The title of this video is kinda misleading. It almost sounds like the blame is being placed on millennials. It is not. It actually is a great video talking about smartphone addiction and how this is wreaking havoc on the younger generation. This was a really good watch. I even learned a thing or two about alcoholics.

There were so many good points that Simon discussed in this video. I'm kind of annoyed at myself at not having found this video sooner. If you have any interest in trying to get your attention back or have an interest in digital minimalism, you should definitely watch this video.

Mr. Rheingans is betting that we have this wrong. His experiment is premised on the idea that once you remove time-wasting distractions and constrain inefficient conversation about your work, five hours should be sufficient to accomplish most of the core activities that actually move the needle.

You know what, Mr. Rheingans might be on to something here. In my experience, when I've been working productively throughout the day, it is usually at the 5 hour mark that my brain starts slowing down. It is about that time when I would go to the break room, drink some water and think to myself, “my brain is fried.” Problem is, I still had 3 hours to go.

I used Waze for several years before switching to Apple Maps this year. My main reason for switching to Apple Maps was mostly due to privacy concerns. When the drive notifications on Waze stopped working for me, I took it as a cue to try out another navigation app. Here are the differences that I’ve noticed between these two navigation apps:

Apple Maps

• Comes free with an iPhone.
• No ads, which means your data is not being sold to advertisers.
• Provides navigation overlay on top of other apps. This works when you have another app running, in addition to Apple Maps. When you switch to another app while you have Apple Maps navigating in the background, it will show an overlay on top of the current app informing you of the next turn you need to take.
• Has very good lane guidance. Meaning it tells you what lane you should be on. Can be really useful on those confusing highways that split into two or three other roads.
• Very good battery consumption.
• Can sometimes provide the wrong navigation instructions.
  • For example, when we tried using it to navigate to the place where my son gets his haircut, it lead us to an apartment's parking lot across from the destination. The problem was that there was a fence in between. So we couldn't just get off the car and walk. We had to drive back out to the road, go around the block before arriving at the destination. To be fair, Waze also did the same thing. Only Google Maps got it right actually.
    • Lesson learned here, if navigating to a new destination, I should double check the location on Google Maps or Bing Maps with satellite view turned on.
  • When we tried to navigate to the Dallas zoo, for some reason it could not figure out the correct entrance to the zoo. Waze did figure this out though.
• It is less intuitive to use than Waze. For example, asking the app to re-evaluate routes is easier to do with Waze.
• Has very basic reporting features which pales in comparison to what you can do/report with Waze.

The suggestion there that you need an ethicist, it suggests at least to me that they're concerned about the addictiveness of the products. In fact, Tristan himself has written about that, and that's exactly what he says. He suggests that there should be, in the design world, a Hippocratic oath — just as in medicine doctors should “do no harm,” he believes the same should be true of designers of these kinds of platforms; that people who design tech, people who design social media platforms, should be forced to obey the same rules — do no harm.

Link: 'Irresistible' By Design: It's No Accident You Can't Stop Looking At The Screen

I like this idea, a lot. The problem is I don't think the tech industry will adopt it. Not unless the industry moves away from making money using an ad-based model.