Anne Trager: The world is too much with us, late and soon, getting and spending. We lay waste our powers. This comes from a poem written by William Wordsworth in 1802, which was, as we know, before smartphones, before the internet, and before even electricity entered into everybody's home. And later in the poem, he writes, For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
Fab: Hi everyone and welcome to the Human Pulse Podcast where we talk about living well with technology. I'm Fabrice Neuman a tech consultant for small businesses.
Anne Trager: And I am Anne Trager a leadership performance coach.
Fab: This is episode 42, recorded in August 23rd, 2026.
Anne Trager: Human pulse is usually never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started. Fab, you mentioned the other day something about smartphones changing our bodies, and I immediately thought about Tech Neck and thumb strain and myopia and crappy sleep and a more sedentary lifestyle and so on and so forth.
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: Ho hum. and then of course, like almost immediately afterwards, in a very modern kind of jumping around kind of way, my mind went to how I use Apple Fitness so that I'm always working out. I mean like literally always working out. And to the various biomarker wearables that I have used and others use to encourage them to get healthier and to move more and to sleep more.
Fab: Yeah, well, so this topic came from an article in Fast Company titled, Your Smartphone is Changing Your Body. Doctors say most people don't know it's happening because we don't think about it mostly. It basically talks about what you mentioned, namely the tech neck, meaning the strain on your neck when you look at your smartphone. We all have that. We all know that posture, right?
Anne Trager: I I I don't know what you're talking about.
Fab: You even told me there are research, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that showing that there's like a new development in the neck bones to help the structure, right? Because of that.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah. Because of the the head being so heavy. And I haven't looked recently to confirm that that research, but yes.
Fab: As far as the myopia is concerned, more and more people are saying that it's not directly related to screens, but more to the lack of going outside and having proper lighting.
Anne Trager: And potentially looking away off into the distance. You know, use it or lose it, right?
Fab: Yes, yeah, yeah, as we as we usually say, so but it's not only the smartphone, it's all the screens maybe, plus
Anne Trager: Hmm.
Fab: the fact that we don't look at it. So we don't go outside enough. And the article also talks about grip strength, which is, you know, often talked about related to our longevity. And it might not be directly related to the use of smartphone. We don't lose grip strength just because the smartphones, as getting bigger and bigger as they are, are not exactly the culprit in that.
Anne Trager: The bigger it is, the stronger the fingers to hold it, right?
Fab: Well, maybe so, but still a smartphone is still like 230 grams at the most, which is, what is it? I don't remember. Whatever it is in ounces. Sorry. I
Anne Trager: Mm-hmm.
Fab: heard as a side note, I heard an American podcaster talking like in miles and then saying, and in real measurements talking kilometers. So Sorry, American listeners out there.
Anne Trager: Okay.
Fab: But so as far as grip strength is concerned, there's this, you know, basically we have a less active life in general. So it's just a marker of how maybe our muscle tone is getting lower because we don't move as much. With the exception maybe of people like you using, you know, Apple Fitness and moving all the time with or without Apple Fitness actually, which is where what you said might be weak link because you don't move because of Apple Fitness. You use Apple Fitness to move and you don't use this only.
Anne Trager: True, true. Yeah. And but what it does is it makes it easier for me to move because
Fab: Yes.
Anne Trager: I don't have to think about what I'm gonna do. I know that it's there, you know, I I I and and so on and so forth. I get a variety of activities and so on and so
Fab: Yeah.
Anne Trager: forth. So it's about making it easier, so reducing the friction towards movement, despite the fact that I have a very sedentary kind of job. Okay.
Fab: And to your point, technology helps in that regard. So we are very
Anne Trager: Mm.
Fab: quick to pointing fingers to technology and mainly smartphones being the culprit of everything bad about it. But all the things we do thanks to smartphones and technology, we tend to forget. So there are advantages to technology as well.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah. And and some of the wearables that are out that are j are just incredible for, you know, understanding your health or lack of health and and improving it.
Fab: Okay. Yes.
Anne Trager: goes both ways. I mean, yes, there are disadvantages and and and negative effects and yes, there are positive benefits that we are all getting from it. So I don't actually think that's the most interesting part of the discussion. I think what becomes interesting is when we think about how adaptable we are. And so what interests me is that is how are we going to adapt to the bigger picture of what the smartphone and all of these other new techno logical advances are bringing Okay. Or it's not I and I said that in the future tense, but it it's no longer future tense. It's like happening right now. It's not
Fab: No joke.
Anne Trager: how will we do it? It's like what are how are we adapting? And this brings me to a book that I heard about recently, which is called We Are as Gods, a survival guide for the age of abundance. And it was published in April of this year. And it's written by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. And the book's core claim is that we now possess powers that would once have seemed divine, okay, godlike, okay? So we have near-instant access to knowledge and global communication and things like gene editing and artificial intelligence and you know, just a technological. reach that is completely and radically extended from where it was before. And the book itself raises the question of whether or not we as human beings in physical bodies can develop the judgment that we need to play God well, you know, to use this these divine like like tools. I think that's a really interesting question.
