All right. Welcome back to another episode of Two Dads and Tech. Uh, we have a very special guest with us today, Nir Eyal.
Nir Eyal is the author of the best-selling book Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He's also the author of the best-selling book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.
He has a newsletter he writes to over 150,000 people, and he's a LinkedIn Top Voice with over 360,000 followers. Thanks so much for joining us today, Nir. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely.
We, uh, originally connected, Nir and I, because of, uh, a video of a podcast episode we did a few months ago where we talked about phubbing.
And to jog everyone's memory, phubbing is this new kind of concept of choosing your device and your phone over the people and the interactions right in front of you.
And this is kind of like right up Nir's alley, uh, with his two best-selling books, what he writes about.
Troy, I know you have kind of a whole list of items to discuss with Nir, but I'm very excited just to hear his thoughts on phubbing as a concept and, and really to get into it with him today. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Where do we start? Yeah, so much to talk about. Yeah, I'll give you a good place to start, actually. Let's, um, first let's backtrack a little bit. And there's one story that I listened to. I think it came out...
You, you released it on YouTube in December. Um, and when it was, it was the superpower story. I think that's all I need to say, and you're probably like, "Oh, I know exactly what Troy's talking about."
Can you just let the audience know what the superpower story is? Because we have talked about this. We're 37 episodes now. We have talked about this
similar scenario where Daniel and I fall into almost every single day, if not every single day. And I want you to tell me the superpower story so the audience can know what I even mean by the superpower story.
You're talking about the story with my daughter? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So this was the, the inspiration for writing Indistractable.
One afternoon, I was with my daughter, and, uh, we had some daddy-daughter time together, just some quality time to hang out together. And we had this book of activities and games that we could play.
Uh, have a paper airplane-throwing contest, do a Sudoku puzzle together, all these different games. And one of the activities in the book was to ask each other this question.
The question was, "If you could have any superpower, what superpower would you want?"
And I remember that question verbatim, but I can't tell you what my daughter said because in that moment, guys, I thought it was a good idea to just, let me check my phone real quick.
Let me just see what's going on here. And by the time I looked up from my device, she was gone. Oh my goodness.
Because I was sending her a very clear message that whatever was on my phone was more important than she was, and she went to go play with some toy outside.
And so if you ask me today what the most important superpower I would want, it's the power to be indistractable.
Because what I've learned is that there is no area of your life that is not affected by your ability to focus your attention, whether it's your physical health.
If you don't go to the gym, if you don't eat right, you're gonna feel like crap.
Your mental health, if you can't focus, if you can't concentrate on your own thoughts and ideas, you're running real fast in the wrong direction, that's because you're distractable.
Whether it's your relationships, right? If you can't sit across the table from someone without constantly taking your out, your device, I'm telling you, it's not your device that's the problem.
There's something deeper going on. Yeah. And so we have to learn how to become indistractable because this is the first generation in history where the constraint on who we can become is no longer information.
It used to be if you, you know, if you had access to information, you could be rich and wealthy, yeah, and, and famous and, you know, you could know the secret code for how to do things.
Today, everything's out there, right? There's no more secrets. [laughs] Yep. Mm-hmm. You wanna, you wanna be healthy? Who doesn't know how to be healthy? You eat right and exercise.
If you want to have better relationships with your family, you have to be fully present. There's no secret. Yeah. Uh, you wanna start a business, you gotta work real hard for a long, long time.
So I think this is a real macro skill because today- Oh... we are drowning in information. We have so much information.
What we lack is the time and attention to turn that wisdom, that, that, that information into wisdom. And to do that, we have to control our attention. It is truly the skill of the century. Yeah. Wow.
That specific story, the other day, I mean, so my sons, two sons, uh, they're Liam and Harrison, and that specific story, I, I feel like I catch myself wanting, and this is a really bad way to phrase it, but I'm going to phrase it this way.
I feel like I catch myself wanting to ignore my child for my technology. I don't, you know- Yeah. Yeah... that's, again, a really bad way to phrase it, but, like, I want to see what's going on on my phone.
I appreciate your honesty, buddy. But when he was in younger, maybe... I know.
But anyways, I've been, because of that story, and even just, like, what Daniel and I have talked about for the last almost a year now is just like technology is taking over our lives, and it's scary, it's exciting, it's a whole mix of, of emotions, but now I, I'll say something like, Liam will say something to me.
He's three years old. He'll say something to me. I'll be like, "Yeah, Liam, h- you know what? Go ahead. What do you want, Liam?"
Like, I'll, I'll catch myself in the moment trying to, like, push him off, and I've been like- Right... "You know what? No, you can do that," or, "Let's go do that." And so I don't know.
There's, I feel like I'm slowly getting, getting over that hump of putting technology behind what my children actually want to do.
And so it's got, it's, I mean, and I, and I don't know if it's a coincidence or if my son's getting older, but I've been telling my friends around me, like, I'm having much more fun with my, my son, who's three, who can actually play around now.
Mm. But yeah, I've, I've been putting it down more. I've, I've been catching myself. It's bad. That's great. That's great. And good, yeah.
And I appreciate your honesty of, of saying, "Hey, look, it's, it's my desire to do something else," right? There's, there's only so many hours that a grown man can play Uno with a child, right?
[laughs] Like, it's boring, okay? It's hard. It's, it's, it's, it's something that, that eventually you want an escape from.
But I think this is why it's so important to have this conversation because what we tend to do, what shortsighted people tend to do, and what I did, frankly, for years, was just blame the technology 'cause that's what kind of the experts say.
It's kind of the obvious solution, right? The phone is in your hand, it must be the phone's fault.
What I discovered though, when I really got down to brass tacks, after I tried putting the phone away, after I tried getting rid of technology, after I tried, you know, I, I actually got a flip phone from the '90s to like, okay, the, the good old days before we had apps and, uh, Facebook and all these, you know, distractions, I still got distracted, right?
I would constantly still get distracted. Distraction is nothing new. Distraction has been with us for at least the past 2,500 years, at least since the time of Plato.
Plato, the Greek philosopher, was complaining about how distracting the world was.So what I found in writing this book is that the source of the problem is much more interesting and more profound than just blaming our phones, and the solution provides us much more agency than technology is melting our brains.
