due to having an allergy or growing a beard. Nowadays, I don't even bother with them... I just shop elsewhere.
I mean anything you have to "install" from an app store tied to a phone OS. Sometimes if there is no other option I install the app/complete the task and uninstall.
The app guys have normalized the idea that every "bright" idea they get about how to exploit my data or waste my attention, they have a right to push it out to my phone, if I have installed their app.
So the stupid apps keep updating with new shit everyday whether I need it or not.
I think I can obtain a triple benefit by using Cursor "ask" mode instead of "agent" mode.
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
> for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
Seems like this is the inherent difficulty in being a skillful developer. Atleast in the context of non-trivial collaborative projects, big edits that the person commiting doesn't understand might as well be a diceroll, and imo those big edits should really only be applied if the intent was to save the time in writing it.
The biggest benefit to me (using Copilot instead of Cursor) is that you can make sure that it understands the problem and the solution is what you expected. If I want to see if it can make a big change, I usually flow through "I need X, what are our options" -> "Discuss option N more" -> "Ok, now you can do it".
I invested in META stock because I have an addiction to instagram and the tracking is so good that the ads are actually tailored to me and my desires so my CTR is i think 7% on average. contrast with YouTube and Google and Twitter where I block all the ads because the CTR is 0.00% because they are all garbage. Instagram keeps showing me ads for expensive stuff I don't need but I do want, like meal kits and fancy clothes
When Facebook first came out, you could run an ad for $5 and the ads are often things I happily clicked on.
Granted, it was by and for college students, so there was an inherent selection bias. Still, Zuckerberg built his whole empire on getting enough data about people to show ads that are so targeted they feel relevant.
I’ve seen so many ads that show a nice product, so I click and it takes me to nice polished landing page, which leads to a smooth checkout flow. But then the thing arrives and it’s garbage. I believe that there’s an entire genre of niche-marketed consumer goods that have been broken by Campbell/Goodharts law because they’ve integrated the product design and marketing so tightly that the product is designed to optimize CTR and funnel conversions rather than being a good at being the thing that it is.
Yeah, I've had one that seemed like exactly something I wanted, turned out to be a scam, and they fucked it up enough that PayPal actually refunded me.
There's a particular Instagram ad my wife always sees for a graphic tee with a design that we both love, but the vendor selling it is (according to Reddit reviews) garbage. The infuriating thing is that no one else seems to sell a shirt with that particular design!
Tik Tok is obvious brain rot, but what if one's time at the dopamine carnival is spent consuming "brain-growth" content? Phones essentially put all human knowledge at our fingertips, where is the line of diminishing or negative returns when trying to consume it?
Popular science videos is still filler; I'd be inclined agree if you were scrolling MIT lectures (and watching them in their entirety), but how much of actual knowledge (and not random tidbits) do you retain from short form videos?
The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore.
Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
I get what you are saying but it’s 2025 and a mobile device is basically required to operate in society today. Especially if you want an active social life or to excel at work.
Nobody needs a margarita or any other addictive substance to function in society (barring actual substances issues). So it’s a false equivalence to compare apps like this.
An example in my middle aged life is that my kids extra-curriculars are all organized on WhatsApp. If I choose not to have a Meta account then my kids suffer when I am out of the loop on their events. Then of course all of the invites and venues are on Facebook. And all the parents post their pics to IG.
Because these apps are purposely designed to addict you, it is a real sticky thing to have to dip your toes in without getting sucked into a scrolling nightmare.
Well he didn't say the phone, but the app. So instead of using app timers just delete the app. The point is that you find yourself having a problem with the app and regret it's usage later then an app timer is the same as an alcoholic having one drink, now if you are judicious with the app timer and really do it ok. Same for an alcoholic, if you can actually have one drink, then it's fine.
Some apps are addictive but have some reasonable informational value. Some are just straight key bumps of entertainment with an algorithmic comedown to keep you looking for the next baggie.
I have the same situation you do about Facebook, but still don't have the app on my phone. I just check the mobile site and I was forced to install messenger. I have no need or desire to install things like TikTok or Instagram, of the hundreds of times people have sent me links to things on those apps I've never come away with the feeling that it was a value add.
It's a good idea to just uninstall some of these apps or even accounts and see if you really miss them. I found that not to be the case with Twitter and Facebook.
I’d also like more control over chrome autocomplete.
Most of the time that I get sucked into a website, it’s because autocomplete and muscle memory got me there without thinking. Every once in a while I’ll clean out my history cache and for a week or so I’ll find myself on the page of google search results for “re” or “fa”
I find them really useful, I find youtube to be a good thing in moderation. But its very helpful to have a timer forcing me to thoughtfully use the time I've allocated.
