The One You Feed - Manoush Zomorodi

Episode Date: January 26, 2016

This week we talk to Manoush Zomorodi about remaining human in a digital ageThis interview was recorded live in the WNYC studios in New York city, home of other popular podcasts like RadioLab, The New Yorker Radio Hour and Freakonomics.Manoush Zomorodi is the host and managing editor of Note to Self, “the tech show about being human,” from WNYC Studios.Every week on her podcast, Manoush searches for answers to life’s digital quandaries, through experiments and conversations with listeners and experts. Topics include information overload, digital clutter, sexting “scandals," and the eavesdropping capabilities of our gadgets.Manoush’s goal, as the New York Times wrote, is to “embrace the ridiculousness” of modern life, even when that means downloading dozens of apps to fight the feeling of digital overload.  She often speaks on creativity in the digital age, kids and technology, and non-fiction storytelling.Manoush has won numerous awards including 4 from the New York Press Club. In 2014, the Alliance for Women in Media named her Outstanding Host. Prior to New York Public Radio, Manoush reported and produced around the world for BBC News and Thomson Reuters. In 2012, she published Camera Ready, a guide to multimedia journalism.The Note to Self podcast is starting a new challenge called Infomagical to help cope with information overload.. You will hear more about during the episode. If you want to sign up to participate at go to  wnyc.org/infomagical. Challenge week starts February 1 and runs through February 5. Our Sponsor this Week is MeetMindfulVisit MeetMindful and get a free trial In This Interview, Manoush and I Discuss:The One You Feed parableHow the good and bad wolf help each other to find the middle groundWhich "technology" wolf are you feeding?Keeping our humanity in a digital ageTrying to understand the effects our technologies have on usHaving to make too many small decisions all day longInformation overloadHow the average American takes in over 12 hours of information per dayThe Note to Self Infomagical challengeThe consumption to creation ratioTaking in too much information but not remembering or applying any of itHow a theme is important for memory and learningThe myth of multi-taskingHow not being perfect is the point of being humanThe new digital literacyInformation filter failureAsking "What's the Point" when consuming digital contentEric's Three Questions:What am I doing?Why am I doing?Is it what I should be doing?Pulsing- working in small burstsGetting everything out of your mind and written down somewhere and then prioritize itSee more show notes on our websiteSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sure, you might feel good after playing Candy Crush for an hour or two, but I wouldn't say that you feel magical. I'm not even sure good. Yeah, maybe not even good. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden and together our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door

doesn't go all the way to the floor what's in the museum of failure and does your dog dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Manoush Samarody, the host and managing editor of Note to Self, the tech show about being human from WNYC Studios. Every week on her podcast, Manoush searches for answers to life's digital quandaries through experiments and conversations

with listeners and experts. Topics include information overload, digital clutter, sexting, scandals, and the eavesdropping capabilities of our gadgets. The Note to Self podcast is starting a new challenge called InfoMagical to help cope with information overload. You'll hear more about it during this episode. If you want to sign up to participate, go to wnyc.org slash InfoMagical. Challenge week starts February 1st and runs through February 5th. This interview was recorded live in the WNYC studios in New York City, home of other popular podcasts like Radiolab, the New York Radio Hour, and Freakonomics. And here's the interview with

Manoush Samarody. Hi, Manoush. Welcome to the show. It is so great to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to get you on and talk more about your current program called InfoMagical. You did Bored and Brilliant about a year ago, which was a great program. But you're really focused on how we stay human in a rapidly changing technological and digital age. That is kind of what we try to do. I mean, we try to, you know, these projects, I think we're finding our way. But what we've seen is that people don't just want to understand the algorithms. They don't just want to hear the stories about how they affect their lives.

They want to also, like, figure out ways to make their lives better by using these things. So we try to, you try to give them some experiments, some different ways that they can play around and hopefully feel as though the technology is helping them be more productive, maybe even happier. And use it. I think what we're seeing is that people have to really be more aware of their own reaction and the way that they act with this technology. And that the techies, the people making this stuff, are not necessarily looking out for our best interests. Right. The technology is largely going to be neutral. It's how we use it. And we'll dig into a lot of that here in a minute. Let's start like we always do with the parable.

to a lot of that here in a minute. Let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I've been thinking about it all weekend in preparation for your visit. So this should be a good answer then.

