I first stumbled upon the work of my guest today near I al when he came out with his book about five years ago called Hooked.
Hooked was this deep dive into deconstructing how some of the biggest tech companies and app developers develop their platforms, their apps, their tools, their programs to make them sort of irresistible.
Like, you start playing them and you kind of can't stop, and then you, you keep going back over and over and over and over again.
And in that book, he laid out sort of a four step process that all of these companies already know about.
But as a reader, you could actually see what was happening, and it kind of armed you to understand what was going on and then to make different choices and to understand how to maybe step out of the slipstream of those devices and technologies and programs.
He has a new book out now called Indistractable, which in my mind is almost like the part two to hooked because it picks up where hooked left off and says, okay, but what do we really do?
Like, give me more of a detailed, science backed roadmap to actually be able to reclaim a sense of agency and intentionality and control over my life without having to completely step away from technology.
Like, I want to engage with this on a daily basis, but how do I do it in a way which is conscious and constructive and intentional?
And the conversation both covers a bit of his background, how he came to these explorations, and then we really deep dive into the steps that we take and deconstruct them.
He does a lot of really powerful myth busting.
That opened my eyes, too.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
I kind of relish turning over apple carts a little bit.
I think that's carried out throughout my work that I've always done, is to look for either deeper insights or unconventional insights or counterintuitive insights, and that's what I really enjoy.
Yeah.
So what were you into as a kid then?
I mean, what was your thing?
Did you have a thing watching tv, video games, Cheetos?
Right.