The "UnTrap"-Add-On for Firefox can block the more detrimental aspects of youtube, like shorts or the recommendation of other videos.
I have it configured so that it always brings me directly to the "watch later"-playlist and I never go to the main page.
Have you walked past one recently? Casinos used to have at least some veneer of sophistication - polished wood, baize, well-dressed croupiers - even if it was ultimately pretty thin. Now the whole room looks like a giant kiddie noisemaker toy.
Aside from general infantilization, another theory: The old status-signalling has moved on to something else, and past generations' signals of upper-class (or at least classier) gambling are now obsolete, so nobody bothers projecting them.
The "surprising results" are a bit factoid-ey and if taken at face value are far more shocking than they turned out to be (I very much appreciate the references so I could check this):
"You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks": the linked study says that it's attention span that is improved equivalent to being 10 years younger, as measured immediately after the study ends (only)
"Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50%": this is measured using an EEG, so is measuring involvement of multiple brain regions while doing a task. Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM. It's not, you know, your connectome atrophying.
The exact mechanisms will be individual to the person.
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
> Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
IF TRUE and taken at face value, surely it could have nothing to do with AI coding being so new everyone just figuring how to best use a new tool at all once.
No no, best to right out the gate compare the new tool to the decades old process.
I can’t abide by that last claim. AI has been able to fetch some dead Microsoft documentation for me that I was not able to otherwise find through the regular channels. The code would have had to have looked very differently if not for AI.
Mixed bag for me. I spent a day running in circles working on a github action based on lots of very bad info from chatGPT. I also just reviewed a PR that allowed for remote function execution. The dev that wrote the code has been very open about their use of AI. He thought it was good because he wasnt thinking.
Internet archive is pretty good for old documentation. It's very interesting what API features that are removed from new versions and all documentation scrubbed but actually still work.
I quite like it actually because although I do use AI, I think you really do have to be careful about how you use it to avoid wasting more time than it saves when you run into a problem and insist on getting the AI to fix it instead of doing it yourself. It is very easy to fall into this trap of trying to get AI to do everything, because our brains are hardwired to avoid effort, and so we use it even when AI is not appropriate.
The biggest time saver for me with AI is to really try to avoid the round-and-round with AI and instead just get AI to take the first pass, maybe some small follow-ups, and then I take it from there and complete the task manually. AI can be a significant time-saver in that first pass at the problem, but after that you can waste so much time trying to get AI to fix something small that you could fix yourself in 5 minutes. And this can be especially damaging because it is less effort to use AI, so we don't necessarily notice when we are wasting time due to our own cognitive biases, which I think this study does a good job of pointing out.
If its still cloudy, a "thought leader" is anyone recognized as an authority in their field, whose ideas and insights influence others and shape the direction of the hype cycle.
> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
I hate this thing. I don't think it added anything to this article to conflate this "study" - did no one stop to think your brain isn't firing on all cylinders when the AI is doing the work because that's what the whole point of AI is?
It's supposed to free up your mind to attend to other matters.
We're not building muscles like we used to when we use tractors and heavy machinery instead of building houses brick by brick by hand either. So what?? Attend a gym and read something technical and dense.
> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
I agree that it's not a great study, but I also don't want to find out too late that it wasn't a good idea to outsource my thinking to ChatGPT.
The study wasn't great but don't outsource your thinking.
The study (if we assume it was good) told students the objective of their task was to generate a factual essay about topic X. The study then measured how much they learned about the topic at the end, but the students who used ChatGPT "learned" less and remembered their own essay less despite an equally passable essay. I want the alternative version of the study where the students are told the essay is practice, and their success will be graded on how much they've learned about the topic.
I imagine you could conduct a similar study challenging students to complete math tasks with and without a calculator and then ask them how much of their multiplication tables they've learned afterwards.
If you want to learn and grow as a person, along some dimension, you need to practice. Growing requires repetition and reflection and to experience the feedback loop of improvement. Outsource thinking for whatever task you don't want to do when the only result you care about is the only outcome. Don't outsource practice and learning if you want to improve. Only you can make the decision on when each situation applies in your day. Maybe you want to be better at some task at your job, but maybe you just need to get through the task and move on.
Speaking about not outsourcing practice reminds me of the physical analogue...
I have heard about people talk about "farmer's strength" to reference a very natural functional strength that is earned by the gruelling and diverse physical demands of doing farm labour for a lifetime.
Now people have invented various training regimes to try to reproduce that kind of strength outside of the original farming environment.
