> 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 It has not been peer-reviewed.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
It's kind of the opposite of strength training regimens, it's more like people saying "Why would I pick up the weight by hand when forklifts exist? When, in the real world, when doing a job, am I going to be expected to pick up dumbbells by hand lol? I'll just use a forklift every time."
I find it completely acceptable to outsource some of my thinking and tasks to LLMs. Not everything is my primary area of focus or expertise, and not all questions are equally important. For example, I could buy any random toaster oven, or I can kick off a deep research to pick a best toaster by my criteria and in 5 minutes I’ll have a much better context for this decision, without having to switch my mind from my primary objectives. I don’t want to think about toasters.
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.
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.
> 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 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 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 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.
On the contrary, single-factor authentication is generally fine (MFA is still better, of course) if the single-factor is an authenticator application or, better yet, a U2F hardware key. If anything in modern web security is theater, it is the password (and SMS MFA but that's because SMS is a joke to takeover).
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.
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.
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.
Bitwarden has desktop apps.
And Vaultwarden hosts your own instance.
Also, Bitwarden has MFA.
But yes I agree, some have a specific kind of MFA, like Google. I hate Google's MFA. You have to get up and get your phone to press something.
I hate being forced to use the phone.
Funny how apple purposely breaks this for convenience. Some merchant or bank will try and implement 2 factor from a code they text you. Apple scans your messages in the background and prompts you to fill the code from one click all from this one “factor” thanks to the imessage/sms integration.
Even without Apple’s help, anytime I’m on my phone I get the 2FA code on the same device as I’m logging in on. It defeats the point. But also, I shouldn’t be required to have 2 devices just to login to a website.
I’ll be traveling later this year and I’m debating buying an iPad mini so I have a 2nd authenticated device that can do 2FA. I broke a phone on a trip once and happened to have an iPad with me. It was the only reason I was able to get my replacement phone setup. I’m not sure what I would have done without it. Print and carry around account recovery details that should likely be kept in a safe? That doesn’t sound great.
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.
My wife and I have been talking about noticing the general cognitive decline in people we interact with. We both started to notice that people have been getting a little bit...goofy (spacing out, not really reciprocating communication, hyper-limited attention spans, etc).
We both land on a combination of social media and economic effects (people stressed to make ends meet leading to an anxious mind). AI is on the lower-end of our concerns.
I am a party magician in my spare time -- I walk around parties and show short bits of eye-catching magic to guests.
I have noticed that some young people (~18-30 yo) lose attention within as little as 5 seconds. I could have someone choose a card and in that amount of time, they have spaced out -- no phone, just staring blankly. I have two rubber bands examined and by the time they are handed back, someone is on their phone.
The most annoying part is that -- because I construct my routines for minimal attention spans -- within 2 more seconds, something magic happens and everyone who's paying attention reacts. And the 1-2 young people who zoned out start panicking about the FOMO, "what happened?" "do it again!" Sorry folks!
For what it's worth, the nature of the stare seems to be in dispute:
> With this, a lot of Gen Z “clapped back,” if you will (this essentially means they rebutted), saying that this stare comes from listening to Boomers or Millennials ask them obvious questions or start demanding things from them that warrant a look that says, “Are you actually serious right now?” or “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
Not saying some people don't get bored and start looking at their phones way too fast (uh, like drivers at a stop light? that's not limited to gen z), just that there might be another reason for any given blank stare.
My partner was telling me about the Gen Z stare last night. Apparently when you try and talk to them in the workplace they don't know how to respond so they will just stare back at you.
And you know what your partner telling you about the gen-z stare story means?
They are a social media trend addict, just like anyone else. Because the gen-z stare is a new meme that bubbled up to the top of social media infinite scrool content in the last week.
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!
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 do agree with your point about phones being necessary and that complicating the addiction but A) people absolutely made the same argument about alcohol in the past, that it was necessary for a social life and B) they were critical of the TikTok app specifically rather than phones as a whole in general.
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.
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”
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.
Articles like this always start with such radical criticism, and end with such dismally modest proposals: "try not to look at your phone for 1 hour after you wake up", "before you pick up your phone, try counting to 100 first", "move 'instagram' away from your homescreen", etc. What about just getting rid of your smartphone? Who really needs anything beyond calls and text messages...? You can get a GPS map, and a camera. Complete freedom is right there for the taking.
