why you cant stop checking your phone audio

0:00

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Right now, somewhere in your pocket or on the table beside you,

0:03

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a small glass rectangle is waiting.

0:05

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You haven't touched it in 9 minutes.

0:07

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

That feels like a long time.

0:09

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Your hand is already moving toward it.

0:11

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You didn't decide that.

0:13

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Something older did.

0:14

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You call it a bad habit.

0:16

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You call it a lack of willpower.

0:18

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

But the real answer is far stranger,

0:21

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

and it has almost nothing to do with the phone itself.

0:24

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It has to do with a brain that was built 2 million years ago.

0:28

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

for a world that no longer exists and that brain is still running the only

0:32

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

software it knows picture your ancestor on the savannah tall

0:36

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

grass long silence the wind moves and her head

0:40

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

turns instantly toward it was that a sound was that a shape

0:44

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

most of the time it was nothing a branch a

0:48

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

shadow but every few hundred scans it was something a predator

0:53

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a rival group a chance at food

0:56

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Her brain didn't know in advance which scan would matter,

0:59

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

so it never stopped scanning.

1:01

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

This is the part most people get wrong.

1:03

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

They assume checking behavior is about finding something good.

1:07

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It isn't.

1:08

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It's about resolving uncertainty.

1:10

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The brain does not relax when information is good.

1:14

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It relaxes when information arrives at all.

1:17

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

In the 1950s,

1:18

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a psychologist named B .F.

1:20

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Skinner ran a study that would quietly explain your phone 70 years

1:24

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

before it existed.

1:25

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

He put pigeons in a box with a lever.

1:27

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Press the lever.

1:28

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Sometimes a pellet of food would drop.

1:31

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Sometimes nothing.

1:32

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Skinner varied the timing randomly.

1:34

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Pigeons that received a reward every single time they pressed eventually

1:39

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

stopped pressing.

1:40

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The outcome was certain,

1:42

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

so the urgency died.

1:43

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

But pigeons on an unpredictable schedule,

1:46

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

where the reward might come on the third press or the 30th,

1:50

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

pressed obsessively.

1:51

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

They pressed faster than the hungry pigeons.

1:54

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

They pressed even when they weren't hungry at all.

1:57

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Skinner called it the variable ratio reinforcement schedule.

2:00

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You might know it by a more familiar name.

2:03

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It is the exact mechanism behind a slot machine.

2:06

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Now look at your phone again.

2:08

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You don't know if the next pull -down refresh will show something new.

2:12

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You don't know if the message you're waiting for has arrived.

2:15

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You don't know if the post you made an hour ago has any replies.

2:19

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The uncertainty is the entire engine.

2:22

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

If your phone buzzed with a notification every single time on

2:26

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a perfectly predictable schedule,

2:28

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

you would check it far less.

2:30

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The unpredictability is not a flaw in the design.

2:33

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

For your ancestor,

2:34

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

it was survival.

2:35

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

For you,

2:36

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

it is the product.

2:37

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

But uncertainty alone doesn't explain the pull.

2:40

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

There's a second mechanism and it lives even deeper in the brain.

2:44

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

In the 1990s,

2:46

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a neuroscientist named Wolfram Schultz was recording individual neurons

2:50

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

in monkeys while they performed simple tasks for juice rewards.

2:54

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

He expected the dopamine neurons to fire when the juice arrived.

2:57

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

That part was obvious.

2:59

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

What he found instead changed how scientists understand desire.

3:03

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The neurons fired most strongly not when the reward came,

3:07

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

but in the moment just before,

3:08

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

when the monkey didn't yet know if it was coming.

3:11

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Dopamine,

3:12

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

it turned out,

3:13

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

isn't a pleasure chemical.

3:14

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It's an anticipation chemical.

3:16

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It spikes hardest during the gap between wanting and knowing.

3:19

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

That gap is exactly where your thumb hovers over the screen.

3:23

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Think about the half -second before you unlock your phone.

3:26

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You don't know what's there yet.

3:28

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

That half -second is doing more to your brain chemistry than almost

3:32

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

anything that happens after you actually look.

3:34

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Here's the counterintuitive twist.

