Christina: [00:00:00] Welcome to the JOMOcast. I'm your host, Christina Crook. Join us as we sit down with leading founders, creators and thought leaders to learn how they embrace the joy of missing out. These guests are choosing to digitally detox and usher balance into their busy lives. Let's dive right in. 

In 2020, roughly two thirds of the living population of North America was born before the existence of the internet. Most of us never saw it coming, but few of us, especially those born after its inception can imagine it not existing. We like to imagine that the technological trends defining our societies were on rails, that they were inevitably going to happen exactly the way they did. There's a common sense kind of thought that sees a society's technological development as linear, [00:01:00] an inevitable march to more higher tech that we point to around us as a kind of post hoc reasoning to say, "look, this is the natural advancement of humanity. If we don't develop towards this, we're caveman. You're not advocating that we go back to being cavemen, are you?" 

The problem with this reasoning is that tech advancement is anything but linear. It arises when humans use their existing pool of knowledge as a starting point for specific inquiries into solutions to problems they're having right now. When Marie Curie pioneered nuclear science and the discovery of radioactivity, she was excited by the potential applications in advancing medicine and producing potentially limitless energy for the whole world.

Problems in great demand of solutions at the height of the fossil fuel burning industrial revolution and the proliferation of new found diseases on the frontier of longer lifespans and [00:02:00] modern living. It was 20 years later that the U S government used Curie's discoveries as the springboard for developing the first nuclear weapons, the unthinkable solution to an unwinnable war.

Technology neither demanded nor conceived of by Curie's contemporaries. Technology evolves at the pace, and course that we choose. It advances to solve the problems revealed by what we value. We are responsible for deciding what we value full stop. That's the layman's foundation of the device paradigm.

The construct coined by American technological philosopher: Albert Borgman. Born in Germany in 1937, borgman has seen technological transitions and upheavals unknown to many listening to this podcast. Throughout his [00:03:00] long life, he studied and written about the impact of technological advancement on every aspect of the societies that have evolved around him, especially the second order effects of tech that ostensibly improves life, such as the reduced need and incentive for families to spend time close together in a home, after the advent of central heating. I'm very pleased to have a mind and heart like Dr. Borgman's with us at this inflection point in our shared civilizations future. I'm, especially eager to share with you his concept of good burdens, the idea that there are some activities like letter writing or cooking a meal for a loved one, or learning a musical instrument. That once you are across, a certain threshold of effort, that burden disappears. I am discovering this, as I awkwardly learned to play the [00:04:00] ukulele on the living room floor among my children.

I'm grateful to share my conversation with Dr. Albert Borgman with you today.

I wanted to quickly ask you, you know, Andy crouch quite well, is that correct? 

Albert: You bet.

Christina: So I tweeted this morning. I said probably only Andy crouch will understand, but I am beyond thrilled to be speaking with Albert. 

Albert: Well, that's very generous of you.

Christina: Well, that's how I feel. And he wrote back and said, oh, I understand. He said, have a good time. That is the beauty of the internet.

Albert: Especially when it's working.

Christina: Absolutely. Albert, I did a quick search today to see your date of birth. And I discovered that you were born in 1937. And you've lived through many massive technological shifts, far more than [00:05:00] any of the people that are listening to this episode.

What are some of the key cultural transformations you've lived through, you've experienced. And how does that influence your philosophical approach to technology? 

Albert: When I was a teenager, my parents had a phone which was very unusual and my mother would take segments from BBC, translate them and then get on her bike and take them to the local paper.

Christina: Wow. 

Albert: And then when I left for this country, the first time in 1958, I wrote home almost every day. And my mother, bless her heart, almost wrote every day and my roommates would say, oh my God, all these letters from your home. And so they're records of that time. And today the problem would be not that there would [00:06:00] be no records, but that there would be too many.

So for instance my granddaughter, my oldest granddaughter got married Saturday a week ago, and there was a photographer, a very capable and a friendly person, and she must've taken hundreds and we still don't have them because there are too many. And I have pictures of my maternal grandmother's wedding of my parents' wedding.