Edit - As an aside, it just occurred to me that I am both a functional strength and functional programming proponent (facepalm). Perhaps in the future after people seeking to strengthen their minds through via mental gymnastics, FP will see a renaissance
Same for the reference to developers taking longer to complete tasks with AI. That's absolutely not the finding of that study.
Im never surprised when someone prattling on about dopamine also leans on a bad study to make a spurious point.
Yep it's always a bit cute and funny, when you consider the absolute necessity of dopamine in basically every functionally relevant neural activation. Talk to a parkinson's patient about your 'dopamine=bad' fluff. Ugh. They may as well just have titled it "Protecting My Attention At The {Insert Arbitrary Hormone or Neurotransmission Chemical} Carnival"....
> They may as well just have titled it "Protecting My Attention At The {Insert Arbitrary Hormone or Neurotransmission Chemical} Carnival"....
I disagree. I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of the readers here would have known in the context of that headline exactly what "The Dopamine Carnival" meant, without needing any specific positive or negative implications about dopamine in general or it's actual biochemical mechanisms. It's blatantly obviously about social media and mobile apps that are intentionally designed to manipulate your brain and its reward system.
Ofc the title got its point across, but I'd argue to hold ourselves to higher standards of veracity. That's all.
Sure, but “computer does all of the logical inference by hand and it turns out your brain isn’t needed” is awfully a big confirmation bias in favor of people who have left LLMs work in their favor.
Looks like another ChatGPT victim here folks.
> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
I have always assumed that this was done to drive app usage. Companies hope that if you use an app regularly you'll keep it on the home screen of your phone, and it becomes a foothold into your most intimate device.
> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
Muggings and kidnappings, as bad as they are, can't really be done at scale.
That device a) has some kind of secure enclave, hopefully, and more importantly b) restricts your ability to run arbitrary code off the internet to the point that everyday users probably can't do it. I don't like it, but they do it because it's effective.
What would your employer say if you said “I don’t own a smartphone. What alternatives exist?”
My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch, but my previous employer was big on making me check my smartphone.
I have at times carried a Firefox Phone and a Pinephone, and deeply enjoyed asking work or other people who insisted I needed to download an app to do (whatever) "Where I can get your app for my phone? No, it's not an iPhone. No, it's not an Android phone either."
(Lately I've been using "It's a work phone, I'm not able to install apps on it, you'll need to run your app past our corporate IT and Security team.")
> My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch
This is for authentication ?
They'd give me a conpany smartphone.
Phone call, sms, email, physical fob, 2nd person.
> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer [...]
Because MFA requirements have never been about security, only security theater. It's the modern version of the "you must change your password every 30 days" rule.
wild take here.
MFA is like infinitely more secure than your username/pw that Tim from accounting writes on his notes and reuses the same password everywhere.
How is that not common knowledge?
Wat? If my laptop gets infected and the bad actor tries to access my (insert account protected with MFA here), their ability to do harm is limited by spreading things across two devices.
This might defeat the purpose of MFA but I use an authenticator like Ente that works on the desktop and syncs to and from your phone.
It does not defeat the purpose as your MFA code/prompt as you are still protected even if someone has your password. The only slightly lesser protection is that if someone gains local access to your machine/password manager then everything is compromised vs. having your codes on your phone, but this should be very, very far down the list of security concerns for the majority of people.
The most realistic security threat for OTP's is that they can be phished in a few ways which is the same problem if you're using MFA stored on your desktop or phone. Hence the preference for physical security keys / passkeys which are impossible to phish.
Thank you, I really appreciate this. I've been looking for something exactly like this for ages, whilst trying to toss my current solution.
It's a great app, open source as well and works everywhere, even on the web. I migrated all my MFA to Ente Auth.
Monzo (UK) lets you set a limit on withdrawals when you are away from home.
Does it also let you unset the limit?
That reminds me of the effectiveness of texting codes as MFA, when the password can also be reset by texting a code...
Those services just have SFA (Single Factor Authentication): the cell phone number (which can be stolen remotely by social engineering).
Most MFA solutions can use a FIDO token these days (unless the admins are masochists), which you could keep plugged into your device
Most banking apps here only allow their own app as a 2-factor authentication, not even TOTP is allowed. (I think they make it to increase user engagement.)
The worst one is Mercado Libre, which also requires you to use your phone to "scan" your face every time you log in with a new device. My friends were locked out due to having an allergy or growing a beard. Nowadays, I don't even bother with them... I just shop elsewhere.
Don't use apps. The only apps on my phone are for communication. Nothing else.
It's quite possible to live with websites.
How are you delineating websites and apps, and can you elaborate what exactly your hypothesis is here?
