Back in 2008, in the early days of my writing career, when I had just published two books

and my newsletter was still new, I published an essay with anachronistic title.

It was called, Would Lincoln Still Be President if he had email?

I actually want to load this newsletter essay up on the screen here for people who are

watching instead of just listening. Here it is from my Calnewport.com website. I'll be honest,

Jesse, my main motivation at the time, I remembered this clearly was I just wanted an excuse to

use this meme, which I thought was funny. For those who are just listening, it basically shows

on one side of the picture.

There's a guy with reading glasses at a typewriter, and it says research paper on a handwritten

side above his head.

And then on the other side, there's a sign lit up with bulbs that's labeled the internet.

And under it is a dinosaur and a woman in a bikini wearing birthday hats with a birthday

cake and fighter jets flying behind them.

I remember at the time I thought that was funny.

But if you look at the actual article, we'd look at the actual content of this post,

I was making an argument, rather, in this essay back in 2008,

that perhaps many of the heroic figures

of time passed would have had a hard time being as impactful in our current world because

of all of the distraction we now face because of the internet.

Now, I mentioned email in the title of that 2008 post, but if I was to rewrite that today, I would

have to also mention, you know, would Lincoln have been president if he had not just email,

but smartphones and social media and AI and online mobs and streaming entertainment and video games

...