Offline with Jon Favreau - Why Elon Lies About DOGE and How To Fix Your Focus

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Special Government Employee Elon Musk has attempted to access our most personal data. Meanwhile, Billionaire Tech Mogul Elon Musk attempted to take over one of the biggest artificial intelligence companies in the world. Coincidence? In other news, Edgelord Elon Musk and his band of misfit fanboys are trying to uncover massive fraud and corruption, reading the data wrong, and making up stories that feels right to them. Jon and Max walk through it all, with stops along the way for TikTok’s triumph over app stores and the UK’s move to confiscate encrypted content. Then, the guys debrief on this week’s Offline Focus Challenge and Max gets some words of wisdom from Dr. Gloria Mark, author of the book Attention Span.

Offline is brought to you by bookshop.org. Local bookstore right in Larchmont that I love. Chevalier's Bookstore, one of the oldest bookstores in Los Angeles. Got a pretty woke sounding name if you ask me. Well you know what, they got some pretty woke books too because they've got democracy or else. Oh yeah they do.

And I signed some of them because I just happened to be there. Oh really? Nice. Wasn't a planned signing, I just was a drive by signing. You just check out that Sharpie you have with you at all times. Hey, are there any books of mine in here that could be your signing?

Just sign a couple books, sign a couple boobs, go home. Whether you're searching for an incisive history that helps you make sense of this moment, a novel that sweeps you away, or the perfect gift for a loved one, Bookshop.org has you covered. When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you're supporting more than 2,000 local independent bookstores across the country, ensuring they'll continue to foster culture, curiosity, and a love of reading for generations to come. Big news, Bookshop.org has launched an ebook app. Wow, that's actually cool. That is really cool.

That's great. I didn't know that. I'm going to use that. You can now support local independent bookstores even when you read digitally. You can browse and purchase on Bookshop.org and read right in your device's web browser. Or for the full reading experience, download the app for iPhone or Android. Every purchase financially supports local independent bookstores. Bookshop.org even has a handy bookstore map to help you find local bookstores to support

in your area. Need some help picking your next read? The new books section of the website is updated weekly, so you'll always find something new and interesting to add to your library. Use code OFFLINE10 to get 10% off your next order at bookshop.org. That's code OFFLINE10 at bookshop.org. We're part of a busyness culture. And the business culture is that we have to occupy our minds every minute with something. And so if we're not occupying our minds with work,

well, we turn to the news as a way to occupy our minds. Right? So just pulling away from, you know, any kind of tech and anything that's reminding you of what's going on in the world can help our minds recuperate. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. And you just heard from today's guest, Dr. Gloria Mark. So, we're in the middle of this offline challenge that's all about reclaiming our focus,

which seems especially important right now as we're all trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and how we stop it. So, Dr. Gloria Mark, who's a researcher at UC Irvine, has literally written the book on how to reclaim our focus. It's called Attention Span, a groundbreaking way to restore balance, happiness, and productivity. Max, you sat down with Dr. Mark to talk to her about our challenge and what it takes to find focus and fight distraction. How was it? Super interesting. We got a lot into the science of focus,

what's happening in your brain when you feel like you can focus versus when you can't. Actually came away feeling really optimistic in a way that I feel like you usually don't in these kinds of conversations where you're like, everything is destroying your focus and you're doomed in the modern ecosystem. And there are actually a lot of little habits that we kind of all have without realizing it that are breaking down our focus day to day. But once you can see them,

it makes it pretty easy to engineer a lot of them out of your day in a way that I have already found is making me feel more focused, calmer, more present. And just like my brain is a little bit more settled. She also talked about something I thought was really, really interesting that people who have weakened focus for whatever reason, maybe you were just looking too much at your smartphone that morning, whatever, as a result, you will feel

less in control, less agency, and that can make you feel more cynical about the world and therefore about politics. And I thought it was so striking that she drew... I felt that. Right. As soon as she... I was like, of course. And it was such a clear, like empirical grounded one-to-one

from something we have talked about all the time on the show, which is that the isolated doom scrolling culture we have just systemically is structured in a way that pulls people towards the right. So it was really helpful to see that articulated. Well, stay tuned for that optimism, because first we have some stories for you. Oh, you do.

In the last few weeks, special government employee Elon Musk has attempted to access our most personal data, including social security numbers and bank account information. Also in the last few weeks... He's accessing my damn last nerve, am I right? Sorry. I'm so sorry to interrupt you for that garbage. Honestly, that was worth it. Also in the last few weeks, billionaire tech mogul,

Elon Musk, attempted to take over one of the biggest artificial intelligence companies in the world. There's no evidence that those two stories are related. Well, I trust that he would keep them separate. Yeah, of course. But Elon did join with a group of investors to submit an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid

to purchase OpenAI's nonprofit assets. The bid immediately reignited the Kendrick Drake feud between Musk and Sam Altman, the founder and CEO of OpenAI, with Altman immediately shooting down the bid, tweeting, no thank you, but we will buy Twitter for 9.74 billion if you want, and then telling Bloomberg he feels for Musk because,

well, we'll let him explain. Do you think Musk's approach then is from a position of insecurity about XAI? Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity, I feel for the guy. You feel for him? I do, actually. I don't think he's like a happy person, I do feel for him. Okay. Do you worry that he has this proximity to the president and that he can influence the decision-making of the US presidency and policies around this agenda on AI? Not particularly. Maybe I should, but not particularly. I definitely agree with him on everything comes from a place of insecurity. He does

sort of seem like a happy guy these days though. Watching that, I don't know if you caught the Hannity interview with Trump and Elon? I didn't. I saw the press conference though. It was enough for me. The interview was something. They really love each other. He's riding some kind of wave. I don't know if it's chemically abetted or not. I've never seen Trump be so nice to someone. It's really weird.

Elon almost was like crying at one point because he was saying what a wonderful president and person Donald Trump is. So my prediction that Trump was going to turn on Moscow out of jealousy is really doing well, I think it was really one of my many great calls. You were not, I mean, I think most people thought that.

I thought that might happen. They've clearly got some sort of symbiosis going. Yeah, well, maybe it's because they're both authoritarians. They're rich, powerful authoritarians who are now in charge of the country. So maybe that's the common ground. Right. Yeah.

Occam's razor. They're pulling everything up by the roots. Musk isn't trying to check in. Yeah. They don't like people questioning them. And they like having a lot of power and they think their ideas are the best. Do you think, how many times do you think you have to tweet at Elon Musk before he will mention you by name to Donald Trump? No, don't ask me that.

Okay. It would be kind of fun to get there. Every time Emily checks Twitter now and sees it, she's like, why are you putting yourself on his radar screen? I don't know if I love that. What could go wrong? Come on.

With a little. At least he's responsive, you know? That's true. That's true. Because he's got nothing else to do. I know a lot of people don't answer my text messages. Elon Musk is responding. Yeah, that you know. That's true. Because he's got nothing else to do. I know a lot of people don't answer my text messages. Elon Musk is responding. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. All right, back to our friend Sam Altman. Elon and Sam have been feuding for a while now. What's going on there? And what was with the hostile bid? Okay, so the backstory here is that Elon Musk helped Sam Altman to found opening eye way back in 2015. In 2017, Musk instigated a power struggle.

He tried to push out Sam Altman, take control of the company. He lost, he quit in a huff because he's a giant baby. The next year he sued OpenAI just out of like personal vendetta, claiming that OpenAI was not fulfilling its mission and of being a nonprofit for the betterment of humanity. He's kept the suit going ever since when he did that big warning like a year ago where he said AI is gonna destroy the world.

That was part of this personal vendetta. He froze Altman out of Mar-a-Lago as part of his like, you know, revenge rage against him. So does the beef start with he just doesn't, he wanted open AI to himself. He wanted open AI, he lost. He didn't like disagree with the direction that Sam was taking?

