Michelle: A recent study found US adults check their phones up to 150 times a day. That’s once every six or seven minutes they're awake. Mark: Whoa. Hold on. One hundred and fifty times? That sounds… exhausting. And also, if I’m being honest, a little low for some of my days. Michelle: Right? But here’s the crazy part, and it’s the key to everything we’re talking about today: The authors of our book would argue that’s not a lack of willpower. It’s your brain’s ancient survival code running amok in the 21st century. Mark: My survival code is telling me to check Instagram? That seems like a design flaw. What book is this? I need to know who is defending my terrible habits. Michelle: It’s a defense and an explanation. The book is The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World. And what makes it so powerful is who wrote it. It’s a team-up between a top neuroscientist, Dr. Adam Gazzaley, and a leading psychologist of technology, Dr. Larry Rosen. Mark: A neuroscientist and a psychologist. Okay, so they’re coming at this from both the brain-wiring angle and the behavioral angle. That’s a compelling duo. Michelle: Exactly. They actually won a major science award for this work because they bring real, hard science to a problem that most of us just blame on ourselves. They argue this whole struggle starts with a fundamental, and I mean primal, mismatch between the world we evolved for and the world we live in now.

Mark: A mismatch. That sounds like an understatement. My brain wants to be in a forest, but it’s stuck in an endless scroll. What’s the core of that mismatch? Michelle: It’s a concept that is so brilliant in its simplicity: Information Foraging. The authors propose we should think of our brains like those of our ancient ancestors, or even just animals, foraging for food. Mark: Foraging for food. You mean like a squirrel looking for nuts? Michelle: Precisely like a squirrel. The theory they draw on is called the Optimal Foraging Theory, specifically the Marginal Value Theorem. It sounds complex, but it's simple. An animal is in a patch of berry bushes. It eats the easy-to-reach berries first. As it has to work harder for the remaining, less-juicy berries, its brain is constantly making a calculation: is the effort of staying in this patch worth the diminishing reward, or should I spend the energy to travel to a new, potentially richer patch? Mark: Okay, I can see that. At some point, it’s better to cut your losses and find a new bush. Michelle: Exactly. Now, replace "berries" with "information." And replace "berry patch" with your email inbox, a news website, or your social media feed. Mark: Oh, I see where this is going. Wait, so you’re saying my brain is treating my Twitter feed like a bush full of berries? And once the berries get a little sparse—meaning I get bored or the posts get less interesting—it tells me to jump to the next bush, which is my email, or TikTok, or a news site? Michelle: That is precisely what they argue. Our brains evolved to be novelty-seeking machines because, in an information-scarce world, new information—a rustle in the grass, a new footprint—could mean the difference between life and death. We are hardwired to ask, "What's next? What's new?" The problem is, we now live in an information-infinite world. There's always a new patch, and it’s only a thumb-swipe away. Mark: That explains so much. It’s not that I want to stop working on this important report to check a notification. It’s that my brain’s foraging instinct is screaming that the current 'information patch' is depleted and there's a fresh, juicy one waiting right behind that little red dot. Michelle: And this wiring is so deep it affects us even without technology. The book gives this incredibly relatable example they call "Refrigerator Amnesia." Mark: I think I know what this is. I live this. Michelle: You decide you need something from the kitchen. You have a clear goal: "get the mustard." You walk from the living room to the kitchen. But on that short journey, an internal distraction pops up—an intrusive thought about a meeting tomorrow, or a worry about a bill. That thought is a new, more salient "information patch." By the time you open the refrigerator door, your brain has already "left the patch" of getting mustard. You stand there, staring blankly at the contents, your original goal completely gone. Mark: I do that at least twice a day! I always just thought my memory was getting bad. But you’re saying it’s not a memory failure, it’s an attention failure. My brain got hijacked by a different goal. Michelle: It’s what the authors call "goal interference." Your primary goal—get mustard—was interfered with by a secondary one—worry about the meeting. This vulnerability is built into us. It’s a feature of our ancient brains, not a bug. Mark: Okay, but that's an internal thought. It came from inside my own head. How does that connect to my phone buzzing on the desk? That feels different. Michelle: It feels different, but the mechanism is the same. The book distinguishes between two types of interference. Distractions are things you try to ignore, like the chatter in a restaurant while you’re trying to listen to your friend. Interruptions are things you choose to engage with, like when your phone buzzes and you decide to check it. Both can be internal, like the refrigerator thought, or external, like the phone. But they all exploit the exact same weakness: our brain’s limited ability to manage multiple goals at once. Mark: So whether the "new berry patch" is a random thought or a push notification, my brain is wired to find it almost irresistible. Michelle: Irresistible. Because for 99.9% of human history, paying attention to that new thing was the smart move for survival.