And so the strange thing today is that we have hyper information and it's not helpful. That, that filter, where you sit down, gather their thoughts, write a letter, and then there's something that is thoughtfully written and treasured - that is no longer. The case, and that's just personal [00:07:00] communication.

And then of course the social media and the internet generally just overwhelm us with information. And I think the result has been not a deeper understanding of reality, but confetti rain of bits of information. And that sort of cloud of confetti is obscuring our vision of the world. 

Christina: So many things to unpack there, I'm thinking about your life and how you would have lived through, like you're describing, radio and then into television, the telephone, right?, through to what are we looking at post-television. We're looking at early computers connected to other computers, the internet. You've seen it all. From that vantage point, what are some insights that people like me born in the year 1980 would not have in terms of [00:08:00] understanding the massive seismic shifts we've gone through? Because we live in a moment that, I imagine you, you speak about even with your students, is that with instantaneous communication, we aren't looking at our lives in terms of story, in terms of history, we're focused in, on, on a moment. And so I would love to step back a little bit and talk a bit about how important it is for us to put our lives in context.

Albert: The world pre-internet and ICT seemed to be more articulate and more eloquent. And so I think the task today is to try to recover that articulation of reality and its eloquence, and it will be a difficult lesson to learn because information is junk food. It's everywhere. It's so tempting. We're getting so used to it. Most of our fellow Americans are overweight, if [00:09:00] not obese. The same thing happens to the mind- it gets distracted. There's an inability to focus. There's among my students. You can't get them embarrassed by asking a question to which they don't have the answer, they think. "Why should I know this? I'll just Google it." 

Christina: Interesting. So that's definitely a shift you would have seen in your student body. 

Albert: Oh yeah. Very much yes. So I of course don't let them use computers in class and I make them take handwritten notes, which research shows are more memorable and more intelligent than when you become a stenographer of what you hear, you don't think about it.

Christina: I've seen that even in my daughter, pre COVID was in grade four last year and she had a teacher that had them all [00:10:00] on the computer-grade four- reading something in one window and then writing notes in the other window. And as one might imagine, she's just copying. She's just verbatim reading and typing.

And I asked her afterwards, is this is about light? It's a pretty complex idea and concept to understand light. And so I said can you just tell me just one thing you learned about light. She couldn't tell me a single fact that she had actually internalized about light. It's so interesting that friction of having to put it down physically in your own words.

Albert: Exactly. And of course the culture at large, just as it promotes junk food, promotes hyper information, so you get messages in the paper or on internet about this wonderful person who has given a school district, I don't know, half a million dollars, so that [00:11:00] finally all kids can have a computer.

Yeah. And the same thing with, it's a double-edged sword, but everybody's gotta have a broadband connection, and everybody's incense d that out in the far corners of Montana people don't have broadband connection, is that true where you are?

In Missoula, Missoula is actually a high-tech hub, because we have a computer science department and then they want to stay in Missoula. Everybody wants to stay in Missoula.

Christina: Albert, one of the incredible concepts that I discovered through your work is this concept of good burdens. And it's a part of the conversation I want to spend a lot of time on today. And I think that we've already touched on some ideas relating to good burdens, but you describe certain activities as [00:12:00] good burdens. You use the example of the burden of preparing a meal.

And getting everyone to show up at the table and sit down, or the burden of letter writing, which we already spoke a little bit about gathering our thoughts, setting them down in a way that will be remembered and cherished, and perhaps even passed on to our grandchildren. You say, quote, the burdensome part of these activities is usually just the task of getting across a threshold of effort.

As soon as you have crossed the threshold, the burden disappears. And I want to know where this concept of good burdens originated from. 

Albert: From my thinking about technology right now, technology has lifted one burden after another. And now it's in this bizarre phase where it's trying to find burdens, like having to go across the kitchen and turn on the radio, there's Alexa.

Then there's the smart home that has everything for you, and I [00:13:00] thought this burden lifting is a bad thing, and of course you have to distinguish between good burdens and bad burdens. And I think the culture of the table is the most hopeful place to rediscover them. And as it turns out, the COVID-19 has forced people to do this.