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?
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with a short form video in conveying information but what information in this context can be compressed down to fit?
How much can you really learn from even a 30 second Feynman lecture?
99% of the time it is consumption without ever utilizing the knowledge for any creative endeavor . And without application the knowledge will quickly fade and you’ll find yourself watching the same 10min video on statistics 101 for the 3rd time, because you keep forgetting.
It’s still mindless consumption if you don’t interact with the material in any meaningful way (follow up questions, application, try to refute it, evaluate a hypothesis you had before watching it, …)
Whether your mind is engaged or not seems unrelated to the type of video. As a writer of fiction, even a 'mindless' video made for entertainment can send my mind reeling through possibilities, relationships, and connections I'd never thought about before, but I think that's just a quibble over wording.
You always lose what you don't use over a long enough time window and in proportion to how much you used it when you did use it. Everything that is true about this 10 minute video is true about a college course. You just retain the college course for longer because (presumably) you've spent more time in class than a 10 minutes video and you've done your homework. But if you don't use it after college, there's a strong chance you've forgotten the details.
Sometimes it's just important to know a thing exists, what it can be used for, and roughly how it is used. Everything else can be learned or refreshed when you need it.
Suppose you've watched that stats 101 video but didn't follow up. You now know:
- The broad strokes of stats 101 even if you don't have perfect recall on the details.
- What it can be used for.
- Whether the particular video is worth watching when and if you do need to use it.
Initial exposure is important. A claim could be made that if nothing is ever done with it, it is a waste; but how does someone without any knowledge know enough to decide whether they should go further with it or not?
> ('Wrongquote':) Whether your mind is engaged or not seems unrelated to any video.
heck...damn... that was a lot of fun in the Job's area, steve Jobs official presented his 1st Ipad showing an interactive Book for children but also adults, and for sure there was something to learn.
> But... Does it also let you unset any limits?
Nah they never released any well known interactive books as far as i know, so i didn't bought that ipad. But was interested in the 'screen-only'-technology since 2003 (bought my first tablet PC around 2005)...
A few days ago, there was a topic about the book 'neuromancer' could you even imagine such a book as interactive (not a game) ?
It may took years and a hell of a crowd to finish something like that satisfying enough to get only a niche of people.
HINT: The Message of the Book (the Punk-Part) was about: 'Everybody needs money (Products) so you have to get a job.'
Quoting more "nonsens" but remarkable;
It's quite possible to live with websites. Nothing else.
Clue: Apps let you set a limit on withdrawals when you are away from home.
(edited: found some typos^^)
You enjoyed the ads, but do you enjoy the products designed to optimize Clickrates and funnel conversions?
And if it was too OT, think just a random person typing something...never mind...
ᬛ btw: google didn't show, what does that mean - it has more speculated 'space' one screen than the regular charsetting, tinyer chars i had known and seen before...but... ??
You just have to look at language learning. Some people who move abroad to a different country with a different language can (over a couple of years) forget huge parts of their own native language.
The internet bombards us with tons of information from all over the place. Even those who have curious minds aren't practicing enough additional engagement to remember all of that information.
Sometimes I feel sad using the internet in the same way I feel going to bookstores. I see so much that interests me but know I only have the capacity to remember, learn, or read so much of it. There may be time to skim a lot of it at surface level, but there isn't enough time and capacity to dive deep into it all.
Truthfully most online "content" is not growing your brain. It's not the right format for proper learning and retention. Most people using the internet aren't tapping the fountain of human knowledge, and even most of those that think they are, are not.
Quick fun facts on TikTok and Reddit, as well as quick searching and skimming of Google/ChatGPT/Wikipedia are only conducive to superficial learning, unless you are doing something more to wrap that knowledge around your brain (i.e. using it in work/a project, expanding the context in your mind by writing an essay, reading more of it).
This is very much the by-product of the times we live in. Less people are truly learning things, and instead we are learning how to find the information we need. We have things like the internet sitting there, so we take the path of least resistance and use them as and when we need them. It works fine until you don't have an internet connection.
> I stumbled on this elegant [lockable] box you put phones into and it blocks all radio communications.