It's a very short-sighted answer- Mm... and not very practical. If you just keep blaming the technology, it's kind of like the sugar myth, right?
Like, every parent has heard, "Oh, uh, your, your- my, oh, my kid's at a birthday party. He's acting crazy because he just ate some sugar." Yeah. It's a complete myth. It is utter not true. Google it.
Like, there is no such thing as a sugar high. It does not exist. And yet- Wow... we perpetuate that myth. Why? Because as parents, it makes us feel so good. "My kid isn't- Wow...
crazy because of anything I did or what they might be doing. It's 'cause of the sugar. The sugar is messing with their brain." Guys, that is exactly what is happening today with the technology.
Not that the technology isn't messing up our kids. It can very much mess up our kids, just like too much sugar can mess up our kids, or too much anything can mess up our kids.
The problem is that we don't look at the source of the problem, the root cause. We look at these proximal causes as opposed to the root cause, and the root cause, newsflash, is icky, sticky feelings. Wow.
It's the fact that we don't like to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "Wait a minute, why do I keep checking my phone every five minutes?
Is it really the phone, or is it because I can't stand being with my family this long without getting agitated, stressed, and anxious?" Hm. Real thought. Oh, you're hitting on some stuff. Yeah. Right?
[laughs] I think what's, what's so obvious to me already in this conversation is the two books you wrote are kind of on both sides of the two dads in tech spectrum, where one deals with, like, products and building and the other deals with, like, distraction and relationships- Mm...
and obviously both with a bit of both on the spectrum. You've said a couple times the phone is not the problem.
So my question around this concept of screen time parenting and technology use is what do you think parents are getting wrong about- Yeah...
the whole screen time conversation, particularly with, let's call them y- young parents. You know, Troy and I both have- Yeah... two kids under four.
Very, very commonplace to have those screen time conversations in our generation. Sure, sure. What do you think we're getting wrong? Oh, my God, so much. I'll tell me what, what, what I got wrong.
[laughs] I got a lot wrong. We messed up a lot as parents, but thankfully, things, things turned out all right once we were, uh, as- started asking the right questions. I think that's, that's the place to start.
We don't get it perfect as parents, but, uh, we, we, we have to keep trying. We have to persevere. And I think the biggest thing we get wrong as parents is that we give up. That is the biggest mistake you can make.
Uh, the kids these days with their technology, what can you do? It's melting their brains. It's addicting them all. It's... That is the... That... And I hear that all the time.
And when parents give up, when they believe there's nothing they can do, when they believe it's all the technology's fault, and, and this is perpetuated by stupid movies like The Social Dilemma and, and authors that make a ton of money selling books that scare the crap out of parents, telling them that technology and screen time is bad, that this is perpetuated by the media mostly because media is threatened, traditional media is threatened by new media, [laughs]
right? You think The New York Times is trying to help you? You think they give a shit about how much time you spend reading the news? You think CNN or Fox News care that you're watching them too much?
No, they're in the same- Mm... exact business as TikTok and Facebook. They just hide it better because they blame those media companies because they're a threat to their bottom line. So we need- Wow...
to be very skeptical about these media companies blaming other media companies when they're in the exact same industry. Yeah.
What we need to do is to take a step back and realize that these are tools, just like all other tools. Mm-hmm. So a hammer can build a house, and it can also smash someone's brains in. It's about how you use that tool.
Mm. So the first mistake that I see a lot of parents m- making, especially new parents, is that they can't stand to see their kids bored. Mm. And so what do they do? They look to technology as a solution.
We're all around the dinner table, and we're trying to have a meal, and Johnny won't shut the... up. And so give him an iPad, give him my cell phone. Mm. That'll keep him quiet. First- Mm... huge mistake. Yeah.
Because what you're not doing is teaching your child to be bored. Wow. There is nothing wrong with being bored.
And so your mistake of not planning ahead and bringing those crayons, bringing the coloring book, bringing something for them to do, involving them in the conversation around the table for God sakes, that's your fault.
That's not Johnny's fault, right? Mm. You haven't planned ahead as a parent. Okay, you learn once, you make a mistake, don't keep making that mistake again.
So the biggest problem I see is that parent, or one of the problems, maybe not the biggest, is that parents start relying on the phones as pacification devices, and they are training their children to not learn how to emotionally control their negative feelings.
We call these internal triggers. So as soon as the kid's bored, as soon as they're, you know, need something to do, ah, here, take it, take the device. That's a- Mm... huge mistake. And of course, they blame the device.
[laughs] Right? They gave the k- the device. They taught the kid that the device is an emotional pacifier, and then when the kid begs for the device and says, "iPad, iPad, iPad," they say it's the iPad's fault. Wow.
You follow me on this? Yeah. You see how stupid this is? Oh, yeah. And it's really, I mean, it starts with us, too. I mean, like we- It's all us...
being distracted, where we're obsessed with looking at the screen, then, you know, they see, you know, monkey see, monkey do. "Well, Dad's always looking at his screen, so why shouldn't I just- Oh, my God...
stare at the screen?" Oh, dude, I know I gotta get started. This exactly leads me to the second big mistake. Actually, do get me started. [laughs] No, this is exactly right. Oh. So that's the first big mistake.
The second big mistake is exactly what you said. If you want to raise indistractible kids, you have to be an indistractible parent. Mm.
Because parent, it, it, parents don't understand that kid, every child, as soon as they're born, they have these tiny invisible antennae. I don't know if you saw these with your kids.
I c- I didn't see them with my daughter, but they're there. These tiny invisible antennae, this is called the hypocrisy detection device. Oof. And your child is constantly scanning for whenever you screw up.
So you can't tell- Yep... your kid- Oh, yeah... "Get off your phone. Get off, get off TikTok. Get off Fortnite." And meanwhile, you're checking email. It does not work that way.
It's like back in the '80s when, when I was a kid, you know, you, the classic parent smoking instead telling their kid not to smoke. Of course not. We all smoked because that's what we saw our parents do. Yeah.