And supposedly they eat better because when you cook yourself, it's not going to be junk food that arrives on the table. It's stuff that you have actually cooked and there's more cooperation, men, learn to cook. And and I wrote a piece for my colleague, Christopher Preston's blog, which is called plasticine.

And I raised the question, whether COVID-19 is a crucible or a nightmare. If it's a crucible, it'll bring out the best in us. [00:14:00] And if it's a nightmare, it's something we want to get over as quickly as we can. And I think right now the, quarantining there we have to do, works like a crucible, but everybody wants. That's the thing. Sad, and we know, you know, who the main person is, who wants to get us over the nightmare. 

Christina: Back to our capitalistic engine, get it moving. Okay, help us understand what a bad burden is. And should we want to be rid of bad burdens? Is there a way in which technology solves for bad burdens, actual burdens, we should want to be rid of?

Can you help us understand that? 

Albert: I should say that every burden that's lifted comes with a cost, but in many cases, the [00:15:00] benefits of having the burden lifted far outweighs the benefits that are lost. So in the medical area, I went through most of the childhood diseases, childhood fever, measles, and so on.

And those were memorable experiences. The way you look at the world when your feverish and the way you're being cared for by your parents. I remember that. When you get a shot, a vaccination, what do you remember? But the benefits far outweigh the burdens, bad burden. So in general, the medical procedures, except where they become enhancements, are burdens we want to get rid of. And then the burdens, like going to the town fountain to get water, it was very social, but it's a burden we should get rid of [00:16:00] because the women of course are the ones who had to get the water and then there's the purity of water. So the benefit of a utility system outweighs the charms the fountain in the middle of town, but it has had, the culture of the table I think it's the most evident, the most hopeful and the most natural way of taking on good burdens. I think that's where we should start. And there should be a movement, which says tells people, if you don't sit down at the dinner table this evening, there's something wrong with you, possibly with your family.

We could all agree on that. I think. 

Christina: Our friend Dr. Brenee Brown, who does the work around shame would maybe not like the shame-based approach there, that you're a bad person, but I think that is a really powerful idea and it's very [00:17:00] easy and visible to the mind's eye to picture yourself there, whether you're there on your own as a single person spending the time in an effortful way, reading a book and enjoying a meal and being present to that experience or being a couple and having some meaningful conversation and making that a real point in your day. And then of course, with the family you were talking before about when you cook a meal that you maybe spend more time with them. I can say that as a mother of three, that when I put a lot of effort into cooking for my family and they just wolf it or can I go now? in two minutes I push back on that because there has been and I probably do that more on the nights that we order pizza. 

Albert: That should be something exceptional, and then something that, because it's exceptional, you value it. If you have pizza most of the time or something like it, you don't.[00:18:00] 

Christina: I think what's coming up for me around the word burden is that it carries a negative connotation, right? The word burden has a negative connotation to it. But when I think more about it, burden denotes effort, there's something effortful about it. And that love is effortful, right?

That [00:20:00] laziness, there's this idea from Scott Peck, that laziness is the opposite of love and that love is effortful. And so when that's how I am thinking these days about the idea of good burdens. Are there things that require effort, for the purpose of love, for loving, for building relationships?

Albert: Yeah. Especially once you're past infatuation, love lives joint engagements that requires an effort. 

Christina: Absolutely. And you said there's something that you also write about when you're talking about this concept of good burdens, which is that these, the activities that you described, like the joining for a meal or the letter writing, or what are these good burden activities, those are activities you say that have been obliterated by the readily available entertainment offered by you use the example of TV, but of course now it's every other screen in the 21st century home. And. You've talked about the table. What are some other things that we can do to reclaim effortful living as a path to joy in our lives? [00:21:00] 

Albert: Walks or runs are good because we come out of a hunting and gathering culture where people would run together.

And there's a real pleasure in running with four or five, and there's chatting and serving and calling attention to the environment. And if you can't run it, you certainly can walk. And you're also in a way, beginning to take responsibility for your environment because you're walking through it.

You don't just see shots and on social media or television. I think that would be the next step. And again, it's something that's available to everybody. You don't have to have a string of horses if you play polo or even a tennis court. Although tennis, I think is a great sport. 

