#1564 - Adam Alter

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Hello, Adam.

How are you? What's going on?

Adam Alter (0:18)

Yeah, not too bad, thanks. Not much happening, just the pandemic.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

I really enjoyed your book, man. It's terrifying and accurate and irresistible.

Adam Alter (0:30)

Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:33)

When you write a book like that, I mean, first of all, the irony is not lost on me that we're doing an electronic show about avoiding electronics.

Like it's so much of a part of our life, our addiction to all these devices and games and applications and all these different things, but yet we use them constantly. It's such a weird balancing act, isn't it?

Adam Alter (0:59)

Yeah, it is a weird balancing act. I think a lot of people who write about this stuff and think about it, really just focus on all the negatives. There are obviously massive positives, right? This is a time when we're being forced to physically distance ourselves from other people, and yet we are incredibly lucky to be able to carry on conversations like this, to be able to connect to other people through screens.

Screens are in many ways great, but obviously there are downsides as well.

Joe Rogan (1:24)

Yeah, the good thing is that people can work remotely, and I think there's a lot of people that are recognizing that. It's not really necessary to be in a cooped up office all the time.

Many people are finding that they're even more productive from home, but then you've got distractions while you're at home that you could just look at whatever you want on your computer if no one's looking over your shoulder.

And therein lies the problem with being connected to the Internet, really, right?

Adam Alter (1:49)

Yeah, I think that's a really big part of it. It's that the good stuff, the stuff that brings us value, that makes it possible to connect to people.

There are huge values that come from being on the screen. There's a lot of great stuff there, but it's so close in proximity to all the stuff that takes us away from what we should be doing. And so you're constantly trying to balance these two issues.

Joe Rogan (2:09)

Yeah, I know several comics who write on a computer that doesn't have Wi-Fi.

They've disabled the Wi-Fi on their computer just so specifically they can never get on the internet while they're writing because it's such a pull. It's so difficult to imagine that people lived without it and that now that we have it, it's so difficult to ignore. It's so difficult to get away.

Adam Alter (2:37)

Yeah, it's true. There's this big push in the last few decades, especially in the last decade, called Retromania, which is this falling in love with things that are from the past, things that people didn't really like at the time that much. Now we've got all these capacities and capabilities on screens that make them phenomenal and they can do so many more things than they used to be able to do.

Like a writer who's trying to get work done, the only way to really do it sometimes is to roll back time 10 or 20 years. There are a lot of people who do that. They'll disable the most kind of advanced features on the screens they're using because it's the only way to get past that hurdle of trying to do the right thing but have the wrong thing be right there at your fingertips.

Joe Rogan (3:19)

When you're writing a book like yours, which is warning people about technology, what was your motivation for doing this? Is this something that you've struggled with personally? Is this something that you've just seen other people struggle with?

What was the reason?

Adam Alter (3:36)

Yeah, it's definitely something I've struggled with a lot. I think a lot of us in academia who end up writing about topics like this focus on the things that are most prominent for us.

I remember being on a flight once between New York and LA, so a good six-hour flight. A friend had texted me and said, you should check out a game. It was this game that he taught me to check out, a game called Flappy Bird.

I downloaded this game on the runway. I remember as we took off, I started playing. I had grand designs of doing work, having a good nap, having some food. I spent six hours playing this game. By the time we landed, I had done absolutely none of the stuff I was planning to do.

I remember landing and the guy next to me actually turned to me and said, are you okay? Because I sat there just tapping the screen like a maniac for six hours.