Fab: Well, it is. First, should we play God, first of all?
Anne Trager: Yeah, exactly.
Fab: But then what you just had made me think of this very famous sentence by also a very famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke. I think everybody knows this one. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Anne Trager: Yes.
Fab: And we've had that time and again throughout history. As far as today's technology is concerned, generative AI obviously comes to mind because this is magic. There's this magic quote unquote being that we can talk to. We know, and it bears repeating, it's not magic, it's just a statistical tool. And still some fall in love with it, some swear by it. And to add to the overall problem, it seems that
Anne Trager: Or swear at it. me.
Fab: You do that, But to be fair, you started swearing to technology before AI. Right?
Anne Trager: True, true, to be fair, right?
Fab: And to add to the overall problem, seems that even creators don't exactly know how it works. We've seen that in the latest problems. OpenAI had as one of its new models basically got out of containment to hack another website without OpenAI even knowing for a certain, you know, a few hours. You know, this is a very famous story now and potentially an eye opening story for lots of people for OpenAI and for the general public. It also it happened to Anthropic as well, the creators of Claude. basically an AI model being able to, so break containment, trying to hack into other places, websites, chaining different security problems that AI discovered itself to be able to intrude someplace. That's a real problem. And so... We do possess new powers, that's for sure, but we don't seem to know exactly how to wield them, if I'd say.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah, well or wha do we actually possess them is what you're also introducing as this other idea. Okay,
Fab: Yes, absolutely.
Anne Trager: but let's circle back to this idea of you know, to the smartphone thread, which is a little Less broad, okay?
Fab: Bye. Well, it does help to think
Anne Trager: okay.
Fab: about it in a narrow way.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah. And then maybe not, because i let's rather circle back to the book I mentioned, okay? Because there's another idea in the book which is it seems i is very relevant to me at least, which is that our technology is changing exponentially. That's what you're describing, okay?
Fab: Mm-hmm.
Anne Trager: and like so fast, and our nervous systems are not. Okay. And this is the this is the thing. And the the authors Argue that there is a real mismatch between our ancient brains and our modern technologies. So humans evolved to operate in environments of scarcity, of limited information, of physical immediacy, and of relatively slow change. None of which we are experiencing right now. Okay. I mean I I I yeah.
Fab: Let me repeat that. No joke.
Anne Trager: So, you know, we are now living in environments of abundance in some parts of the world. Let's be clear. Okay, I don't
Fab: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Anne Trager: wanna, you know, make n broad generalizations. We know this is not true all over the place. and and for many of our listeners, it is very true, of continuous stimulation, constant, constantly on, okay, of a global reach through the telephone. immediately and of this notion of accelerating change. Okay. And we see the impact of this in things like information overload, which everybody experiences. Okay. Burnout, which is on the rise exponentially, if I dare say, okay. in this state that people are in, which is a constant threat detection alert state. It leads to overwhelm. People are exhausted by it. Okay. And there's also Like a distortion of meaning. I mean, you have so much information that it means nothing anymore, you know. There's just too much going on, basically. So we have created device or a system of and several devices that gives us something approaching omniscience and omnipresence. I mean that's truly divine in i
Fab: Hmm. Hmm.
Anne Trager: i if you will, I mean godlike in that sense.
Fab: as we humans describe it.
Anne Trager: As we humans describe it, exactly. And yet we operate in a body designed to walk, to look into the distance, to sleep in darkness.
Fab: which we have less and less of.
Anne Trager: True, true, true. And we're also designed to move frequently and to attend to a relatively small number of things at once. Okay, so yeah, that multitasking is completely, totally a myth, and so on and so forth. so anyway, as our external capacity expands because of all of these tools, you know, more and more people are feeling really anxious and overwhelmed and even powerless. When in fact, say these authors, our resilience, attention, meaning making, wisdom, and ability to regulate ourselves have to develop with the technology. We need to work on those things. So I'm just gonna say them again, okay, so that we know what we're talking about. We need to work on our resilience and we need to work on our ability to pay attention, and we need to work on how we make meaning, okay? We need to keep making meaning. We need to work on this notion of wisdom, that is judgment and thinking about things in in a broader context, okay? And our ability to regulate ourselves, these bodies which are totally incredible and can do many things that these tools cannot do as well. So Steven Kotler, who is one of the two authors, is also one of the world's top experts, if not the top expert, on the flow state, which is that incredible state where we
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: are like super, super totally productive. And he you know, he suggests that this state is i is one to cultivate as well.