If you truly want to block yourself from using your phone (or similar) for some amount of time, the Kitchen Safe time-lock boxes are great. They don’t look particularly elegant, nor do they block radio communication, but their unique feature is that you’d have to irreversibly physically break them to access whatever you locked inside before the timer has elapsed. There are many similar products, which however usually have an “emergency” mechanism to preempt the timer, which defeats the purpose.
> I don’t rely on “willpower” or “discipline” - I try to design each day with intention
This point is the most important callout to me. This is a macrocosm of how I focus on tasks as a person with already disastrous dopamine interactions (severe ADHD).
I was actually thinking about this last night, when I noticed that I approached the self-checkout at the grocery store with more items than the two people who'd been there before me, and left before either of them had finished checking out despite not being in any particular rush.
When I'm going about my day, I am thinking about the actions I'm going to take, deliberating on them and deciding my intent prior to when I will need to execute it. Not to a significant degree, but to go back to my grocery store anecdote: when I was waiting in line I was preparing myself to execute these tasks:
1. Set my re-usable bags in the bagging area.
2. Respond to the prompt asking me if I have placed bags there.
3. Enter my loyalty code.
4. Scan the rigid and heavier items first, placing them in the bottom of the bags.
5. Scan the lighter, crushable items last.
6. Select my payment method.
7. Tap my payment card, and respond to the PIN prompts.
8. Retrieve my bags and receipt.
This sounds like a lot, looking at it. Maybe it was early on, but now this is such a natural part of my cognitive load that I didn't even specifically notice that I do it until I wondered about the speed difference I observed.
To further reinforce the hypothesis, I thought about the most recent times that I did something completely unstructured with no idea what I would have to do (or at least no solid plan due to the event being controlled by other people) and concluded that I was generally slower to act and felt less able to respond to stimuli appropriately.
This is all to say, given these observations and the initial recognition of what I use as an ADHD-coping strategy, I wonder if the overuse of social media and similar stimuli effectively reproduces the negative aspects of ADHD on otherwise "normal"-brained individuals.
Is this an ADHD coping strategy? I’m not trying to second guess, I’m actually very intrigued because the way you described your thought process is very similar to mine, but I’ve never been tested or diagnosed.
In any case thanks, this will help me in the future I think.
It definitely is for me, but it may also just be something that's generally helpful if you like making good use of your time. There are many different ways to think.
As for ADHD specifically, it's a wide range of severity over several symptoms - if you find that your life is impacted negatively by inability to focus or start on tasks, it may be worth getting tested. But if not, I wouldn't sweat it unless you are just extremely curious.
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".
Man, instead of going to some discord channel, asking waiting for some human to respond, if they do, then potentially misunderstand the question, maybe even cause drama, or using a search engine to crawl, tediously through SO and Reddit posts, because Google favors those 2, or wading through pages of potentially badly written documentation,
I just turn on github and ask copilot.
And it responds in most cases, and I can even chat with it ask for alternatives or better approaches to my problems.
And then I needed a logo for my new service I'm building.
Search for AI image generator, input the prompt and a few seconds later I have my really cool image.
Time saved -> infinity.
But I also thought, all this problem solving done by the machines, leaves my brain unemployed, well not exactly, I can focus on solving issues that usually take hours to solve and get on with it.
However those hard nuts are no longer cracked by me, and I focus on the lighter cognitive load.
Probably not good, but idk, I don't have the luxury to be picky, being an unemployed freelancer on social security
Used to be if you needed a logo you wrote it on a napkin. Just quick simple creativity. I imagine limiting opportunities to engage in that lead to future opportunities to engage in that feeling like too high a friction cost. Like falling out of the habit of working out.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
>Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
>People are forgetting their intentions when scrolling, with TikTok being the most effective at doing this. It takes 25 minutes to get back to focusing on a task, but only a few seconds to lose that focus.
>You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.
>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.
>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.
All of these are obviously not true. At best some are very strained interpretations of the papers at worst they are very clearly false.
If you believe that "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." or "You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.", then I have a bridge to sell you. These are so laughably false that it makes the entire sentiment look ridiculous.