I mean anything you have to "install" from an app store tied to a phone OS. Sometimes if there is no other option I install the app/complete the task and uninstall.
The app guys have normalized the idea that every "bright" idea they get about how to exploit my data or waste my attention, they have a right to push it out to my phone, if I have installed their app.
So the stupid apps keep updating with new shit everyday whether I need it or not.
I presume they mean it's a website when you type it into an URL bar.
And that you don't ever add website bookmarks to the homescreen, because that makes them similar to apps.
I think I can obtain a triple benefit by using Cursor "ask" mode instead of "agent" mode.
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
> for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
Seems like this is the inherent difficulty in being a skillful developer. Atleast in the context of non-trivial collaborative projects, big edits that the person commiting doesn't understand might as well be a diceroll, and imo those big edits should really only be applied if the intent was to save the time in writing it.
The biggest benefit to me (using Copilot instead of Cursor) is that you can make sure that it understands the problem and the solution is what you expected. If I want to see if it can make a big change, I usually flow through "I need X, what are our options" -> "Discuss option N more" -> "Ok, now you can do it".
I invested in META stock because I have an addiction to instagram and the tracking is so good that the ads are actually tailored to me and my desires so my CTR is i think 7% on average. contrast with YouTube and Google and Twitter where I block all the ads because the CTR is 0.00% because they are all garbage. Instagram keeps showing me ads for expensive stuff I don't need but I do want, like meal kits and fancy clothes
When Facebook first came out, you could run an ad for $5 and the ads are often things I happily clicked on.
Granted, it was by and for college students, so there was an inherent selection bias. Still, Zuckerberg built his whole empire on getting enough data about people to show ads that are so targeted they feel relevant.
I've found the same. I actually enjoy Instagram ads. I despise almost every other ad I can think of.
You enjoy the ads, but do you enjoy the products?
I’ve seen so many ads that show a nice product, so I click and it takes me to nice polished landing page, which leads to a smooth checkout flow. But then the thing arrives and it’s garbage. I believe that there’s an entire genre of niche-marketed consumer goods that have been broken by Campbell/Goodharts law because they’ve integrated the product design and marketing so tightly that the product is designed to optimize CTR and funnel conversions rather than being a good at being the thing that it is.
The joke is that Instagram is QVC for millennials, it must be working on/for some people.
Yeah, I've had one that seemed like exactly something I wanted, turned out to be a scam, and they fucked it up enough that PayPal actually refunded me.
There's a particular Instagram ad my wife always sees for a graphic tee with a design that we both love, but the vendor selling it is (according to Reddit reviews) garbage. The infuriating thing is that no one else seems to sell a shirt with that particular design!
Tik Tok is obvious brain rot, but what if one's time at the dopamine carnival is spent consuming "brain-growth" content? Phones essentially put all human knowledge at our fingertips, where is the line of diminishing or negative returns when trying to consume it?
Popular science videos is still filler; I'd be inclined agree if you were scrolling MIT lectures (and watching them in their entirety), but how much of actual knowledge (and not random tidbits) do you retain from short form videos?
Where is popular science videos coming from? Blogs, Wikipedia, research papers, Substacks, newspapers, magazines, ChatGPT, etc.
The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore.
Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
I get what you are saying but it’s 2025 and a mobile device is basically required to operate in society today. Especially if you want an active social life or to excel at work.
Nobody needs a margarita or any other addictive substance to function in society (barring actual substances issues). So it’s a false equivalence to compare apps like this.
An example in my middle aged life is that my kids extra-curriculars are all organized on WhatsApp. If I choose not to have a Meta account then my kids suffer when I am out of the loop on their events. Then of course all of the invites and venues are on Facebook. And all the parents post their pics to IG.
Because these apps are purposely designed to addict you, it is a real sticky thing to have to dip your toes in without getting sucked into a scrolling nightmare.
Well he didn't say the phone, but the app. So instead of using app timers just delete the app. The point is that you find yourself having a problem with the app and regret it's usage later then an app timer is the same as an alcoholic having one drink, now if you are judicious with the app timer and really do it ok. Same for an alcoholic, if you can actually have one drink, then it's fine.
Some apps are addictive but have some reasonable informational value. Some are just straight key bumps of entertainment with an algorithmic comedown to keep you looking for the next baggie.
I have the same situation you do about Facebook, but still don't have the app on my phone. I just check the mobile site and I was forced to install messenger. I have no need or desire to install things like TikTok or Instagram, of the hundreds of times people have sent me links to things on those apps I've never come away with the feeling that it was a value add.
It's a good idea to just uninstall some of these apps or even accounts and see if you really miss them. I found that not to be the case with Twitter and Facebook.
