Arthur Brooks

And you need to go with the current.

You need to actually swim with the current or you're ultimately going to fail is what it turns out.

The doom loop is that I don't want to be bored because I don't like boredom because it's boring.

I distract myself.

When I distract myself, what I do is I become less tolerant of boredom.

My life feels less meaningful because I'm actually illuminating the parts of the brain that are necessary for that.

I'm more at loose ends.

I spend more time online, more time scrolling, more time doing what people do when they're really bored.

And that makes the problem worse, much the same way with drugs and alcohol, you know, and that's how escalation and dependence actually works.

The two biggest predictors of alcoholism are anxiety and boredom.

And so when I'm anxious and bored, I drink.

Well, that makes boredom and anxiety worse the next day.

And so I drink some more and then down and down and down and down it goes.

And so what you have to, you're in a doom loop.

Any addictive process is a doom loop.

The same thing is true with the way that we use technology.

The same way is true of anything.

Yeah.

I can put away a half rack at 14.

I don't know.