People need to be honest about the problems that exist and actually engage with the psychology which drives negative behavior. But to do that the starting point needs to be a clear understanding of what the intentions are. Is TikTok bad, because using it makes you loose focus on other tasks or because you are forgetting your intentions? Certainly a great book does the same exact thing, yet somehow I never see book reading in these articles. So why is one significantly worse than the other? This is obviously a question about values. And unless society can clearly articulate why spending time on reading books is more valuable than spending time scrolling TikTok no change is possible.
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.
It's really hard to take any of his claims seriously when the article title itself is leading with 1960s old wives tales about dopamine neurochemistry.
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.
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
It's kind of the opposite of strength training regimens, it's more like people saying "Why would I pick up the weight by hand when forklifts exist? When, in the real world, when doing a job, am I going to be expected to pick up dumbbells by hand lol? I'll just use a forklift every time."
Yeah, this isn’t the first time we’ve outsourced our thinking. The ubiquitous use of GPS comes to mind leading to lower abilities in the hippocampus.
It grows when a person trains to be a London cab driver (no GPS allowed). [0]
Yet abilities decline as GPS use is used. [1]
These aren’t huge studies either, but also fall under the larger, “use it or lose it,” umbrella.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34914151/
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62877-0
I find it completely acceptable to outsource some of my thinking and tasks to LLMs. Not everything is my primary area of focus or expertise, and not all questions are equally important. For example, I could buy any random toaster oven, or I can kick off a deep research to pick a best toaster by my criteria and in 5 minutes I’ll have a much better context for this decision, without having to switch my mind from my primary objectives. I don’t want to think about toasters.
So what, ChatGPT is the new weed? One critical statement draws out all the addicts in defense?
ChatGPT is the new weed: everyone has a source they cite to reaffirm their pre-existing position.
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.
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.
I am sure studies would find I use my hamstrings and quadriceps less when driving than when walking too.
The problem is if you are driving a car to go the same speed and distance as walking then it is missing the point.
[dead]
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 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.")
If your work requires you to have a phone, they should provide it to you. Call it your authentication brick.
They'd give me a conpany smartphone.
> My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch
This is for authentication ?
It’s called a yubikey. The slim version barely protrudes from the usb port.
Phone call, sms, email, physical fob, 2nd person.
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 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 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 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.
On the contrary, single-factor authentication is generally fine (MFA is still better, of course) if the single-factor is an authenticator application or, better yet, a U2F hardware key. If anything in modern web security is theater, it is the password (and SMS MFA but that's because SMS is a joke to takeover).
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.
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.
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.
Bitwarden has desktop apps. And Vaultwarden hosts your own instance. Also, Bitwarden has MFA. But yes I agree, some have a specific kind of MFA, like Google. I hate Google's MFA. You have to get up and get your phone to press something. I hate being forced to use the phone.
Funny how apple purposely breaks this for convenience. Some merchant or bank will try and implement 2 factor from a code they text you. Apple scans your messages in the background and prompts you to fill the code from one click all from this one “factor” thanks to the imessage/sms integration.
Even without Apple’s help, anytime I’m on my phone I get the 2FA code on the same device as I’m logging in on. It defeats the point. But also, I shouldn’t be required to have 2 devices just to login to a website.
I’ll be traveling later this year and I’m debating buying an iPad mini so I have a 2nd authenticated device that can do 2FA. I broke a phone on a trip once and happened to have an iPad with me. It was the only reason I was able to get my replacement phone setup. I’m not sure what I would have done without it. Print and carry around account recovery details that should likely be kept in a safe? That doesn’t sound great.
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.
Monzo (UK) lets you set a limit on withdrawals when you are away from home.
Does it also let you unset the limit?
When you are at home. Also you can print a QR code which you can use when away from home.
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).
Pretty much every password managers can store MFA (Bitwarden, 1password). You only need smartphone to log in to the password manager only once a day.
Apple keychain lets you store TOTP secrets, and Google Auth will let you export the seeds.
That turns the laptop + fingerprint into your extra factors.
My wife and I have been talking about noticing the general cognitive decline in people we interact with. We both started to notice that people have been getting a little bit...goofy (spacing out, not really reciprocating communication, hyper-limited attention spans, etc).
We both land on a combination of social media and economic effects (people stressed to make ends meet leading to an anxious mind). AI is on the lower-end of our concerns.
I am a party magician in my spare time -- I walk around parties and show short bits of eye-catching magic to guests.