Fab: Yeah, you were mentioning the notion of development and I think it's a real keyword here as in how our kids develop these new abilities. And there's a real question here because even if I don't want to be too negative here, we know that I'm the negative voice here.
Anne Trager: Yeah.
Fab: I don't think we give our kids all the keys to do that today. One example that comes to mind are social networks. we've been talking about them for years and we've had evidence for many years now that they have a global negative effect on kids' development, right? You know, like the doom-scrolling, the endless videos and whatnot. And we see tentative attempts to create regulations and laws to control that, to make sure that those awful services, don't have too much of an effect on the kids. They do have an effect on adults, but as you said, we need to develop notions of how to control it, how to use that so that it's controlled. Really, the word is controlled. And so there are regulations like banning use of social networks in Australia and France, for that matter, before the age of 15.
Anne Trager: Mm-hmm.
Fab: And to me, it's just like having a law regulating speed on highways, right? In France, it's 130 kilometers per hour on highways. Okay, so it's a control, it's a regulation, but it's a way to live together. And this law in France, banning use of social networks before the age of 15, was blocked by the Conseil Constitutionnel, which is the highest constitutional authority in France because, as the council members said, the law would restrain freedom of speech and communication, mainly because the law was being too broad. And what I take from that is, as we've known for a long time, law advances far more slowly than technology. It cannot keep up, obviously. But it seems that we don't know how to answer another question, very important to me, which is, what is more restrictive to our global freedom as human beings? A stricter law or the disappearance of human abilities altogether?
Anne Trager: Hmm. Yeah, I I think that, you know, this is such a a thorny question. I mean, really, w because we don't really know,
Fab: No.
Anne Trager: you know. But what you know, what I'd like to bounce off of in what you said is to go back to this idea of of how we as human beings develop. we talked about this in the previous episode as well, about this notion of use it or lose it. So we're right in that. in in in that question, I mean this is clearly how we develop skills, is that we have to be challenged to develop those skills. And if we are not challenged, then we don't develop the skills. Whatever those skills are. and so what we see in this social media example is just the ease of not thinking and the ease of having access To so much and too much, more than you know, young minds or even adult minds can handle. so where where do you draw the line? How do you draw the line? And you know, at what age does it become pertinent to be able to choose? I mean, I don't know, I don't have the answers to these questions. I think it must be really hard for lawmakers as well to be able to find some sort of something that would work.
Fab: I agree with that. And there's always the same problem as well. Laws are made to find a common rule for everybody, trying to answer their unique needs. And so this is always where there's tension.
Anne Trager: Well and I think that that's where we here at least can bring the conversation back to Another core argument in the book and one that echoes what I'm always talking about here, which is this idea of agency. That is how we choose to react in the face of what's going on. Okay. And the authors of the book advocate f for n they they don't say retreat from technology, they advocate for learning to become more intentional users of it, okay. So and and our regular listeners know that we're always talking about agency and intention and how and thinking about it and choice. so the idea is how can we intentionally develop the cognitive and psychological capacity needed to navigate an accelerating environment rather than to simply be acted upon by it. Okay?
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: And and I think that that's what those legislators are trying to do is to preserve the children who don't yet have the brain capacity to be in full agency, okay, in in full choice. And you know, maybe we as adults we also need a little protection from it because these tools are so, so powerful. Okay. Yeah.
Fab: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, like, the speed limit on highways.
Anne Trager: Yeah, hence the speed limit, exactly. You know. But anyway, this is where w we get to what we can actually do as individuals, you know, and as technology takes away the constraints that our bodies use to grow and to think and to regulate, we actually can think about putting those constraints back in, you know. So for most of human history, all of these environmental constraints have forced us to be have forced physical behaviors on us okay so if you don't have easy transportation well you walk okay okay we moved because the work that we were doing required movement okay we stopped working when it became dark because there was not artificial light we interacted physically with other people because the only way to communicate was within proximity. So none of those constraints exist anymore, for the most part, okay, except when the power goes down. but anyway, okay, that's another story. We might be getting there more and more often for other reasons, but again, another story. so the question is how do we consciously choose the behaviors that we want to keep, okay? and and then, you know, how do we do that? On a daily basis. So we have to actually decide when we want to walk someplace now. And our bodies need to move. They it li like literally it's part of the regulatory system of the body. Okay. We have to decide when to stop looking at a screen because the screen will always be there. We have to decide when the day ends because it can go on forever. You know? We have to manufacture darkness. I mean, it is so hard to find a dark place now, okay? We have to we have to actually seek out other people to be in physical contact with. I mean to actually
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: find a community because we can spend all of our time interacting through these tools that we are currently using, amazing as they are, And we also have to deliberately expose ourselves to things like daylight, which totally regulates absolutely every system in our body. Okay. Again, to movement, which I keep talking about because I'm obsessed with movement. To effort in general, because as we know we need to make an effort in order to keep up our skills, okay. To boredom, which we've talked about in a previous episode. And sometimes even to silence, which is really hard to find these days. It's kind of cool, the silence It's okay. And we also need to, you know, be really intentional how we use AI, like to remember to think first before asking AI, and remember maybe to write first before asking AI to do it for you. I mean, this is actually really hard. I'm I'm I'm really like I'm having re putting reminders up now and post-its to remember to do that because it's
Fab: Yeah.