Well, there's actually two answers, I feel like. So I feel like many of us, and certainly speaking for myself, don't just have one wolf. It's like good wolf packs and bad wolf packs, I've decided. And so some of the things that the bad wolf does, which is make me competitive, make me want to work every hour of the day, make me short with my children because they move at a different pace than I want to. Some of those things actually are good. It's a matter of the other wolf pack, the good wolf pack, sort of they nip at each other's heels, wolf pack the good wolf pack sort of nip they nip at each other's heels i feel like when the good wolf gets too kind and too complacent because i do think that is possible sometimes um the bad

wolves start to howl and nip at their heels and then then same way the other way around that when i get too competitive or short-sighted or um wrapped up in my own bull shit, then the good wolves start like nipping at them. So I feel as though they have to like live together very, very much. Now in terms of the show with Note to Self, I mean to me that is exactly what technology is doing is it's showing humanity very, very quickly where your good wolf is and where your bad wolf is. For example, my phone can make me efficient, in touch with my friends and family. I'm on time. I

actually know where I'm going. It does delightful, wonderful things. I read more than I ever have. The good wolf is satisfied. She likes all that. But the bad wolf, the one who wants to work all the time, the one who likes flashy blingy things and doesn't want to do the hard work of sitting and thinking of my own thoughts, of really digging deeper into what I read and analyzing it as opposed to just stuffing more into my head, that bad wolf gets fat and happy with my phone. And it can't control itself. And so to me, it's like those two wolves are so embodied in our technology. And very much like you do on the show, you have to think about which one you're feeding at all times. And if you don't think about it, well, the bad wolf is fat and

happy. So he doesn't care what he eats. You know what I mean? Like you have to feed good stuff to the good wolf, but the bad wolf will take all your garbage. Yeah, totally. Well, it makes me think of when you talk about that, I think that I always am struck by how some of our best tendencies can also become our greatest weaknesses taken too far it's like all that stuff too far one way or the other that that desire to create and make things can turn competitive it can it can turn obsessive it can turn but it's it's a positive thing in general it's one of the things that is i think is good about myself but if i don't watch it goes too far yeah i mean and like you said if I don't watch it, it goes too far. Yeah.

I mean, like you said, if you don't watch it, I mean, that's exhausting. Constantly checking in on yourself. You know, it's tiring. But it's what I hope we ask our audience to do is to do a little bit of hard work up front and then see some like real paybacks. Like big time. paybacks, like big time, like that the stuff that you dig and get to will be so worthwhile that you'll be glad that you did the constant like checking in at the front. You say the show is about keeping your humanity in this very digital time. What does that term keeping your humanity mean to you? It's not just about how we use, you know, our digital habits, but I think it's also

very much understanding how the technology works so that you can push back. I think we take it for granted. We're like, oh, there's a new iPhone out. I guess I'll upgrade. Google Photos, that's awesome. Look what it does to my pictures. But I think it feels like it's like sprouted from the earth. It is just so – it just feels like it always existed, that it's

magical in some ways. But what we have to kind of understand is there are people making these things who maybe have certain not only agendas, but maybe don't even know about a lot of the things. So I'm thinking of an example. We did a show specifically about deep learning to try to explain what deep learning is. And we use the example of Google Photos, which does – it organizes your photos, but it also like can read – like it looks at the pictures and it says, oh, it's a boat. And so it labels it as a boat. In this case, unfortunately, it labeled an African-American woman as a gorilla. And so this was, you know, this lovely young guy who I subsequently went to go meet in Brooklyn.

He actually 22 year old guy. This happened to his friend. He's the one who tweeted at Google and was like, not cool calling me and my friends gorillas. And I wanted to just go talk to him and be like, not only what did that feel like, but it sort of – it showed me something. This guy lived two miles away from my house in a neighborhood that I had never gone to. And he said to me, he's like, Google Photos was made for people like you. I was like, upper middle class white mommies. You know, I get it.

