Something You Should Know - Understanding The Hacker's Mind & Your Ever Shrinking Attention Span

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, why you are probably thinner, smarter, and better looking than you think. Then, hacking. It gets pretty interesting when you broaden out the definition of that word. Basketball, dunking was originally a hack. It wasn't in the rules. A Formula One racing, someone I think in the 80s shows up on the field with a six-wheeled

Starting point is 00:00:56 car. Those are all hacks. Also how colors can change the way food tastes and your attention span. It's harder to stay focused on one thing. We switch our attention more and more, and that's a problem. We know that people make more errors when they switch their attention. There have been studies done with physicians and nurses and pilots, and we know that people make errors when they're switching their attention.

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Starting point is 00:02:08 And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi there. Welcome to Something You Should Know. So here's a question for you. How well do you think you perceive yourself? If you're like the average American, you probably underestimate yourself. Some studies found that people rated themselves lower than other people rated them in several departments. For instance, appearance.

Starting point is 00:02:40 Self-ratings were 20% too low on average. We tend to see our features and flaws while other people see our charm and personality. Smarts. Most women underestimate their own IQ by about 5 points. And they tend to overestimate other people's IQs. Men, on the other hand, typically guess their IQs are higher than they actually are. Body weight. When participants were shown two photos of themselves and one of them was slightly skewed to look heavier, 70% of women incorrectly chose the distorted picture as being accurate. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:03:32 When I say the word hacking or hacker, you likely think of a computer hacker, someone who's up to no good stealing identities or stealing information or planting a virus. But when this discussion is over, you're going to look at hacking a bit differently. Bruce Schneier is a renowned security technologist who has written more than a dozen books. He teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School, and his latest book is called A Hacker's Mind, How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules and How to Bend Them Back. Hey Bruce, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks for having me. So my image of a hacker is pretty clear in my mind,

Starting point is 00:04:09 of somebody at a computer keyboard stealing stuff or doing bad things, but that's not really your definition. Well, it kind of is my definition. What hacking is, is taking code, rules, computer code, finding things in it that shouldn't be there, unintended functionality, ways to trick it, ways to get to do things it shouldn't do, and then use that to your advantage. Now, to be fair, a lot of hackers in the computer world are criminals. They're trying to steal your identity, steal money, or maybe they're governments and trying to steal information, right, for intelligence gathering. And that's the computer way of thinking of hacking. And I'm just generalizing that to any system of rules. So the example I like to use is the tax code. It's not computer code, but it's code. It's

Starting point is 00:05:03 algorithms, right? You plug in your money, you do some calculations, and you get how much you owe. And that code has vulnerabilities. We call them loopholes. It has exploits. We call them tax avoidance strategies. And it has black hat hackers. We call them accountants. So it's the same thing, just to more general sets of rules. And some of the areas that

Starting point is 00:05:29 you talk about, like give me some other examples besides the tax code of what hacking is in your view. So this is fun. I mean, I love doing this. If you're a frequent flyer, you've probably heard of mileage runs. That's a hack. So my definition of a hack is an unintended and unanticipated way of using a system to your advantage. It's not breaking the rules. It's finding a loophole in the rules. So a mileage run. When you think about the rules of a frequent flyer plan, they're supposed to reward frequent flyers. You're not supposed to like fly just to get the miles because you found some tricky route that gives you a lot of miles for a little bit of money, right? It's not against the rules, but it kind of violates

Starting point is 00:06:14 the spirit of the rules. That's a hack. There are lots of hacks in sports. So in basketball, the dunking was originally a hack. It wasn't in the rules. In swimming, someone realized in the backstroke, you could stay underwater a long time. And you're following the rules, but you're not really doing what you're supposed to. A Formula One racing, someone I think in the 80s shows up on the field with a six-wheeled car. And everyone says, you can't have a six-wheeled car. And they say, here's the rule book. It doesn't say that.