Anne Trager: so easy to just use it immediately.
Fab: That's very true.
Anne Trager: And then ultimately, if I want to complete that list, I would say we have to double down on being really curious about the world and the people around us in order to keep that mind open. You know, so we need friction. The brain adapts to useful friction, so we need to be creating useful friction in order to keep our brains plastic and adapting to the world around us. The question I have for ever all of our listeners is how are you challenging yourself?
Fab: Yeah, it's very true. And as you mentioned earlier, it does link back to our previous episode, you know, where I described how I went back to handwriting, for example, you know, using a Kindle Scribe and what have you. Go listen, people. And as far as I'm concerned, I believe it was a freeing challenge for me because as it takes more time to think about what I'm writing and more broadly doing something, For one example, I found out that I was less drawn to watch silly videos on YouTube. Right? Yeah,
Anne Trager: Yay.
Fab: exactly. There are many, many things you can learn on YouTube and it's okay also to watch brainless things because you need to let go. It's fine. But for me, it's a more conscious choice, meaning that, maybe instead of... as a reflex almost going on YouTube to see what's on, maybe, okay, so I just need a few seconds to think about it and so I can not do that as a choice. Yes, exactly.
Anne Trager: Hm. Yes, that space, you know, that space to think and choose.
Fab: and so with...
Anne Trager: I call it the space between.
Fab: Interesting. And so I'm more and more present in that space between. And
Anne Trager: Hm, nice.
Fab: I've been... We've been discussing this change in use of technology for months now. And so it's a process. It takes time and it's okay. maybe the process also is very interesting because it makes you think about what you're doing and instead of doing something by reflex, mindlessly. So yeah. To me, it's one of the results is that. And as far as the handwriting is concerned, you embarked on that train as well, didn't you?
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah, I have. And I think that that's going to be the topic of another episode. So this is a teaser for another episode. Because what I'd really like to do today is to finish on some good news because we've raised a lot of questions. We've also talked about some kind of scary things. and there's a lot of really good news going out there. so you know, we've been talking about the ways technology can pull us out of tune with our bodies. There's actually another side to this story, and that there's some really cool technology being developed right now that is adapting respectfully to the human body and that's cool. So researchers for example are working with nanoparticles that might one day, this is very edge, okay, that might one day be able to allow us to stimulate or deliver treatments to specific parts of the brain without opening the skull. That's kind of cool. It's also kind of scary. But anyway,
Fab: Well, it's very science fiction, but as we're flying machines someday. Yeah.
Anne Trager: But yeah, but people are working on it like using a nasal spray, you know. I mean and we all know that the n the anyway, the nose is like complete i is immediately connected to the brain. So so I think that that's really interesting, with some, you know, they're talking about it using it for things like, you know, Parkinson's disease and and and so forth. other researchers have created a brain computer interface that lets People control robotic legs with their thoughts. And the system also sends the sensation back to the brain. So it's a back and forth. It's that feedback loop that we do automatically in these incredible bodies we have. Okay. and then there are like these tiny wearable ultrasound patches that you can you know, put on your skin and continuously see what's happening deep inside the body, like blood pressure and cardiac output and you know, organs and so forth, without the need of a machine or a technician. So all of that's really cool.
Fab: That's very nice, but basically we are becoming cyborgs if we go all the way in.
Anne Trager: Maybe, maybe we are. And and I think there's another way of looking at it. I mean, for a really long time a lot of medical technology required the body to accommodate the machine.
Fab: Mm-hmm.
Anne Trager: you know, you we would cut well and we still do cut into the body and we put things inside the body and and we bring the person to the technology. And so now what we're seeing with this these kinds of technologies is that we're ta starting to make Technology small enough and sensitive enough and intelligent enough to actually accommodate to a real human being. So I find that hopeful. It's the hopeful side of what we're talking about. so as we work on our resilience and our adaptability and our wisdom, we are also getting better at designing technology around what a human being actually is.
Fab: Well, on this very Star Trek image, that's it for episode 42. you all for joining us. for links and past episodes.
Anne Trager: Thank you also for subscribing and reviewing this podcast wherever you listen to it. it helps other people to find us. you know, does whatever the algorithm needs it to do. We are adapting to the algorithm here. Please we adapt we ask that you help us adapt to the algorithm. and also please share this with anyone around you who could find it interesting.