I need to understand that more. I get it. I need to understand that more. I need to understand what people who are not being prioritized with a lot of this technology, how they experience the technology, and then we need to be able to tell very human stories about what the repercussions of the technology is so that we question it, so that we use it better, so that we make this world a better place. Yeah, I think there's a broader message to it. So InfoMagical, which is coming up... You can laugh when you say that, by the way. Ridiculous title. You say it's an audience engagement and podcast series that looks at the consequences of fear of missing out FOMO and too much information, TMI, on our brains, our relationships, and our ability to generate new ideas. Do you want to tell me a little bit about the FOMO and the TMI? What does that do to,

let's start with our brains. Yeah. So that's what I've been trying to figure out. This is something that has come up from a lot of our listeners, this idea of too much information, information overload. I mean, we have so many words to describe it right now, right? We say we don't have enough bandwidth. You're maxed out. It's kind of funny that we use tech terms to describe it right now, right? We say we don't have enough bandwidth. You're maxed out. It's kind of funny that we use tech terms to describe what's happening to our brains. Guess what? The internet is limitless.

Bandwidth, limitless. Our brains, unfortunately, are not. And yet we haven't sort of put parameters around what we are capable of. You know, so you come into work. Did you read? Did you hear it? You ever seen that Portlandia so you come into work, did you read? Did you hear it? You ever seen that Portlandia sketch

where they're like, did you read it? And they're like, oh yeah, but did you read? Did you read? You know, we're always one-upping each other. We feel as though we need to be constantly in touch. And there are so many wonderful things to listen to, to watch Netflix shows. My God, Amazon now is kicking butt.

Like there's so much good stuff out there. But we physically cannot take it in. And no one has created a filter for us to decide what should we be taking in. And so we're being asked constantly every single moment of the day, should I click on this link in Facebook? Should I update Twitter? Oh, that looks interesting. You've heard of decision fatigue, I'm sure. Neuroscience is called that. We are at decision fatigue. And so by the end of the day, I think a lot of us feel like we are kind of on this water wheel. The water wheel starts to go in the morning and you're looking up the

weather and reading the headlines. And then you look at Twitter and then you look at Facebook and then you look at Instagram and then you know, and it and then you look at Facebook, and then you look at, you know, Instagram, and then, you know, and it just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes. Well, as you can imagine, that is not conducive to good sleep. It is not conducive to, you know, we all, well, some of us get that weird eye twitch at the end of the night. Health-wise, stress, of course, comes from this. We are asking ourselves to make a lot of decisions about a lot of really small things when maybe what we should be doing, and this is the question we're trying to answer in InfoMagical, if we set our own filters, because the technologists aren't doing it for us, maybe we can take in the right information and just enough, maybe even less than we think we need to paradoxically actually be better informed. The average American takes in 12 hours of media a day. So that's half your life that you're taking in information. If you want to cut it down, great.

I'm not saying – we're not trying to do that with this one. What we're trying to say is so take in stuff that matters to you, that moves you closer to your goal. And that goal could be anything. We've identified five goals that we're asking people to choose. And, you know, I'd love to hear what your answer is to this actually, Eric. For one week, all the information you take in, really try to take in things that either, and this is mine, mine is be more creative, be more in touch with friends and family, be more knowledgeable about a certain topic, be more in tune with yourself, or be more up to date on the news. What would yours be?

Which would I choose? Yeah. Probably more in touch with myself. Doesn't surprise me. I listen to your show. So the info part is pretty obvious, info magical. What's the magical part? taken, maybe you'll achieve something amazing, which is you'll learn to speak a new language, or you will finally be back in touch with that cousin who you were really close to back in the day, or, you know, whatever you define it. But it's a little bit harder, you know?

Sure, you might feel good after playing Candy Crush for an hour or two, but I wouldn't say that you feel magical. I'm not even sure good. Yeah, maybe not even good. After, maybe during, but after. Or maybe, you know, you're catching up on Orange is the New Black or whatever. And it's enjoyable. But in terms of magic, like, no.

The magic stuff, the stuff that is life-changing, life-affirming, that moves you forward a step in the direction that you want to go takes a little bit more. Indeed it does. But it's worth it. It is worth it. I mean the example I also use is one of the things that I came to was this podcast, which was a result of doing a lot of uncomfortable thinking about what I wanted my life to be about. And I would argue that sometimes we make magic.