No, it was just purely a power struggle. And I think it's mostly that he, the embarrassment of having lost control of that. So this stunt where he offered all of this money for OpenAI is designed, I think very specifically to sabotage OpenAI's efforts to go private. It's a nonprofit. They want to go private in order to do that.

They have to buy out the nonprofit that owns the company. They want to set their own price for that. They want to say OpenAI is worth $1. So it's going to cost us to buy it out. By Elon Musk making this bid and OpenAI refusing it, they are creating a potentially legally usable data point that the company is worth more than 97 billion. So the idea is to create the like storm of threat of litigation if they now buy themselves

out for less than that. So it's just it's to make them lose money, which is all just part of this personal bullshit. There are I think there are some like the stakes of their rivalry have really gone up since Trump has won because it's like everybody's trying to get their position at the court of like corruption and authoritarianism to get their hands out. Sam Altman completely outmaneuvered Musk to get the Project Stargate thing.

It's like Musk was furious about this, according to the Wall Street Journal, he was fuming to people because he didn't want his rival, Sam Ullman, to get that money, and like Ullman did go around him to get it. Does this man not have his hands at enough shit right now, Elon Musk? Like what is?

Yeah, there's a certain type of person who I feel like you encounter over and over again when you track these like right wing authoritarian movements that it's just, they're just a bottomless hole of need somewhere and like grievance and anger, right-wing authoritarian movements that it's just, they're just a bottomless hole of need somewhere and like grievance and anger. And it's like, there's no number of feuds or vendettas that are gonna-

What brought Elon Musk and Donald Trump together? I know. That's the secret sauce. Bottomless well of need. And you said, what if John Favreau was the target of that anger? What if you are angry at me? Yeah, that's...

Hey, Cash Patel, right here. All right. I want to talk about some of the mega conspiracies that have been floating around on all kinds of platforms, thanks to the good work of Elon and the Doge bags. In fact, it seems like we've now come to see that one of the defining features of Doge is Elon and his fanboys on X telling us that they have uncovered massive fraud and corruption because they looked at some government spreadsheet that's been publicly available for years. Forever, right. And then there's a screenshot of the spreadsheet that completely invalidates their tweet.

Yes, because then they read it wrong or they can't understand it or they don't bother to learn anything about why the money is being spent. So they just make up a good story about it that feels right to them. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. I think that's about it. Yeah.

I mean, it's been getting some of the misinformation and conspiracies have been getting pretty bad over the weekend. You sent us a story about the reaction in Nigeria to an off-handed remark made by USAID from Republican Congressman Scott Perry. What was happening there? So it is wild to me. This has not gotten more attention in the US. It is a huge story internationally.

So okay, Representative Perry, who represents I think like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, claimed at a congressional hearing that he had discovered a secret USAID program that funds ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, said it's been ongoing. Oh yeah, oh no, it gets worse. Ongoing since the Obama administration quote from this congressional hearing, you are funding terrorism and it's coming through USAID. You are paying for terrorism and not like an indirect way, he said, this money is going to build terrorist training camps

around the world. John, would you like to know- I mean, that's creates jobs. Would you like to, that's true, it's a job creation. Yeah, unfortunately, these are overseas jobs, so we're offshoring it. Bring those jobs home, I say, bring those jobs home. You know what, I think Donald Trump's doing

a pretty good job of that. Yes, that is true, yes. So would you like to know the name of the program that is secretly funding all of these terrorist groups around the world, according to Representative Scott Perry? Yes. The Women's Scholarship Endowment. Wait, wait, wait.

That is... Why, how do you connect those dots? His proof is that the programs operate in places like Afghanistan, where women are restricted from accessing education, and they are women's scholarship funds meant to educate women. So therefore, QED, that money's going to somebody,

it must be going to the terrorists, which I simply could not make any less sense. Oh, this is now connecting something for me, because last night, we're recording this Wednesday on the Hannity interview with Elon and Trump. Yeah, they start talking First of all Sean Hannity is interviewing them and he's got the scrolling list of programs that USAID funds, you know and it's like, you know a trans ballet and you know Portugal

a trans ballet in Portugal. It wasn't that, but. And then one of the things, and Elon's like, yeah, no, we're funding just some of the worst things around the world. Like, you know, we're funding the Taliban. We're actually, like USAID money's going to the Taliban. Yeah, it's not going to the Taliban. But also it's like, if it's going,

because if the Taliban is in control of Afghanistan now, and we're funding programs there, like is that what they're, I don't know why I'm trying to find out a real... It's literally, like you can Google these, and you can look at pictures of like, contractors with USAID teaching women how to read. Like there's no mystery here, it's like... Reading terrorist manuals.

That you're reading terrorist manuals, yeah. So this went like, super, super viral, especially in Nigeria, where Boko Haram operates. They've killed huge numbers of people. The Wall Street Journal reporter, Drew Hinshaw, said that this is all over Nigerian television, Nigerian newspapers, who are all picking it up because a member of Congress said it.

There's been an absolute firestorm of outrage in the country. For context, Nigeria is Africa's most populous country. It is strategically one of the most important in the continent to its future. Nigerian politicians are now calling for their country to end its long-term partnership with the United States, to demand compensation. A prominent former Nigerian military leader went on TV and said, this is a statement of fact, it is an open secret and nothing new. We all know that foreign governments don't want Africa to get settled

because it would not favor them. So this has become, thank you to Scott Perry, accepted fact for huge numbers of people around the world. Any of our international listeners just, you know, don't listen to anything. I know. Members of Congress say, especially Republican members of Congress. Well, I mean, the image of the United States is like, it is very, you know, complicated. In some parts of the world, yes, but if you travel a lot, I am, or when I was traveling

a lot for work, was constantly surprised by even in places where you would think it would be very tarnished. Like people really want to think the best of the United States. They really want to think the best of United States governments, U.S. institutions. This is famously a big thing in big parts of sub-Saharan Africa too. So I think that like that, you know, a member of Congress said this is happening. They uncovered it. People are more willing to believe that because they want to trust the United States.

Well, friends in Nigeria, the member of Congress you heard from did have his phone seized by the FBI for text messages during the January 6th investigation. No. Oh, yeah, Scott Perry was one of the people who literally got his phone seized by the FBI. So that's who you're dealing with there. So how far are we from him claiming that January 6th was a USAID operation? Oh, you put it out there.

Now we're going to hear it. We are going to hear it. Next time you're tweeting with Eli, don't tell him that I said that, please. Um, so speaking of that action before we move on, the news, you see the news that, obviously, that Bolsonaro is getting charged. Working justice system, it's crazy to see. And I forget who sent me the story last night, Tommy maybe. And my first reaction was,

there is a non-zero chance that SEAL Team Six gets sent in to Brazil to save Bolsonaro from trial. Yeah, I can see. it's funny, right? It's not zero. I don't want it to happen, but that movie would rip. Zero Dark Thirty, Brasilia. Gotta save autocrats all over the world. That's whose side we're on now.

Offline is brought to you by Fatty15. Have you heard about C15? It's an essential fatty acid that's naturally found in whole fat dairy products, but over time our intake of these foods has decreased. Combined with the natural decline of C15 as we age, many of us aren't getting enough of this important nutrient. Introducing Fatty15's C15 supplement, a simple way to replenish your body with this essential fatty acid. Co-founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson discovered the benefits of C-15 while working with the US Navy. Backed by science and supported by over 100 studies, C-15 helps support cell function and resiliency and can be a valuable part of your long-term health strategy.