We tried it because we saw them doing it.So you have to learn to be an indestructible parent. The good news is that it's a myth to think that you can't be vulnerable with your child.
So what I did, and what I encourage all parents to do, is to tell their children, "We are struggling with the same thing."
We are all struggling with distraction, whether it's too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook. There are-- we all struggle with distraction in one form or another.
And so when you involve your kids, say, "Look, we're gonna do this as a family. We're gonna declare a no phone zone," for example, "around the dinner table, and we're gonna learn to have conversations.
And sometimes it's gonna be boring, maybe it's not gonna be interesting, but we're gonna learn how to get through that together." Now we're all involved, versus I'm the cop and you're the prisoner.
I have to tell you what to do. "Put that phone away, damn it." That gets nowhere. Yeah. Yeah, that's... We actually, uh, we came out with, like, the seven-day digital disconnect challenge exactly for that.
As to, like, how do not only the kids be indestructible, but parents be indestructible as well. And day one is exactly that. It's like there's no technology at dinner, and you have to have a conversation.
You have to ask your son, like, "What did you learn today? What was funny today?" Like, "What did you do?" Things like that.
Daniel and I were just on the last episode, and we talked about how him and I grew up, where you would go grab these black plastic ramps.
You'd put it outside, you'd ride your bike, you'd jump the ramps, you played tackle football in the yard. Boys and girls are all playing tackle football. You'd go next door to the neighbors, you'd knock on the door.
Technology wasn't as easily accessible then. Do you think we're- You, you skipped the part where we went to the hospital and got stitches. That- Yes. [laughs] You, you forgot that part. Oh, yeah.
That happened a lot in my life. [laughs] Can you see my, can you see my scar? I don't... I had it in my temple. Literally right there. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. Yes, the chin was popular. Now usually- Yeah, yeah...
I broke my leg scooters or slipping on sc- whatever, so. I got, like, three of them right there. [laughs] Yep, chin was popular. So that was, like, normal, right? Like, I remember I broke my pinkie rollerblading.
That was normal. That's, honestly was, it was, it was a great time. [laughs] But we were also talking about do you think we're becoming so obsessed with technology that there will be...
it'll almost, like, reverse back to the way things used to be, where it's like we want to go outside and play and have fun and get hurt, or do you think we're just going down this dark, dark path?
Well, you know, th-this, um... I, I... Okay, so let's, let's start big picture why kids are overusing technology, 'cause there's a big difference between use and abuse.
Uh, o-one of the, the things that, that kinda gets under my skin is when, is when we call the pro- when we think the problem is screen time. That's such an amorphous term.
I-if, if my daughter is on, uh, her iPad, uh, you know, FaceTiming with her grandparents, that's screen time, but that's wonderful. [laughs] There's nothing wrong with that.
If she's learning, you know, she's learning how to knit or crochet, I don't know the difference, she's learning how to do that, um, that's wonderful. Yeah, it's on YouTube, but what's wrong with that? Like, I- I...
She learned to play the guitar. I've never play- paid for a guitar lesson in her life. She plays beautifully. She learned it all- Wow... on YouTube. Wow. So that's all screen time. Is that bad? No, it's awesome.
It's wonderful. So w-we need to differentiate between, you know, I think this, this, again, very intellectually lazy myth of screen time bad, you know, the old-fashioned way good. Eh, that's kind of not nuanced, right?
There's a lot to it. It's about what are you doing with your device, how much time you're spending on the device, who is using the device, and what you would be doing instead of using that device. Hmm.
I mean, think about it, right? We know... One, one of the things we don't talk about these days is that the number of, uh, the all the problems that, that used to be endemic to our generation are all at record lows.
You know that? That, that all the problems like, uh, drunk driving, record lows. Teen truancy, record lows. Pregnancy, all-time lows. Yeah. Violent crime, all-time lows.
All these things that used to kill kids are at all-time lows- Wow... with the exception of, of teen mental health issues, and there's all kinds of things we can unpack.
You know, just the fact that we can identify mental health issues means there's more mental health issues 'cause people are looking for it in a way that we- Yeah... weren't looking for them in, in past generations.
But everything that used to kill kids today is at record lows. Okay, again, suicide, mental health, there's... it's a more nuanced conversation, but all the bad stuff is at record lows. Well, why?
Part of the reason is because it's really hard to get into a drunk driving accident when you're at home playing Fortnite. Yeah. So if you wanted to invent a device to keep kids off the streets and safe at home,
there's some benefits, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the point here, it's not that, "Oh, technology is great, everybody use more of it." It's nuance.
It's nuance, that intelligent conversations about this topic need to be more complicated than just screen time bad, old-fashioned good. There's nuance there.
Now, I'm a big, big believer that we need to look at the root cause of the problem. You've heard me say that a few times. So what is the difference between use, and use is, a-as opposed to abuse.
We know that three hours or less of age-appropriate screen time has no deleterious effects.
There hasn't been even one study that has shown that children, I think it's above six years old, that any, um, that, that three hours or less of age-appropriate, right?
Of course, you're not gonna show your children everything that's available on the internet. It has to be age-appropriate. As long as the age is appropriate, three hours or less, no deleterious effects.
We've never found any. Wow.
Now, where we start getting into deleterious effects is with the four hours, the five hours, the six hours, and frankly, anything that you are doing for six hours a day, there's some problems, and those problems tend to be what we call comorbidity, that you never see a child who is using technology six hours a day who's a perfectly healthy, stable, normal, great family, great friendships, everything's hunky dory household.
If a child is using their device for six hours a day, there is always a comorbidity. There's something else going on. Wow. There's anxiety in, in the household. There's ADHD, there's OCD, there's abuse.
There's, there's something happening that they are... that's causing them to look for escape from real life in the virtual world. Mm-hmm.
And so what's happening these days is that children are starved of these three psychological nutrients, and let, let me, let me give kind of a framing of, of the deeper psychology that my research involves.
So there's a theory of human flourishing and motivation called self-determination theory.Self-determination theory is the most widely understood, most widely researched theory on human motivation and flourishing.
It's been around since the 1970s. Every psychologist on the face of the earth knows about self-determination theory, and self-determination theory says that every human being needs three things to thrive. Mm-hmm.
