Apollo Astronauts Didn’t Need Smart Watches | Deep Questions With Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | All right, let's do another call, Jesse.

00:00:02.240 | I like these.

00:00:03.240 | All right, we got a call about smartwatches.

00:00:05.240 | Hello, Cal.

00:00:06.240 | My name is Connor Beck.

00:00:08.040 | I am a copywriter and content marketing specialist from St. Paul, Minnesota.

00:00:14.000 | And my question has to do with smartwatch technology.

00:00:18.160 | So I think I know what your answer to this question might be, but I'll ask it anyways.

00:00:22.360 | I just wanted to get your general thoughts on smartwatches.

00:00:26.240 | I really try and not stay glued to my phone or get too distracted throughout the day,

00:00:32.720 | but I thought maybe I could use a smartwatch in a very simplified way in order to screen

00:00:39.680 | out text messages that are not important versus those that are.

00:00:43.080 | My partner occasionally texts me throughout the day, and sometimes it is very time-sensitive

00:00:48.720 | and important in terms of what she texts me about.

00:00:53.120 | So again, I think I might know your answer, but I'm just wondering what you think of smartwatch

00:00:57.280 | technology and if that technology can be used in a very simplified way so that it actually

00:01:03.480 | helps you eliminate distraction rather than create more distraction, and if you can use

00:01:09.160 | that technology in a way that allows you to tune out distractions rather than be overcome

00:01:16.000 | by them.

00:01:17.000 | So thanks again for your insight and your wisdom.

00:01:19.240 | It is very much appreciated.

00:01:22.200 | Thank you to both you and Jesse for sharing the deep life, and keep up the good work.

00:01:28.040 | Thank you.

00:01:29.040 | >> Connor, with smartwatches, we should separate two different common uses.

00:01:34.920 | So there's productivity.

00:01:36.960 | That's the category where we'll put what you are talking about now.

00:01:39.840 | So looking at text messages and emails, being able to communicate through your watch for

00:01:44.960 | productivity purposes.

00:01:46.600 | Then there's fitness, which is a whole other world, which I'll put aside for now.

00:01:52.160 | So in the productivity world, as you seem to be guessing, no, I'm not that impressed

00:01:57.280 | by the idea of needing a smartwatch to make you more productive.

00:02:03.460 | I think you should be spending less time with notifications, not more.

00:02:08.360 | I don't buy the screening argument.

00:02:11.480 | So there's two possible responses here.

00:02:13.340 | One is what would happen if, and this is the way I typically run things, I check my phone

00:02:20.040 | sometimes.

00:02:21.100 | And so text messages that come in when I don't have my phone with me, I won't see for a while.

00:02:29.320 | The right answer to that question is nothing bad will happen.

00:02:32.680 | And you can come up with a lot of scenarios where, well, so my partner is literally on

00:02:36.200 | fire.

00:02:37.200 | And if I don't get the text message in time, I can't use this app I have set up to trigger

00:02:44.320 | a complex Rube Goldberg style watering system that will put out our flames.

00:02:48.100 | You can come up with these scenarios, but here's the thing.

00:02:50.680 | Well, just about a minute ago, we did not have the ability to contact people like that.

00:02:55.340 | And very few people burn to death because their partners couldn't access to Rube Goldberg

00:03:00.440 | watering system.

00:03:01.440 | So we were fine without that before.

00:03:02.840 | I think most people would be fine today.

00:03:04.320 | It's easy to come up with those scenarios, but they just don't happen enough.

00:03:08.460 | They don't happen enough.

00:03:09.460 | And when they do happen, the cost is such that it's not worth months and months of consistent

00:03:17.000 | distraction because every four months, you missed a call that caused someone to get mad

00:03:22.280 | at you.

00:03:23.280 | I say fair trade.

00:03:24.280 | All right.

00:03:25.640 | Number two, I would say about that is, okay, if you really are worried about it because

00:03:28.840 | your partner spends a lot of time around fire and you spent a long time building that Rube

00:03:32.400 | Goldberg apparatus, then just do the extra five minutes of work to set up the filter

00:03:37.360 | on your phone so that for calls, you have a white list and people on that list, their

00:03:44.440 | call comes through, put their number on it, put your ringer on.

00:03:50.200 | All right.

00:03:51.200 | Call here if there's really an emergency.

00:03:53.600 | Now, this comes up a lot.

00:03:54.840 | I talked about this in my book, A World Without Email, where this was the context of business

00:04:02.680 | where you're making yourself less accessible.

00:04:05.400 | And we called it the steam valve.

00:04:07.600 | You have the emergency steam valve where you say, okay, I know I'm not going to be as accessible

00:04:11.800 | on email or Slack or whatever, whatever the plan is you're talking about, but don't worry.

