Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Gray? Yes? Happy days. Slack have changed their app icon.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I don't think they're happy days, Myke. No, they changed it. That's what you wanted, right? You

00:00:09 ◼   ► wanted them to change it. Well, no. No, I didn't want them to change it. I didn't want them to

00:00:14 ◼   ► change it in the first place. But now they've changed it. Again. Yeah, they've changed it

00:00:18 ◼   ► again, I think is what you need to say. They've changed it again in the space of, what was it,

00:00:24 ◼   ► 10 days at most?

00:00:25 ◼   ► Yeah, something like that.

00:00:27 ◼   ► It was very fast.

00:00:29 ◼   ► And what did they do to the icon, Myke?

00:00:33 ◼   ► They changed the background, which was purple,

00:00:35 ◼   ► to now it is white.

00:00:38 ◼   ► So the pinwheel still exists, but now the app icon

00:00:42 ◼   ► has a white background rather than a purple background.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Do you have any thoughts on this?

00:00:49 ◼   ► Honestly, I would have--

00:00:54 ◼   ► I think I preferred the purple background because I have so many apps that have a white

00:00:59 ◼   ► background.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Now, it looks even more like the apps that we were saying it looked like before, right?

00:01:07 ◼   ► It looks like photos, it looks like all of Google's apps, it just looks more and more

00:01:12 ◼   ► like all of the other enterprise apps that we were making fun of it.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:18 ◼   ► The thing I saw in their app description in the store update, when I pulled the updates

00:01:23 ◼   ► and saw a white Slack logo and I went, "Oh no."

00:01:26 ◼   ► I looked there and they're like,

00:01:27 ◼   ► "Oh, people were having a hard time

00:01:29 ◼   ► seeing the red alert badge."

00:01:31 ◼   ► So we changed the background to white,

00:01:34 ◼   ► which I don't know, it seems like it's a thing

00:01:37 ◼   ► that maybe should have come up in testing,

00:01:39 ◼   ► but it's a bold move to change it to white.

00:01:43 ◼   ► There's a little complication here,

00:01:46 ◼   ► which I am confused over because my Mac apps

00:01:50 ◼   ► haven't updated to change their icon background to white.

00:01:54 ◼   ► My Mac still has a maroon background for Slack.

00:01:57 ◼   ► And I just sort of assumed,

00:02:00 ◼   ► oh, they're probably gonna change that any day to match.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I mean, maybe, but maybe not.

00:02:07 ◼   ► So I have two different Slacks right now

00:02:09 ◼   ► with these two different colored icons.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And I gotta say, this white background is just killing me,

00:02:18 ◼   ► because sure, a red badge is easier to see

00:02:23 ◼   ► on a white background.

00:02:25 ◼   ► That doesn't affect me because of the way I set up my phone,

00:02:27 ◼   ► but I have too many apps that have a white background

00:02:32 ◼   ► which send me an alert.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And I am not able to retrain my brain

00:02:39 ◼   ► to expect Slack alerts to be white.

00:02:44 ◼   ► And like the real problem for me here is

00:02:46 ◼   ► Mostly I get alerts from Do, D-U-E, the great timer app.

00:02:50 ◼   ► And that app is mostly white.

00:02:52 ◼   ► There's like a slight gray clock on it,

00:02:54 ◼   ► but it's essentially a white icon.

00:02:56 ◼   ► And at a glance, when my phone throws up a little alert,

00:03:00 ◼   ► it's just, it's impossible for me to see now.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Is that Do or is it Slack?

00:03:04 ◼   ► And my brain can't even remember

00:03:06 ◼   ► that Slack is white on the phone.

00:03:09 ◼   ► And it's really driving me bonkers.

00:03:11 ◼   ► It's like their badges might be much more visible,

00:03:14 ◼   ► but their notifications have just become impossible for me to see.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I just can't perceive it.

00:03:21 ◼   ► It's a change that I'm having a really hard time with.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Like, in making the badges more visible,

00:03:26 ◼   ► they've actually made the app icon less distinctive.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Because at least the purple was distinctive.

00:03:32 ◼   ► I don't have any apps that were that color.

00:03:35 ◼   ► I never had a problem with the purple background, really.