I wish Chrome had timers for specific websites on mobile. I hate the all-or-nothing Chrome timer, it's ridiculous and so counter intuitive.
> I wish Chrome had timers for specific websites on mobile.
Chrome does have this feature on mobile, but perhaps not on your mobile.
I’d also like more control over chrome autocomplete.
Most of the time that I get sucked into a website, it’s because autocomplete and muscle memory got me there without thinking. Every once in a while I’ll clean out my history cache and for a week or so I’ll find myself on the page of google search results for “re” or “fa”
Agreed, and their setting to turn it off entirely doesn't work on Pixel at all.
You can hold-press over an autocompleted URL to delete it, which has much less friction than clearing your history.
Pixel phones (at least) have this.
I find them really useful, I find youtube to be a good thing in moderation. But its very helpful to have a timer forcing me to thoughtfully use the time I've allocated.
The "UnTrap"-Add-On for Firefox can block the more detrimental aspects of youtube, like shorts or the recommendation of other videos. I have it configured so that it always brings me directly to the "watch later"-playlist and I never go to the main page.
FreeTube is also phenomenal for de-enshittifying (dis-enshittifying?) the YouTube experience
"Normal" people don't react that way to casinos.
Have you walked past one recently? Casinos used to have at least some veneer of sophistication - polished wood, baize, well-dressed croupiers - even if it was ultimately pretty thin. Now the whole room looks like a giant kiddie noisemaker toy.
Aside from general infantilization, another theory: The old status-signalling has moved on to something else, and past generations' signals of upper-class (or at least classier) gambling are now obsolete, so nobody bothers projecting them.
If you work in a SCIF you don't have to worry about your phone being a distraction
Great point. So how do you do 2FA? Hardware tokens?
Had my phone left uncharged for the best part of a week recently. Barely needed it.
It's my laptop that eats my brain.
The "surprising results" are a bit factoid-ey and if taken at face value are far more shocking than they turned out to be (I very much appreciate the references so I could check this):
"You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks": the linked study says that it's attention span that is improved equivalent to being 10 years younger, as measured immediately after the study ends (only)
"Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50%": this is measured using an EEG, so is measuring involvement of multiple brain regions while doing a task. Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM. It's not, you know, your connectome atrophying.
> Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM
That's kind of the point of most tech. Consider:
"In another eye-opening study, researchers have conclusively shown that your muscles atrophy if you're using a forklift instead of your back!"
The exact mechanisms will be individual to the person.
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
> Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
IF TRUE and taken at face value, surely it could have nothing to do with AI coding being so new everyone just figuring how to best use a new tool at all once.
No no, best to right out the gate compare the new tool to the decades old process.
I can’t abide by that last claim. AI has been able to fetch some dead Microsoft documentation for me that I was not able to otherwise find through the regular channels. The code would have had to have looked very differently if not for AI.
Mixed bag for me. I spent a day running in circles working on a github action based on lots of very bad info from chatGPT. I also just reviewed a PR that allowed for remote function execution. The dev that wrote the code has been very open about their use of AI. He thought it was good because he wasnt thinking.
Internet archive is pretty good for old documentation. It's very interesting what API features that are removed from new versions and all documentation scrubbed but actually still work.
I agree. AI doesn't make me a faster coder, but it helps me do things that I wouldn't have been able to do at all otherwise.
> Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
this contradicts thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng
This is a stat from a pretty interesting study: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44522772
I quite like it actually because although I do use AI, I think you really do have to be careful about how you use it to avoid wasting more time than it saves when you run into a problem and insist on getting the AI to fix it instead of doing it yourself. It is very easy to fall into this trap of trying to get AI to do everything, because our brains are hardwired to avoid effort, and so we use it even when AI is not appropriate.
The biggest time saver for me with AI is to really try to avoid the round-and-round with AI and instead just get AI to take the first pass, maybe some small follow-ups, and then I take it from there and complete the task manually. AI can be a significant time-saver in that first pass at the problem, but after that you can waste so much time trying to get AI to fix something small that you could fix yourself in 5 minutes. And this can be especially damaging because it is less effort to use AI, so we don't necessarily notice when we are wasting time due to our own cognitive biases, which I think this study does a good job of pointing out.
Please don't say "thought leader" unironically.
What is a thought leader?
A Führer for your thoughts
Thought Czar is more in vogue
The person you are asking gave an example:
> thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng
If its still cloudy, a "thought leader" is anyone recognized as an authority in their field, whose ideas and insights influence others and shape the direction of the hype cycle.
Pure nonsense (referring to your quote)