%% ID: 13687394 Updated: 2022-02-24 %% ![](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article2.74d541386bbf.png) # About Title: [[Other/Obsidian Starter Vault(Second Brain)/Readwise 1/Articles/Most People Think This Is a Smart Habit, but It’s Actually Brain-Damaging]] Author: [[Michael Simmons]] Category: #articles Number of Highlights: ==126== Last Highlighted: *2022-02-18* Readwise URL: https://readwise.io/bookreview/13687394 Source URL: https://medium.com/accelerated-intelligence/most-people-think-this-is-a-smart-habit-but-its-actually-brain-damaging-7f71949cc128 # Highlights We now have free, instant access to all of humanity’s best knowledge at our fingertips. ^288050187 --- Have you ever wondered why the Internet seems to be making people stupider rather than smarter? Even the smartest, most successful, most disciplined people are being affected. ^288050188 --- information we consume literally changes the structure and functioning of our brains, for better or wors ^288050189 --- The content we see is only the content that has made it through three filters that bias reality (more on these filters later). ^288050190 --- Symptom #4: Addiction and Constant Distraction ^288050191 --- “He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”—Thomas Jefferson ^288050192 --- Counterintuitively, the more information we consume online, the more distorted our model of reality typically becomes. ^288050193 --- So many people seem to literally have the inability to even consider another perspective, even if they are given all of the evidence in the world. In other words, as a result of junk learning, they are unable to engage with reality. ^288050194 --- Inside The Junk Learning Epidemic That Is Destroying Our Brains ^288050195 --- Symptom #3: Information Overwhelm and FOMO ^288050196 --- Symptom #1: False Learning ^288050197 --- Social media is actually just a single symptom of a much larger problem. And the people affected the most are the ones who are the most diligent about learning online. ^288050198 --- And bias is not just alive and well in politics. Bias is everywhere, and it’s often invisible. ^288050199 --- This often happens because the information we consume:Becomes very quickly outdatedIsn’t actually true or helpfulIsn’t actually applied to our life ^288050200 --- Symptom #2: Memory Loss ^288050201 --- We read “interesting” things that make us feel like we’re learning, but don’t actually improve our lives. ^288050202 --- If you’ve ever read something interesting or useful, but have trouble recalling key parts a few days later, you know what I’m talking about. ^288050203 --- Symptom #5: Reality Dementia ^288050204 --- shouldn’t we be entering a golden age? ^288050205 --- We particularly see the effects of biases or blindspots when it comes to politics ^288050206 --- someone devoting time to learning online is more likely to get brain damage than become super intelligent ^288050207 --- “The information we consume matters just as much as the food we put in our body. It affects our thinking, our behavior, how we understand our place in the world. And how we understand others.”— Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter ^288050208 --- They are our blind spots, and until we remove them, we are operating within a false sense of reality that is functionally equivalent to brain damage. ^288050209 --- false learning, info overwhelm, memory loss, addiction, and reality dementia — are not bugs of the current Internet. They are the logical result of how it was designed ^288050210 --- Trying to learn online is like trying to make a healthy salad when your refrigerator is filled with cake, candy, and soda — and you’re already tired and hungry ^288050211 --- The Internet’s big secret: It is designed to be a junk learning machine ^288050212 --- We all have biases like these in our personal and professional lives: false beliefs, inaccurate perceptions, simply “bad information” we were given and built some aspect of our lives around. ^288050213 --- We argue that Facebook’s News Feed itself, with its short article previews, provides enough political information for learning to occur. However, this learning comes with an additional consequence: audiences who only read article previews think they know more than they actually do, especially individuals who are motivated to seek emotions. ^288050214 --- it is designed for infotainment — presenting you interesting information that makes you feel like you’re learning, but really sucks up and monetizes your attention. ^288050215 --- our knowledge becomes fractured. We become like the parable of the blind men who touch different parts of the elephant and are certain they understand the entirety of the elephant. ^288050216 --- Symptom #6: Over-Confidence ^288050217 --- The best content of all time (not just the past day). ^288050218 --- infinite scrolling leads to more content consumption rather than more