Michelle: And that's where modern technology becomes the ultimate hijacker. It's not just creating distractions; it's engineering them to perfectly exploit that ancient wiring we just talked about. Mark: It’s like someone built a grocery store where every aisle is filled with nothing but perfectly ripe, free berry bushes, and they’re all screaming for my attention at once. Michelle: A perfect analogy. The authors identify three monumental "game changers" that created this reality: the Internet, social media, and the smartphone. They show this incredible data on the speed of technology adoption. To reach 50 million users, it took the radio 38 years. Television took 13 years. The internet took four. Facebook took two years. The game Angry Birds? Mark: I’m almost afraid to ask. A month? Michelle: Thirty-five days. The pace of change is accelerating so fast our brains can't possibly keep up. Mark: That makes so much sense. It's the accessibility. The 'berry patch' is always in my pocket. The 'transit time' to the next information source, as you called it, is zero. There’s no cost to switching. Michelle: Zero cost, and a guaranteed reward. Dopamine, the chemical of wanting and seeking, is tied to this information-seeking behavior. Every swipe, every notification, is a tiny hit. This creates a powerful feedback loop, which they illustrate with another painfully real story: "The Doomed Assignment." Mark: Let me guess. An employee has an important project due by the end of the day. Michelle: You've got it. The employee knows the deadline is critical. They sit down to work. But their brain starts its foraging routine. "I wonder if I got that email." They open their email. That patch is quickly exhausted. "I'll just quickly check Facebook." They see a post from a friend, which leads to a comment, which leads to a reply. A chain reaction of communication begins. Mark: And each one of those is a tiny, new information patch that feels more rewarding in the moment than the big, difficult, single patch of the main assignment. Michelle: Precisely. And the book adds two more psychological accelerators to this fire: boredom and anxiety. The more we get these rapid-fire rewards from our devices, the higher our threshold for boredom becomes. A long, focused task feels agonizingly under-stimulating by comparison. Mark: And the anxiety part must be FOMO—the Fear of Missing Out. Michelle: Exactly. The authors cite studies showing that young people report feeling moderate to high anxiety if they can't check their text messages every fifteen minutes. We’re not just seeking information because it’s interesting; we’re seeking it to soothe the anxiety of being disconnected. Mark: So it's a feedback loop. The tech makes us more anxious and bored, which makes us check the tech more, which in turn makes us even more anxious and bored. That’s… bleak. It feels like we’re being played. Michelle: In a way, we are. Not by some evil cabal, but by the mismatch between our own evolutionary programming and the environment we’ve created. The book makes it clear: our technology has evolved much faster than our brains have. We are, as the title says, ancient brains in a high-tech world.

Michelle: Exactly. And that’s the book's most profound and, in a way, most compassionate insight. We're not failing technology; technology is failing our brains. We're running ancient software on hardware that wasn't built for this firehose of information. We blame ourselves for being lazy or undisciplined, when we’re actually just acting out a script that was written into our DNA millions of years ago. Mark: That’s a huge reframe. It shifts the blame from personal character to a systemic problem. But if our brains are so fundamentally mismatched, what hope do we have? Are we just doomed to be distracted forever? Michelle: Not at all. And this is where the book becomes really empowering. The authors' core message is about "taking control of control." The solution isn't to throw your phone in a river. The first and most important step is something called metacognition. Mark: Thinking about thinking. Michelle: Yes! Simply becoming aware of why you are reaching for your phone. The next time you feel that itch, that urge to switch tasks, just pause for a second and ask, "What is driving this? Am I bored? Am I anxious? Am I avoiding this difficult task?" Just noticing the impulse, without judgment, is the first step to getting control over it. You’re observing the ancient wiring instead of just being a puppet to it. Mark: So it’s less about brute-force willpower and more about mindful awareness. Instead of fighting the urge, you just look at it. Michelle: You look at it, you name it, and you rob it of its power. From there, the book offers many strategies, but one of the simplest and most effective is to consciously manage your 'information patches.' The authors suggest a simple 'tech break.' Mark: Okay, I’m listening. What does that look like? Michelle: Set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes. Put your phone on silent and out of sight. And just focus on one thing. When the urge to check your phone inevitably comes—and it will—don't fight it. Just notice it, acknowledge it, and gently guide your attention back to your task. That simple act of noticing and returning is like a bicep curl for your prefrontal cortex. It's how you begin to strengthen the 'top-down' control over your 'bottom-up' foraging instincts. Mark: I like that. It’s not about perfection; it’s about practice. A small, manageable workout for the brain. I'm genuinely curious how often our listeners think they check their phones. It would be fascinating to hear. Let us know your guess—or if you dare to actually count! Find us on our socials and share your experience. Michelle: It’s a challenge worth taking. Because understanding this ancient brain of ours is the first step to finally thriving in this high-tech world. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.