I have noticed that some young people (~18-30 yo) lose attention within as little as 5 seconds. I could have someone choose a card and in that amount of time, they have spaced out -- no phone, just staring blankly. I have two rubber bands examined and by the time they are handed back, someone is on their phone.
The most annoying part is that -- because I construct my routines for minimal attention spans -- within 2 more seconds, something magic happens and everyone who's paying attention reacts. And the 1-2 young people who zoned out start panicking about the FOMO, "what happened?" "do it again!" Sorry folks!
google "gen z stare". This is such a commonly observed thing that it got a name, meme, tiktok sound, and news articles.
For what it's worth, the nature of the stare seems to be in dispute:
> With this, a lot of Gen Z “clapped back,” if you will (this essentially means they rebutted), saying that this stare comes from listening to Boomers or Millennials ask them obvious questions or start demanding things from them that warrant a look that says, “Are you actually serious right now?” or “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
https://www.insidehook.com/internet/gen-z-stare (first result after searching "gen z stare" on DDG)
Not saying some people don't get bored and start looking at their phones way too fast (uh, like drivers at a stop light? that's not limited to gen z), just that there might be another reason for any given blank stare.
Hearing mindnumbingly dumb things from customers is as old as customer facing jobs though.
You say "people", any filters? Young/old, working/not working. I notice changes in each new generation that are at least cognitive adjacent.
My partner was telling me about the Gen Z stare last night. Apparently when you try and talk to them in the workplace they don't know how to respond so they will just stare back at you.
And you know what your partner telling you about the gen-z stare story means?
They are a social media trend addict, just like anyone else. Because the gen-z stare is a new meme that bubbled up to the top of social media infinite scrool content in the last week.
And here I am bubbling it up to the nerdiest social media of all! :)
All ages for both of us (I'm OP). All spans of economic status (poor, middle, rich—doesn't matter).
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!
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 do agree with your point about phones being necessary and that complicating the addiction but A) people absolutely made the same argument about alcohol in the past, that it was necessary for a social life and B) they were critical of the TikTok app specifically rather than phones as a whole in general.
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
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.
this is the sole reason i default to Firefox on mobile as it allows extensions. And install a website restriction ext like Leechblock [1].
[1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/blaaajhemilngeeffpb...
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”
You can hold-press over an autocompleted URL to delete it, which has much less friction than clearing your history.
Agreed, and their setting to turn it off entirely doesn't work on Pixel at all.
Pixel phones (at least) have this.
"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.
Articles like this always start with such radical criticism, and end with such dismally modest proposals: "try not to look at your phone for 1 hour after you wake up", "before you pick up your phone, try counting to 100 first", "move 'instagram' away from your homescreen", etc. What about just getting rid of your smartphone? Who really needs anything beyond calls and text messages...? You can get a GPS map, and a camera. Complete freedom is right there for the taking.
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.
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with a short form video in conveying information but what information in this context can be compressed down to fit?
How much can you really learn from even a 30 second Feynman lecture?
99% of the time it is consumption without ever utilizing the knowledge for any creative endeavor . And without application the knowledge will quickly fade and you’ll find yourself watching the same 10min video on statistics 101 for the 3rd time, because you keep forgetting.
It’s still mindless consumption if you don’t interact with the material in any meaningful way (follow up questions, application, try to refute it, evaluate a hypothesis you had before watching it, …)
Whether your mind is engaged or not seems unrelated to the type of video. As a writer of fiction, even a 'mindless' video made for entertainment can send my mind reeling through possibilities, relationships, and connections I'd never thought about before, but I think that's just a quibble over wording.
You always lose what you don't use over a long enough time window and in proportion to how much you used it when you did use it. Everything that is true about this 10 minute video is true about a college course. You just retain the college course for longer because (presumably) you've spent more time in class than a 10 minutes video and you've done your homework. But if you don't use it after college, there's a strong chance you've forgotten the details.
Sometimes it's just important to know a thing exists, what it can be used for, and roughly how it is used. Everything else can be learned or refreshed when you need it.
Suppose you've watched that stats 101 video but didn't follow up. You now know:
- The broad strokes of stats 101 even if you don't have perfect recall on the details.
- What it can be used for.