Fab: And we'll see you in more or less two weeks.
Anne Trager: bye everyone.
Fab: Hi everyone and welcome to the Human Pulse Podcast where we talk about living well with technology. I'm Fabrice Neuman a tech consultant for small businesses.
Anne Trager: And I am Anne Trager a leadership performance coach.
Fab: This is episode 42, recorded in August 23rd, 2026.
Anne Trager: Human pulse is usually never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started. Fab, you mentioned the other day something about smartphones changing our bodies, and I immediately thought about Tech Neck and thumb strain and myopia and crappy sleep and a more sedentary lifestyle and so on and so forth.
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: Ho hum. and then of course, like almost immediately afterwards, in a very modern kind of jumping around kind of way, my mind went to how I use Apple Fitness so that I'm always working out. I mean like literally always working out. And to the various biomarker wearables that I have used and others use to encourage them to get healthier and to move more and to sleep more.
Fab: Yeah, well, so this topic came from an article in Fast Company titled, Your Smartphone is Changing Your Body. Doctors say most people don't know it's happening because we don't think about it mostly. It basically talks about what you mentioned, namely the tech neck, meaning the strain on your neck when you look at your smartphone. We all have that. We all know that posture, right?
Anne Trager: I I I don't know what you're talking about.
Fab: You even told me there are research, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that showing that there's like a new development in the neck bones to help the structure, right? Because of that.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah. Because of the the head being so heavy. And I haven't looked recently to confirm that that research, but yes.
Fab: As far as the myopia is concerned, more and more people are saying that it's not directly related to screens, but more to the lack of going outside and having proper lighting.
Anne Trager: And potentially looking away off into the distance. You know, use it or lose it, right?
Fab: Yes, yeah, yeah, as we as we usually say, so but it's not only the smartphone, it's all the screens maybe, plus
Anne Trager: Hmm.
Fab: the fact that we don't look at it. So we don't go outside enough. And the article also talks about grip strength, which is, you know, often talked about related to our longevity. And it might not be directly related to the use of smartphone. We don't lose grip strength just because the smartphones, as getting bigger and bigger as they are, are not exactly the culprit in that.
Anne Trager: The bigger it is, the stronger the fingers to hold it, right?
Fab: Well, maybe so, but still a smartphone is still like 230 grams at the most, which is, what is it? I don't remember. Whatever it is in ounces. Sorry. I
Anne Trager: Mm-hmm.
Fab: heard as a side note, I heard an American podcaster talking like in miles and then saying, and in real measurements talking kilometers. So Sorry, American listeners out there.
Anne Trager: Okay.
Fab: But so as far as grip strength is concerned, there's this, you know, basically we have a less active life in general. So it's just a marker of how maybe our muscle tone is getting lower because we don't move as much. With the exception maybe of people like you using, you know, Apple Fitness and moving all the time with or without Apple Fitness actually, which is where what you said might be weak link because you don't move because of Apple Fitness. You use Apple Fitness to move and you don't use this only.
Anne Trager: True, true. Yeah. And but what it does is it makes it easier for me to move because
Fab: Yes.
Anne Trager: I don't have to think about what I'm gonna do. I know that it's there, you know, I I I and and so on and so forth. I get a variety of activities and so on and so
Fab: Yeah.
Anne Trager: forth. So it's about making it easier, so reducing the friction towards movement, despite the fact that I have a very sedentary kind of job. Okay.
Fab: And to your point, technology helps in that regard. So we are very
Anne Trager: Mm.
Fab: quick to pointing fingers to technology and mainly smartphones being the culprit of everything bad about it. But all the things we do thanks to smartphones and technology, we tend to forget. So there are advantages to technology as well.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah. And and some of the wearables that are out that are j are just incredible for, you know, understanding your health or lack of health and and improving it.
Fab: Okay. Yes.
Anne Trager: goes both ways. I mean, yes, there are disadvantages and and and negative effects and yes, there are positive benefits that we are all getting from it. So I don't actually think that's the most interesting part of the discussion. I think what becomes interesting is when we think about how adaptable we are. And so what interests me is that is how are we going to adapt to the bigger picture of what the smartphone and all of these other new techno logical advances are bringing Okay. Or it's not I and I said that in the future tense, but it it's no longer future tense. It's like happening right now. It's not
Fab: No joke.
Anne Trager: how will we do it? It's like what are how are we adapting? And this brings me to a book that I heard about recently, which is called We Are as Gods, a survival guide for the age of abundance. And it was published in April of this year. And it's written by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. And the book's core claim is that we now possess powers that would once have seemed divine, okay, godlike, okay? So we have near-instant access to knowledge and global communication and things like gene editing and artificial intelligence and you know, just a technological. reach that is completely and radically extended from where it was before. And the book itself raises the question of whether or not we as human beings in physical bodies can develop the judgment that we need to play God well, you know, to use this these divine like like tools. I think that's a really interesting question.