And here's the rest of the interview with Manu Samaroti. You were talking about how you read, would read like 35 articles and then nothing would stick to you. And here's the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

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Your goal, your schema, as we've just defined it, but we're also giving you a slight tweak of a behavior change that we're asking you to do. Some of them are a little weird. Some of them are a little wacky. So, for example, day one, we are asking people to single task. As you probably know, multitasking is a myth. Neuroscientists know that actually we cannot do two things at a time. What we're doing is we're switching tasks extremely quickly. Right. And actually, they've also identified that every time you get off of your working sphere, as they call it, so let's say you're working on your podcast and you get interrupted, it takes you an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the original task that you were working on.

Here's another one. This is crazy to me. This is from Gloria Marks. She's a professor at the University of California, Irvine. of California, Irvine. This is crazy. Let's say you have an hour where it's nutty, right? People are stopping by your desk, you're getting emails, you're checking things, all these external interruptions are happening to you. In the subsequent hour, you will start to self-interrupt to sort of mimic that pattern of interruption. We so quickly get into this habit, the way that we operate, that we sabotage ourselves in a lot of ways. So what we're asking everybody, so day one is single task, do one thing at a time. That is going to be so hard for me. I'm a working mom, but I'm going to do it, and I'm going to see if I feel magical.

The next day, Marie Kondo, do you know her, Japanese art of decluttering? Yep. So we're doing something where we're conduing our phones trying to find simplicity on day two day three

is avoid a meme or a must read so whatever world you live in you know if it's the you know the dress meme like is it

well you wouldn't have known that day that day you stay away from memes you really try see what it feels like if someone's like oh my god did you the dress? Do you see do you think it's blue and black or gold and white? And you're like, see what it feels like to say, nope, didn't see it. Because I think it's a societal expectation that we have set. I mean, so we have to start to see what it feels like to say like, no, right. I don't know, because it's it's not in my schema today today. It's not my goal and I'm cool with it because I've set my own expectations. And so there's a couple more going on with that.

I can tell you specifically. Should I tell you? Sure, go ahead. Okay, let me tell you the other two. So day four is called A Magical Connection. This is from MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle. You've probably read her stuff. Her latest is Reclaiming Conversation. And she talks about how you need to have a conversation voice to voice for at least seven minutes. And when she was talking to her college students, they were like, oh, but like, I don't really know what I want to say. I won't say it right. I'll like stumble. It's better if I write you an email because then I can make it perfect. It might be boring if we talk. And she's like, no, the boring stuff,

the stuttering, all those things, we are picking up on each other's human cues. Not being perfect is the point of being human. So we are asking people, take one of the things that you've learned today when you're pursuing your information goal, share it, talk it out, get weird with someone, get past seven minutes, you know? Right. And then on the final day, what we're asking people is, you know, we want a magical life, right? We're thinking big here. And I'm curious to hear, this is something you talk about, the one you feed, that's sort of your sort of note to self in a way, right? Remember about which wolf you're feeding. So asking people to think about what's the sort of mantra or rule that you want to set for yourself so that every time you do start to fall down a rabbit hole online, you don't have to make a decision.

The note is there. It gets you back on track. So, you know, for example, Steve Jobs had one. It was focus and simplicity. That was his. But maybe you're writing a term paper. Maybe you're writing a term paper. Maybe you're a college student.

Maybe you say to yourself, for every 45 minutes that I work online, I get 15 minutes of fun time too. Maybe it's about setting up parameters for yourself. I was thinking about what mine's going to be. And I realized, like, I think I've really gotten into a rut where I consume so much information, but I never stop to actually think about what I've just read.

Yeah. To be like, oh, the person who wrote this amazing article did this so well, and then push myself to be like, well, what didn't they do well? You know, really start to be more critical, synthesize information. I think this is the new digital literacy. I really do. I think that kids have to be taught to be not just to find the right things online, which is what digital literacy is considered right now, you know, who's a reputable source, but how to get the right information and to use that information. Yeah, it's, it's such it's staggering me to think of

what it was like just for, you know, us as kids, what it's just so dramatically different. It's staggering to me to think of what it was like just for us as kids. It's just so dramatically different. It's shocking, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't even. You're like an old person. It was. I mean, it's funny that when you said that, I just had that moment of clicking on like the quandary was finding something. Yeah, that's over.