- Whether the particular video is worth watching when and if you do need to use it.
Initial exposure is important. A claim could be made that if nothing is ever done with it, it is a waste; but how does someone without any knowledge know enough to decide whether they should go further with it or not?
> ('Wrongquote':) Whether your mind is engaged or not seems unrelated to any video.
heck...damn... that was a lot of fun in the Job's area, steve Jobs official presented his 1st Ipad showing an interactive Book for children but also adults, and for sure there was something to learn.
> But... Does it also let you unset any limits?
Nah they never released any well known interactive books as far as i know, so i didn't bought that ipad. But was interested in the 'screen-only'-technology since 2003 (bought my first tablet PC around 2005)...
A few days ago, there was a topic about the book 'neuromancer' could you even imagine such a book as interactive (not a game) ?
It may took years and a hell of a crowd to finish something like that satisfying enough to get only a niche of people.
HINT: The Message of the Book (the Punk-Part) was about: 'Everybody needs money (Products) so you have to get a job.'
Quoting more "nonsens" but remarkable;
It's quite possible to live with websites. Nothing else.
Clue: Apps let you set a limit on withdrawals when you are away from home.
(edited: found some typos^^) You enjoyed the ads, but do you enjoy the products designed to optimize Clickrates and funnel conversions?
And if it was too OT, think just a random person typing something...never mind...
ᬛ btw: google didn't show, what does that mean - it has more speculated 'space' one screen than the regular charsetting, tinyer chars i had known and seen before...but... ??
This is exactly correct.
You just have to look at language learning. Some people who move abroad to a different country with a different language can (over a couple of years) forget huge parts of their own native language.
The internet bombards us with tons of information from all over the place. Even those who have curious minds aren't practicing enough additional engagement to remember all of that information.
Sometimes I feel sad using the internet in the same way I feel going to bookstores. I see so much that interests me but know I only have the capacity to remember, learn, or read so much of it. There may be time to skim a lot of it at surface level, but there isn't enough time and capacity to dive deep into it all.
Truthfully most online "content" is not growing your brain. It's not the right format for proper learning and retention. Most people using the internet aren't tapping the fountain of human knowledge, and even most of those that think they are, are not.
Quick fun facts on TikTok and Reddit, as well as quick searching and skimming of Google/ChatGPT/Wikipedia are only conducive to superficial learning, unless you are doing something more to wrap that knowledge around your brain (i.e. using it in work/a project, expanding the context in your mind by writing an essay, reading more of it).
This is very much the by-product of the times we live in. Less people are truly learning things, and instead we are learning how to find the information we need. We have things like the internet sitting there, so we take the path of least resistance and use them as and when we need them. It works fine until you don't have an internet connection.
> I stumbled on this elegant [lockable] box you put phones into and it blocks all radio communications.
If you truly want to block yourself from using your phone (or similar) for some amount of time, the Kitchen Safe time-lock boxes are great. They don’t look particularly elegant, nor do they block radio communication, but their unique feature is that you’d have to irreversibly physically break them to access whatever you locked inside before the timer has elapsed. There are many similar products, which however usually have an “emergency” mechanism to preempt the timer, which defeats the purpose.
> I don’t rely on “willpower” or “discipline” - I try to design each day with intention
This point is the most important callout to me. This is a macrocosm of how I focus on tasks as a person with already disastrous dopamine interactions (severe ADHD).
I was actually thinking about this last night, when I noticed that I approached the self-checkout at the grocery store with more items than the two people who'd been there before me, and left before either of them had finished checking out despite not being in any particular rush.
When I'm going about my day, I am thinking about the actions I'm going to take, deliberating on them and deciding my intent prior to when I will need to execute it. Not to a significant degree, but to go back to my grocery store anecdote: when I was waiting in line I was preparing myself to execute these tasks:
1. Set my re-usable bags in the bagging area.
2. Respond to the prompt asking me if I have placed bags there.
3. Enter my loyalty code.
4. Scan the rigid and heavier items first, placing them in the bottom of the bags.
5. Scan the lighter, crushable items last.
6. Select my payment method.
7. Tap my payment card, and respond to the PIN prompts.
8. Retrieve my bags and receipt.
This sounds like a lot, looking at it. Maybe it was early on, but now this is such a natural part of my cognitive load that I didn't even specifically notice that I do it until I wondered about the speed difference I observed.
