WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What does it mean to spend our time well? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I spend a lot of my time 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thinking about how to spend my time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Probably too much. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I probably obsess over it -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my friends think I do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I feel like I kind of have to, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because these days, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it feels like little bits of my time kind of slip away from me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and when that happens, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it feels like parts of my life are slipping away. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Specifically, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it feels like little bits of my time get slipped away to various things like this: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like technology -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I check things -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'll give you an example. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If this email shows up -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how many of you have gotten an email like this, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I've been tagged in a photo. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When this appears, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I can't help but click on it right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because what if it's a bad photo? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I have to click it right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I'm not sure going to click the photo, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what I'm actually going to do is spend the next 20 minutes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the worst part is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that I know that this is what's going to happen 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and even knowing that that's what's going to happen 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doesn't stop me from doing it again the next time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Or I find myself in a situation like this: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where I check my email and pull down to refresh, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the thing is that 60 seconds later, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'll pull down to refresh again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, why am I doing this? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This doesn't make any sense. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I'll give you a hint why this is happening. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What do you think makes more money in the United States 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 than movies, game parks and baseball combined? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Slot machines. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How can slot machines make all this money 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when we play with such small amounts of money? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We play with coins, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how is this possible? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, the thing is ... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my phone is a slot machine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Every time I check my phone, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm playing the slot machine to see: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what am I going to get? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What am I going to get? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Every time I check my email, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm playing the slot machine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to say, "What am I going to get?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Every time I scroll a news feed, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm playing the slot machine to see: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what am I going to get next? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the thing is that again, knowing exactly how this works -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I'm a designer, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know exactly how the psychology of this works, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know exactly what's going on -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it doesn't leave me with any choice, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I still just get sucked into it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So what are we going to do? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because it leaves us 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with this all or nothing relationship with technology, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're either on, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and your connected and distracted all the time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or you're off, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but then you're wondering, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 am I missing something important? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In other words, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're either distracted 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or you have Fear of Missing Out, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we need to restore choice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We want to have a relationship with technology 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that gives us back choice about how we spend time with it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we're going to need help from designers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because knowing this stuff doesn't help, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we're going to need design help. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So what would that look like? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So let's take an example that we all face: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 chat -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 text messaging. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So let's say there's two people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nancy's on the left and she's working on a document, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and John's on the right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And John suddenly remembers, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I need to ask Nancy for that document before I forget!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So when he sends her that message, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it blows away her attention. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that's what we're doing all the time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we're bullzodering each other's attention left and right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And there's serious cost to this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because every time we interrupt each other, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's takes up about 23 minutes on average to refocus our attention. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We actually cycle through two different projects 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 before we come back to the original thing we were doing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is Gloria Mark's research 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 combined with Microsoft's research that shows this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And her research also shows that it actually trains bad habits. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The more interruptions we get externally, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's conditioning and training us to interrupt ourselves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We actually self-interrupt every three and a half minutes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is crazy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so how to fix this? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because Nancy and John are in this all or nothing relationship. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nancy might want to disconnect, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but then she'd be worried, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what if I'm missing something important? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So design can fix this problem. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let's say you have Nancy again on the left, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 John on the right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and John remembers, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I need to send Nancy that document, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 except this time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nancy can mark that she's focused. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let's say she drags a slider