You need a sense of, of mastery, autonomy, and relatedness. You need those three things. But when you think about children's lives today, they are starved for these three psychological nutrients.
Just like we have macronutrients for our body, carbs, fat, and protein, we need mastery, autonomy, and relatedness for our psychological well-being. By the way, I hear a, like, a bird or a squeak or something.
Is it a squeak? I was gonna say, I feel like my chair is squeaking. But- It might be your chair. I didn't hear it through this. It might be your chair. Through this. Okay.
Yeah, I don't know what that is- I'm gonna try to sit very still... but yeah, it must be your chair. It'll, it'll- I heard that, too... probably not get into the audio, by the way, but I bet it's very frustrating. Okay.
I can change my chair. Yeah. But honestly, I won't. I thought it was someone's, like, uh, smoke detector or something. I just... I thought it was me, but I don't think it is. [laughs] No, no, no.
I, I- It's, it must be Troy. Yeah. I think I hear it. Okay. Keep going. Okay. All right. No worries. So, so let's, let's talk about these 'cause this is, this is really at the core, the base of why kids overuse.
So let, let's take mastery. Mastery is the sense that, that we have control, that we have agency over what we're doing, that we can get better at something.
And when you look at when teen mental health, uh, children's mental health really started taking a nosedive, not only does it correlate with our, with devices, it also correlates with the No Child Left Behind Act that mandated- Interesting...
that children are constantly tested throughout the year. In some districts, uh, in the United States, children are tested on standardized tests up to 11 times a year.
So what message does that send certain children if they're constantly told on every test, "You're not competent, you, you, you don't know what you're doing, you're, you're never gonna gain mastery"?
They're constantly told they don't know what they're doing, and that's a really crum-crummy feeling. Nobody likes to feel stupid. And so what does that do?
If I'm not getting a sense of mastery and competency offline in the real world, well, I can go online, right? Uh, Fortnite and Roblox and these games, Minecraft, they make me feel competent.
I feel like I, I could do something. I, I can master my environment. It's very enticing. Then we look at autonomy. We know that this is the most regulated generation in history.
Did you know that children today have more rules and regulations placed on them than an active duty service member and more than an incarcerated felon? That there's only two places in society where you can tell- Wow...
people where to go, what to think, what to eat- Wow... who to be friends with, what to dress, how to dress, and that's school and prison. And so- Wow...
is it any surprise that when you put people in cages, they behave like animals? And so we are so hyper-regulating kids today. It used to be, like you said, come home from school, you hang out, right?
Like, you go outside. Yeah. You go to the 7-Eleven. You just walk around the neighborhood. You find your friends.
Today, if you, if you have money, well, you send your kids to swimming lessons and TaeKwonDo and ballet and Mandarin and all these extracurricular activities. They're hyper, hyper scheduled.
And if you don't have money, what do you do? You s- you put your kid at home and you lock the door, and you tell them to sit there. Well, what the heck is the kid gonna do?
Because the media has scared the crap out of us with stranger danger. This stuff is completely ridiculous. This is the safest time in American history to be a child.
You know, the, the, the, the kidnappings of the '80s and '70s, those are long gone. Those almost never happen anymore. The rates are way, way, way, way down, partially because parents keep their kids at home.
Nobody wants to go outside because they're so terrified. And so if they don't have mastery, they don't have autonomy. Finally, relatedness.
If you don't have that ability to hang out with other kids, you know, we know that play is the most important thing you can give your child for psychological well-being.
But kids just don't have time to play anymore, and that's what they're really missing. Play is different from, uh, from an activity, right?
Play is when you are interacting with your peers without the gaze of coaches and parents and teachers because it's only during play that you learn your place in society.
If, if a child acts in a, in an antisocial way, their friends tell them, "Hey, stop being a jerk or I'm not gonna play with you." Right?
That's very different from a parent or a teacher saying, "Stop hitting Billy and say you're sorry." No, kids don't respond to that. Kids respond to their peers because that's how you learn your place in a group.
But if you don't have time to play, what do you do? You look for- Yeah... relatedness online when you're not getting it offline. And so of course you're going on social media. Of course you're playing these video games.
Of course you're, you're interacting with other people 'cause you're desperate for that social connection. Like parents who tell me, "Oh, my kid won't get off, uh, Fortnite." I say, "Have you ever played Fortnite?"
You think it's a video game. It's not a video game. It's a way to- It's a reality... connect with your friends. Yes. That's what they're desperate for.
But what's amazing, and if you take a step as a parent, if you take a step back and ask yourself through that lens, "How can I give my kid competency, autonomy, and relatedness?" It's not that hard.
You plan for free play, right? Yeah. You find other parents who will find time in their schedule to let their kid have free play, and it's amazing. With... We did this with my daughter as she grew up.
You know, every time you think, "Oh, my, uh, kids are obsessed with their devices," and yet every time she had the opportunity to play with another kid and actually do something together- Mm-hmm...
she would always prefer that over her device, every single time.
So how do you approach the conversation of homeschool versus public school versus private school, considering all of the different social components that you said are so important to that childhood's life? Oof.
Um, so did we talk about homeschooling before? I can't remember. I don't, I don't think we did. So we- We haven't yet... we homeschooled. Yeah. Okay. So we homeschooled. Do you guys homeschool?
We haven't, but we knew that. Yeah. No, but we- Okay... but we knew you did, and so we wanted to understand what your take is there. So Daniel, great- Yeah... great question there. [chuckles] Yeah.
So, so okay, I'm, I'm hesitant to tell you more about homeschooling. I will. I'll tell you everything. But I understand that it is a luxury that not everybody can afford. Uh, I work from home.
My wife and I work together. Um, so homeschooling was something... And we only have one kid, so it is not something that everybody can do, and it's not something...
Like, unlike the stuff in Indistractable, I think everybody could do. The, the, the most important chapter of Indistractable is how to raise indistractable kids step by step. Anybody can do it.
The only thing that's in your way is, is, is laziness. [laughs] It's just not reading the book and actually putting it to use.