To further reinforce the hypothesis, I thought about the most recent times that I did something completely unstructured with no idea what I would have to do (or at least no solid plan due to the event being controlled by other people) and concluded that I was generally slower to act and felt less able to respond to stimuli appropriately.
This is all to say, given these observations and the initial recognition of what I use as an ADHD-coping strategy, I wonder if the overuse of social media and similar stimuli effectively reproduces the negative aspects of ADHD on otherwise "normal"-brained individuals.
Is this an ADHD coping strategy? I’m not trying to second guess, I’m actually very intrigued because the way you described your thought process is very similar to mine, but I’ve never been tested or diagnosed.
In any case thanks, this will help me in the future I think.
It definitely is for me, but it may also just be something that's generally helpful if you like making good use of your time. There are many different ways to think.
As for ADHD specifically, it's a wide range of severity over several symptoms - if you find that your life is impacted negatively by inability to focus or start on tasks, it may be worth getting tested. But if not, I wouldn't sweat it unless you are just extremely curious.
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.
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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".
Man, instead of going to some discord channel, asking waiting for some human to respond, if they do, then potentially misunderstand the question, maybe even cause drama, or using a search engine to crawl, tediously through SO and Reddit posts, because Google favors those 2, or wading through pages of potentially badly written documentation, I just turn on github and ask copilot. And it responds in most cases, and I can even chat with it ask for alternatives or better approaches to my problems.
And then I needed a logo for my new service I'm building. Search for AI image generator, input the prompt and a few seconds later I have my really cool image. Time saved -> infinity.
But I also thought, all this problem solving done by the machines, leaves my brain unemployed, well not exactly, I can focus on solving issues that usually take hours to solve and get on with it. However those hard nuts are no longer cracked by me, and I focus on the lighter cognitive load.
Probably not good, but idk, I don't have the luxury to be picky, being an unemployed freelancer on social security
Used to be if you needed a logo you wrote it on a napkin. Just quick simple creativity. I imagine limiting opportunities to engage in that lead to future opportunities to engage in that feeling like too high a friction cost. Like falling out of the habit of working out.
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?
Smart Cards
a gamechanger for me was to set my device to grey: https://trendscout.com/gogrey/
> They call it centaur guardrails because it’s AI on the bottom, human on the top. Nice.
Did you just define a term, act like it already existed, then compliment yourself for coming up with it?
It was directly from the study that I had linked. I was complimenting them.
Recently tried using chronometer while working and found it very very painful.
It makes doing fun work worse but makes going over the hard parts of the work much easier.
Would highly recommend anyone working from home to try using a chronometer
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.
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.
> I stumbled on this elegant box you put phones into and it blocks all radio communications.
$249 for a Faraday cage? You can find $10 Faraday bags on Amazon..
> 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.
Had my phone left uncharged for the best part of a week recently. Barely needed it.
It's my laptop that eats my brain.
> 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.
$249 for an airplane mode box???
Gonna have to run some tricksy ads to sell that thing.
>Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
>People are forgetting their intentions when scrolling, with TikTok being the most effective at doing this. It takes 25 minutes to get back to focusing on a task, but only a few seconds to lose that focus.
>You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.
>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.
>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.
All of these are obviously not true. At best some are very strained interpretations of the papers at worst they are very clearly false.
If you believe that "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." or "You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.", then I have a bridge to sell you. These are so laughably false that it makes the entire sentiment look ridiculous.
People need to be honest about the problems that exist and actually engage with the psychology which drives negative behavior. But to do that the starting point needs to be a clear understanding of what the intentions are. Is TikTok bad, because using it makes you loose focus on other tasks or because you are forgetting your intentions? Certainly a great book does the same exact thing, yet somehow I never see book reading in these articles. So why is one significantly worse than the other? This is obviously a question about values. And unless society can clearly articulate why spending time on reading books is more valuable than spending time scrolling TikTok no change is possible.
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!"
It's really hard to take any of his claims seriously when the article title itself is leading with 1960s old wives tales about dopamine neurochemistry.
everyone's becoming an addict. Few people will avoid digital addiction
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> 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.
PR speak for marketer
Pure nonsense (referring to your quote)