Starting point is 00:06:52 Those are all hacks. And you can go into corporate America. So Uber is really hacking taxi regulations. They're finding loopholes so they can deliver the service without a lot of the regulation that taxis have to adhere to. Airbnb does the same thing for hotels. Financial hedge funds and other financial systems full of hacks. Not illegal, not even necessarily bad, but loopholes in the rules.

Starting point is 00:07:26 And so a lot of the hacks that you just described may have been bending the rules, but seemingly eventually become part of the rules. That depends on the rules and who's in charge of them. So the Formula One race car hack was declared illegal. The rules were rewritten so that you couldn't have more or less just in case than four wheels in your car. Dunking was originally against the rules, but it became legal because the fans liked it. Curving your hockey stick is another example. Now we know the hockey player who invented you can curve your hockey stick, changed the game dramatically, but it was a more exciting game. Some of these financial hacks, they're declared illegal.

Starting point is 00:08:12 There are IRS hacks that every year they go into court and the IRS, I guess the judge says, no, you can't do that. So some are made part of the system and some are declared illegal. It depends. In the computer world, they're almost always declared against the rules. You find a hack against Microsoft Windows, in the next update, there will be a patch against that hack. You find a loophole in the tax code, it'll be patched eventually, maybe. It might take five, 10 years. So it very much depends on the system. So hacking isn't necessarily bad. It's a way systems evolve. Well, it does sound like a lot of the hacks and the hackers that you're talking about are kind of on the leading edge, and maybe some of them become illegal and fall off, but they're like leading

Starting point is 00:09:07 the charge to change the game, whatever game we're playing. Yeah, we call that the bleeding edge, right? It's legal, but you might get hurt doing it. And yes, so you could look at what Uber is doing as transforming a moribund and stayed taxi industry into something newer, more exciting, more profitable, more interesting. Or you can look at it as skirting the rules that keep passengers safe. There are different ways of looking at it. You can think Airbnb the same way. So it very much depends on the system and your point of view. So the filibuster is a hack invented in ancient Rome. It's actually a very old hack. Some Roman senator realized the

Starting point is 00:09:54 rules said that you had to conclude all business by sundown. And he realized if he never stopped talking, nothing would get done. Now that carries to today, and there's legitimate debate about whether that's a good idea or a bad idea. But back in ancient Rome, it was definitely unintended, unanticipated way of taking the rules and subverting them. And then do people ever come along and hack the hack? Well, so now we're getting into, you know, wheels within wheels. I mean, yes, right. So you think about the filibuster. The filibuster was originally you have to get up there and keep talking. I mean, you can't stop talking. That's the rule. And then there are sort of loopholes in that rule of the filibuster that now in the Senate, you can just like say I'm

Starting point is 00:10:46 filibustering without actually filibustering. So yes, you can find hacks within hacks because it's loopholes within loopholes. And this is, I think, a problem is a bad word. This is an essential truism of systems that any system of rules that we create will necessarily be incomplete it'll have things we haven't thought of or technology will come along and change what's possible so all systems are hackable the question is how do you respond to a hack how do you adapt it how do you take the good hacks and make them part of your system and expel the bad hacks? And then who gets to decide? We're talking about hacking in a way you probably haven't heard before.

Starting point is 00:11:34 My guest is Bruce Schneier. He is a security technologist and author of the book, A Hacker's Mind. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick?

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Starting point is 00:12:23 Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to

Starting point is 00:12:59 the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Bruce, it seems a lot of these hacks come as really kind of classic out-of-the-box thinking. You know, no one would have thought to dunk a basketball until someone thought to dunk a basketball. I mean, it's kind of leading edge, out-of-the-box thinking that pushes the boundaries. That's right. And so it's not in the rules.

Starting point is 00:13:45 Just like the number of wheels on your car are not in the rules because, of course, it's four wheels. Cars have four wheels. Someone realizes that it's not in the rules, takes advantage of it, and then the owner of the rules has to decide. The Formula One Racing Commission, whoever they are, I know they have a French name, or the IRS, the United States, or the Federal Trade Commission, or Microsoft, if it's one of their computer programs, decides, is this good or bad? Do we have to fix it, or do we make it part of the system? Maybe it's just my perception, but listening to you, it seems like there's a lot more hacking going on in the world today, as you describe it, than ever before.

