I like eating a lot. In college I had unlimited access to the dining hall and would regularly have 5 empty plates on the table by the end of a meal. Being active and outdoorsy counteracted this, but I became much more sedentary once Fauci made the world freeze. The gym was taken from me, and I wasn’t walking to classes since everything was on Zoom. I spent my newfound time getting really good at making cookies, which led to me getting really good at eating cookies. The dad bod stage of my life was starting 20 years too soon, so I needed to get less good at eating cookies.
Struggles Improving Diet
Like most people, I initially tried using sheer will power to resist eating the cookies in my apartment. Hopes were that I could have the cookies in my apartment and just eat them with moderation. Maybe this works for Navy SEALs, but I’m no Jocko Willink. For a few hours I could choose to eat an apple or something, but eventually I would cave and cram cookies down my throat. No matter how hard I tried, the little fatty in me would always win. I simply did not have the willpower to resist cookies in my apartment 24/7.
Once I came to terms with how abysmal my willpower is, I realized that the only way I could ever eat better was to remove the junk food from the apartment. If I had no junk food in my home, I would need no willpower. There would be no decision to make. Temptations while shopping could easily be abated by eating beforehand and using a basket instead of a cart. I put the rules in action and what do you know, my diet became fantastic.
This method was so effective because it was effortless. It didn’t drain any of my willpower, if anything health improvements gave me more mental bandwidth than before. Since then, food has not even remotely been an issue for me.
Stanford Kitchen Experiment
In retrospect it makes complete sense that I gained weight when all this stuff was immediately accessible to me. Imagine if somebody is imprisoned in the snack aisle of Trader Joe’s. I don’t care how health conscious he tries to be, he will eat a few too many chips. So of course when we make our kitchens emulate the snack aisle we are going to gain weight. However, lock the same guy in the produce aisle and I bet you he leaves looking pretty damn nice.
One important note is that if you lock this same hypothetical guy (sorry hypothetical man) in the entire Trader Joe’s, he will probably still look like he just lived in the snack aisle. I had a lot of healthy food in my fridge during my cookie phase, but it didn’t matter how healthy my kitchen was overall, all that mattered was what I actually ate. As long as the decision was there, I could still just eat the cookies. I often did. Once I removed the option, I had to actually eat the carrots I bought. Paradoxically, I ended up enjoying the healthier food much more once there was no alternative.
Tying in Tech
It is pretty evident that somebody should not have constant access to every food imaginable, so let’s apply the same concept to the internet. Would you like a plate of Wikipedia with a side of Duolingo, or would you prefer to binge conspiracy theories for the next five hours? Maybe you would like see what various Nobel laureates have to say about retirement options. Maybe you would like a cult of Redditors to gaslight you into dumping your 401k into meme stocks. These decisions are being made every click. Let your guard down for five minutes, next thing you know you’ve been looking at Michelle Obama’s bulge for two hours.
If you don’t have the willpower to constantly make the right decisions on the internet, you only have a few options:
- Get rid of your technology, all the good and the bad. Industrial society and its future may seem pretty bleak, but the solution isn’t to emulate Ted Kaczynski.
- Try really really hard to use social media moderately, maybe bookmark the good stuff and use a motivational background.
- Set bans on internet junk. Enforce time blocks where you can access the rest of the internet, download what you need and leave.
I’ve dabbled with options one and two (didn’t make any bombs), they simply don’t work. Option three seems extreme, but it is no more crazy than outright banning donuts and candy from your diet. Donuts are in no way essential for your diet, and X (formerly known as Twitter) is in no way essential for your brain. I have been free of social media for years and haven’t missed out on a thing. Everything important will organically be said by somebody else. You quickly come to realize there’s not much important.
Taking Action
Again I know this seems draconian, but I am living proof it’s possible. There is no internet in my apartment and I use a flip phone with 1 gig of data a month. The local library and a room in my apartment complex are my only sources of internet. Just like the grocery store, I go to the library with a list of tasks, download anything I would like to use offline, and leave. I am able to run this website, pay my bills, and download useful YouTube videos. Wikipedia is even downloaded, taking only 2 gigabytes of storage. All I lose are rabbit holes.
As a matter of fact, I am more productive than if I had unlimited access. Since all I need is downloaded, I can write, read, and code at home without any distractions. Having to go to the library causes me to be much more methodical as well. I now have much more of a plan instead of just opening up my laptop and seeing what happens. Being in public also makes me more studious. I feel like a loser going to the library to binge videos, so it provides a nice pressure to actually create stuff. If I am especially scatter-brained, I can sit in a more visible spot. I don’t know if I just want to look really cool and smart to everybody else, but hey it works. Even the change of setting helps, my brain associates the location with getting work done.
Wrapping it Up
We have had 50 years to adapt to the wave of ultra-processed foods, and 75% of the United States is still overweight or obese. The iPhone has been around for like 15 years, and we have even less of a clue of how to control it. With the average daily phone screen time being 4 hours 37 minutes, it’s time we start taking some drastic actions. We are in a one-sided war, with trillion dollar companies fighting tooth and nail for our attention. There is no way to outsmart these behemoths. The only way we will emancipate ourselves from technology is by minimizing exposure to their algorithms.