00:03:37 ◼   ► I mean, I don't have a massive problem with the icon anyway,

00:03:41 ◼   ► but I just think that it isn't as nice or as playful

00:03:44 ◼   ► the previous one which I enjoyed. The funny thing to me now is that one of the reasons they did this

00:03:49 ◼   ► was because they had app icons that looked different in different places and now they

00:03:54 ◼   ► look different in different places again. I think fundamentally what this is showing me,

00:03:58 ◼   ► right, this white background trend, is that Apple needs to follow Android and stop enforcing round

00:04:05 ◼   ► rec boxes for all their apps. I think it's time that developers can just set whatever shape they

00:04:11 ◼   ► they want as long as they have a consistent size.

00:04:14 ◼   ► So you could have circle ones,

00:04:15 ◼   ► you could have just app icons.

00:04:17 ◼   ► This is a pretty normal one on Android

00:04:19 ◼   ► and has been for a while and I much prefer that look

00:04:22 ◼   ► because you see more of your desktop wallpaper, right?

00:04:25 ◼   ► Like and everything's still in a grid.

00:04:27 ◼   ► It doesn't look like a mess because they enforce sizing

00:04:29 ◼   ► and some are square, some are circle,

00:04:31 ◼   ► some are just the logos, right?

00:04:33 ◼   ► So like you could have the Slack logo

00:04:35 ◼   ► would be just the logo, right?

00:04:37 ◼   ► Like the little pinwheel, there'd be nothing behind it.

00:04:40 ◼   ► I would prefer that and I think it's time to do that now, to be honest.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Yeah, and it would even be like on the old Higgs human interface guideline for the Mac.

00:04:51 ◼   ► I remember there was a section that specifically talked about how in order to help your users

00:04:56 ◼   ► find things, you should always be sure to distinguish along two axes, like have different

00:05:01 ◼   ► colors for buttons, but also have different shapes for buttons so that you're looking

00:05:06 ◼   ► for two things to identify.

00:05:09 ◼   ► Oh, is this the cut scissors?

00:05:10 ◼   ► You know, the cut scissors is a different color

00:05:12 ◼   ► and shape from the paste button.

00:05:14 ◼   ► At least having the option to have different shaped icons

00:05:17 ◼   ► might be one thing that helps,

00:05:19 ◼   ► especially because it seems like there's nothing

00:05:20 ◼   ► in the world that can stop companies,

00:05:23 ◼   ► once they reach a certain size,

00:05:24 ◼   ► from preferring to have either a white background

00:05:27 ◼   ► with primary colors or just blue.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Right, you know, it's like, as you get bigger as a company,

00:05:34 ◼   ► that's what you trend towards.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Those are your two options.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - A blue background with an envelope on it.

00:05:39 ◼   ► All email apps.

00:05:40 ◼   ► - I wish Slack would give me an option

00:05:43 ◼   ► to take that background back.

00:05:46 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, you know, I mean, we did, we had,

00:05:48 ◼   ► we all had a good time discussing

00:05:50 ◼   ► the dick pinwheel last episode.

00:05:52 ◼   ► - Everybody enjoyed it.

00:05:53 ◼   ► - But I didn't really give Slack a big, hard time about it.

00:05:56 ◼   ► I wasn't like, oh, this icon is totally unacceptable.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And it was distinctive with that color.

00:06:03 ◼   ► And that made it easy to see in your notifications.

00:06:06 ◼   ► And now Slack just gets lost in do notifications

00:06:10 ◼   ► or iPhoto updates.

00:06:12 ◼   ► And it's like, I can't find this thing.

00:06:15 ◼   ► Especially when you consider looking at your phone at the...

00:06:19 ◼   ► The notification banner only gives,

00:06:22 ◼   ► I mean, what must it be,

00:06:23 ◼   ► a six millimeter space to compress down the icon size?

00:06:28 ◼   ► You really only have one color to go with at that size.

00:06:30 ◼   ► So it's like, great point icon.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - I mean, is it really like that you had like a scale

00:06:36 ◼   ► on one side was maroon and the other was white?

00:06:39 ◼   ► There was nothing in between at all on this color spectrum

00:06:43 ◼   ► that you could have chosen from?

00:06:44 ◼   ► Oh, well, if it can't be purple,

00:06:46 ◼   ► it's gonna have to be white guys.

00:06:47 ◼   ► We all know that, right?