Fatty 15 is vegan, 100% pure and free from flavors, fillers, allergens or preservatives. Just pure C15 in a gorgeous glass jar. It's designed to fit easily into your life with refills conveniently delivered to your door because even your C15 deserves to live the set it and forget it lifestyle. So do yourself a favor, replenish your C15, restore your health and let your cells do the heavy lifting with Fatty 15. Fatty 15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help you live healthier, longer. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com

slash offline and using code offline at checkout. So you know, as we've pointed out, most of these conspiracies and the bad information comes directly from Elon himself. He's also been saying this week that there is rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. He says Doge found evidence that the program is paying out benefits to 150 year olds. That is not true. It's a coding. It's the way that the numbers render in the system.

It's very easy to prove. They've all misread the numbers in the database, wired, did some great reporting these last few weeks. It was this quirk in this, it was like a 60 year old programming language used by the social security system and many other government systems. Too late. Now all the MAGAs think Social Security's got fraud, including head MAGA, President of the United States. Now Trump's been posting about this fraud and Social Security. So who knows where the fuck this is going. Do you feel like it's just, is it just over the last few weeks this has all kicked up? Is it Doge stuff? Because most people don't know much about the internal workings of government?

Like it's interesting that it's just getting a lot worse. It does. It feels... At first it felt incidental to me. It's like it felt like, oh, it's Elon shitposting. It's like they don't know what's going on or they're just like ripping stuff out and then trying to justify it after the fact. And I know like everybody's kind of asking like, is this a strategy? Like flood the zone with shit or are they just stupid? And it's like, first of all, it can be fact. And I know like everybody's kind of asking like, is this a strategy like flood the zone with shit? Are they just stupid?

And it's like, first of all, it can be both. And it's like, you look at some of these and like, did you see David Sachs as the AI czar tweeted, nobody knows what the national debt went toward and you're not allowed to ask. That's not, there's no grand strategy behind a tweet that stupid and that embarrassing. Some of it does look more deliberate, There's no grand strategy behind a tweet that stupid and that embarrassing.

Some of it does look more deliberate, like deleting all the USAID grants from the USAID website, which they did, and then turning around and then saying, nobody knows where all this spending is going. It's a big secret conspiracy we have to uncover. And it's like people do have a capacity to convince themselves of things that they think are advantageous for themselves to believe, which I think explains some of the like, embarrassing Elon Musk tweets that look so stupid. Obviously, all of this kind of serves an agenda

of portraying the government as a big, deep state conspiracy that needs to be taken down. I saw a tweet which I sent you by a Twitter user named punished ariel, who I checked she doesn't seem to be problematic, so that's great, we can quote her on the show. She said that of the MAGA movement, quote, "'It's people who are furious,

they don't understand how things work. Everything looks like a conspiracy if you don't understand it.'" Which I thought was a really good way to put kind of both the bottom up demand for this and why it is useful for the people pushing it. I have a few theories here, which one is now that they control everything and most institutions, because they are a grievance based movement,

they are going to need new villains or constant villains. They have to remain in the opposition. Right. Because they can't just be like, we're out there fixing stuff for you. Because honestly, that's what Joe Biden tried to do. Right. Like we're fixing stuff, we're delivering. No, no, no, you need to have the,

we're delivering contrasted against the villains that are trying to stop you. So what's left is deep state government and look at all these conspiracies we're digging up. And I think when you, whether or not there's a strategy or whether or not it's intentional, when you are as brain rotted as all of these people are, you go into your investigation of government spending with certain preconceived notions about the government, right?

They think that they believe in the deep state. They believe that there's corruption. They believe that there's criminality all in the government, right? So they believe in the deep state. They believe that there's corruption. They believe that there's criminality all in the government, right? So they believe this stuff. So then when you find a spreadsheet like that, you're gonna be like, oh, it confirms what I already believe.

I mean, it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. Yeah, to your point about needing to stay in the opposition, I saw a TV interview with, I can't remember who it was, somebody in the cabinet. It might've been JD Vance, it might have been someone else where it was going on and on about how the government is doing this, and we found the government doing that,

and the interview had to say, you are the government. You won. And it's like, they really are trying to both have all the power of being in the government, but also like somehow being outside of it in the opposition. This does feel like, to whatever degree, it's just like a natural evolution or a matter of deliberate strategy, the ultimate maybe inevitable endpoint of

distrust of institutions and experts as an organizing belief system. Like we've gotten to a place where the mere existence of an institution that manages aid or the budget or federal law enforcement must be corrupt and it must be lawless just because it's an institution and therefore it exists beyond my control or it's hard for me to understand or it feels opaque and therefore it must be destroyed. And that is a really, really useful and advantageous belief system to have if your goal is to destroy the constitutional order to appoint yourself as an unchecked despot or if your goal is to destroy the constitutional order, to appoint yourself as an unchecked despot, or if your goal is to destroy the federal government to convert

all of its functions into private contracts for your businesses like Elon Musk or just to get billionaire tax cuts. Yeah, I mean, just on Social Security, you know, Donald Trump keeps saying, won't touch Social Security, Republicans in Congress say they won't touch Social Security. Oh, but now the fraud. But now the fraud. We gotta get the fraud. Right, exactly.

So it opens up an opportunity for that. Again, whether intentional or not. I was arguing on Twitter as I can't stop myself from doing now with one of the all-in besties. Which one? Chamath. Ugh. Yeah.

I tried to interview him once. He was good for like a minute. He really was between, when he left Facebook and between like a certain moment in the Trump years, he was like really a critic of Silicon Valley, very thoughtful. Well, that's why he's like, and now he's like lost his mind.

He's totally, he's crossed over. Cause he jumped on the social security conspiracy, bandwagon was his long thing, and I like sent him the Wired store or whatever. And then he just like went crazy, called me all kinds of names. But then he was like, he was like, well, why can't you see this?

Are you upset that your gravy train is ending? Is that what it is? Are you in on it? I was literally like, you know what? What are you talking about? What gravy train? What am I getting? I'm getting something from the social security, what do I have, like dead people's social security numbers that I'm collecting benefits? From political pro. What do I have like dead people's social security numbers that I'm collecting pro payout?

Yeah, it's it's really like that's it like you're is that a bit that you're doing or you just that fucking crazy I mean it feels like an idea that we arrived at by the end of the first Trump term Which was that any political opposition was by definition? illegitimate because it opposed Trump ism and therefore wasemocratic. And it feels like now we're in a place where anybody who's not on my side and doesn't agree with me is by definition corrupt. On the take. And on the take and on the dole.

Yeah, that really, that's specifically from like, I mean, Trump does it all the time, but it's like a very Elon and his crew thing. Flip it back on an accusation. Where are you at these days on using Twitter? I mean, using it obviously, but like how are you feeling about it? Because I feel like so many people I know

are like really pulled in two directions on it. I would say like two weeks ago, I was like, this is probably not worth it anymore. Because it was just getting, I think I said, talked about it last week on the show that I sort of like turned off replies from people I don't follow on a lot of my tweets. Because like it's just getting,

what's been interesting this last week is is I don't know what's happening, but I think some of the doge incompetency and fuck ups have like reignited something in people who are opposed to this bullshit, because I am now, of course, I'm posting up a storm as always, but I'm noticing there's a lot more people like these fuckers. Like, what is Elon Musk doing? Like, there's more of a resistance. There's more resistance to it on X

than there had been before. And that is these people's community. Yes. You know, not Elon, he's often some, you know, who knows what world his mind is in, but the VC people, the Olin people, they live in a bubble, but it is a bubble that does exist on Twitter. And I don't necessarily think it's people who are supportive of Trump and Elon who just like, you know, switch sides or...