Starting point is 00:14:31 I think that's right. I think there is some way of thinking about hacking as can get away with it, it's okay. So you'd look at rules and you look for the mistakes. You look for the loopholes, look for the comma that's out of place, or someone got a word wrong, or didn't think about this boundary condition. And the ethics of society are, well, that means means i can do it and you find a way to uh to pay a lot less tax that that you know isn't cheating but was unintended there's no moral qualms about using it right it's legal of course i can use it so i think just the rise of systems, also the rise of technological systems, and this notion that if I find a loophole, it's fair game, leads to more hacking, say, than ever before. So here's a hack, I would think, according to your definition. Here's a hack that comes up sometimes.

Starting point is 00:15:41 You get a parking ticket, and the officer transposes the letters on your license plate on the ticket, or they get the color wrong on the ticket, and you go to court and say, well, that's not my car. That's not my license plate number. That's a hack. And some people would say,

Starting point is 00:15:57 well, good for you, you caught it. Others would say, well, you kind of cheated. But here's the issue. If we as society want people to follow traffic rules, then we don't like that. I, as an individual, got the ticket. I'd rather not pay the $50 fine. So hacks are like that. The individual gets an advantage, but society as a whole suffers the consequences. So what's your, is your message, why not? You know, give it a shot.

Starting point is 00:16:31 What are you, are you just an observer here or an advocate? I'm not an advocate for hacking in general. My message is more to understand this as a process so that you can recognize hacks when you see them and realize that as a system owner, whether it is, you know, the Formula One racing authority or the citizens who nominally, you know, run the democratic country, decide whether the hack is a good thing or a bad thing. And if it's a good thing, encode it in the rules. If it's a bad thing, deliberately encode it to be against the rules. Talk about gambling because you write about all the hacks in gambling.

Starting point is 00:17:19 Card counting and blackjack, totally a hack. And it's an interesting one because the casinos know about it, and now they have technology to detect it. So it's not against the rules, but casinos use their ability to deny anybody they want access to the casino that if they catch you card counting, they will bar you. Wait, I thought card counting was against the rules. It's not because it's strategy.

Starting point is 00:17:50 Card counting with a machine, with a computer, is against the rules. A computer in your shoe, communicating with somebody from outside the casino, that's all against the rules. But in your head, there's no rule you can write that would make card counting illegal. All you can do is detect it and then kick them out. Because card counting is a strategy that is visible. What's another gambling hack? So there's a pretty famous blackjack hack that involved MIT students. And this was card counting, but they did it in a very clever way.

Starting point is 00:18:26 They divided up the card counting tasks. So one person was the counter who would never change his bet. So he's undetectable. And then compatriots would steer whales, big bettors, to tables that had an advantage. So card counting is all about figuring out when the deck is in the player's advantage versus the house advantage. So normally, when you're a card counter, you sit at a table, wait for that opportunity, and when it happens, you change your betting pattern to make money.

Starting point is 00:19:05 That's what's detectable. So the MIT group had the clever idea to divide up those tasks. So the counter never changed his bets and the better never changes bets, just move from table to table. That actually made a fortune and it was never detected. Eventually, the MIT group disbanded and wrote a book about it, which is how we know. You know, it seems like hacking, the way you describe it, is human nature, that there's always going to be a push against the rules or to push the boundaries, to push the limits. You know, remember the high jump guy that changed the way people jump over the bar and now everybody jumps over that way. But when he did it first, that was kind of a hack. People

Starting point is 00:19:51 said, wait, you're not supposed to do it that way. But he did. And now everybody does it. Everybody's pushing the boundaries. It's human nature. That's a great example. And it is human nature. We are natural advantage seekers. We look for loopholes. We look for ways to evade the rules. I mean, we did this as kids. Our parents give us a bedtime or a requirement to eat our vegetables. We look for the loophole in the rules. We look for the way to do what our parents said, but not in the way they intended. It's fundamentally human nature. And it's also human nature to try to make the rules airtight, to make rules that everyone follows.

