Cal Newport
Computer science professor at Georgetown and author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and Slow Productivity. He has written the blog Study Hacks since 2007 and contributes to The New Yorker.
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Our reading
Handing all code production to AI leaves junior developers with no path to becoming senior ones.
Their wordsIn addition to reliability issues, it often engenders a mind-numbing workflow and an environment where junior developers will never acquire the expertise to become senior developers capable of designing complex systems.
↗On AI Coding and Its Discontentscalnewport.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsBut if you zoom out, it becomes clear that almost every “breakthrough” since last summer has concerned the narrow domains of computer code and math, which are defined by highly structured languages and come accompanied by massive amounts of specialized training data.
↗On AI Coding and Its Discontentscalnewport.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsIt’s a normal technology, and perhaps it’s time we start talking about it that way.
↗On AI Coding and Its Discontentscalnewport.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsessentially every cultural attribute that we celebrate – from human rights, to logic, to progress, to the very notion of an independent self – are conceptual children born from the mind-shaping power of the written word.
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Their wordsWe should treat highly distracting digital garbage like junk food – something we largely avoid – and purposefully schedule a non-trivial amount of time each day to read, write, and self-reflect, just as we now dedicate time to walking, jogging, and weight lifting.
- 2 weeks earlier
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Their wordsit’s also true that their impact on our output was never as tremendous or as clear-cut as that of prior innovations, such as the steam engine or the power loom, and that integrating them effectively into the workforce took a long time
- 12 months earlier
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Our reading
Researchers are no longer divided about whether smartphones and social media are bad for children.
Their wordsBut, it’s also now clear that this field is no longer actually divided on the question of whether, generally speaking, smartphones and social media are bad for kids.
↗An Important New Study on Phones and Kidscalnewport.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsLittle is lost by preventing a 14-year-old from accessing TikTok or Snapchat, or telling a 10-year-old they cannot have unrestricted access to the internet through their own smartphone, but so much will almost certainly be gained.
↗An Important New Study on Phones and Kidscalnewport.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 years earlier
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Their wordsI’ve been writing off and on recently about the notion of the deep life, in which you focus with energetic intention on things that really matter, and avoid wasting too much attention on things that don’t.
↗Cultivating a Deep Lifecalnewport.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsOne observation that rings true from my experience is that you should resist the urge to try to build a master plan that, once implemented, will transform everything for the better in one dramatic moment.
↗Cultivating a Deep Lifecalnewport.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 15 months earlier
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Their wordsThe original smartphones solved a real problem: how do I check in on work when away from my office computer? This problem is now better solved by more recent innovations.
- 6 years earlier
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Their wordsBut it’s not something that you “follow” (which implies you can identify it in advance). It’s instead something you have to purposefully cultivate over time.
↗Following Passion is Different than Cultivating Passioncalnewport.com
- 2 years earlier
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Their wordsIn other words, when you go through life thinking “if I can make it through this, things will be better later,” you eventually forget what “better” means.
↗An Open Letter to Students on the Danger of Seeing School as a Trial to Survivecalnewport.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThese students recognize that they’ll ultimately be judged not by the sum of their contributions to diverse activities, but instead by the magnitude of their ability in the one thing they do best.
↗An Open Letter to Students on the Danger of Seeing School as a Trial to Survivecalnewport.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThese students practice the above rules not as a means but as an end: A life with both freedom and focus is a life well-lived.
↗An Open Letter to Students on the Danger of Seeing School as a Trial to Survivecalnewport.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 19 months earlier
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Our reading
Work that matters requires tolerating discomfort and boredom rather than escaping into distraction.
Their wordsExceptional things — be it ideas, writing, mathematics, or art — require hard work. This, in turn, requires boring stretches during which you ignore a mind pleading with you to seek novel stimuli
↗Have We Lost Our Tolerance For a Little Boredom?calnewport.com