action-taking or reflection. ^288050219 --- They capitalize on our innate cognitive biases to stay in the loop with what is happening and to consume content that affirms what we already believe ^288050220 --- Infinite Scrolling: Makes it so that there is always new content to view ^288050221 --- The sad reality is that if we want to maximize learning, we must use the EXACT opposite filters that the Internet defaults to. We must focus on: ^288050222 --- Content that expands upon and even contradicts what we have learned in the past. ^288050223 --- Like Button: Sorts content by popularity. This pulls people away from learning rare skills and knowledge that will set them apart. ^288050224 --- simply turning off social media, buying subscription content, or increasing your willpower will not solve the root problem. It might even make it worse.The real ^288050225 --- News Feed: Sorts content by newness. This keeps us away from focusing on the most valuable content of ALL TIME and has us focus on content created in the last 24 hours. ^288050226 --- are algorithmically structured to keep us focused on what’s new and popular rather than what will help us learn the most. ^288050227 --- . If you know what everyone else knows, you will be a commodity. But, if you have useful knowledge that only a few people have, you will be in demand. ^288050228 --- Content that is rare rather than popular ^288050229 --- our focus should be on the MOST VALUABLE information, not SOMEWHAT VALUABLE information. The difference between some value and most value is night and day. ^288050230 --- If you don’t know what you’re actually looking for, then any info will do. I call this super-valuable info the “superfood” of learning. ^288050231 --- What we learn should have a practical, positive result in our lives and the world around us ^288050232 --- about what you could have listened to instead. Right now, somewhere out in the world is a paragraph, chapter, or book that would change your life forever if you read it. When you consume infotainment, you’re saying no to breakthrough knowledge. ^288050233 --- Real Learning Delivers The Most Value. ^288050234 --- Internet filters content based on newness, popularity, and past interests. Rather than facilitating reflection and action, it facilitates more content consumption. Therefore, the Internet is fundamentally not designed for learning. ^288050235 --- If most people are learning things that destroy their minds, how can you learn things that turn you into a genius? ^288050236 --- Following: Sorts content by what we have liked in the PAST. This subtly keeps us away from focusing on what’s important to us NOW or in the FUTURE. ^288050237 --- some information is 1,000x more valuable than other information. ^288050238 --- Here’s the antidote to junk learning — superfood learning ^288050239 --- quality learning has two characteristics: ^288050240 --- Real Learning Delivers Real-World Results ^288050241 --- “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” — Alvin Toffler ^288050242 --- Define what the “most valuable” information is (i.e., the superfood of learning).Show how to find that superfood.Help you reflect and apply that information to your life.And most importantly, deliver important real-world results. ^288050243 --- . A decision to learn one thing is a decision NOT to learn a million other things ^288050244 --- Adding a “results filter” immediately reveals entertainment masquerading as information — what I call infotainment. ^288050245 --- his writing over his career and identify the most valuable knowledge to start with. This would likely lead to starting with one of his books, which he spent years researching, writing and refining. It would also lead to rereading it, taking detailed notes, and methodically applying it. ^288050246 --- The default approach to junk learning is to do nothing after consuming information. If you feel inspired, the next approach is to like, comment, or share it. It’s impossible to argue that this approach is even close to optimal for maximizing learning ^288050247 --- Absorbing information is just the first step in the universal process for learning… ^288050248 --- Learning is NOT just about taking in information. Looking at text and expecting to learn is not far off from looking at food and expecting to get its nutrients. We need to digest our life experiences just like we digest our food. Without some form of active processing, almost everything we read is lost within weeks. ^288050249 --- Junk Learning Approach: Follow him on social media and log into your newsfeed multiple times per day to see if he has any updates. Comment, like, or share if you feel inspired by any of his posts. ^288050250 --- let’s say I wanted to learn from investor, author, and researcher Nassim Taleb. Which strategy would be most efficient? ^288050251 --- “Understanding does not depend on knowing a lot of facts as such, but on