Starting point is 00:20:36 And there is always this tension between the rules and those of us who want to abuse the rules for our own advantage. But don't you think abuse the rules is a bit strong in a lot of cases? It's just, why not try this? Let's give this a go. It doesn't mean, I mean, I'm not using abuse in a pejorative sense. I'm using abuse in not following their spirit. And, you know, we can argue terminology here. Hacks are innovative. They're creative. They have positive outcomes. They're also subversive. They're countercultural. They have negative outcomes. They're how systems break. They're how systems evolve. They have good and bad. And they are, as you say, fundamental human nature. We are a species that does this and we always will do this. And if all systems

Starting point is 00:21:34 are hackable, then we'll do this all the time to everything. But how do we as society harness that creative nature to improve systems without destroying them, without harming? positive connotation that's people doing bad things versus people who press the limits, who push the boundaries, which has a much more of a positive connotation of these are the champions, these are the people that go the extra mile kind of thing. But hacking has a really negative, bad reputation. That was really the media in the 1990s, that hacking was originally this creative endeavor, this figuring out a clever hack, a clever way around the rules to get what you want done. Early computer systems have a lot of rules that are really complicated. And if you find a novel trick, a hack, that's a good thing. It also became associated with exceeding your authority on a computer system. And that became criminal when I do it to your computer system. So hacking became

Starting point is 00:22:56 this criminal thing. The media grabbed that criminal definition. So that's the word that most people heard first. They heard hacking as something criminals do. But it's not necessarily true. And in the 90s, there even was this debate in the computer security community that can we have hacking be good and cracking be bad, black hat hackers versus white hat hackers, different ways to separate the good from the bad. You know, to me, hacking is a skill and you can do it for good or bad, just like plumbing is a skill. You could be a good plumber, you could be the evil plumber. Plumbing is just a set of expertise about pipes and water or gas. And so hacking is, I think, the same thing. It's a way of looking at systems, looking at sets of rules,

Starting point is 00:23:48 and finding unanticipated outcomes, finding loopholes, finding little tricks. And lots of us do it naturally. There's the notion of tax loopholes. No one calls it a hack, but it's the same process. Well, certainly I, and probably everyone everyone listening now has a different and deeper understanding of what hacking is and how it applies to the rest of the world. It's really interesting. Bruce Schneier has been my guest.

Starting point is 00:24:16 He is a security technologist. He teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School. He's authored about a dozen books. His latest is called A Hacker's Mind, How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules and How to Bend Them Back. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for coming on. Oh, thank you. This was fun. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,

Starting point is 00:24:49 and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson

Starting point is 00:25:16 discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong?

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Starting point is 00:26:13 or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I bet you've heard people talk about the fact that our attention span is shrinking. That in today's world, with all the distractions, it's difficult to keep focused on any one thing continuously for a long period of time. The implications of that are many, as you might imagine. Hard to be productive if you can't stay focused. It's hard to think really deeply about productive if you can't stay focused. It's hard to think

Starting point is 00:26:45 really deeply about something if you can't stay focused. And it gets worse. Here to talk about this and reveal how we can all improve our attention span is Gloria Mark. Gloria is a professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of a book called Attention Span, A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity. Hey, Gloria, welcome. Thank you. So first, is that true? Is it true that our attention span is shrinking? It is true according to our measurements.

Starting point is 00:27:21 I started measuring this back in 2004. And at the time, we found that people would spend on average of about two and a half minutes on any screen before switching. Then around 2012, it went down to about 75 seconds. And in the last five or six years, it's reached roughly a steady state, averaging about 47 seconds on any screen. It's not just my research. Others have done independent studies, and they've found results that are within a few seconds. So it seems to be a fairly robust result. So we've gone from minutes to seconds in our attention span. Why do you suppose that is? Well, there's a lot of reasons.