00:06:49 ◼   ► Well, try black maybe.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Black would have been fine

00:06:52 ◼   ► and would have been different, you know?

00:06:54 ◼   ► Like, it just seems funny to me.

00:06:56 ◼   ► It's like, that was really,

00:06:57 ◼   ► that was where you had to go, was it?

00:06:58 ◼   ► Just straight to white.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - It's no other option.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - And I do, in the back of my mind,

00:07:04 ◼   ► I have a tiny, tiny conspiracy theory

00:07:08 ◼   ► because when you put the badge on an iOS icon,

00:07:13 ◼   ► that does also change the shape of the icon

00:07:17 ◼   ► because the badge is able to stand

00:07:19 ◼   ► on top of the little corner.

00:07:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, it gives you a little cutout, doesn't it?

00:07:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it gives you a little cutout

00:07:24 ◼   ► and it allows you to distinguish by two things.

00:07:27 ◼   ► There's a red badge and also the shape of the icon

00:07:29 ◼   ► is slightly different.

00:07:32 ◼   ► I'm just not entirely sure I buy their argument that,

00:07:37 ◼   ► "Oh, people were having a hard time seeing the badge

00:07:40 ◼   ► so we had to immediately change the icon."

00:07:43 ◼   ► My conspiracy theory is they always wanted white,

00:07:47 ◼   ► but they knew that if on day one they had it be white,

00:07:53 ◼   ► they would have gotten all of the,

00:07:54 ◼   ► "Oh, this looks like every other icon in the world" criticism.

00:07:58 ◼   ► So they said, "We're gonna do this in phases.

00:08:01 ◼   ► "Phase one, a strange plum color.

00:08:06 ◼   ► "Phase two, what we really want, white."

00:08:09 ◼   ► But by the time we switch it to white,

00:08:12 ◼   ► all of the conversations about our icon change will be over

00:08:15 ◼   ► and people won't want to revisit it

00:08:17 ◼   ► unless they're the Cortex podcast.

00:08:19 ◼   ► And so we'll be safe.

00:08:20 ◼   ► That's my little bit of a conspiracy theory

00:08:23 ◼   ► that this was a planned roll-up.

00:08:25 ◼   ► - You're never safe from Cortex.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Nobody is safe from context.

00:08:30 ◼   ► No one.

00:08:31 ◼   ► - We see you, Slack.

00:08:32 ◼   ► We see you.

00:08:33 ◼   ► How you doing, Myke?

00:08:35 ◼   ► - Pretty jet-lagged, but I'm warm again.

00:08:38 ◼   ► - Wait, where were you?

00:08:40 ◼   ► I didn't know you were traveling.

00:08:41 ◼   ► - I was in Chicago.

00:08:42 ◼   ► I did a very quick trip to Chicago.

00:08:44 ◼   ► - Wait, I didn't know you went to,

00:08:46 ◼   ► you went to Chicago and you didn't tell me?

00:08:48 ◼   ► You went to America and you didn't tell me?

00:08:50 ◼   ► - I should have told you.

00:08:52 ◼   ► I apologize.

00:08:52 ◼   ► - The country of my birth?

00:08:54 ◼   ► I need to know when you're going there.

00:08:56 ◼   ► There is actually, if I peel back the carton for the Cortexans out there, which by the

00:09:01 ◼   ► way there's been some discussion in the Cortex subreddit about the naming and I remember

00:09:06 ◼   ► very, a long time ago you referenced Cortexans and I figured that that's just what we're

00:09:10 ◼   ► going with. So just imagine like a big cowboy hat on our artwork and that's all of our

00:09:17 ◼   ► listeners. So anyway.

00:09:20 ◼   ► I was never in any doubt over Cortexan, it's just too good Myke. You were never going to

00:09:23 ◼   ► fight that.

00:09:24 ◼   ► It's perfect. I was never in doubt, but we just don't say it enough. So like the the

00:09:29 ◼   ► cortexans wanted to know. So now they know. So it's cortex. But anyway, so Grey actually

00:09:35 ◼   ► has a calendar that he keeps my travel on. I found this out quite recently. So there

00:09:40 ◼   ► you go. I apologize for not telling you.

00:09:43 ◼   ► That is true listeners. I do. I do. It's not it's not just you, Myke.