Christina: I love that you brought up nature because that's something I've been sharing with my community is I was, i was really trying to think of something that [00:22:00] every single person had some access to, regardless of whether they were quarantined in an apartment building or in a house, and whether they were in a rural area or, deep in a city, is this access to nature. Even from my window right now, I can see the wind tossing the leaves, and that's a nature connection. And I know I've been hearing from people that part of what's been helping them thrive during this time, but I think it can be true all the time like the table and walking, is this connection to nature and gardening in particular, this is such a perfect example of a good burden, right? It's very effortful, but it brings so much joy and peace to people. Okay. Focal practices. That is also a term that you coined is that correct? 

Albert: Yeah. 

Christina: Why don't you go ahead and explain to us what a focal practice is? 

Albert: The focal practice has a focus, some [00:23:00] tangible thing, like a table, a kitchen, and we should honor and celebrate that thing, but you have to do it through a practice. You can't leave it to the whims of the circumstances.

So most people love home cooked meals and they enjoy being invited. And then of course, if you're the host to enjoy preparing it to the occasion, so you think, oh, how about inviting the Millers?, and then it happens. There has to be a practice. The same thing with walking and running and and especially music, playing an instrument, many young people, not enough, but many still learn an instrument in high school.

And then they take their french horn or whatever, put it in their case, and it's up in the attic and all that music dies. The death of course is obliterated by [00:24:00] wall-to-wall music, that's not really music; it's, like junk food compared with a home baked loaf of bread. So these focuses that we value need to be sustained by a practice.

And the practice should be communal because there have to be mutual expectations to support it. If it's just up to you, you think, oh, not today, perhaps later. And so they have to be communal. That's the good life. And people say what's the good life. Don't tell people what the good life is, when they know what it is and so just studiously avoid talking about it, except you Christina. 

Christina: This dovetails so perfectly into probably my favorite thing I've ever read from you, which I already talked about earlier in this conversation, but that's about that your focus is not so much [00:25:00] on reducing the use of technology. It's creating the positive conditions where other engagements can thrive and flourish. I probably repeated this at least a hundred times, and that is absolutely what frames this whole conversation for me about JOMO or the joy of missing out. You find something better. You want to get off technology, you find something better, you lean into joy, you lean into the things that feel good that you love to do. 

Albert: Right. Other side of burden, right? You're rewarded for your burden and the reward is joy. And as you well put it, these choices flourish, when you stay away from all superficial excitement and satisfaction. 

Christina: There's this immense undoing that needs to happen for people because we are conditioned to ease. Coming out with a message that's I'm going to teach you a more effortful way. I'm going to teach you a way of living. That's going to require much, [00:26:00] much more of you. It's going to require more of your attention and effort, and isn't a sexy sell. Just put it that way. That isn't what they're looking for on the bestseller list, right? It's or even in selling products, they're looking for, we're gonna to solve this pain you're feeling right. And make it as easy as possible for you. That is right. Technology. I think you also have said is about reducing comfort essentially. It's making things as easy as possible. So it's the counter intuitive move. And yet, like you're saying it is the path to the good life.

Albert: Yes. There's a million of, or at least a hundred thousand years of human evolution. Where we prosper because we were busy with our hands communally and the humans who were good at this, they had a lot of kids. And so there's an evolutionary pressure. Uh, And uh, that's often what's good for you is also [00:27:00] joyful and pleasurable.

So once you get into it, cross the threshold, there's a profound joy in this, because it's so natural, deeply rooted in our being.

Christina: I love this idea of focal practices. I have a number of people, good friends of mine. Some of them are very online. They would call themselves very online. It's almost like a term like people whose entire like their vocation, everything that they do is entirely on the internet and focal practices, they wouldn't use that term, but that's what they're doing.

They are participating in some kind of virtual focused effort helps them. And you describe focal practices as a human activity that demands skill, patience, and attentiveness and are worthwhile in themselves, not nearly in what they produce. An example would be my friend, Erin [00:28:00] Reynolds, who hopefully is going to listen to this episode is someone whose entire business is online.