Starting point is 00:28:13 There are, of course, notifications, notifications for email, social media. But there are many, many other reasons as well. For example, it turns out we are just as likely to self-interrupt as we are to be interrupted by something external to us, like a notification. What do I mean by self-interrupt? I mean that a person might be working, you know, let's say you're typing in a Word document, and then for no apparent reason, that person suddenly stops and goes and checks social media or checks email or checks their phone. They switch of their own accord. There are social factors that compel us to check social media and Slack and email. And there's also emotional reasons as well. So it's not a simple answer.

Starting point is 00:29:18 But the average is going down. The average seems to be going down, although perhaps it's already reached its nadir. This might be the low point, but we don't know. And so is it safe to assume that if that's what's happening with attention span as it relates to screens, that's what's happening to attention span in other areas of life? I am an empirical researcher, so I can't make that claim unless I actually study it. So the short answer is we don't know. All I can say is this is what we found when people use their devices, which happens to be a good portion of the day. And let me add this to it, that if you look at how often shot lengths in film and TV change, whether they're watching TV or film, roughly about 10 hours a day. So people are on their screens a good portion of their day. So when I listen to you talk, and I think when most people hear what you're saying, the assumption is that this is a bad thing.

Starting point is 00:30:47 Is it a bad thing? It is a bad thing in the sense that, you know, there have been decades of research in the laboratory that shows that when people switch their attention to doing different activities, when they multitask. We know that blood pressure rises. There's a physiological marker that indicates people are stressed. When people are asked subjectively their experience, they report psychological stress. We know that people make more errors when they switch their attention. There have been studies done with physicians and nurses and pilots, and we know that people make errors when they're switching their attention. So I would say it's a bad thing. And my research also shows that there is a correlation with frequency of switching your attention and stress. So the faster the shifting, the higher is the stress as measured by heart rate monitors.

Starting point is 00:32:01 In your research, when you watch people, as you were describing, working on a Word document, and then all of a sudden, right in the middle, for no apparent reason, they go check social media and you ask them why they did that, what do they say? Oh, there are a lot of reasons. People can be bored. People might find that the task they're working on is just too hard. People have some memory that they, or a curiosity that they want to satisfy. They have this impulse, this urge that they need to check. It's hard to, you know, contain that impulse. Sometimes people do it to take a break.

Starting point is 00:32:47 So there are lots of reasons. But attention span, when I think of attention span, I don't think of it as necessarily just one thing because I can be easily distracted, but boy, I can also laser focus when I have to. And those seem like very different things to me. Yes. And remember, we're talking about averages.

Starting point is 00:33:09 And if we talk about the median, that might be a better way to think about it. The median is the midpoint of our observations, and the median is 40 seconds. That means half of all of our observations showed attention spans to be less than 40 seconds, but half of them were longer than 40 seconds. So sometimes, yes, sometimes people can focus for longer periods of time. But, you know, half the time, we're seeing this kind of rapid shifting, and it averages out to be 47 seconds. Well, you know what I wonder is when it is time to focus for a longer period of time, does the fact that you're not focusing for a longer period of time much of the time make it harder to focus when it is time? I believe so. I can actually give you an example. So we looked at the data of when people were externally interrupted. That means

Starting point is 00:34:15 you're interrupted by something outside of yourself, like a notification, a phone call. And we also looked at the data when people self-interrupted, right? They're interrupting themselves. And we looked at the data on an hourly basis, and we found that when the external interruptions decreased, when they declined, the internal interruptions began to increase. So it's, if you're not getting interrupted by some, something outside of yourself, you, you begin to interrupt yourself. And this suggests to me that people are conditioned to, to interrupt themselves. They're conditioned to have short attention spans. When people are distracted, I mean, they know they're distracted. I know when I'm having a day where I'm having a lot of distractions and I find it frustrating sometimes, people must have a sense that this is a problem. We do find a relationship,