Sure. I think it's people who are just kind of quiet because it's just so nasty there and are now kind of feeling more comfortable like, no, this is a little crazy. And so I do think, you know, and I keep toggling back and forth between, I'm not really posting on Blue Sky, but I keep checking it once in a while, and I don't know, I still think, I still wish a lot of the folks on Blue Sky would like come back

and join the fight on Twitter. Like, I think it is, I go back and forth on this, because everyone's probably like, you're very schizophrenic on this. But like. I think it's a real, it's a really difficult dilemma. It's a difficult dilemma. It's a really tough one.

And I just, we have to have someplace where public debate about this is happening. And we can argue and debate with some of these people for other people who are sort of watching this. To say, oh, yeah, I see. Is Twitter the ideal place? Abso-fucking-lutely not. Before Elon, it was not the ideal place.

We've talked about this so many times. But it is maybe one of the only places right now where you're actually getting people from with different beliefs and viewpoints gathered together to argue about stuff. I think right now there might be some value in that. Yeah, I see that. The Doge stuff feels, it does feel like a moment

where there are things specifically happening on Twitter such that it is useful to have a direct counterweight to it. Yes. I would say broadly, I feel less and less good about using Twitter every time I open it up. It just feels more compromised and more compromising. I hear that. And just like general usage is like place to get news

or to like share my thoughts. It feels like the utility is not zero and it's definitely there individually. But I also, I feel bad about participating in an ecosystem that is designed to personally benefit Elon Musk and his politics. Yeah, yeah. I know I go, it's-

But I also don't feel good about turning it off and walking away. Right, well, that's gonna say that's all true and it's- But I also don't feel good about turning it off and walking away. Right, well that's gonna say, that's all true and it's also true that's like, it's the reality we're living in. Yeah. That he owns the platform.

Right. But- And this is also, I mean, I know it doesn't, people don't love it when I compare us to a backsliding democracy, because we are, but- Last week's guest, it was a whole interview about that. That's great, that was a whole interview about that. That's a great interview. I love Steve.

But I mean, this is the compromise that you have to make in any country that is even much further down this where we are in the spectrum that it's always because they own the arenas for public discourse. So you're always kind of compromised participating in it, but you can't give up, but you should also be thoughtful about that fact. I agree. I agree. Speaking of misinformation, TikTok's on again, off again relationship

with the app stores is officially on again. That's right, the short form video app that was banned by a law that passed overwhelmingly and upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court has nevertheless returned to the Apple and Google app stores. This is after both companies received assurances from the Justice Department that it would not in fact enforce the law, because these days the president is in more of a pick-and-choose kind of mood. Yep.

Hahaha. I'm not sure when it comes to laws. That's right. Uh, so... Austin loved that one. Austin lost his first laptop. We're all upset. We loved that one. Austin's first laptop. We're all upset.

We're all upset. Max, can you explain why these app stores took so long to allow users to download TikTok while nothing had really changed for users? Right, right, nothing actually happened. So, okay, you could be forgiven for forgetting this little detail, but we do have this thing in America called the law,

at least in theory. And the law- We have, in the past we have. That's the question. That's the open question. The law on the books, as you mentioned, passed by Congress, affirmed by the Supreme Court, is that TikTok is banned, notwithstanding any kind of temporary waiver. So that law- And by the way, the law says that you can only do the waiver if there's a deal on the table and there is no deal on the table. Right, which they're not even pretending to actually comply with.

It's the barest fig leaf. The law did not cease to exist just because Trump issued an executive order saying, no, thanks, I don't like this law. No, thank you very much. So Apple and Google wanted to comply with that because they didn't want to expose themselves to any legal liability because, you know, laws. Reportedly they got letters from the DOJ saying, we are not going to enforce this. And they felt that that in writing was enough to go ahead with it.

Reading between the lines, you kind of have to suspect that they also got the hint that Trump really wanted the win on bringing TikTok back and that there would probably be consequences for them if they didn't. So I understand why they felt they had to do it. Yeah, that this law goes in the pile of more of a suggestion. More of a suggestion, yeah, that's right. Well, that's why Congress is here, I feel, is they offer their little thoughts

and Trump does with it what he wants. Less consent, more advice. Yeah, that's right. And the advice is mostly, good job, sir. Not the word I would have used, calling Zelensky a dictator. That's what Tom Tillis said today. Not the word I would have used.

But we're not to a full Susan Collins concerned. Not concerned yet. So we're not using the full powers of Congress, which is when Susan Collins is concerned. So does the TikTok is banned story? Does this ever come to a conclusion? Are we just not going to enforce the law? So you think he's going to do a deal?

I have no, why does he need to? I also that that's work. It's not a work kind of a guy. So I was looking back over. If he came to some kind of deal, he would love to. Where either he and his friends financially benefit or maybe more importantly works out some deal with the Chinese government where guess what?

TikTok's not showing anything anti-Trump. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure- You know, we're not fucking with the algorithm that way. I mean, TikTok putting out push alerts, lying about how Trump is a hero. You think they're not going to put their fucking finger on the algorithm? What I was going to say, you do, I, no, no, I mean, I do wonder if Trump is thinking to himself like there is value in having a deal.

He loves to leave it dangling. Much like, much like he did with Eric Adams and now he owns New York City, you know, so. It's awesome. That's an awesome system. So I was trying, I was thinking through like, okay, what are the legal avenues here? Like, what could the legal avenues here? Like, what could they do with a deal? And I was looking over my notes and I was like,

what am I doing? This is so quaint, the idea, like laws, the courts, like that they would be treated, that Trump is gonna be like, oh my God, what if I don't comply with the law as if he cares, has any conception of it? Like it was 40 days ago, I was writing down all these scenarios about,

oh, what would he have to do to sell it? And it's like, oh, well now laws aren't real anymore. So that's solved. I will say, I asked Leah Littman about this on Pod Save America, I don't know how many weeks ago. Cause I'm like, is this just an example of, we keep saying like, what happens if Trump defies the courts? Is this him defying the courts?

She said, it's not quite the same because the Supreme court have held the constitutionality of the law, but no one has sued right now because I don't think anyone might, we'll see who has standing or maybe no one wants to. I'm saying like, I am harmed by the fact that the Trump administration has not enforced this ban. There's no mechanism for John Roberts to say, you have to get rid of TikTok. Right, and you would have to have that.

And so far, no one has sued. So like, we'll, you know, maybe we're speaking too soon on this. Maybe they'll follow the law, someone's, but again, how do you prove like you've been hurt by the lack of a ban? Right, I mean, Congress could say, we would like for you to follow the laws, but they have decided

that they don't want to have constitutional authority anymore. I mean, I think like, will this ever actually come to a conclusion? I think at this point is not really a question about TikTok or the law anymore. I think it's just a question that is tied up in what is our constitutional order going to look like? It order going to look like? And- It's gonna look like TikTok. It's gonna be short form vertical video

constitutional order, doom scroll constitutional order. Look, part of the constant, like it's not lost. It could come back in piecemeal in 2026, if Democrats retake Congress in 2028, like, you know, Steve said, he'd like Trump could lose, you know, maybe in the late 2040s, Colonel President Barron Trump institutes perestroika and we have laws again. But if it doesn't come back, then yeah, I think the TikTok ban is just whatever Trump says it is.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Do you ever feel like you're not making the most of your money? Of course, right? You're either you're spending too much of it or you're keeping too much in savings. You're buying high, you're selling low. There you go.

Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. You can create your Acorns account and start investing in just five minutes. Financial wellness doesn't have to feel impossible Acorns gives you small simple steps to get you and your money on track Basically Acorns does the hard part so you can give your money a chance to grow

Sign up now and join the over 13 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over 22 billion dollars with Acorns head to Acorns.com slash offline or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Tier one compensation provided, investing involves risk. Acorns advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor, view important disclosures at acorns.com slash offline. All right, before we get to the offline challenge,

one more piece of bad news, but good news, this one isn't America's fault. That is a nice change of pace. The Washington Post recently reported that security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door, allowing the UK government to retrieve all content that any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud. At the moment it appears that

Apple is unlikely to comply fully with the order but may stop offering encrypted storage specifically in the UK." What the fuck is this? What are they doing in the UK? We have enough problems. Prepare people. You might want to sit down if you're walking. I'm about to defend Silicon Valley. I'm about to say Silicon Valley is on the right. That is how fucking bad this is. And refusing back doors. Yes. Yes, I agree. So, okay, so some context here.