It will change your life.Homeschooling is a little bit different, uh, because not everybody can afford to homeschool, and I understand that. But I will tell you, it was the best decision we ever made.
The first best decision we ever made was to have our daughter [laughs] was to- Sure... have a child. That, that was, uh, amazing.
Um, but homeschooling really changed, uh, our relationship because what I realized is that so many things that I thought were endemic to childhood,
I have come to believe are caused by schools, are caused by institutional learning.
When you take a step back, it's important to realize that our current system of schooling, we think it was the way it's always been done.
We think it's natural, we think it's normal, and anybody who does anything different is weird and different. Mm. But, you know, you gotta remember the institutionalization of, of learning, that is brand new.
That's, like, 150 years old. So what have been people, what have people been doing for 200,000 years of human history? They didn't... You know, Mozart was not sent to a classroom with 30 of his peers.
Newton was not sent to some dingy room where a barely educated teacher who can't wait for the clock to run out was trying to keep 45 kids in order. That's not how these geniuses learned. Wow.
They learned through tutoring. Yeah. They learned by watching adults and acting more like adults. And so when people met my daughter, even when she was younger, uh, they were blown away by how mature she was.
You know why she was mature? 'Cause she looked at adults all day. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Now, she had plenty of time for play. That's always everybody's first question, "What about socialization?"
Well, my first response is, I don't know about you guys, uh, public school for me was not a bastion of positive socialization. Oh, we can- There was bullying. We got a whole episode about this. There was cliques. Yeah.
We- Oh my God... we- And, and why? I have the worst- It's what I said earlier... experience in public school. [laughs] Exactly. Yeah. It's funny. So frankly- My wife had a great experience, so we have a...
We level each other out, but yeah, I hear what you're saying. Yeah. I, it's just very... It's, it's not that people never have good experiences. Yeah. It's that there's a huge variety [laughs] of experiences. Yes. Yes.
And so, and so to me, uh, I, I, I would... You know, it, it, we, we definitely, we can talk about how we gave her the opportunity to be with her friends.
What, what, what we did, uh, to solve that socialization problem was we, we gave her another place to interact with, with, with kids, and that place was, we found a trampoline park very close to us, and she was there six days a week.
I love that. And, and she, unlike in school where your, your friends are whoever just happens to be luck of the draw in the classroom, and you better be friends with those kids or you're gonna be- Yep...
ostracized, she could do what people do in the real world, which is pick her friends, right? Yeah. It's kinda crazy that we force kids, like, "This is who you're gonna be friends with whether you like it or not." Yeah.
That's not real life, right? Yeah. In the real world, if you don't like somebody, you don't hang around with them. [laughs] Right. It's your choice. Yeah. And so that's, that's how she socialized.
And she has, thankfully, tons of friends. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we, we've talked about that. I've always wondered how you socialize, uh, through that homeschooling setting. Um, let's switch gears real quick.
Uh, uh, we've talked a lot about being distracted, but I also know that you use AI- Sorry, there, there's a mosquito that's, that's like, l- like, uh, [laughs] if you see me- No worries. Get it...
distracting me it's 'cause I'm trying to kill this mosquito. You have to be invincible near. Sorry about that. [laughs] Yeah, just try to... Come on. I, I literally just saw- I'm trying...
like, a little, I think it was, like, a s- a fruit fly fly around. I did the same thing. Yeah. [laughs] I'm like, "Get out." Sorry about that. [laughs] Um, no worries. No worries whatsoever. So I know that you use AI.
I think you mentioned, uh, you use it to beat writer's block, you use it for, for, for taking notes and everything. But from a broader perspective, how do you think AI will change parenting?
Uh, okay, so I think in the, there's the short term and then there's the long term. Uh, so Paul Veralia, the philosopher, said, uh, that when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck.
So every great technology is gonna cause problems, right? Every, every good has bads. And so there's no doubt that, that there's gonna be a lot of bads in the short term, and we're experiencing that right now, right?
Kids, uh, cheating on tests and this and that. And, and that's because, frankly, we haven't adapted to, to this new technology. And what we've always done with the new technology is that we adopt and we adapt.
We adapt our norms, our manners, our ways of being to a technology, and then we adopt new technology to fix the last generation of technology. So right now we are going through this transitory phase.
We're figuring out, hey, what is the role of AI in, in our chi- children's lives?
I think long term it's gonna be amazing because longer term, and we've already started seeing the, the green shoots of this already happening.
Longer term, we are going to go back to the natural way of learning, I believe. That we, the natural way to learn is through the apprentice model, is one-on-one. Mm.
I mean, if you look at the greats of history, the, the, the thinkers, the doers, the makers, these people had, had, had tutors. That's how they learned.
They didn't sit there and, you know, have a sage on the stage that talked to, at them and 30 other kids and spent half the time writing kids' names on the boards and punishing and disciplining.
That wasn't, you know, that's a very, that's an environment that's very not conducive to learning.
Instead, what they had was a, was a caring person who wanted to see them succeed and could adjust their learning to their proficiency. Mm. And I think that's what we're moving to.
We will be very soon here, hopefully, it, you know, w- within this generation, where people, I think, what, what, if we're smart, what we'll do is reform school into you'll have, like, a guidance counselor type person, and that person's job is to help remove roadblocks from your path.
And then we'll have a classroom will be kind of turned on its head a little bit, where you'll have an AI tutor who will help you get to where you're trying to go. And I hope it's through experiential learning, right?
As opposed to memorize all this junk so that you can regurgitate it on a test and then forget everything you just learned. It'll be, "Hey, what do I need to know in order to accomplish a project?"
So for example, my dream is as, as a... Like, take the sciences, right? You have to cram all this information in your head so that you can pass some stupid test so that you can show how hard you worked on that test.
Yeah. What a waste of human capital, right? Like, my, my daughter had to take an AP chemistry test.
Oh my God, she worked so hard on memorizing this information, which now with just a couple keystrokes, it's all available in seconds. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
It's totally impractical to stuff your brain with, with information when it's right there on your fingertips. It's like learning, you know, long division when you can use a calculator. It's all right there.
What I think is going to happen, I hope, I dream, is that companies will build products so that children can, can find a passion.