00:09:47 ◼   ► No, I don't know who else is on this calendar, but I know I'm on it. But I get it.

00:09:51 ◼   ► that I work with, it's useful to know when they're not going to be available.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah, because if you need me for something and I'm not answering in my usual time frame,

00:09:58 ◼   ► then it's like, oh, because he's probably on a plane. But anyway, so I was in Chicago.

00:10:04 ◼   ► It was from Friday to Tuesday morning, which is the most compressed US trip that I've ever

00:10:11 ◼   ► taken.

00:10:12 ◼   ► That's pretty brutal.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It was an interesting experience. And I went out to support and be on an episode of Mac

00:10:19 ◼   ► power users which is a show on relay FM that is co-hosted by my co-founder

00:10:23 ◼   ► Stephen Hackett he recently took over on the show and they were doing their first

00:10:28 ◼   ► ever live show together and I was like oh I want to go out to Chicago's plus

00:10:32 ◼   ► great I love Chicago I think Chicago is my second favorite city in America of

00:10:37 ◼   ► all the ones that I've been to behind New York I probably upset about everyone

00:10:41 ◼   ► with that statement just like everyone no one's it's no one likes the fact that

00:10:45 ◼   ► I just said that, right? If you're in New York or Chicago, I'm sure I've annoyed you, right? And

00:10:50 ◼   ► every other city, but that's just how it is. I really like Chicago and I really like New York,

00:10:55 ◼   ► and they're pretty close together actually, I think, in my estimation for the places that I like.

00:10:59 ◼   ► However, the weather in Chicago was bonkers. The feels-like temperature, because that's the

00:11:07 ◼   ► only temperature that matters, was minus 27 degrees Celsius.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Were you there for that that cold snap that they had in Chicago recently?

00:11:17 ◼   ► You must have just caught the tail end of that.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Believe it or not, this was actually the not so cold cold snap.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Okay.

00:11:24 ◼   ► They had one that was worse.

00:11:26 ◼   ► They had one that was way worse.

00:11:28 ◼   ► But yeah, this is minus 27 degrees Celsius.

00:11:31 ◼   ► It's pretty cold.

00:11:32 ◼   ► It was wild.

00:11:34 ◼   ► I've never experienced temperature like that before.

00:11:36 ◼   ► I had to buy clothing I didn't own.

00:11:39 ◼   ► I bought like a fleece vest and stuff.

00:11:41 ◼   ► like new hat, new gloves, new scarf.

00:11:45 ◼   ► It's like a whole big situation going on over there.

00:11:48 ◼   ► But it was fun to be able to walk down the street

00:11:52 ◼   ► and feel literally the inside of my nose freezing.

00:11:55 ◼   ► That was interesting.

00:11:58 ◼   ► - I mean, you need to cover up your face as well

00:12:00 ◼   ► in those kind of temperatures.

00:12:01 ◼   ► - Well, I tried to, but like, so here's the thing.

00:12:04 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy and wear a balaclava

00:12:06 ◼   ► because that just like, that's terrible, right?

00:12:11 ◼   ► I feel like walking down a street in a big city wearing a balaclava, it doesn't matter

00:12:16 ◼   ► how cold it is, people are going to be concerned about you, right?

00:12:20 ◼   ► I feel like that that's just a thing.

00:12:21 ◼   ► So I had a scarf on and I was covering up as much as my face and I was wearing like

00:12:24 ◼   ► a woolly hat.

00:12:25 ◼   ► So it was basically just like my eyes and my nose poking out of there.

00:12:28 ◼   ► But I wasn't like hiking, you know, like I was just walking from like breakfast place

00:12:34 ◼   ► to coffee shop to hotel, that kind of thing.

00:12:37 ◼   ► But it was a real different experience for me weather-wise, but now the result is I'm

00:12:44 ◼   ► very jet-lagged.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Very very jet-lagged.

00:12:47 ◼   ► I've had this weird thing where I'm forgetting to do normal things.

00:12:52 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that's the hardcore jet lag.

00:12:54 ◼   ► I've never had that before.

00:12:55 ◼   ► So I take some pills, the first thing I do when I wake up and the last thing I do when

00:13:01 ◼   ► I go to sleep, and I keep forgetting to take them.

00:13:03 ◼   ► I do this every single day for two days in a row.