Apple has end-to-end encryption, which means that even Apple corporate can't access your device. And this is a real thing. It's been a real thing for years. U.S. law enforcement was initially like upset about it, but whatever they let it go, UK law enforcement has been fighting with Silicon Valley about end to end decryption for years. And Apple said in a submission to parliament last year in anticipation of this, that they will absolutely not build a back door under any circumstances. So this is WhatsApp doesn't have a back door. At least they didn't before before meta. They still say they

Believe obviously signal right? Like so there are some these are like end-to-end encryption Yes This is and it frustrates law enforcement, right? Because they would like to say we want to get on that phone and they say we literally don't have the capability Right to open it up for basically when you hear that people have gotten these messages It's like it's either on the phone phone already, because they haven't deleted it, it's a screenshot, but like you delete shit from end to end encryption, it's gone. It's truly gone, yes.

And this is even worse than it sounds for a couple of reasons. One is that the UK order would apply globally. So actually, anyone is potentially at risk of being accessed by UK law enforcement without any sort of public notification. Another, and I think the bigger risk here is that this becoming a public fight creates an incentive for other governments

to try to pile on. There are so many governments out there that would fucking love to legally force Apple or these other companies to have back doors. Hopefully not ours, but who knows? I know. Yeah. Well, I'm sure they would all.

There are so many authoritarian governments that love it. Like I said, hopefully not ours. The scenario that you worry about is they see, oh, it's the UK, this really rich, important, powerful country. Now, India can jump in, Russia can jump in, and then you start to worry if there's a kind of camel breaking or straw breaking the camel's back. I also think this is really, really unhelpful

if you care about reining in big tech, especially at this particular moment, because there is a huge fight we've talked about before, ongoing right now between Silicon Valley and Europe over European tech regulations. European tech regulations are way, way out ahead of us. They're really strong. This is part of JD Vance's high raid in Europe

a couple weeks from now. Right, it's the Trump administration, this is their quid pro quo to Silicon Valley for helping them out, is that Silicon Valley really wants the Trump administration to pressure the Europeans to roll back those regulations, which don't just benefit Europeans, they benefit all of us because they create transparency,

they change the corporate culture, or their least behavior in Silicon Valley. So it really benefits all of us. And this makes Trump and Silicon Valley look like the defenders of user privacy against European regulations run amok, which I think in this instance, it a little bit is. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, look, law enforcement has a lot of tools. And of course, when they're tracking down, you know, terrorists and stuff like that, you know, you want them to have all the tools possible, but one back door. I know. It's not just for the terrorists. It's not just for the worst criminals, right? It's everyone. It's crazy that they're pushing on it now, too. It's like the war on terror is like, it's pretty much over. Like, what? It's not that they're pushing on it now, too. It's like the war on terror is pretty much over.

Like, what? I know. It's not a suggestion. All right, on the topic of giving up our iPhones, let's check back in on the offline challenge. So this week, we were supposed to work on deep focus, specifically setting aside actual blocks without any distractions to get work done.

Did you get a chance to do that? How did it go? No, poorly. I would, this was, I mean, I tried it. I said, you know, blocks of time, put it on my calendar, do not disturb on my devices. I'm just going to work. I'm not going to check these things. I set specific times of the day to check my email And I found it really annoying and really disruptive.

It did not improve my focus at all. I actually, this comes up in the conversation with Gloria Mark, sometimes breaks are actually helpful for your focus. So forcing yourself to stare at a screen for two hours when your brain doesn't want you to can actually be counterproductive. Yeah, it's counterproductive, yeah.

I did not like this one. I just find it very hard to do, not hard to focus or like hard to even set up and like, I did the do not disturb on my laptop. And so that was fine. And then I started seeing the icon, the notification, the badge. So then I was like,

I thought that do not disturb took care of that. And then I was like, so then I started looking up, no, now I have to go into notifications and turn off all badge icons across all my devices. So then I did that. And then I'm like trying to prep for the for Pods of America Monday. And I'm just staring at the screen, staring at the screen. But then I'm like, oh, no, they need to they need me for the checking the clips

and make sure those are good. And then Reed was trying to get me for something else. And I was like, what? And then Emily wanted me, and I'm just like, I don't know, I need to be, I need people to be able to reach me. And also I need to prep. And now I've been prepping for too long

and what's happening in the world, I gotta check. Only because of my job, not just because I wanna like go yell online somewhere. So that was just really hard. I have to say, it's very game of you to fuck up the entire company and also your family life on behalf of this off-label. It's really good of you. I found it annoying and then turned it off and walked away. So your commitment is... No, listen, I appreciate it. Look, I'm glad we gave this one a shot because this is the number one tip you get on a specific

class of extremely popular like male optimization culture, like the Andrew Huberman, the like deep flow state. And I think that it's useful to show that it is not working for what we want it to do because what that entire way of thinking optimizes for I do think optimizes for the wrong thing. It optimizes for productivity. Yeah. For like working time. And it's like when Derek Thompson's on he talked about how there's this ideal that you see in these podcasts and in these videos that is solitary. That is like a you know, a very masculine male figure alone with his fucking protein shakes and vitamins and

sitting alone at a desk coding and then going to the gym. And I think that we are trying to understand focus and wellness much more holistically as part of a media and political ecosystem that is harmful to us, harmful to our society, to our politics, that isolates us, and it makes us harder for us to actualize who we want to be as people. I liked our walks a lot better. I was going to ask if you're sneaking the walks in.

I did one this weekend. I've been doing a few. And I did and honestly I could have taken my phone and I was like, no, I'm just going to do it. Did you really? Yeah. That's great. No phone, no headphones.

Yeah, I did it. That's how much I liked the last one. I cut it out for the first half of the week because I was like, oh, we have to do good science. But as I'm learning, my commitment is much than yours and I brought the walks back because they're amazing. They're so helpful. How many phone pickups? What's your average phone pickup?

Phone pickups, 63 pickups a day down from 72 sleep not amazing 3 hours and 42 minutes. So I'm entering Favreau territory. I frankly don't know how you do it. Wait, three hours and a night?

Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. Jesus. It's been a week. That's rough. I am down to 200. Okay, that's great.

I don't know where it was down from. You were like 270, right? It was 270 something. I forget what last week, 280? And last week was like 215 or something, or somewhere around there. Anyway, I'm a little lower. We're dropping.

We're dropping. That's great. The numbers are going down. Yeah. I love that. What are we doing this week? So this week, we have two activities, and I'm just gonna step out for the other one for a second. So the first one is reading, 20 minutes a day. I'm really excited. I think this is gonna be a good week. This is gonna make up for last week. So the first one is reading. 20 minutes a day. I'm really excited. I think

this is going to be a good week. This is going to make up for last week. There's all this research showing that reading for 20 minutes a day enhances your focus, reduces stress, it activates parts of your brain that do not otherwise activate and that will stay activated for several days. So you get this like halo effect that really lasts cognitively. I might um read like real books. That's what I'm doing. I'm like not on my kindle even. Yes. Because I had this last night went to bed I had an hour before bed

and I was like I'm not gonna watch it I'm just gonna read I'm gonna read and I grabbed my kindle put my phone away. Nice. And even on the fucking kindle I started reading one book and then I'm like yeah another book. I know. Because it was also like I don't have it I never get this book and then I'm like, eh, another book, another book. Cause it was also like, I never get this time and I want to read and I got to use it. Optimize it.