For example, instead of, you know, learning biology and memorizing a bunch of crap, instead what you say is, "Hey, I want to solve-Microplastics. Okay, I wanna figure out microplastics.
And then the AI will tell your child, uh, "Okay, great. So for this high school level course, let me tell you what research hasn't been done that needs to be done for the sake of mankind.
What's the cutting edge research?" Right? If that's a problem you wanna solve, what's the cutting edge of the research? Because AI w- can very easily parse all the research, and then it'll say- Yeah...
"Here, I'm gonna create a, a, a project for you to create an actual research project which will move humanity forward. It'll move our understanding forward by discovering something new.
Just like Newton did, you're gonna discover something brand new. But in order to do that, here's what you need to know. Here are the building blocks." Just like how you build on Roblox, right?
You need the pieces in order to make the, the castle, whatever you're trying to build. Okay, you need a primary understanding of, of this, this, and this.
We're gonna learn those things so that you can run this experiment, write this paper, and change the world. That will now be possible, I think, through AI, and that wasn't possible before.
Because frankly, the number one job of school was just to babysit kids, and I get that. Parents gotta go work- Yeah. Yeah...
and somebody's gotta watch the kids, but I think we can do that in a much more efficient way when actually it's the AI in collaboration with the children doing the learning, and then we have some kind of guidance counselor type person that's just making sure that problems are removed from their path.
I notice you- you've invested in a lot in, in different companies that are trying to solve some of these different creative meets tech meets learning. You know, I saw Kahoot!, Canva.
What gets you excited about products these days when it seems like everyone is using AI to build the next, you know, Uber of, uh, you know, [laughs] product? Yeah.
I mean, I- I- I th- th- this stuff gets me super excited.
Um, you know, I- I've, I've, uh, invested in, thankfully, a, a, a few great companies, uh, that have gone on and changed the world, and I, I always use my methodology.
So like there's a lot of stuff I don't know about, so I won't invest in stuff that I, I don't have some kind of competitive edge.
But when it comes to habit-forming products, I, I wrote the book on it, so I, I know- Yeah... a thing or two about it, and that's all I invest in. I only invest in products that can change behavior for good. I love that.
I just discovered Opal, and forgive me if this is a competitor of something you're the cap table on- Nope [laughs]... or maybe you invested. I, I, I wasn't sure. But I am obsessed with Opal. Nice.
Uh, and it's because, uh, the other day, this was literally two weeks ago, I was on my phone and, like, my, my son was trying to get my attention, and I just d- didn't even hear him.
It's like he, it's like he didn't exist, and I got, like, nauseous a little bit when, when I realized what was happening. I was like, "Oh, God," like, "what, what am I doing?" So
I downloaded Opal, and I'm like, uh, you know, 10 days in now. My phone habits have reduced, my phone use has reduced by, like, 85 to 95% every day. Fantastic. Uh- Yeah. Awesome...
and, and it's just, just from installing this app and basically listening to it. You know, I'll go to open an app- Yeah... it's like, "Are you sure?" I'm like, "No." Yeah. "Never mind."
[laughs] You know, I don't need that app right now. See, this is, this is exactly what I mean. Remember I said earlier how we adapt and we adopt? Yeah. So what you're doing is you're adopting new technology to- Yeah...
fix the last gener- generation of technology. Like when, when Paul- Yeah... Valerio said, "When you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck," why don't you hear about shipwrecks anymore?
We sail more ships than ever before. It's because we made ships better, and so- Hmm... that's exactly what you see. You see technology fixing itself, right? Mm-hmm. There's an a- think about it.
There's an app on your phone which the person who made the phone will allow, and the job of that app is to help you use the device you bought less. Hmm. Hmm. Think about that.
Like Fox News and CNN will never tell you, "Hey, you, please, please stop watching. Go have a life. Go be with your kids." Right? They'll never do that. No.
But you're-- but Apple and Google, the people who make these phones and the operating systems on there, allow technology that will help you use their technology less. Why?
It's not because of the goodness of their hearts. It's because they know that devices that are used responsibly and appropriately are more beloved. You'll use them over the long term versus the short term. Yes.
And so this is a self-correcting process. I mean, this, this is exactly the, the, the, uh, capitalism as, at work as it should work where people are saying, "Hey, I don't like this bad aspect of the technology.
Let me find ways to use technology in a way that serves me rather than hurts me." And so that's, that's exactly my approach. I'm not one of these guys who says, "Oh, technology's melting your brain.
Stop using technology." If you want to use technology less, awesome, and I'm gonna show you not only the tools, but also the deeper psychology. 'Cause I will tell you, you know, I love Opal and, and these apps.
I've invested in some of them. I love their mission. They're fantastic. The one caveat is if you don't deal with the internal triggers, if you don't deal with the emotional discomfort that you're looking to escape,
the apps won't work, right? You're right. They're, they're great. They're great at supporting you- Yeah...
but fundamentally, you have to have tips and tricks that you know will help you calm down from that uncomfortable emotional state of, "I'm bored, I'm lonely, I'm uncertain, I'm anxious."
That's, that's the deeper reason why we look for escape. Yeah.
I got a, I've got a question there because in Indistractable, and you just mentioned it, you talk a lot about internal triggers being the, honestly, the real culprit as to why all of this distraction happens.
So when you do catch yourself going down a distraction spiral, what do you do? Yeah, so it's, it's about these four steps in concert. Just one of them won't, won't cut it.
Uh, and this is what I've spent five years researching, right? All the tips and tricks and life hacks, that stuff is okay. That's the tactics. What we need to learn is the strategy. Tactics are what you do.
Strategy is why you do it. So if you don't understand the deeper reason that you're getting distracted, you'll always get distracted, even with the apps and the tricks and the life hacks and all that stuff.
You have to use these four steps in concert. Step number one is- Oh, hey, and while we have you hooked, let's go ahead and give a quick shout-out to our sponsor, Momentous.
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So you need to have a tool in your toolkit ready to goThat says, okay, when I'm bored, when I'm lonely, when I'm uncertain, when I'm anxious, what will I do? Will I drink it away? Will I scroll it away?