Starting point is 00:35:19 a correlation. The more that people switch their attention, the lower is their self-assessed productivity for that day. We haven't talked about email, but email is really one of the biggest factors for interruptions, whether it's externally or whether you interrupt yourself. And we also find a correlation, the more time spent on email, the lower a person assesses their productivity for that day. From a practical standpoint, you know, every time you switch your attention, you incur what's called a switch cost. And this is literally the amount of time that it takes for you to reorient and get back on track to this new task or activity that you're switching to. And so when we think in terms of productivity, you can add up all these switch costs,

Starting point is 00:36:20 and that's time lost. I wonder if people sometimes think that this kind of distraction is helpful. And so here's an example. So you're sitting at your desk and you're doing something and you're not feeling like you're being particularly productive. So you go play solitaire because maybe that'll distract you and a bright idea will pop into your head. Is that some of the reasoning that people do this, or it's just much more unconscious than that? There are a lot of reasons why people do these kinds of simple activities. And I actually argue that doing these kinds of simple but engaging activities can actually be beneficial for us if we do them strategically. And here's what I mean by that. There's a common narrative that we should try to have sustained

Starting point is 00:37:16 focus as much as possible throughout the day because that's when we can be most productive. But we can't hold sustained focus for a long time in the same way that we can't lift weights for an extended period without getting exhausted, right? We have limited attentional resources, and these can drain. They drain when we're, you know, being focused on something, doing hard work, being challenged, exerting mental effort. And so it's important to step back and take a break and replenish these resources. is by doing these kinds of simple activities because they keep our minds engaged, you know, lightly engaged, like playing solitaire. And there's really very little mental effort. And so it gives you a chance to just replenish and step back. And, you know, when you step back and you do something that's not requiring much mental effort, but yet it's engaging,

Starting point is 00:38:27 it actually provides solids for people and actually makes people happy. And we found that in our research. When you study people and look at how distractible they are and how much they switch from one thing to another. Do they recognize it? Like, do they, when you tell them, you know, this is what you did, they go, wow, I had no idea. Or is it, yeah, I know that. I think that most people do recognize that they do.

Starting point is 00:39:00 They may not recognize that they're switching as fast as they think they are. I certainly didn't, at least for myself, when I first started studying this. But I think most people actually want to do something about it. They don't want to be switching as much as they do, but I think they're quite self-aware that they do. Yet they could turn off notifications. They could turn off their phone. They could make it easier to not be distracted pretty simply, and yet they don't. Sure. And a lot of people do turn off notifications. But that doesn't solve the problem that people are just as likely to self-interrupt as to be interrupted by something like a notification. There are these internal urges inside of us that compel us to change screens,

Starting point is 00:40:11 to go to social media, to work on a different task even. That's something that turning off notifications doesn't solve. So is this an issue that can be addressed? Or is this just something that's kind of interesting to watch as our attention spans shrink? And we'll see what happens. who was very interested in studying how to help people achieve self-efficacy in their behavior. So he helped people with, you know, stopping smoking, stopping substance abuse. And I think that we can draw on his work to help people control their attention behavior. Bandura talks about becoming more intentional. You know, during the pandemic, I took a course in mindfulness,

Starting point is 00:41:11 and it occurred to me that we could practice a similar kind of behavior when we're using our devices. And I call this meta-awareness, which means being aware of the actions you're doing as it's unfolding. And the idea here is to probe yourself and observe yourself and try to understand the reasons why you have urges to, say, go to social media or check your email. And you can ask yourself, why are you doing this? Are you bored? Is the task too hard? And once you start to understand these reasons, it gives you a tool to be able to do something about it. And so I practice this on myself.

Starting point is 00:42:08 And I ask myself, okay, if I have an urge to go to social media, will I really get value from it? I'll give you another quick example. The idea of practicing forethought and what that means is imagining how our current actions will impact our lives later in the future. And I think the best timeframe is to think later in the day. So if I go and read the news, and I am a news junkie, and if I end up spending a half hour reading the news, what's my life going to be like at 10 p.m.? Right. If I have a deadline today to work on, am I still going to be up working on that deadline?