00:13:06 ◼   ► I've just not been taking them.

00:13:07 ◼   ► Like, what's happened to me?

00:13:09 ◼   ► Why is that happening now?

00:13:10 ◼   ► So that's where I am in my life.

00:13:13 ◼   ► - I'm presuming then that you didn't try to stay on GMT

00:13:16 ◼   ► during this trip.

00:13:17 ◼   ► You did a little bit of a time conversion going to Chicago

00:13:20 ◼   ► for two and a half days. - I did a total time

00:13:22 ◼   ► conversion, total time conversion.

00:13:23 ◼   ► - Oh, God.

00:13:25 ◼   ► That'll F you up, boy.

00:13:26 ◼   ► Like, that is brutal.

00:13:27 ◼   ► - It didn't actually occur to me.

00:13:29 ◼   ► I may have tried your system, actually,

00:13:33 ◼   ► but it didn't occur to me to do it.

00:13:35 ◼   ► But I probably should have for this trip

00:13:37 ◼   ► and I think I would have been able to get away with it.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Right.

00:13:41 ◼   ► - But I didn't do it.

00:13:42 ◼   ► Especially 'cause there was like a day and a half

00:13:44 ◼   ► where everybody else that was in town had already gone.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Luckily I actually have friends in Chicago

00:13:50 ◼   ► so I had things to do,

00:13:51 ◼   ► but there were no real requirements for me

00:13:54 ◼   ► other than one day in the evening,

00:13:56 ◼   ► so I could have gone on Grey Master time,

00:13:58 ◼   ► but I forgot to try that.

00:14:00 ◼   ► As fast as what, it's only six hours.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Did you bring back your warm weather gear?

00:14:03 ◼   ► Yeah, of course.

00:14:04 ◼   ► It will now go in a box to be maybe used again

00:14:08 ◼   ► at some point in the future.

00:14:11 ◼   ► Yeah, the next time London hits minus 27?

00:14:13 ◼   ► Well, I mean, there is a possibility

00:14:16 ◼   ► that we could go to Romania in the winter at some point.

00:14:19 ◼   ► And it gets colder than that.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I have to admit that I'm not really up on my Romanian

00:14:24 ◼   ► weather.

00:14:24 ◼   ► I don't really have a sense of what it's like.

00:14:26 ◼   ► When I was talking to Adina about this--

00:14:28 ◼   ► Is it tropical?

00:14:28 ◼   ► She was just like, in the summer,

00:14:30 ◼   ► it gets like above 40 and then in the winter it gets to like minus 40 like it's just the

00:14:36 ◼   ► whole range in between but she was just like oh yeah like we we'd experienced temperatures

00:14:41 ◼   ► of minus 27 but like that was the temperature we didn't really talk about feels like it's

00:14:47 ◼   ► like oh my god because the actual temperature was like minus 16 but the feels like was minus

00:14:55 ◼   ► She was like, "Oh yeah, we used to just get like, it starts at minus 27." So, you know,

00:15:01 ◼   ► I could probably use some of it there if we ever went there in the winter. I really like

00:15:03 ◼   ► snow because I grew up in London, so never really got any. So like, I'm one of those

00:15:09 ◼   ► people that like snow. So at some point we do want to go to Romania when it's super snowy

00:15:13 ◼   ► so I can experience the super snow.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Yeah, snow is the best. Who doesn't like snow? It's always disappointing when a London winter

00:15:20 ◼   ► passes and there's no snow.

00:15:21 ◼   ► live in Chicago didn't was the impression I got from being there for a weekend.

00:15:27 ◼   ► Well, I don't know what it's like in Chicago because as a New Yorker you never think of

00:15:31 ◼   ► Chicago because they don't matter. I grew up in New York and there was lots of snow

00:15:36 ◼   ► in New York and I love it and everybody loves it, it's great. There's a Chicago-New York

00:15:41 ◼   ► rivalry and Chicago was always making a lot of noise about it and New York never thinks

00:15:46 ◼   ► about Chicago.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Oh, it's that Mad Men meme, right?

00:15:49 ◼   ► It's like I think about you every day, I don't think about you at all.

00:15:53 ◼   ► Yeah, that's New York and Chicago.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:15:57 ◼   ► That's why you think there's a big rivalry, because you've just come from Chicago.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Meanwhile, every New Yorker I know never thinks about that.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Don't come back to the internet for like another two weeks.