Fab: Well, it is. First, should we play God, first of all?
Anne Trager: Yeah, exactly.
Fab: But then what you just had made me think of this very famous sentence by also a very famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke. I think everybody knows this one. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Anne Trager: Yes.
Fab: And we've had that time and again throughout history. As far as today's technology is concerned, generative AI obviously comes to mind because this is magic. There's this magic quote unquote being that we can talk to. We know, and it bears repeating, it's not magic, it's just a statistical tool. And still some fall in love with it, some swear by it. And to add to the overall problem, it seems that
Anne Trager: Or swear at it. me.
Fab: You do that, But to be fair, you started swearing to technology before AI. Right?
Anne Trager: True, true, to be fair, right?
Fab: And to add to the overall problem, seems that even creators don't exactly know how it works. We've seen that in the latest problems. OpenAI had as one of its new models basically got out of containment to hack another website without OpenAI even knowing for a certain, you know, a few hours. You know, this is a very famous story now and potentially an eye opening story for lots of people for OpenAI and for the general public. It also it happened to Anthropic as well, the creators of Claude. basically an AI model being able to, so break containment, trying to hack into other places, websites, chaining different security problems that AI discovered itself to be able to intrude someplace. That's a real problem. And so... We do possess new powers, that's for sure, but we don't seem to know exactly how to wield them, if I'd say.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah, well or wha do we actually possess them is what you're also introducing as this other idea. Okay,
Fab: Yes, absolutely.
Anne Trager: but let's circle back to this idea of you know, to the smartphone thread, which is a little Less broad, okay?
Fab: Bye. Well, it does help to think
Anne Trager: okay.
Fab: about it in a narrow way.
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah. And then maybe not, because i let's rather circle back to the book I mentioned, okay? Because there's another idea in the book which is it seems i is very relevant to me at least, which is that our technology is changing exponentially. That's what you're describing, okay?
Fab: Mm-hmm.
Anne Trager: and like so fast, and our nervous systems are not. Okay. And this is the this is the thing. And the the authors Argue that there is a real mismatch between our ancient brains and our modern technologies. So humans evolved to operate in environments of scarcity, of limited information, of physical immediacy, and of relatively slow change. None of which we are experiencing right now. Okay. I mean I I I yeah.
Fab: Let me repeat that. No joke.
Anne Trager: So, you know, we are now living in environments of abundance in some parts of the world. Let's be clear. Okay, I don't
Fab: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Anne Trager: wanna, you know, make n broad generalizations. We know this is not true all over the place. and and for many of our listeners, it is very true, of continuous stimulation, constant, constantly on, okay, of a global reach through the telephone. immediately and of this notion of accelerating change. Okay. And we see the impact of this in things like information overload, which everybody experiences. Okay. Burnout, which is on the rise exponentially, if I dare say, okay. in this state that people are in, which is a constant threat detection alert state. It leads to overwhelm. People are exhausted by it. Okay. And there's also Like a distortion of meaning. I mean, you have so much information that it means nothing anymore, you know. There's just too much going on, basically. So we have created device or a system of and several devices that gives us something approaching omniscience and omnipresence. I mean that's truly divine in i
Fab: Hmm. Hmm.
Anne Trager: i if you will, I mean godlike in that sense.
Fab: as we humans describe it.
Anne Trager: As we humans describe it, exactly. And yet we operate in a body designed to walk, to look into the distance, to sleep in darkness.
Fab: which we have less and less of.
Anne Trager: True, true, true. And we're also designed to move frequently and to attend to a relatively small number of things at once. Okay, so yeah, that multitasking is completely, totally a myth, and so on and so forth. so anyway, as our external capacity expands because of all of these tools, you know, more and more people are feeling really anxious and overwhelmed and even powerless. When in fact, say these authors, our resilience, attention, meaning making, wisdom, and ability to regulate ourselves have to develop with the technology. We need to work on those things. So I'm just gonna say them again, okay, so that we know what we're talking about. We need to work on our resilience and we need to work on our ability to pay attention, and we need to work on how we make meaning, okay? We need to keep making meaning. We need to work on this notion of wisdom, that is judgment and thinking about things in in a broader context, okay? And our ability to regulate ourselves, these bodies which are totally incredible and can do many things that these tools cannot do as well. So Steven Kotler, who is one of the two authors, is also one of the world's top experts, if not the top expert, on the flow state, which is that incredible state where we
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: are like super, super totally productive. And he you know, he suggests that this state is i is one to cultivate as well.
Fab: Yeah, you were mentioning the notion of development and I think it's a real keyword here as in how our kids develop these new abilities. And there's a real question here because even if I don't want to be too negative here, we know that I'm the negative voice here.
