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Your Phone is Killing Your Ability to Read | Deep Questions Podcast by Cal Newport


Chapters

0:0 Cal's intro
0:8 Context switching effects reading comprehension
0:30 Cal talks about mind networks

Transcript

All right, we got one here from Jeff. Jeff says, "Does context switching affect reading comprehension?" Yeah, it does. If you're trying to read a book, but you keep initiating context shifts, like you have to keep checking your text messages because there's like a conversation going on, or you keep checking your inboxes, or if you're like me the last few days, you're constantly checking updates on the baseball collective bargaining agreement coming together, you're going to remember much less from the book.

Your mind is going to have unrelated networks that are activated and some relevant networks inhibited. You won't understand that as well. So if you're reading something you care about, just read. And if you want to communicate, go off and communicate. Separate those two things.