Will I watch football on TV to get it away? What will I do with that discomfort? Or can I find healthy ways to lead me towards traction rather than trying to escape it with distraction? Okay, so that's step number one.
Step number two is making time for traction. Traction is the opposite of distraction, and you can't call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. Super, super important. Wow.
You can't call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. So if you look at your calendar and you've got nothing on it, what are you complaining about? [laughs] Right?
[laughs] You can't say you got distracted unless you know what you got distracted from. Which means unless you're a child or retired, you gotta plan your day, right? Wow. That's part of being a grownup.
And what I want you to plan that day is the fun stuff. I don't want you to play, you know, be a robot and say, "Oh, I'm only gonna do productive stuff all day long."
No, I want you to plan time for watching the big game, if that's what you wanna do. If you wanna have time to be with your buddies, put it on your calendar. You want to play video games, put it on your calendar. Wow.
This is actually one of the best parenting tips I can give folks is if your child is using their device too much, it's probably because you're not planning the time for them to use it. Wow.
When you sit down with yourself or with your child and you say, "Hey, let's take out a calendar.
Among all the other things you want to do in your day, be with your friends, do your homework, you have to do chores, all these responsibilities you have, how much time do you think is reasonable to spend on your device?
How much time do you want?" And by the way, we did this with my daughter. We actually asked her this question. I thought she was gonna say all day long. That's not what she said at all. Hmm.
She said she wanted to watch two episodes. Well, back to what we said before, three hours or less of age-appropriate screen time, that's no problem. Yeah.
So by giving her the responsibility, by giving her the autonomy that we talked about earlier, one of those psychological nutrients, to monitor herself, I said, "Hey, look, I'm not gonna be the cop here.
I'm not gonna tell you when it's time. How will you monitor yourself?" And so she came up with a way. She uses a little timer. She times herself for forty-five minutes. She watches two episodes.
That's it, and I'm not the bad cop anymore. Wow. And now I've trained... I, I've taught her this essential skill. Remember, we're not raising children. That is not our job. We do not raise children.
We raise future adults. Hmm. And so if you just play the bad cop all day and police your children, you are not teaching them the skill. You are stealing the skill of self-regulation. Wow.
And so that's her job, not mine, and, uh, uh, for me as well. So now I have a time box calendar. It's a life-changing practice. A time box calendar.
We have a schedule sync with my-- with the members of my family where we look at... And this is all in the book, by the way. I know I'm talking a lot, but it's all in the book.
The third step is to hack back the external triggers. Yeah. So it's true that almost all of our distractions begin from within. Those internal triggers account for ninety percent.
But there's still this other ten percent of all the pings, the dings, the rings. We have to take care of those as well. Yeah.
So that's where we get into more of the life hack-y type stuff of adjusting your phone, adjusting your computer. That's kinda kindergarten stuff anybody can do in about an hour. It's very, very, very simple.
The more distracting stuff is what happens when it's your kid that's a distraction. You're trying to do some work, right, and your kid comes up and taps you on the shoulder.
Or, uh, meetings at work you didn't need to attend, or emails that you didn't need to respond to. Those are also external triggers, and we gotta deal with those one by one. I show you exactly how to do that in the book.
And then last, the, the, the fourth step is to prevent distraction with pacts.
A pact is when we have this safeguard, this firewall against distraction, that if everyone e- everything else fails, that prevents us from going off track. So this is the four steps of the Indistractable model.
Uh, master internal triggers, make time for traction, hack back external triggers, prevent distraction with pacts. And when you implement those four strategies, anybody can become indistractable.
For those listening, he's talking about Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. We highly recommend getting the book.
There's another book he also wrote, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Um, Nir, this has been such a valuable conversation.
This is one of those conversations that even though I was in it, I'm gonna go listen to it like five times after, after we're done recording 'cause I'm like, I feel like there's just a wealth of knowledge here.
And I wanted to kind of bring the ship here, uh, for a landing. But before we did, I want you to give us one tip for product builders- Yeah...
and one tip for parents because I think that hits kind of both of your- Hmm... your, your unique skill sets. Sure. Okay.
So for product builders, so, so the reason I wrote Hooked and Indistractable, Hooked is about how to build healthy habits. It's about how to build good habits, right?
It's about, uh, you know, I worked with Duolingo to help people get hooked to language learning. Uh- That's cool... Fitbod uses, uh, the hooked model to get people hooked to exercise.
Those are the kind of companies that use the hooked model. The, the gaming companies- Yeah... the social media companies, I've never worked for them. They already know these techniques.
Who do you think I stole these techniques from? [laughs] Right. So, so that, that's where I, that's, that's why I put this in the book. I wanna democratize these tactics.
So the best thing I can tell the product makers out there is that, um, you have to prioritize engagement- Yeah...
over growth, that a lot of product makers out there, they're so obsessed with growth that they prioritize... You know, everybody wants to go viral.
They want, you know, they, they want su-self-sustaining growth, and they, you know, they... And I think that's a big mistake because, uh, growth without retention is a leaky bucket because you can always buy growth.
You can always buy growth. You give a bunch of money to Meta or to Google or to, you know, television commercials. You can always buy growth, right? You cannot buy engagement and retention.
Retention must be built into the product, right? You can't buy it. You have to design it into the product.
So before you spend a lot of money trying to grow your product or service, you have to make sure that it's habit-forming. You have to make sure that people wanna come back and use it time and time again.
So that's for, for product makers. For parents, wow, we've talked a lot about, about for parents. I, I think the best thing, the best piece of advice, uh, is to become an indistractable parent yourself.
We talked about those four steps. It's the same exact four steps we use with our children, teaching them how to, how to use those four steps to become indistractable.
And I think if, okay, if you're looking for a quick tip-It's that part of the, the problem we have with devices and why we see, I think, a rise in mental health issues with our children, it's not so much what they are doing on the devices, right?
That most parents that, that I know at least, they know how to have, like, child locking type features. That's pretty darn easy, frankly.
Like, a responsible parent, you take five minutes, you install some kind of, you know, blocking service that, that keeps out the porn and the bad stuff from your kids' eyes. That, that's not that hard to do.