Anne Trager: Yeah.
Fab: I don't think we give our kids all the keys to do that today. One example that comes to mind are social networks. we've been talking about them for years and we've had evidence for many years now that they have a global negative effect on kids' development, right? You know, like the doom-scrolling, the endless videos and whatnot. And we see tentative attempts to create regulations and laws to control that, to make sure that those awful services, don't have too much of an effect on the kids. They do have an effect on adults, but as you said, we need to develop notions of how to control it, how to use that so that it's controlled. Really, the word is controlled. And so there are regulations like banning use of social networks in Australia and France, for that matter, before the age of 15.
Anne Trager: Mm-hmm.
Fab: And to me, it's just like having a law regulating speed on highways, right? In France, it's 130 kilometers per hour on highways. Okay, so it's a control, it's a regulation, but it's a way to live together. And this law in France, banning use of social networks before the age of 15, was blocked by the Conseil Constitutionnel, which is the highest constitutional authority in France because, as the council members said, the law would restrain freedom of speech and communication, mainly because the law was being too broad. And what I take from that is, as we've known for a long time, law advances far more slowly than technology. It cannot keep up, obviously. But it seems that we don't know how to answer another question, very important to me, which is, what is more restrictive to our global freedom as human beings? A stricter law or the disappearance of human abilities altogether?
Anne Trager: Hmm. Yeah, I I think that, you know, this is such a a thorny question. I mean, really, w because we don't really know,
Fab: No.
Anne Trager: you know. But what you know, what I'd like to bounce off of in what you said is to go back to this idea of of how we as human beings develop. we talked about this in the previous episode as well, about this notion of use it or lose it. So we're right in that. in in in that question, I mean this is clearly how we develop skills, is that we have to be challenged to develop those skills. And if we are not challenged, then we don't develop the skills. Whatever those skills are. and so what we see in this social media example is just the ease of not thinking and the ease of having access To so much and too much, more than you know, young minds or even adult minds can handle. so where where do you draw the line? How do you draw the line? And you know, at what age does it become pertinent to be able to choose? I mean, I don't know, I don't have the answers to these questions. I think it must be really hard for lawmakers as well to be able to find some sort of something that would work.
Fab: I agree with that. And there's always the same problem as well. Laws are made to find a common rule for everybody, trying to answer their unique needs. And so this is always where there's tension.
Anne Trager: Well and I think that that's where we here at least can bring the conversation back to Another core argument in the book and one that echoes what I'm always talking about here, which is this idea of agency. That is how we choose to react in the face of what's going on. Okay. And the authors of the book advocate f for n they they don't say retreat from technology, they advocate for learning to become more intentional users of it, okay. So and and our regular listeners know that we're always talking about agency and intention and how and thinking about it and choice. so the idea is how can we intentionally develop the cognitive and psychological capacity needed to navigate an accelerating environment rather than to simply be acted upon by it. Okay?
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: And and I think that that's what those legislators are trying to do is to preserve the children who don't yet have the brain capacity to be in full agency, okay, in in full choice. And you know, maybe we as adults we also need a little protection from it because these tools are so, so powerful. Okay. Yeah.
Fab: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, like, the speed limit on highways.
Anne Trager: Yeah, hence the speed limit, exactly. You know. But anyway, this is where w we get to what we can actually do as individuals, you know, and as technology takes away the constraints that our bodies use to grow and to think and to regulate, we actually can think about putting those constraints back in, you know. So for most of human history, all of these environmental constraints have forced us to be have forced physical behaviors on us okay so if you don't have easy transportation well you walk okay okay we moved because the work that we were doing required movement okay we stopped working when it became dark because there was not artificial light we interacted physically with other people because the only way to communicate was within proximity. So none of those constraints exist anymore, for the most part, okay, except when the power goes down. but anyway, okay, that's another story. We might be getting there more and more often for other reasons, but again, another story. so the question is how do we consciously choose the behaviors that we want to keep, okay? and and then, you know, how do we do that? On a daily basis. So we have to actually decide when we want to walk someplace now. And our bodies need to move. They it li like literally it's part of the regulatory system of the body. Okay. We have to decide when to stop looking at a screen because the screen will always be there. We have to decide when the day ends because it can go on forever. You know? We have to manufacture darkness. I mean, it is so hard to find a dark place now, okay? We have to we have to actually seek out other people to be in physical contact with. I mean to actually
Fab: Hmm.
Anne Trager: find a community because we can spend all of our time interacting through these tools that we are currently using, amazing as they are, And we also have to deliberately expose ourselves to things like daylight, which totally regulates absolutely every system in our body. Okay. Again, to movement, which I keep talking about because I'm obsessed with movement. To effort in general, because as we know we need to make an effort in order to keep up our skills, okay. To boredom, which we've talked about in a previous episode. And sometimes even to silence, which is really hard to find these days. It's kind of cool, the silence It's okay. And we also need to, you know, be really intentional how we use AI, like to remember to think first before asking AI, and remember maybe to write first before asking AI to do it for you. I mean, this is actually really hard. I'm I'm I'm really like I'm having re putting reminders up now and post-its to remember to do that because it's
Fab: Yeah.
