#304 — Why I Left Twitter

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2022

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Only the first 1 hour and 9 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 2 hours and 34 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED.

Sam Harris explains why he deleted his Twitter account. He then speaks with Cal Newport about the fragmentation of modern life. They discuss the history of computer science, how information technology has changed our lives, the effects of social media, the business model of the Internet, the power of TikTok, the future of Twitter, winner-take-all dynamics in podcasting, conspiracy thinking, the way technology drives cultural change, email and the loss of productivity, the cognitive cost of context switching, deep work, the benefits of controlling one's time, the problem with the advice to "follow your passion," and other topics.

Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
0:09.1	This is Sam Harris.
0:11.3	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.8	feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
0:18.6	In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe
0:22.5	at samharis.org.
0:24.5	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:28.3	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.7	We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support
0:34.6	of our subscribers.
0:36.0	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:40.9	Well, I deleted my Twitter account the other day on Thanksgiving, actually.
0:53.3	I've been thinking about doing this for a long time, in fact.
0:58.8	It was a very simple decision in the end.
1:01.6	I'd been on the platform for 12 years, and it tweeted something like 9,000 times.
1:08.6	That's about twice a day, on average.
1:12.2	So I wasn't the most compulsive user of Twitter, but it did punctuate my life far more
1:18.9	than it should have.
1:19.9	It was the only social media platform I ever used, personally.
1:24.4	I don't run the accounts I have for Facebook and Instagram, and I never look at them.
1:29.4	Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I just came to believe that my engagement
1:34.0	with Twitter was making me a worse person.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Waking Up with Sam Harris, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Waking Up with Sam Harris and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.