I have to optimize the time, which is going to be the best book to optimize the time. And I couldn't figure it out and I ended up like, it sucked. I love my Kindle, but I have found as my focus as eroded over the years, my Kindle is full of like 300 book samples that I have all read half of and like two books that I've read.

So yes, I got Elena Ferrante is my brilliant friend. So I'm only 10 years late on this one. Yeah, no, I never read it, but. It's amazing. It's really good. Do you know what you're gonna read? Uh, I don't know. I'm just, I set myself up for this.

Uh oh. I'm, I am very- The Elon Musk bio? It's just so on brand for me. I'm reading Ezra and Derek's book. Are you really? The new Abundance book. Oh, that's great.

Forgive me if I don't know what the exact title is. Something about Abundance. I think it's just Abundance. Abundance, oh great, I nailed it. Is that right? Can we get a- I'm doing it. Okay, Austin says yes.

When they're gonna be here in Los Angeles, when they're on their book tour, they're doing events, I'm gonna be moderating one of their events here in LA. So I was like, and I just, the hard copy arrived here in the office. So I saw it on my desk and I'm like, this is the perfect, no kindle, going to read this book. And then you're prepped for the, I mean,

I am hoping that the reading will be beneficial in itself and that also building back up the ability to read, which like I know is eroded for me. There's a ton of research showing it's eroded for a lot of people, means that hopefully after a week or two of this, the next time I'm feeling whatever I'm feeling that makes me want to reach from my phone, maybe I'll reach for a book instead.

Yeah, and then how much better am I going to feel? And then maybe by the way, at the end of the day, like you're mentioning, instead of looking at my fucking Twitter feed for 30 minutes and then how much better am I gonna feel and then maybe by the way at the end of the day like you're mentioning Instead of looking at my fucking Twitter feed for 30 minutes and then sleeping terribly Yeah, maybe I'll read a book and then sleep great. That would be great. What's the other thing number two? puzzle books This is cool 20 minutes Daily puzzles I used to love these as a kid. I

Started the the one where it's like you're solving a murder mystery by doing puzzles. And it's actually really fun. So okay, this is based on a recent NBER study by Christina L. Brown and a few other researchers. They did this experiment with 1600 school kids, adolescents, age 9 to 11 in India. They gave them 20 minutes a day of simple puzzle games to do just like a maze, rotating shapes. And they found that it led to a 22% increase in their focus and a huge increase in their school performance.

In some cases, significantly beyond studying with that time. Really? Yes, so just the improvement in focus that came just from doing a dedicated pen and paper game made them that much better off. And I thought that it was appropriate that we were in a level of focus crisis that put us about on par with rural poverty, India, adolescent experimental research subjects. If we're lucky.

If we're lucky. That's right. Yes. I hopefully, um, and I'm going to do it at the start of the day over coffee instead of looking at my phone. Wow. That's cool. I don't know when I'm going to do it at the start of the day over coffee instead of looking at my phone. Wow, that's cool. I don't know when I'm going to do it, but I'm going to find the time.

That's fun. I think you'll like it. It's going to be great. Maybe I'll do it all at once. Are you going to do 20 minutes reading into the 20 minutes of the puzzle, or are you going to separate them? Puzzles, I actually did it this morning just because I had it.

I did it over the coffee, like I said, instead of looking at my phone. It was great. I can't tell you how much better I feel. Yes that's the point. Cool. All right before we break this Sunday's episode of Pod Save America the the new Sunday series. I love it. Love It is interviewing Bill Maher. Poor Emma watching having to watch Bill Maher stuff. Listen I'm so excited. You know all these conversations are fascinating. watching, having to watch Bill Maher stuff on our live show. She's helping him prepare. I listen, I'm so excited.

You know, all these conversations are fascinating. He's going to help love it, break down where we stand and what the future holds for the Democratic Party. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. And for an ad free experience, subscribe to Friends of the Pod. For a limited time, you can save 25% on new annual subscriptions now through Saturday, February 22nd. And if you're already a monthly subscriber, upgrading is quick and easy.

Just head to krikka.com slash friends. All right, after the break, Max sits down with focus expert, Dr. Gloria Mark. Offline is brought to you by 3-Day Blinds. Tired of low quality blinds that allow too much light in or barely provide any privacy? If your blinds are in need of an upgrade, but don't know where to start, we have the solution for you.

There's a better way to buy blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery, and it's called 3Day Blinds. They are the leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the US. And right now, if you use my URL, 3dayblinds.com slash offline they're running a buy one get one 50% off deal. It's a both.

It's a both 50. It's a both. It's a both. It's a both. We can shop for almost anything at home. Why not shop for blinds at home too? 3day Blinds has local professionally trained design consultants who have an average of 10 plus years of experience that provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you in the

comfort of your home. Just set up an appointment and you'll get a free no obligation quote the same day. Apparently we've used three day blinds right here in the cricket office. Yeah, yeah we have. You know where we could use it? In the office that you and me and Tommy share.

Yeah, you know what, we want, actually you know what, this will be part of a three act story. Apparently everyone else got them here and they're great. We need to get, we're gonna get, this is the beginning of a story. Part one, we need blinds. All right, part two, it'll be off Mike, we're gonna get blinds.

And then part three, you're gonna find out how it turned out because, Peter, we genuinely wanna get three day blinds to install more kind of blackout shades in our office. I bet they could do that. Because right now, we look like we're, we're just a bunch of accountout shades in our office. I bet they could do that. Because right now we look like we're just a bunch of accountants sitting in an office in the 1980s because we've had to move our desks certain ways

because the sun is too much. And so the three of us all face the same direction. Like we're in the movie. Like behind each other, I face the back of Tommy's head. It's like we're all facing the same direction. We just need green visors. It's like we're in that desk scene in the movie, The Apartment, which very few people have seen,

probably know what I'm talking about. But we're all facing the same direction. It's quite stupid. So we're gonna get a pair of, we're gonna get beautiful blinds from 3-Day Blinds, and we'll tell you how it went. And I'll tell you, I've gotten 3-Day Blinds myself, and love them, and they are very professional

and very helpful, the people they send to put the blinds up. So I'm a big fan. If you're not very professional and very helpful, the people they send to put the blinds up. So I'm a big fan. If you're not very handy, DIY projects can be fun, but not measuring and installing blinds, that can be a big challenge. While the expert team at 3-Day Blinds handles all the heavy lifting they design, measure, install, so you can just sit back,

relax and leave it to the pros. I know something funny, John. Yeah. The book was called Six Days of the Condor, and when they made it a movie, they're like too slow. Now it's three days of the condor. Like the blinds. Yeah.

Right now, get quality window treatments that fit your budget with three-day blinds. Head to 3dayblinds.com slash offline for their buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to 3dayblinds.com slash offline. One last time, that's buy one, get one 50% off when you head to the number three, d-a-y,

blinds.com slash offline. We are back. Here to talk with me is Gloria Mark. Gloria is a psychologist and a professor at the University of California, Irvine, where she studies attention, how it works, what it does for us, why we are losing control of it. She is the author of a great book on the subject titled Attention Span. I read it this weekend. Gloria, welcome to Offline. Thanks so much for having me. So it is no mystery, especially to regular listeners of this show, why our attention is so fragmented these days. We live surrounded all day, every day by devices and apps designed to tax our attention.

We face constant interruption, overstimulation. But something that you explore in your work that feels really important to me is that the consequences of this go way beyond just shortened attention span. So can you talk about this idea that attention is a finite cognitive resource and what happens to us when that resource starts to get drained or depleted? Yeah. So, you know, the psychological explanation is that our mind has a limited capacity for cognitive

resources. You can think of it as a tension capacity. And there's things we do throughout the day that drain this resource. So I like to use the metaphor of a tank, right? And if you get a really good night's sleep, or if you're on a vacation, in fact, I'm going to be going on a vacation pretty soon to Costa Rica, this can replenish your tank of resources. So you are fresh, you're ready, you can dive into whatever task you want to do. But things we do throughout the day, tap into this tank and drain it.