00:16:06 ◼   ► You stay off it for just a little bit longer.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I'm not rushing back anytime soon, Myke.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Okay, good.

00:16:16 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by ExpressVPN.

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00:18:27 ◼   ► All right. So we are time trackers.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And because of our time tracking, I think that we both have a good feeling

00:18:34 ◼   ► of what we do every day, right?

00:18:36 ◼   ► That's the thing that we talk about a lot.

00:18:37 ◼   ► So we track our time mostly so we know what we're up to.

00:18:42 ◼   ► But I wondered if we could take a look at what our devices actually tell us we're doing

00:18:50 ◼   ► rather than what our time tracking is telling us that we're doing.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Like will our iOS devices snitch on us if we ask them what are Myke and Gray actually up to?

00:19:02 ◼   ► And that is where our old friend screen time can come in.

00:19:05 ◼   ► You want to do a screen time comparison?

00:19:07 ◼   ► I do want to do a screen time comparison.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Okay. This has been an interesting week for me, so we can do a screen time comparison.

00:19:13 ◼   ► So we can do a screen time comparison.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Stream crimes!

00:19:19 ◼   ► Stream in crimes comparisons.

00:19:22 ◼   ► So we can do a stream time comparison.

00:19:24 ◼   ► No, I'm keeping that in. Like how you made me keep in the gap, right?

00:19:28 ◼   ► Which people were saying, "Oh, I bet Myke did edit that gap down."

00:19:31 ◼   ► What are you talking about?

00:19:32 ◼   ► On the last episode, when I was trying to think of a metaphor,

00:19:36 ◼   ► And like, I sat for a few seconds and you claimed it was many minutes.

00:19:39 ◼   ► It doesn't sound like something I do. I don't remember this.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Yeah, that definitely isn't something you would do.

00:19:45 ◼   ► But anyway, let's compare our screen crimes with each other.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Yes, we can do that.

00:19:51 ◼   ► I do want to have a quick little sidebar on screen time though,

00:19:55 ◼   ► because I never got around to making this one point about it, because...

00:20:02 ◼   ► Before Apple introduced this feature...

00:20:03 ◼   ► By the way, if you don't know what this is, on Android it's called digital wellbeing.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Okay, yeah.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Basically your phone, basically making a report about the apps that you're using and the websites

00:20:13 ◼   ► that you're visiting and how many times you pick up your phone every day and how many notifications

00:20:17 ◼   ► you get. So both companies, both Apple and Google introduce this around the same time.

00:20:21 ◼   ► So this is something that we can all play along at home with if we want to.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Yeah, but this is like, this is the little point that I want to make about screen time, which I was

00:20:32 ◼   ► I was very disappointed because when Apple rolled it out,

00:20:35 ◼   ► the weeks before I was like gleeful on the part,

00:20:38 ◼   ► like there's a reckoning a coming,

00:20:39 ◼   ► like people are gonna be appalled

00:20:41 ◼   ► when they see how much they're using their phones

00:20:42 ◼   ► all day long.

00:20:43 ◼   ► And I was like rubbing my hands in excitement

00:20:45 ◼   ► for the chaos of it.

00:20:47 ◼   ► But I didn't realize, and it never even occurred to me

00:20:51 ◼   ► that by default, Apple wouldn't turn it on.

00:20:53 ◼   ► And in retrospect, it seems like,

00:20:56 ◼   ► well, of course they're not gonna turn it on by default,

00:20:59 ◼   ► because they don't want people,

00:21:00 ◼   ► like the whole world to wake up one morning and go,

00:21:02 ◼   ► "Oh my God, I can't believe how much time

00:21:04 ◼   ► "I spend in iMessage."

00:21:05 ◼   ► But I just, I wanted to get it on the record.

00:21:08 ◼   ► I thought that was a cowardly move.

00:21:10 ◼   ► I think it should have been on by default.

00:21:12 ◼   ► And I think it is, I really think it was a cowardly choice

00:21:17 ◼   ► to have it off by default rather than on by default.

00:21:21 ◼   ► I think it could have really helped a lot of people

00:21:23 ◼   ► recognize something in their own behavior.