Starting point is 00:42:53 Or would I be able to watch a show, read a book, relax, have a glass of wine? And so practicing forethought is also a really good exercise. I imagine though that people could convince themselves, well, the reason I need to check the weather is because, you know, I need to check the weather and I got to check my bank balance because I really need to check my bank balance. Well, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe you don't need to. Maybe you're just trying to convince yourself you need to. Right. You really don't need to do any of those things. However, why not do them at the beginning of the day? Right. So we find that it takes people a period of time to ramp up to get into a state of focus. So do all these things at the beginning of the day,

Starting point is 00:43:45 get them out of the way. There's this researcher over 100 years ago, her name was Bluma Zygarnik. And she found that when people have something unfinished, like an unfinished task, it stays in their mind. And they can't get it out of their mind. And so checking your bank balance, do it at the beginning of the day, get it out of your mind. Otherwise it nags you, it stays with you and it could be a source of self-interruption. But there's also that recommendation and we've talked about it. We've had people on talking about it here. Don't check your email first thing. That's a waste of your resources.

Starting point is 00:44:28 You're probably best in the morning and you're wasting it on email. Check it. See, I could no more wait until 10 o'clock to check my email than I could fly to the moon. If I'll do what you're talking about, I'll be wondering what I'm not seeing. Let me mention another result we found that people actually have rhythms for when they're focused. So there are certain times of the day when people are at their peak in focus. For most people, it's usually mid-morning, late morning, and also mid-afternoon. And for most people that we studied, they don't start their day with peak focus. They have to ramp up. And so doing some of these rote activities or doing things to get them off your mental plate

Starting point is 00:45:24 so you don't think about them. It's not a bad idea. You know, I bet there are things that we, I know I do this, distract yourself because you think these distractions are actually important and maybe they seem important in the moment, but in the big picture, maybe not so important. You know, you could do an experiment with yourself. So check your email first thing in the morning,

Starting point is 00:45:50 and then check it again at the very end of the day, nothing in between, and see how many problems have been taken care of. So things that seemed of utmost urgency, you know, maybe you go back and look at your emails and at 11 o'clock, someone had this pressing problem. And then when you check it again at say five o'clock, you see, oh, the problem was solved. And check your email in reverse chronological order.

Starting point is 00:46:20 And then you'll see exactly how many problems have already been solved. So I think you're right. What seems to be urgent at the moment can be taken care of the time it's just mindless. I'm not really thinking about it so much. I'm just doing it. And listening to you, it seems clear that maybe being a little more intentional about what you're doing can help you stop wasting time and instead focus better on what needs to be done. I've been speaking with Gloria Mark. She's a psychologist and professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of the book Attention Span,

Starting point is 00:47:06 a groundbreaking way to restore balance, happiness, and productivity. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Gloria. This was fun. Thanks so much, Mike. I really enjoyed this. The color of the mug or bowl or plate can actually make whatever you're eating or drinking taste sweeter or saltier. Research in the journal Perception found that people who ate cookies or cake made with less sugar served on a red plate rated them just as sweet as the sweeter version on another plate.

Starting point is 00:47:42 Vanessa Harrer, who's author of the study, explains that our brains associate red with sweet ripening fruit, and food or beverages surrounded by red taste richer and more luscious. The same trick works with blue plates and salt. Volunteers were convinced that popcorn served in a blue bowl had more salt than there actually was, and the popcorn in the red bowl tasted sweeter to them. And that is something you should know. Hey, how about leaving us a rating or review? It's easy to do, and it really does help us.

Starting point is 00:48:17 So whether you listen on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform, if they have a way to leave a rating and review, which most of them do, please leave us one. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to

Starting point is 00:49:03 catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Redolph Buntwine,

Starting point is 00:49:36 erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.

Something You Should Know - Understanding The Hacker's Mind & Your Ever Shrinking Attention Span

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