So one of the big things that drains it is our multitasking. And multitasking doesn't necessarily mean doing two things in parallel, because humans aren't wired to be able to do that unless one of those things is automatic. So I can walk and text because walking is automatic. But as soon as a bicyclist comes along or at an intersection, I'm going to stop texting

and pay attention. So I can't do two things in parallel when I'm paying attention to two things. So during the day, we multitask a lot, which means shifting our attention from one thing to another. And we shifted very rapidly. We might start off, you know, for me, I might be writing an article and then suddenly I have this urge to check email. So I switched to email or I have an urge to look up something online that's not even related to the thing I'm working on. So that's just an example. And we do this all day and we have found measurably that people's attention

averages about 47 seconds on any screen, computers and smartphones. So we were just continually switching our attention throughout the day. This is not good for those resources because they're draining. Now another thing that drains resources is our being distracted by all kinds of things. The distractions could be notifications. It could be something even within ourselves because it turns out that about half the time we tend to interrupt ourselves. You know, we tend to blame all of these interruptions and distractions on some external source,

but actually a lot of distraction comes within us. And our distraction to something else takes up cognitive resources. And then we have to pull our minds back and we have to reorient to that place we were before we attended to the distraction. So that's another way our minds get drained. Can you talk about what happens when that attention gets drained? I know for example that you did a study with people where you took them off of email and so you got to see the difference in what happens when there

are people in an office using email, their attention is getting taxed, their attention is getting drained and people in the office who are not using email so are not having that experience of their tank being tapped out. What did you learn about what changes for the people who are not having their tank depleted? The short answer is that people don't get as stressed. So when we're shifting our attention rapidly, we know that it causes stress.

So in the research that I do, I use sensors. And rather than bringing people into a laboratory, I go to where people are. And I call this creating living laboratories. And I just equip people with sensors, heart rate monitors, I log computer activity, so that we can get a measure of their stress and their attention as they're going about their daily work. And we find that the faster the frequency is of shifting attention, the higher is the stress. And in the study you talked about where we cut off email in an organization for workweek, we found at the

end of that workweek that people's stress had gone down significantly. So yes, we're using all these very precious cognitive resources to keep track of what's going on, to reorient back to that interrupted task. And it drains these resources and it causes stress. Now there's, there's a part of our mind that's called executive function. And this is a really important part of the mind. It's probably the most important part. And it's, you can think of it as the CEO of the mind because it helps us with decision making.

Um, it helps us pursue goals and very importantly, it helps us stay on track and filter out distractions. And when we get tired, when our mind gets fatigued, it can't do its job to filter out distractions. And so we become even more susceptible to distractions. So we get into this vicious cycle where we get distracted either by something outside of us or something internal to ourselves. This causes us to be stressed, it causes our minds to get fatigued,

our executive function gets fatigued, and then it just can't do its job to help filter out distractions as we go about our work. I'm really glad that you brought this up. The idea that task squishing is something that taxes your executive function and that can have consequences for you throughout the day because I was reading about this, I realized, oh, of course, task switching is something I do mindlessly all day. You know, I'm going between work and my email. If I'm watching a movie, I'm pulling up Instagram. And something that I took away from your book and tell me if I'm understanding this right, is it's not just that I'm taxing my attention in that particular moment,

but because I'm doing that task switching throughout the day, the consequences of that are actually with me all day, all through the rest of the day, because that can you talk about what happens when you, what is happening in my brain or in my body when I have spent too much time, let's say in the morning at an activity where I'm switching back and forth, that I might feel the consequences of without realizing it

in the afternoon or evening. Yeah, so it goes back to that metaphor that I was using about the tank, the tank of resources. It's draining. And there's another thing that causes that tank to drain. And that's just a function of the amount of time that we're up since we woke up in the morning. So the tank naturally drains simply because

we spend more hours awake, right? And we have to use some of our capacity while we're awake. But then on top of that, when we're switching our attention so rapidly, right? Multitasking and when we're switching our attention so rapidly, right, multitasking, and when we're not taking sufficient breaks, which is pretty normal for a lot of people, then that tank drains fast and we get exhausted. And we get stressed, but the real danger is doing this day in and day out, is when stress gets to the point of reaching exhaustion

and then that can become burnout and that's very serious. Well, I wanna ask you a little bit more about burnout in a moment, but just to spend a little bit more time on how we might be exhausting that tank without even realizing that we're doing it. Something that you mentioned earlier is that, in some studies that you have conducted, something close to half of the interactions that we experience over the course of the day are

self-imposed, which is something that you read it and you think, wait, that can't possibly be right. And then you go about the next day and you realize, oh, of course, I'm interrupting myself constantly all throughout the day. This is something I actually learned last year. We did an experiment for the podcast. I switched to a flip phone from a smart phone and something that I realized I was doing is I would be walking down the street in the elevator and I would look down and all of

a sudden I would have the flip phone in my hand as if it was a smartphone that I could scroll through. And I started to realize, oh, I'm doing this constantly. I'm interrupting myself without even realizing I'm doing it. Why, why would I do that? Why do people interrupt themselves? Even though we hate interruptions and we know how costly it is for us.

Right, we're habituated to self-interrupt. I mean, there are a lot of reasons. We're bored, right? As soon as you start to become bored, it creates an opening for self-interruption, for other thoughts to pop into our heads. And, oh, I think it's much more interesting to look at the news or go on Wikipedia than to do the work I'm working on. Another reason is procrastination. So self-interruption is just a great solution for procrastination. You don't want to work on the task at hand. And so you self-interrupt.

So it's basically that we're opening up our mind for all kinds of thoughts to pop into our heads and we act on them and we act on them because we're in front of the world's largest candy store we can just easily go to a site and satisfy that curiosity. Something I thought was so striking and I even though I just finished your book I'm already trying to apply it in my day-to-day life because it was such an aha moment for me, is that the more non-self-imposed interruptions that we experience, the more self-imposed interruptions we put on ourselves as a result.

And so something that I'm realizing now is that if I get interrupted five times in the morning by email, I'm not gonna interrupt myself five more times in the afternoon because my brain has abduated itself to it, which is scary but is also empowering because it means that if I could put in a little more effort to weed out those involuntary interruptions earlier in the day, I'm gonna feel the effects throughout the rest of the day. Am I understanding that research correctly? So what we did is we looked at our data

and we looked at the number of external interruptions people had. So interruptions from all kinds of sources, email notifications, social media notifications, phone calls. And then we also looked at self interruptions where people are interrupting themselves. And as you describe, when the frequency of external interruptions declines, what happens

is our internal interruptions, our self interruptions kick in and we do that more. And it's as though we are just determined to be interrupted. And the way I interpret this finding is that we have habituated to being interrupted regularly, whether it's by something external or something from within ourselves. And we continue that pattern, right? We, we are creatures of habit and we continue that pattern because our attention spans just cannot hold out for longer periods. Yeah.