00:21:26 ◼   ► And Apple knew that and Apple chose not

00:21:30 ◼   ► to do that as the default. And as we've discussed many times, if something is not the default,

00:21:35 ◼   ► the vast majority of people will never know that it even exists because most people don't

00:21:40 ◼   ► mess around in the settings.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes sense. I will say that recently there have been a lot of articles and a lot

00:21:48 ◼   ► of people writing and sharing this data. So I think that now after like six months or

00:21:55 ◼   ► whatever the screen time has been available, it's starting to become more of a thing in

00:22:01 ◼   ► technology writing.

00:22:03 ◼   ► There's been a bunch of articles recently about this kind of stuff and about being addicted

00:22:08 ◼   ► to our devices, so I would expect more people are turning it on now than they did before,

00:22:13 ◼   ► because it seems to be becoming more of a talking point.

00:22:17 ◼   ► But I don't disagree with you at all.

00:22:19 ◼   ► I actually do agree with you, and I hadn't considered that, because if I'm being completely

00:22:23 ◼   ► honest, I'd forgotten that they didn't turn it on by default because I turned it

00:22:27 ◼   ► on myself like nine months ago, right, on my iPhone. But I do think at the same time,

00:22:34 ◼   ► even though Apple didn't do it, I think the rest of the technology community at large

00:22:39 ◼   ► is basically forcing people to do it by making it a talking point.

00:22:42 ◼   ► I mean, I think you vastly overestimate the power and reach of the technology press.

00:22:48 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, I'm not saying it's changing the world. I'm just saying that there are

00:22:51 ◼   ► like more people are doing it now because it's becoming a thing written about in the

00:22:56 ◼   ► New York Times or whatever. But obviously this is nowhere near the level of impact that

00:23:00 ◼   ► if literally every single iPhone user got a notification on Sundays telling them about

00:23:04 ◼   ► their percentages. I don't disagree with you at all. It's just I just wanted to mark that

00:23:09 ◼   ► like over the last couple of months especially, I'm seeing this conversation occur more and

00:23:14 ◼   ► more than I did before.

00:23:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I think ever, like for the last 18 months,

00:23:19 ◼   ► there's been a slow change in the way people think

00:23:22 ◼   ► about their relationship with technology and social media

00:23:24 ◼   ► and all of the rest of that.

00:23:25 ◼   ► And I just, I think that the tech presses is swept up

00:23:30 ◼   ► in this larger sea change that is occurring anyway.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I don't actually think they're necessarily the cause of it,

00:23:36 ◼   ► but that's a whole other issue.

00:23:38 ◼   ► I still wish maybe an iOS 13 when it comes out.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Apple can take the brave choice to turn it on by default.

00:23:47 ◼   ► I'd like to see that.

00:23:48 ◼   ► Anyway, who in this standoff is gonna go first?

00:23:53 ◼   ► - I think I should go first.

00:23:55 ◼   ► - Okay, you go first.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Let me see your screen time, Myke.

00:23:59 ◼   ► - Okay, so I've got three screenshots for you.

00:24:02 ◼   ► That should have all of the data that you need.

00:24:04 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:24:05 ◼   ► - So we have kind of like the WADs being used.

00:24:09 ◼   ► And this is also for me a slightly different week than usual,

00:24:14 ◼   ► because it's included a long haul flight and a non typical working

00:24:20 ◼   ► week and weekend, right?

00:24:22 ◼   ► Because I was I was traveling and doing different things.

00:24:25 ◼   ► But it's I don't think it's too misrepresentative of a typical week for me.

00:24:31 ◼   ► But there are some things that I'll be able to point out

00:24:34 ◼   ► as a little bit higher usage than others.

00:24:38 ◼   ► So do you have my data now?

00:24:40 ◼   ► I'm receiving your data.

00:24:43 ◼   ► I'm just processing it so I can put it on these three big images on my screen so I can behold the data.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Why is your Tweetbot black? Is that an option to make a Tweetbot have a black icon?

00:24:53 ◼   ► Yeah, because Tweetbot changed their icon and they created a hellish bird.

00:25:00 ◼   ► And just very bad, just angry bird they made basically.

00:25:05 ◼   ► So a lot of people complained about that, and then they added the ability to add the

00:25:10 ◼   ► old icon in both blue and black.

00:25:14 ◼   ► The black icon used to be used for Netbot, the app.net app.