Yeah, that's kind of over. Someone once said as far as information overload, there's no such thing as information overload, only filter failure. I think that's so true. I do think that is so true. And, you know, it's – I'm thinking of Cory Doctorow. I think he's at NYU or Columbia. He was saying seven years ago what we're going to see are filters being set up to help us with this conundrum. And here we are.

They're not here. We just keep getting more and more and more. So I think this becomes a part of personal growth, which is like defining your own filters. It's your now. It's your job. Because I just feel like some of us are going to be sad five years from now when we look back on what we achieved. And yeah, we're caught up on Netflix. Yeah, we're caught up on Netflix. But like, you know, I think we have to be – it used to sound kind of like, I don't know, mad many to say like what's your five-year plan? But I think with so many wonderful things out there to delight us and tempt us digitally, we all need to be thinking a little bit more concretely about what we want to get. Like what's the point here? Right. Yeah. And that's – I mean, that very little

thing, just that very question helps me a great deal with online stuff and just behavior in general is like, what's, what's the point? Like this very basic thing I try and do as often as I can. And I don't, you know, we all are better at doing things sometimes than others, but just as often as I can catch myself, like, what am I doing right now? Like, what am I actually doing? And why am I doing it? And is it what I should be doing? I mean, should be, right?

Being in quotes. But ideally, I have a sense of that. Now, but you have a background as an entrepreneur, right? As a businessman. And so I think those things are very much, correct me if I'm wrong, codified in the way a lot of people see themselves, all right, you know, there's this period of time this needs to get done and focusing, but it's certainly not perfect. I mean, I think that idea of that you're talking about

is a student taking a term paper and saying, all right, for every 45 minutes I get a 15-minute break. I mean, working like that is so powerful. I think Bridget Schulte in her book about a room, she called it pulsing. Yes. And it's, you know, and I literally do it with a timer. Do you? Yeah.

I mean, I've got one on my, I mean, I don't insist on a kitchen timer or an end timer. Some people need it, you know. The one on my computer works, but it's, I set it for a certain amount of time. And then whatever I'm doing, what I've said I'm going to do, I'm doing for that period of time. I can't – You know what my timer is? Small children. Oh.

I swear to God. Like, I get nothing done when they're around. Yeah. So I know that when I have those blocks of quiet time, my brain is ready. I just jam. Yeah. But before I had kids, I would have tried to, quote, unquote, jam all the time. And I wouldn't have recognized the fact that, like, no, I was exhausting my brain.

And you can only do these things for so long. Yeah. I was talking to maybe the Organized Mind, which is by neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Levitin. And he just, you know, it's kind of funny to hear a neuroscientist say this, but it's a real reminder that this is indeed grounded in science. Not only should you, you know, brain dump everything that's going on in your brain, right? Everything. I mean everything. Yep.

That is like should you take your shoes for repair? Put it on the list. Don't just say, you know, all of it so that you get a clean slate. But then he was saying the real key to it is prioritizing. But then he was saying the real key to it is prioritizing. That you really have to decide where the priorities are to get things done. And, you know, I have to say, yay technology. I have an awesome to-do app that helps me do that.

And I'm really trying to use all the functions in it to color code to say, like, you know, I'm only looking at things that need to be done for my family. Or I'm only looking at things that need to be done for my family or I'm only looking at things that need to be done for work. And red is like right this minute. And it's just offloading some of that cognitive work that you have to do every time you decide what you're working on. And technology can help us do that if we use it the right way. Yeah, I mean, David Allen of Getting Things Done was kind of way ahead of his time with that idea of mental RAM, right? Like if you've got it written down on a to-do app, it's on the hard drive. But otherwise, it's got to stay in memory. And it's exhausting. And Daniel Levitin also, which this really shocked me, he said that you can only keep

about four things in your head at one time. So, oh, I really want to get a good salad for lunch. Got to remember to pick up my kid. I need to prepare for that meeting at 3 o'clock. And, God, my hair. I could really use a haircut. That's it. That's all that's in my head. Like, you think that you're keeping all these plates going? Neuroscientifically, that is not possible.

The benefit of having a memory that's as poor as mine is, of just being a disaster area, is that I've just finally learned that. Like, I can't. You have systems. If I don't write it down, it's going to be gone. But again, running your own business, I think that like, you know, I really see that some of them, that's the reason why some of the most efficient people are some of these tech startup people, people who run their own businesses. Because if you don't do that, the bills don't get paid, right? I mean, nothing like a motivator.