3:37

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You would assume that finding something exciting on your phone is what keeps you

3:41

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

coming back.

3:41

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

A funny video,

3:42

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a flattering comment,

3:44

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

a piece of good news.

3:45

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

But studies tracking phone -checking behavior have found something almost

3:50

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

backwards.

3:51

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

People check their phones just as often,

3:53

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

sometimes more often,

3:55

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

during periods when nothing interesting is happening at all.

3:58

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Why would your brain demand information it doesn't expect to be good?

4:02

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Because for most of human history,

4:04

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

ignoring a signal was far more dangerous than acting on a false

4:08

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

alarm.

4:09

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

If your ancestor heard a rustle in the grass and ignored it,

4:12

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

and it turned out to be a predator,

4:14

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

that was the end of her genetic line.

4:17

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

If she turned to check and it was nothing,

4:19

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

she lost 3 seconds.

4:21

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The cost of checking was almost always smaller than the cost of

4:25

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

not checking.

4:25

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Evolution doesn't optimize for your peace of mind.

4:29

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It optimizes for not dying.

4:31

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

And a brain tuned to overcheck rather than undercheck was

4:35

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

the brain that survived.

4:36

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

There's a third piece to this and it might be the most powerful one.

4:40

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It isn't about danger,

4:41

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

it's about belonging.

4:43

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

A social neuroscientist named John Cacioppo spent decades studying

4:47

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

loneliness and one of his core findings was unsettling.

4:50

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The human brain treats social disconnection almost identically

4:54

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

to physical pain.

4:55

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Being left out of a group for most of evolutionary history meant

4:59

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

losing access to food,

5:01

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

protection and reproduction.

5:03

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

A lone human on the savannah didn't usually survive long.

5:06

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

So the brain built an alarm system for social exclusion,

5:10

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

every bit as urgent as the alarm system for a predator in the grass.

5:14

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Your phone is now the primary channel through which that alarm gets checked.

5:19

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Did anyone reply?

5:20

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Did anyone like it?

5:21

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Did anyone think of you today?

5:24

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Every glance at the screen is,

5:26

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

underneath the surface,

5:27

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

your ancient social monitoring system asking the same question your

5:31

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

ancestors asked around a fire 40 ,000 years ago.

5:34

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Am I still part of the group?

5:36

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The phone didn't invent this need.

5:39

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It just made checking it instantaneous,

5:41

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

infinite,

5:42

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

and available at 3 in the morning.

5:44

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Put these three mechanisms together and you stop looking at a willpower

5:48

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

problem.

5:50

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

unpredictable rewards that mimic Skinner's lever,

5:52

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

anticipation chemistry that fires hardest in the not knowing,

5:56

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

exactly as Schultz recorded,

5:58

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

and a social alarm system mapped by Cacioppo that

6:02

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

never evolved an off switch for a world with billions of potential connections

6:06

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

sitting in your hand.

6:08

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

None of this is your fault.

6:09

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

None of it is even really about you.

6:11

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It's about a brain doing precisely what it was built to do,

6:15

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

in an environment engineered very deliberately to exploit

6:19

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

exactly that design.

6:20

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

So what do you do with that?

6:22

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You can't delete 2 million years of wiring,

6:25

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

but you can stop mistaking the urge for a flaw in your character.

6:29

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The pull you feel toward your phone is not weakness.

6:32

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It's an ancient alarm system ringing in a world that no longer

6:36

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

has the predators it was built to detect,

6:38

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

no longer has the scarcity it was built to manage,

6:41

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

and no longer has the small,

6:43

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

tight tribe it was built to monitor.

6:45

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

The danger isn't gone.

6:47

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

It's just been replaced by something that knows exactly how to keep

6:51

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

the alarm ringing.

6:52

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

Right now,

6:53

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

somewhere in your pocket or on the table beside you,

6:56

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

that same small glass rectangle is waiting.

6:59

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

You still haven't decided to pick it up,

7:01

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

but for the first time,

7:02

S… Speaker 1 (why you cant stop checking your phone audio)

maybe you know exactly why your hand is already moving.

why you cant stop checking your phone audio

Oversigt

Spørg AI om denne transskription