00:04:16.360 | We have an emergency backup.

00:04:18.960 | Call this phone number.

00:04:20.600 | So there's always a way you can reach me.

00:04:22.320 | There is no actual period where you can't reach me.

00:04:24.720 | And the whole point of those backup emergency steam valves, we called it, strategies, was

00:04:30.360 | not so that you could avert emergencies because they never happen.

00:04:35.740 | You talk to people who set up, like, okay, here's my special number.

00:04:38.200 | Call me if you can't wait until, like, the next time I'm supposed to be online or my

00:04:41.680 | office hours or whatever.

00:04:43.100 | No one ever calls.

00:04:44.520 | The emergencies don't happen.

00:04:46.080 | They exist just so that people feel better.

00:04:48.180 | They know if they really had to reach you, they could.

00:04:49.920 | And I always thought that was an interesting observation is that we're worried that all

00:04:53.000 | these emergencies are happening.

00:04:55.000 | They rarely do.

00:04:57.280 | The potential existence of these specters should not be sufficient to get you to live

00:05:01.880 | all of your time in a much more distracted state.

00:05:05.160 | So there's a question like, what watts do I use?

00:05:10.720 | As Jesse will attest, I actually hang off of my belt an old fashioned sand hourglass.

00:05:17.160 | That's true, Jesse?

00:05:18.160 | It's true.

00:05:19.160 | And I, and I, so I have a sundial I consult.

00:05:21.760 | And so when the shadow gets to the top of an hour, I flip over the hourglass.

00:05:28.000 | It weighs about seven pounds.

00:05:29.280 | It's about yay big, but you know, it's simple.

00:05:32.640 | You don't run out of batteries with your sand.

00:05:34.040 | Am I right, Jesse?

00:05:35.040 | No, actually I will say, um, the watch I use is, is like the, my favorite, my favorite

00:05:43.240 | physical object that I own.

00:05:44.800 | So I'm not in the cars.

00:05:45.920 | I don't dress very well or collect a lot of things, but I do.

00:05:51.280 | My watch is like very symbolic to me.

00:05:53.420 | It is something I really enjoy.

00:05:54.540 | So I use a, uh, let's say down here and a mega speedmaster, early analog winded every

00:06:02.840 | day with a little, uh, mechanism.

00:06:06.320 | It's mechanism is brilliantly engineered.

00:06:08.960 | They updated this in 2021.

00:06:11.600 | It loses, you know, a second in it per day or something.

00:06:15.200 | So it's just like beautiful engineering inside of this thing.

00:06:17.320 | No batteries, no electricity, no quartz crystals, no text messages being shown through.

00:06:22.480 | And the backstory I like about this other than being like a nice, like well engineered

00:06:26.880 | piece of analog handicraft is that this was the watch that was approved by NASA for the

00:06:32.160 | Apollo missions.

00:06:34.400 | Speedmaster went into space and you can get a lot of pictures of the astronauts.

00:06:38.680 | They actually wore it on the moon.

00:06:40.720 | They would, they got bigger straps that could go around the outside of the UVA suits.

00:06:44.880 | But I liked it as a metaphor to this that I think is nice for the type of techno criticism

00:06:48.360 | I do, which is when Apollo 13 was having their famed troubles on the way to the moon, they

00:06:55.960 | had to shut down all the computers to save battery power, right?

00:06:58.680 | So they shut down all the computers.

00:07:00.920 | So they're just, this thing was just flying analog and they had to do these burns of the

00:07:06.120 | engine to correct their trajectory so that they want to skip off the atmosphere of the

00:07:12.240 | earth.

00:07:13.240 | They had to do these precise burns, but the computers were shut down.

00:07:15.880 | And so how did they do them?

00:07:17.480 | Well, they had a reticule, like a little cross hairs, which they aimed at a very particular,

00:07:24.400 | you know, I think it was the horizon, the terminal horizon on the moon.

00:07:29.060 | And then a level timed it with the speed master.

00:07:31.860 | So this analog piece of beautifully engineered gears, when all the electricity had to be

00:07:36.820 | turned off, essentially it was this piece of analog handicraft that actually that plus

00:07:41.500 | a cross hairs plus fire is how the astronauts did what otherwise a computer would do.

00:07:47.260 | So this is a nice metaphor about the, you know, beauty and analog simplicity versus

00:07:52.120 | the complexities and distraction of the digital.

00:07:55.940 | So I can use that all to justify otherwise a sort of kind of absurdly expensive thing

00:08:01.980 | to wear on your wrist.

00:08:03.460 | [MUSIC]

Apollo Astronauts Didn’t Need Smart Watches | Deep Questions With Cal Newport

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