He's quite famous online. There's a lot happening for him in the online space. And I had this sort of challenge that I put out, which was to read a magazine from cover to cover, to focus and put all of your effort into just a completion. And he didn't want to do that. But what he did is he made it his own and he went out into his backyard hammock the other night and he listened to an album.

Right that beautifully produced album from start to finish. And he spoke and wrote about how life giving that experience was. And I think it may not in itself have required skill, but it did require attentiveness. For him, it was a worthwhile thing to spend his time on. I'm curious, when I share that story of Erin does that fall into focal practices that kind of fall outside of what you mean?

When you talk about focal practices. 

Albert: There was a complication and it is the [00:29:00] asymmetry between the people who create information and communication technology, which is very engaging, very skillful, although quite often a hectic, but their efforts all result in effortlessness. And so they do wonderful things. And the result is that they stupify people. When you talk about ICT, you have to recognize, and even admire the people who create it. But there's this tragedy in that there's just no semblance on the other side, on the contrary.

Christina: What does ICT stand for? 

Albert: Information and communication technology.

Christina: Thank you. We don't have a lot of time left, but I wanted to talk a little bit about this because you're saying. These people that put a lot of effort into creating it results in effortlessness. Are you talking about that? That no [00:30:00] one sees the effort. That actually goes into what they create. Like they put all this time and effort into it and then it's effortless to consume.

Is that what you're saying? 

Albert: It's an important feature of it and a bad one because traditionally skills were visible to people and admired, so as a skill of a blacksmith of a carpenter, and of course, of a farmer. That mediation of an understanding of skill and effort is lost in the case of ICT.

These people are anonymous, invisible to, in all. There are a few, Jobs, and Gates, and so on, who come to our attention. But, there are millions who make important contributions and our totally anonymous.

Christina: I think it's very painful for people that put a lot of effort into creating something for it to be consumed, in a minute, without, a second thought and with a huge amount of judgment, you listen to it and you're like, oh, it could be better. I, it could be [00:31:00] better in this way. It could be better in this way, but just no concept of, oh, that 30 minute to use the example of this podcast and actually talk about it. Um, In the middle of every one of my episodes about how long an episode makes, because I want people just to understand what they're consuming and that's not to be, "oh, woe is me." I love what I do, but there's, I want there to be an understanding that this 30 minute or 60 minute thing that you are enjoying took this many people and this many hours and all of that effort to create. And so I hope that actually deepens your enjoyment and experience of it because I think at least for myself, it causes me to be more attentive to what I'm consuming when I understand the effort that was involved.

Albert: Yeah. So we can use ICT to make ICT more intelligible and more appreciated. It is just an amazing human accomplishment. We should [00:32:00] understand it and appreciate. So I think everybody should learn Boolean algebra at the very bottom. 

Christina: I'd just love to know-- Albert it's such a gift for you to be here today-- if there's advice that you would give us in terms of the ways that we should structure and lead our lives so that we're more grounded in what it means to be fully human, grounded in what you believe to be the good life, so that we can sustain ourselves and live with joy for the years to come. 

Albert: We should start in a way that's accessible to people, intelligible to people, and then recognize that I'm talking about the culture of the table, that this is as good as life gets and you should enjoy it.

And then branch out from there, into running or music, and other focal practices, but the point is start right [00:33:00] there, make that the focus of your life. It doesn't get any better than that. For religious people, they can think of it as the reenactment of the Eucharist and then that gives it another dimension, but you don't have to be religious, and you shouldn't be to a first approximation when you talk about it because you're putting off people unnecessarily. 

Christina: I have a quote, which I'll put it in the show notes to give proper credit, but it's a quota came across. It says "I will no longer look for better days. I will no longer look ahead or outside of my experience for something better.

I will no longer look for better days. This is the best day what I am living right now. I'm going to be present to it." And I think that's such a beautiful invitation to all of us that it's possible that it's achievable. So thank you so much for that. 

Albert: You bet.

Christina: Albert, again, I can't state enough how much I enjoyed having you on today.

Albert: The pleasure's all mine and you have done such wonderful work [00:34:00] and it was a real pleasure to get to know you and thank you for the opportunity. 

Christina: My pleasure.