Episode Details

Johann is a close friend, so let’s get that out of the way. His latest subject is the modern curse of screen-driven distraction, and how to combat it: “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — And How To Think Deeply Again.” I even appear in the background in his account of how he tried to escape Internet addiction one summer in Provincetown. So excuse some of the informality and jokiness at the beginning of this chin-wag.

You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app,” which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. For two clips of our conversation — on whether it’s a good idea to ban the Twitter business model, and on the value of reading fiction — head over to our YouTube page.

My chat with Johann touched on many of the themes in my 2016 essay on web addiction, “I Used To Be Human.” Here’s a bit:

As I had discovered in my blogging years, the family that is eating together while simultaneously on their phones is not actually together. They are, in Turkle’s formulation, “alone together.” You are where your attention is. If you’re watching a football game with your son while also texting a friend, you’re not fully with your child — and he knows it. Truly being with another person means being experientially with them, picking up countless tiny signals from the eyes and voice and body language and context, and reacting, often unconsciously, to every nuance. These are our deepest social skills, which have been honed through the aeons. They are what make us distinctively human.

A reader illustrates how social media not only destroys attention, but also friendships:

I want to begin by saying I’m so thankful for having access to your thoughts on a weekly basis. I feel a great deal of comfort and catharsis while listening to the Dishcast, and always admire your compassionate tenor. Your background as a Catholic has challenged some of my narrower preconceptions and helped invigorate a spiritual flame within me that needed nurturing. I was especially intrigued and moved by your conversation with Michael Brendan Dougherty, which I’ve since re-listened to twice.

That being said, what has prompted me to write you is, unfortunately, more in the spirit of a lamentation. I usually avoid posting political commentary on social media because the harsh reactions always outweigh whatever good I hope might come of sharing my thoughts. But I nevertheless posted on Instagram a short quote from your latest newsletter, where you plainly (and relatable) describe the escalating cycle of both political fringes pushing us further apart and into illiberalism.

As a result, a close friend of mine went off the rails, essentially denouncing any form of compromise and accusing me of being a “centrist.” By some kind of hyper-aggrieved, radical-activist logic, he suggested that I am unwittingly harming gay, trans and other marginalized communities and thereby not a true ally. This was somehow his attempt at giving me a chance to defend myself before being blocked, and we’ve never even spoken about this topic before.

I’ve been genuinely depressed since I got his message. Despite being so hurt and sad, I responded as kindly and honestly as I could. I told him I missed seeing him and his wife (my childhood friend). I informed him that, in fact, the writer of the excerpt I posted is himself gay. I said I fe