Anne Trager: so easy to just use it immediately.
Fab: That's very true.
Anne Trager: And then ultimately, if I want to complete that list, I would say we have to double down on being really curious about the world and the people around us in order to keep that mind open. You know, so we need friction. The brain adapts to useful friction, so we need to be creating useful friction in order to keep our brains plastic and adapting to the world around us. The question I have for ever all of our listeners is how are you challenging yourself?
Fab: Yeah, it's very true. And as you mentioned earlier, it does link back to our previous episode, you know, where I described how I went back to handwriting, for example, you know, using a Kindle Scribe and what have you. Go listen, people. And as far as I'm concerned, I believe it was a freeing challenge for me because as it takes more time to think about what I'm writing and more broadly doing something, For one example, I found out that I was less drawn to watch silly videos on YouTube. Right? Yeah,
Anne Trager: Yay.
Fab: exactly. There are many, many things you can learn on YouTube and it's okay also to watch brainless things because you need to let go. It's fine. But for me, it's a more conscious choice, meaning that, maybe instead of... as a reflex almost going on YouTube to see what's on, maybe, okay, so I just need a few seconds to think about it and so I can not do that as a choice. Yes, exactly.
Anne Trager: Hm. Yes, that space, you know, that space to think and choose.
Fab: and so with...
Anne Trager: I call it the space between.
Fab: Interesting. And so I'm more and more present in that space between. And
Anne Trager: Hm, nice.
Fab: I've been... We've been discussing this change in use of technology for months now. And so it's a process. It takes time and it's okay. maybe the process also is very interesting because it makes you think about what you're doing and instead of doing something by reflex, mindlessly. So yeah. To me, it's one of the results is that. And as far as the handwriting is concerned, you embarked on that train as well, didn't you?
Anne Trager: Yeah, yeah, I have. And I think that that's going to be the topic of another episode. So this is a teaser for another episode. Because what I'd really like to do today is to finish on some good news because we've raised a lot of questions. We've also talked about some kind of scary things. and there's a lot of really good news going out there. so you know, we've been talking about the ways technology can pull us out of tune with our bodies. There's actually another side to this story, and that there's some really cool technology being developed right now that is adapting respectfully to the human body and that's cool. So researchers for example are working with nanoparticles that might one day, this is very edge, okay, that might one day be able to allow us to stimulate or deliver treatments to specific parts of the brain without opening the skull. That's kind of cool. It's also kind of scary. But anyway,
Fab: Well, it's very science fiction, but as we're flying machines someday. Yeah.
Anne Trager: But yeah, but people are working on it like using a nasal spray, you know. I mean and we all know that the n the anyway, the nose is like complete i is immediately connected to the brain. So so I think that that's really interesting, with some, you know, they're talking about it using it for things like, you know, Parkinson's disease and and and so forth. other researchers have created a brain computer interface that lets People control robotic legs with their thoughts. And the system also sends the sensation back to the brain. So it's a back and forth. It's that feedback loop that we do automatically in these incredible bodies we have. Okay. and then there are like these tiny wearable ultrasound patches that you can you know, put on your skin and continuously see what's happening deep inside the body, like blood pressure and cardiac output and you know, organs and so forth, without the need of a machine or a technician. So all of that's really cool.
Fab: That's very nice, but basically we are becoming cyborgs if we go all the way in.
Anne Trager: Maybe, maybe we are. And and I think there's another way of looking at it. I mean, for a really long time a lot of medical technology required the body to accommodate the machine.
Fab: Mm-hmm.
Anne Trager: you know, you we would cut well and we still do cut into the body and we put things inside the body and and we bring the person to the technology. And so now what we're seeing with this these kinds of technologies is that we're ta starting to make Technology small enough and sensitive enough and intelligent enough to actually accommodate to a real human being. So I find that hopeful. It's the hopeful side of what we're talking about. so as we work on our resilience and our adaptability and our wisdom, we are also getting better at designing technology around what a human being actually is.
Fab: Well, on this very Star Trek image, that's it for episode 42. you all for joining us. for links and past episodes.
Anne Trager: Thank you also for subscribing and reviewing this podcast wherever you listen to it. it helps other people to find us. you know, does whatever the algorithm needs it to do. We are adapting to the algorithm here. Please we adapt we ask that you help us adapt to the algorithm. and also please share this with anyone around you who could find it interesting.
Fab: And we'll see you in more or less two weeks.
Anne Trager: bye everyone.