having the right concepts, explanations and theories.” — physicist David Deutsch ^288050252 --- Rather than filtering the internet based on what is new and popular, the focus would be on finding what’s most valuable. ^288050253 --- 4. Finally, everyone would experience life-changing results. ^288050254 --- Learning shouldn’t be measured by whether or not it makes you feel smarter.And, it shouldn’t be measured solely by action.It should be measured by whether it actually creates results in your life that are important to you over time. ^288050255 --- “When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information?” ― Ryan Holiday ^288050256 --- Infotainment isn’t a bad thing. I enjoy listening to podcasts and TED talks as well. But the key distinction is that I don’t mistake infotainment for real learning. ^288050257 --- After learning about the 80/20 Rule (which is now one of my favorite mental models), I started asking the most successful article writers what the 20% activities were that give them 80% of the results. ^288050258 --- group of people I chose had a very unique approach to learning and making decisions. Furthermore, copying their approach has made me smarter than anything else that I’ve done. ^288050259 --- I saw reality on a much deeper level — and on a fundamentally different level. I looked back on many of my old mistakes, and thought to myself, “Oh my God! If I had only known this or that mental model…” I wasn’t just learning new strategies or hacks. ^288050260 --- “Nature is a machine. The family is a machine. The life cycle is like a machine.” ^288050261 --- Today when I consider new business ideas, instead of just imagining how great they’re going to be, I also envision what could go wrong — a good mental model — saving a lot of my time and money upfront. ^288050262 --- even though these Luminary Learners are all unique, there is a surprising consistency in how they think. They share certain mental models on the world that are unique and rare. ^288050263 --- Most books and articles on career success and learning are actually a form of junk learning. ^288050264 --- I always follow the 5-Hour Rule and dedicate at least 5 hours per week to deliberate, “superfood” learning, and typically 3–4x that amount ^288050265 --- I’ve come to realize that the reason these Luminary Learners talk differently is because they think differently. ^288050266 --- , I make sure that my infotainment time does not crowd out my results-focused learning time ^288050267 --- Musk’s top priority is designing the software in his brain. ^288050268 --- : “The way you think that things work in a particular domain.” ^288050269 --- we all unconsciously create models of how the world works, how the economy works, how politics works, how other people work, how we work, how our brains work, how our day is supposed to go, and so on. ^288050270 --- 20% of productivity hacks create 80% of the value ^288050271 --- “Mental models are to your brain as apps are to your smartphone.” — Jayme Hoffman ^288050272 --- If your model is bad, then your thinking is bad. If your model is accurate, then your thinking (and decision-making, and prediction ability) is far more accurate. ^288050273 --- The difference between truly smart thinkers (e.g. Luminary Learners) and average thinkers is that, for average thinkers, the process of using models is unconscious and reactive. For smart thinkers, it is conscious and proactive. ^288050274 --- Now, we create titles before we write articles.Rather than spending 5 minutes on titles per article, we dedicate 5–10 hours per article.For every article, we brainstorm over 30 titles rather than a handful.We test the article titles before we publish them. ^288050275 --- The Difference Between Smart And Average: Mental Models ^288050276 --- Almost all of them mentioned that titles were key. Previously, I viewed the titles as just an afterthought. ^288050277 --- It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles (Musk calls these ‘first principles’), i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto.” ^288050278 --- Elon Musk can see exactly how different “leaves” and “branches” interact with each other. This gives him major superpowers:He can reuse fundamental knowledge over and over.He can take insights from one side of the tree to another.He can identify small, high leverage actions that can drastically improve the overall quality of everything he does. ^288050279 --- “It’s in the nature of foundations, that the foundations in one field are also the foundations of other fields…The way that we reach many truths is by understanding things more deeply and therefore more broadly. That’s the nature of the concept of a foundation… just as in architecture, all buildings all literally stand on the same foundation; namely the earth. All buildings stand on the same theoretical base.” ^288050280 --- Just as every leaf on a tree is connected by twigs, which