Yeah, that will definitely help. You talk about the to-do apps a little bit. I was interested in asking you sort of in a paradoxical way, are there technologies that you found, whether they be apps or different things, that help you to be more human? To be more human? I thought you were going to say to be more efficient. That gives you a sense of where my head is.

No, I mean if you're focused on retaining our humanity. I'm curious, are there any apps that you think or technologies or tools that help you to do that? God, no one has ever asked me that. They've asked me, what are the apps that make you the most productive? What are the apps that make you most efficient? But they've never asked me what apps make me most human. I'm going to have to get out my phone here. Okay.

Yeah. So one app, I don't use it anymore. And I think that that shows that, that like the job has been done. But for our boredom brilliant challenge, which was really about putting down your phone, rethinking your relationship with your phone and seeing if you could spend more time spacing out, like not meditating, spacing out, really just letting your mind go wherever it wants to. What would you feel? Could you jumpstart your creativity? The app that we partnered with is by a lovely guy named Kevin Holish. He's a developer in Pittsburgh.

And he did this in his free time. He came up with this app that measured how much time you spent on your phone every day, which was a lot. But this was the key other thing that it measured was how many times a day did you pick it up? Oh, my God, Eric. Like, I think, you know, you probably start wondering why you even bother to put it down at that point. Completely. Yes. I think that's the future.

Right. Just jacked into our brains. But like, I also realized that I was doing it. I didn't even realize I was doing it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'd get in the elevator and I'd look at it. I don't think I even registered what was going into my eyeballs. Like so to me, that was a real wake-up call.

And we had over 20,000 people sign up and 10,000 of those people shared their data with us. So we started to see what – I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like – what they're... talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth plus does tom cruise really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian cranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight welcome to really no really sir bless you all hello newman and you never know when howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.

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app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. which I would recommend to try. And now I need to go. Now I'm like, you've really piqued my interest here. To stay more human. I downloaded one. I haven't used it yet because I'm scared. It's an app that you take a picture of yourself and then it ages you so you can see what you look like. Oh, boy. And the reason why I haven't used it yet, well, frightened for obvious reasons,

but also I was talking to a computer scientist out in the Valley who was saying they want to start using digital nudges to get people to do things that are good for yourself. So, for example, they're trying to measure if you see a picture of what you're going to look like in 30, 40 years, will that therefore make you put more money into your savings account? So this idea of looking out for your future self with visual cues. So, I mean, I think there's so many crazy ways that it's true. Apps and technology can make us more in touch with ourselves. And not just like, oh, I use Skype to talk to my mom who lives 3,000 miles away. Yeah, that's an obvious one. Yeah.

But those are great too, you know. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I wouldn't have this show miles away. Yeah, that's an obvious one. Yeah. But those are great, too, you know. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I wouldn't have this show without Skype. Yeah. I know, right? What's on your phone? Boy.

Yeah, hand it over. I gave you some goodies. All right. What you got on there? Way too much stuff. I know. But we'll start on the home screen. Okay.

So you got the basics, calendar, map, camera, text messages. Coach.me is on the homepage, which is sort of habit tracking. So I use that. I've used that religiously. I've heard good things about that. It's great. I mean, I just use it for, I came up with a list of about eight or 10 things that I think contribute to my overall well-being. And so they're all listed there and I just check them off if I do them each day. My goal isn't necessarily- Every day you do it. I don't necessarily... Not to do all eight or ten of them every day. No, but you check in on it every day. I try to. Every once in a while I miss and I go back to the second day. But yeah, I try and in general, if that list is pretty robust

day after day, I'm generally in a pretty good space. There used to be this app online, very simple, called Joe's Goals. I loved this thing. Because what it did is you could set a list of things and you could give them points. So like meditation might be worth three points and exercise was worth three points and calling a friend was worth two points. So you gamified your life, basically. A little bit, yeah. But what was interesting was I could just, I could look and if I found myself in sort of a low mood, I mean, I talk on the show all the time, I, you know, I battled depression. Yeah. And so if I could look at my mood often and look back and I could see the week before, like, the point totals were just going, I wasn't taking care of myself. And so I use those things just as, again, the goal isn't to do every one of them every day because it's usually impossible, is to do a good number of them on a regular basis.