What I think parents forget is, is what the tech use is displacing. That's the real problem. It's not what they're doing on the device. [laughs] It's what they're not doing- Mm... when they're on their device.
So if your kid is using the device because they can't find an opportunity to play with another child, that's awful, right?
Again, play is the best thing you can do for your psychol- for your kid's psychological wellbeing. Mm.
So before you schedule them for the swimming lessons and the ballet and the, and the test prep, schedule time for them to play. Mm. That is way more important for their psychological wellbeing.
Second, it's what these devices are displacing at night. Anything that beeps, buzzes, or boops should not be in a child's bedroom. I don't think it should be in adult's bedroom either. No TV, no radio- Mm...
no fish tank, right? Anything that disturbs sleep. Sleep is... We, we... This is, this is unequivocal.
Sleep is so important for our psychological wellbeing, and the reason we see more depression among our kids, part of the reason, is that they're just not sleeping enough, right? Wow.
Part of the reason we homeschool [laughs] it's because I was tired of getting up at 6:00 AM every morning- Yes... [laughs] as a child. That was torture. [laughs] Yes. That is not good for your brain.
And so if you can imagine if you're on your device or watching television a- and you're not going to bed until midnight, and you're only getting- Mm... five and a half, six hours of sleep as a child, that is terrible.
That's really bad news. So anything that might disrupt sleep for children, for adults, should not be in the bedroom. That's really good advice. And I love... I, I mean, you're just hitting both sides of the coin.
You know, Troy and I are both product builders but also parents, and we're really navigating this for the first time. You know, we, we, we ask the questions because we're curious.
We don't have the answers, and it's kind of a, a process and a journey for us to, to come to those answers ourselves. Totally. Totally. And, and that's why I wrote this book, by the way.
I was the most distractible person on Earth. [laughs] I needed help. [laughs] Yeah. Hey, hey, Nir, before Daniel signs us off- Yeah... I have one somewhat of a random question. So you wrote Hooked.
If you think about it, it's a, it's a book about getting people addicted to using technology or a product. And then you wrote Indistractable, that's, "Hey, let's not be addicted to using technology or being distracted."
Did one inspire the other, or was it just, like, two philosophies that you just wanted to marry together? Yeah, you're breaking my heart here, bud. [laughs] [laughs] So- Why is that?... it's not about... Eh.
Because there's a- [laughs]... a chapter in the book, uh, that directly talks about this- Mm...
that the reason the book is not called Hooked: How to Build Addictive Products, which is what my publisher wanted me to, to write about- Engaging...
it's about how to build, it's about how to build habit-forming products. That's right. Addictions are always bad. Don't break Nir's heart, Troy. [laughs] Hey, I- It's okay. It's okay...
the way, the, the way I look at it- Comment-... is like, hey, if, if, like, Fitbod or Duolingo, you have people hooked into using their phone, to using- Right... right? So like- But not addicted.
And it's not- So hooked is bad... if you have screen time. [laughs] Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So a habit- Okay... we have good habits, and we have bad habits. Addictions are always bad.
Addictions are always bad because the definition of addiction is a persistent compulsive dependency on a behavior or substance that harms the user. That... There's no such thing as a good addiction.
Habits are just behaviors done with little or no conscious thought, and we have good habits, and we have bad habits. So we want to get hooked to a fitness app, to a language learning app, to a financial freedom app.
Like, we want those products to get us hooked. That's great. Mm. Indistractable is about how to break the bad habits. Two different products. It's a different product. Got it. Yeah.
So Hooked is about how to build good habits. So Hooked and Indistractable are, are, couldn't be any different. I mean, that's a, that's a really- Exactly...
important distinction to make, and I'm glad we made that distinction. Right. Exactly. 'Cause I don't want anyone- Absolutely. Absolutely...
listening to this episode leaving and thinking, "Oh, I should get a- addicted to the good things." Like, no, no, no. Don't get addicted to anything. Right. Get hooked on what's educational, on what's healthy- Mm...
on what's, you know, providing better mental health, you know, reducing depression. Right. That's a great distinction, Nir. Exactly. Ex- I appreciate you making that distinction...
addiction is a disorder, whereas habits can be very healthy. Mm. So what I wanted people to do is to build the good habits with Hooked, right?
I wanted to steal the secrets of the social media companies and the gaming companies so the rest of us- Got it... can build products to get people hooked.
But then I also wanted to help people disconnect and, and stop getting distracted from the things that they felt are, they are overdoing. Okay. Love that. That clears it up. I've mentioned it a couple times.
Uh, I'm just gonna say it one more time for the listeners. There's two books: In- Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life and Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.
You can find Nir on LinkedIn. Uh, you can find him at his newsletter to 150,000 different subscribers.
Nir, is there anywhere else you want to, the listeners to know about that we can find you other than, you know- Sure... where you live? I appreciate it. Yeah. [laughs] Just kidding.
[laughs] I don't live anywhere right now. We're kind of, we're kind of- Yeah, right... uh, going all over the place at the moment. But, um, yeah, my website is the place to go, nirandfar.com.
And, um, a little sneak peek, I'm actually publishing a third book in March. Ooh. So stay tuned for that. Mm. That one's called Beyond Belief.
I'll have to come back on the show and talk about that as well- Yes, please... uh, which delves into the deeper reason why we don't do what we do.
It turns out that beliefs are, are the, the backbone- Oh, I can't wait for that... of, of our behavior. Yeah. That's gonna be such a good one. Oh. Thanks. Nir, this has been- Yeah, that'll be incredible...
such a valuable show, and we're gonna just chop it up in every which way we can to get as much value from this as possible all over socials. Um, Troy, can you sign us off? I think this is a great place to stop. Yeah.
Well, Nir, first and foremost, thank you so much, and I love your website name. It's one of the most- Thank you... clever things ever. [laughs] But, um, yes, go check out Nir.
Listen to everything Daniel just said about where to find him, and go to Two Dads and Tech to listen to this episode. It's also on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or Apple Podcast, whatever they call it.
And yeah, Two Dads and Tech, rate us five stars, subscribe. Other than that, we'll catch you next time. Nir, again, thank you so much. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks so much. Take care.