are connected by branches, which are connected by a tree trunk, so too are ideas connected by deeper and deeper ideas. ^288050281 --- One of the most effective and universal mental models is the 80/20 Rule ^288050282 --- To apply the 80/20 Rule, at the beginning of the day we can ask ourselves, “Of all the things on my to-do list, what are the 20 percent that will create 80 percent of the results?” ^288050283 --- When we’re searching for what to read next, we can ask ourselves, “Of all the millions of books I could buy, which ones could really change my life?” ^288050284 --- When considering who to spend time with, we can ask ourselves, “Which handful of people in my life give me the most happiness, the most meaning, and the greatest connection?” ^288050285 --- consistently using the 80/20 Rule can help us get leverage by focusing on the few things that really matter and ignoring the majority that don’t. ^288050286 --- Mental Models Are The New Alphabet ^288050287 --- Evolution is so slow that a child born today is — biologically — indistinguishable from a child born 30,000 years ago ^288050288 --- what’s the difference between someone born 30,000 years ago and me? ^288050289 --- Tools ^288050290 --- Between then and now, there has been an unprecedented explosion and evolution of tools that have collectively created modern society. ^288050291 --- people fail to appreciate non-physical tools — tools that they cannot touch, hear, or see ^288050292 --- Mental models should be taught early in one’s life, because nearly everything else builds on them. In other words, they are fundamental and critical. ^288468558 --- mental tools are just as powerful and complex as physical tools. ^288468559 --- It’s by understanding the significance of the alphabet that we can understand the significance of mental models ^288468560 --- For example, consider the alphabet: the Western alphabet is a mental tool that wasn’t invented until around 1100 BC (pictorial writing systems like hieroglyphics were invented much earlier). Now we take it for granted, but at the time, it was a cutting-edge tool. Though it was adopted slowly at first — only 30 percent of the population could read and write before the printing press was invented in 1440 — once it began to spread, literate individuals had a huge leg up. In fact, literacy is now so important that it’s a national priority for all governments. That is the power of an effective mental tool. ^288468561 --- Mental models explode our creativity. ^288468562 --- In the same way that the alphabet gives us infinite creativity with language, mental models give us infinite creativity with ideas. ^288468563 --- Mental models trigger higher-order thinking. ^288468564 --- similar to how becoming literate triggers a whole slew of higher-order thinking capabilities known as the Alphabet Effect. ^288468565 --- “Truth — or, more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality — is the essential foundation for any good outcome.” ^288468566 --- Someone who architects a skyscraper must have a much more complex latticework of mental models than someone who models a two-bedroom house. ^288468567 --- as people progress in their careers, they must evolve the amount, diversity, and quality of their mental models if they want to have higher and higher levels of success and impact: ^288468568 --- The Incredible Power Of Learning Mental Models ^288468569 --- “You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head.” — Charlie Munger (Luminary Learner) ^288468570 --- But if we’ve only seen one dog, technically we don’t really know what a dog is. ^288468571 --- Over-applying one model in too many places is no different than a carpenter trying to build an entire house with one single hammer. ^288468572 --- All models, no matter how brilliant, are imperfect. The beauty of using multiple and diverse models is that many of the imperfections cancel each other out, allowing you to create a new “emergent” model that transcends all of the other models. ^288468573 --- Many, diverse models also lead to heightened creativity. Nothing is truly original. Everything is derived by combining existing building blocks. ^288468574 --- Babies are created when a man and a woman have sex. New tools are created when pre-existing tools have “tool sex.” New ideas are created through “idea sex.” ^288468575 --- “Education is not the learning of facts, but training the mind to think.” — Albert Einstein ^288468576 --- want to learn from the most successful billionaires’ minds, and dramatically increase your success, here’s the next step…I’ve already done all of the hard work for you. I’ve spent the last few years…Studying Luminary Learners.Building the largest database of the top mental models of the top billionaires.Narrowing down the list to the most useful and universal ones.Doing the most in-depth and actionable explainers for these that have ever been done. ^288468577