But by having eight or ten, it means that I can, that's flexible enough to work within a life that's always sort of changing. I mean, what you're saying just brings up two things to me. One is like before we had these apps, that's exactly what nutritionists or psychiatrists would ask you to do, right, is to audit yourself, to keep track of what's going on and also measure your mood. So kudos to the apps for making that even easier now. The other thing I would point out is what you've just created is really an algorithm for your life, right? If you know that these things have a certain quantity, then you know that the output is going to be a calmer, healthier Eric. Right.

Which is fascinating to me that you can like you can you can put it on a screen and see and really sort of take the building blocks that will build a good life for yourself. It can sound so cheesy to me. Yeah. But at the same time, I think some of the very fundamentals of computer science can be really applied to our lives, which is fascinating to me. Yep, and the algorithm is not exact and it doesn't work perfectly and there's no – That's humans for you, right? Yeah, I don't think there's any – like I think part of being human is you're going to be up, you're going to be down.

I mean I think that's unavoidable. But I certainly think I've got a good degree of influence hey laptops crash too you know yep so there you go absolutely all right i'm gonna what's tell me again habit.me is that it coach.me coach.me okay i'm gonna try that and then i've got uh obviously a podcast app yeah i've got insight timer which is a meditation app like a little timer for meditation also has guided meditations you've got some good Timer, which is a meditation app, like a little timer for meditation. It also has guided meditations. You've got some good ones here. You can really tell what I – yeah, I've got the Gratitude app on my homepage to write down gratitude and take a picture each day.

And the Kindle app. And my expense report and Evernote. I'd be doomed without Evernote. You love Evernote? I've tried to get into Evernote so many times. Just couldn't do it. I mean the only way that Evernote works for me Evernote? I've tried to get into Evernote so many times. Just couldn't do it. I mean,

the only way that Evernote works for me is when literally everything goes into it. Yeah. Everything. There's no halfway with Evernote. There's no halfway.

There's not. Because otherwise, then you're just like, well, now I've got another place to check stuff. But I just, over time,

I don't think I got it right away, but over time, it slowly, now I'm pretty habitual. Interesting. Where did I park when I flew out here? It's somewhere.

It's in Evernote. Really? Yep. I mean, I just threw it at 12, you know, whatever it is, 18B or, you know. Yeah. But yeah. Well, when we link to the show, I would love to include a list of apps that you recommend, if that's okay.

Sure. Absolutely. Okay, great. So we'll make a little post with this and stuff. That's awesome. So where can people go to join into the InfoMagical challenge? They can go to WNYC.org slash InfoMagical. Join us. I mean, I think we're going to have a lot of people. I mean, I think that's part of the joy of it, too, is that we'll

be all doing it at the same time. And as we found with Born and Brilliant, you know, just being there for each other through this experience and seeing what happens is really fun and motivating. And with Bored and Brilliant, you can also go back and do that anytime. So these projects, I think the other beautiful thing about them

is that they continue to live on because these aren't issues that are going away. And I think we all need refreshers. I tried to do Bored and Brilliant again this past summer just to sort of, you know, give myself a little spacing out time and not feeling guilty about not being productive because actually, counterintuitively, you are extremely productive when you space out. So, yeah, I'm really excited.

Come join us. Come do InfoMagical. The accountability and supportability is such an important thing. And I think we're all – I hear from listeners a lot about how do I apply some of the things that I'm hearing on the show. So here's a perfect opportunity to do just that. So you're going to do it, Eric? Yes.

Are you? I'll do it. Yes, I commit. Okay. All right. Awesome. Can we check back in with you afterwards? Absolutely.

All right. All right. Very good. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure. We're sitting here in your studio. So this is particularly fun for me to be in a real radio studio. You're playing your away game here.

That's right. Exactly. This is fun. It's better equipment, though, for sure. So I like this mic, the way it's just sort of hanging there. Fancy public radio stuff. That's right. Thanks, Eric. Thanks so much. Okay, bye. you can learn more about Manoush Samarody and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash Manoush that's m-a-n-o-u-s-h thanks