And that, I mean, I know you're going on vacation, so you're maybe about to experience something that I have experienced that led me to realize exactly what you're describing, which is that the first couple of days when I am quote unquote unplugged, I cannot get myself off of my phone. Because what I am experiencing, if I'm understanding you right, is that it's not just that, oh, the world is imposing interruptions on me. I'm actually addicted to those interruptions and I will reintroduce them in myself. Now, the flip side of that and the good news is that if I have been able to pull myself away for long enough and maybe you're going on a nice long vacation, you'll experience

this. I have actually found that I am able to break that addiction a little bit and stop interrupting myself, but I am realizing how much I am an accomplice in my own interruption ecosystem. Yeah, of course, of course. We do have the power and the agency to be able to pull away, right? And sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the fact that we do have that agency. So to follow up on the idea of burning out,

and I think this is so important, which is, you know, of course the idea that all of this interrupting and cognitive drain leads to feeling physically and mentally exhausted, which is something, you know, anyone has experienced, anyone can relate to. But something that you have said that I really wanted to follow up with you on is that burning out our attention doesn't just physically exhaust us, but can

also make us feel cynical about the world. It can make us feel powerless or like we don't have agency. It makes us feel less able to gather the mental resources to deal with the world or to go out and to socially engage with other people. And I almost can't overstate how important I think this connection that you've made is like, we talk a lot on the show about the idea that there is in some sort of way, a self-reinforcing feedback loop between our digital addictions and shattered attention, which then feeds into a culture of isolation and loneliness, which itself feeds into a kind of politics of cynicism and doomerism.

But it sounds like those might be much more physically and viscerally lengthened, even I understood. So can you talk about this idea of a connection between burning out our attention and feeling cynical or lack of agency in the world? Yeah, that's right. It also connects to the idea of executive function. That when our executive function is just so fatigued, it just can't do its job to help our minds function the way they should.

When people are burnt out, they are demotivated, they are disengaged, they just cannot, they don't have the capacity to be able to pay attention. So burnout is also connected with chronic disease. So being stressed and going to the extreme of burnout actually can physically harm our bodies. So it leads to cardiovascular disease. So it's not just in our minds,

but physically our bodies can feel that effect. So if I'm understanding you right, the kind of causal chain here is, I do a lot of tasks switching in the morning. I'm on my email, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. As a result of that, I wear out this kind of mental muscle of executive function, which is the part of my brain that helps me to stay focused on any given task that kind of puts me in control of what I'm doing with my attention on my mind and that I might be on some level

emotionally interpreting my own lack of executive function, my own lack of self-control as something that has much wider significance as feeling less in control of myself and therefore of the world. And that might make me feel more cynical about the world, more cynical about politics and what I can kind of do to affect the community around me. And then maybe as a result, instead of going out and seeing friends that night, which will help me recharge emotionally and feel better, I stay in and scroll my phone and end up feeling even worse.

That's a good way to characterize this cycle. So the definition of stress is when we just don't have the resources to meet the demands of the environment. And when a person is burnt out, right? the resources to meet the demands of the environment. And when a person is burnt out, right, it's this chronic inability to garner up the resources that we need to be able to address what's going on in the world.

And that's why we can't be engaged. That's why we're cynical. It's a terrible situation to be engaged. That's why we're, we're cynical. Um, it's a terrible situation to be in. And I would also say that, um, at another thing that feeds into burnout is the inability to psychologically detach from work at the end of the day. So, you know, ideally what we need to do is at the end of our, you know, formal work hours is to detach and to do something other than work and, you know, something other than answering emails or writing, but to really give our minds a chance to replenish.

really give our minds a chance to replenish. I also want to emphasize that it's not just our devices that leads to burnout. It's our devices on top of a layer of a lot of other things going on, right? People are already stressed from financial concerns, could be from relationships, conflicts, from politics. There's so many other things going on and the use of the devices and wearing out our minds is on top of that whole other layer. So it's not just technology alone. Technology is a big part of it, but there's

this interaction between what we're doing with our tech and all these other things we're experiencing. I wonder if that feeling of struggling to disconnect from work at the end of the day might also extend to struggling with feeling like we can disconnect from the news at a time when that feels like something that implicates all of us in a way that feels kind of like work because it feels like an obligation and it feels like something really important that we have to emotionally engage in. And I don't know about you, but I already feel on my best days, like that is taxing

100% of my emotional resources. And on tougher days, I definitely don't have enough to deal with it. It's absolutely draining our resources to follow news. Our culture is that of a productivity culture, right? And it goes back historically, the Protestant work ethic, and there's this pressure for us to be as productive as possible, which means we need to work as long as possible.

But there's another aspect to it, and that's we're part of a busyness culture. And the busyness culture is that we have to occupy our minds every minute with something. And so if we're not occupying our minds with work, well, we turn to the news as a way to occupy our minds. Right? So just pulling away from, you know, any kind of tech and anything that's you know any kind of tech and anything that's reminding you of Work or what's going on in the world can help our minds?

Recuperate yeah, I would like to give everyone who is listening my permission to disengage from the news as much as you feel like you need to because it's really important to being able to Engage with the news your loved ones your work when you need to because you have those finite cognitive resources. So you talk in the book about how there is actually a lot we can do to recharge those resources, which was good news to me because it's easy to feel pessimistic because our environment has gotten so good

at defeating our control over our attention that there is actually a lot we can do to recharge it. Can you talk about some of those techniques? Yes, there are things we can do. Let me start with something that I call practicing meta awareness. Now during the pandemic, my university offered us a course in mindfulness, mindfulness-based stress reduction, which I think probably a lot of listeners are familiar with. But it gave me this idea that we could do something related when we're on our devices.

So mindfulness is about teaching you how to focus in the moment, right? You focus on things like your breath or your senses. But when we're on our devices, it's also really important to be aware of what we're doing. And a lot of things that we do on our devices are automatic, like going to check the news or checking email or checking social media. And this idea of meta awareness is to become aware of these automatic responses that we have. And when you can become aware of them, you can check them and you can say, Ah, you know, I have this urge to check the news. Do I really need to check the news? Is it going to be good for me right now?

No, it's probably not. So if you become aware of your actions, you can become more intentional. When you're intentional, you can form a plan. And so I can say, okay, I am going to work 30 more minutes. And gee, maybe after 30 minutes, I won't even have any urge to check the news, but I can give myself permission. Okay, I'm going to look at for two minutes. I'm going to glance at the news.

What's even better is to step up, walk around or go outside. That's an even better use of our time. Why is that better? Why is going for a walk something that's better for our attention? Yeah, because research shows that just a mere 20 minute walk in nature with some kind of exposure to nature can significantly refresh us. I've done research where we found that people are actually more creative. They have better, it's called divergent thinking, which is thinking of different ideas.

Oh, sure. Yeah. Just after 20 minutes. And you don't have to be in a forest or a park, but having exposure to a tree or birds or something that's nature related. Huh. And that can also help recharge that tank of attention when it feels depleted. Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's one thing we can do. Another thing we can do is to practice forethought. And what that means is imagining our future self

at the end of the day. And I like to use the end of the day as a timeline. Whenever you have the urge to check news or social media, visualize where you want to be in the evening, how you want to see yourself and really importantly, how do you want to feel? And I want to see myself relaxing on the couch. I like to, And I want to see myself relaxing on the couch. I like to, you know, lean back in the couch and read something. And how do I want to feel? I want to feel relaxed and I want to feel fulfilled and rewarded.

And the last thing I want to visualize myself doing is working on a deadline at 10 o'clock at night, because I've been there and I know what that's like and that's a recipe for burnout. And so this visualization, if you can make it very concrete, it's very powerful and it can stop us in our tracks and it can help us keep going. So practicing forethought. So the idea is that imagining my evening as I wanted to be will help me focus more now so that I can complete the task that I want to

work on and I will get to spend the evening as I wanted to and not catching up on work. Yes, that's right. So and again, the more concrete of a visualization you can make, the more powerful it can be. But it's a very, very good mechanism to use. Well, I am already picturing myself with a glass of wine at the end of the day, so that seems like a perfect place to wind down. Gloria Mark, thank you so much for coming on Offline. Thanks so much for having me. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Segland. Dilan Villanueva

produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, and Adrian Hill for production support. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Thank you.