00:25:19 ◼   ► I remember app.net.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Not going to even bother to explain that, but that was just a thing that existed.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I always like Tweetbot, but even, I don't know what their new icon looks

00:25:31 ◼   ► like, but even their old icon, I always thought looked a little bit like a screaming, terrifying

00:25:35 ◼   ► I'm not a robot, I'm a robot.

00:25:36 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:37 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:38 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:41 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:42 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:43 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:44 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:45 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:47 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:48 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:49 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:50 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:51 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:52 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:53 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:54 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:55 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:56 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:58 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:25:59 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:26:00 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:26:01 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:26:02 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:26:03 ◼   ► I'm a robot.

00:26:04 ◼   ► I think.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Okay, so I'm looking at your three images here.

00:26:10 ◼   ► The life of mic, last seven days, all devices.

00:26:14 ◼   ► Yep, so this is broken down into three major categories.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Screen time, you have what they just referred to as screen time.

00:26:20 ◼   ► So how long apps have been open, and kind of your general overall usage.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Then they have pickups, which is obviously how many times a day you pick up your phone,

00:26:29 ◼   ► and what apps you're using when you do pick up your phone.

00:26:32 ◼   ► And then they have a notifications screen.

00:26:35 ◼   ► I would like to start by just addressing something about the notifications.

00:26:41 ◼   ► What would you like to address about the notifications, Myke?

00:26:43 ◼   ► Because I'm looking at a number that says 5,236, around 750 notifications per day.

00:26:51 ◼   ► So there's a problem with this.

00:26:52 ◼   ► So this data is all my devices.

00:26:56 ◼   ► So they are including every notification times three.

00:27:00 ◼   ► is a problem that Apple should solve.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Like, I shouldn't have listed three thousand three hundred and ninety five

00:27:08 ◼   ► iMessage notifications over the last week because it's actually been one

00:27:11 ◼   ► thousand one hundred. But they just came through on all of the devices. Right.

00:27:14 ◼   ► So right. Also, I don't I don't fully understand why that is not a round

00:27:18 ◼   ► number. It's not an even number.

00:27:20 ◼   ► It's an odd number. That doesn't make any sense.

00:27:22 ◼   ► How did that happen? But like, let's not worry about that.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Maybe it's like the notification came through on one device

00:27:27 ◼   ► when I already had it open on another.

00:27:29 ◼   ► I don't know the reason.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Yeah, and I will totally grant that for you.

00:27:33 ◼   ► I was going to make the same clarification because I have that issue with the excellent

00:27:37 ◼   ► timer due, DUE, on my phone.

00:27:39 ◼   ► Oh, I can't wait to see how many there's going to be there.

00:27:41 ◼   ► I'm really excited about the possibility of that.

00:27:44 ◼   ► I only recently discovered I had the same thing where there was an iPad.

00:27:47 ◼   ► I didn't know that, I was like, "Oh, you've also been getting all my due notifications."

00:27:52 ◼   ► So I have, I think I have like double the due notifications that I'm supposed to have.

00:27:56 ◼   ► - I did just look on mine over the last seven days

00:27:58 ◼   ► for Dew was just 27.

00:28:00 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:28:01 ◼   ► - But I wasn't at home.

00:28:02 ◼   ► - I literally just got one at this very moment.

00:28:05 ◼   ► Dew, I swear it hurt us and it just sent me a notification.

00:28:08 ◼   ► - Yes, do you need me?

00:28:09 ◼   ► - This very moment.

00:28:10 ◼   ► No, it didn't say yes, it's just this little reminder to me.

00:28:14 ◼   ► But that's, hi Dew, I see you, okay.

00:28:18 ◼   ► Yes, marked, done, that is done.

00:28:20 ◼   ► - Great.

00:28:21 ◼   ► - Okay, so let's talk about screen time

00:28:24 ◼   ► in the beginning here.

00:28:25 ◼   ► So we have, we've got top of the list for you is YouTube at eight hours and 15 minutes of YouTube.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Yeah, so this is one of the big ones.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Why, that's slightly different.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I downloaded a bunch of like multiple hour YouTube videos for my flight home.

00:28:42 ◼   ► Oh, you used YouTube's view offline feature.

00:28:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I used YouTube Premium for it and it's fantastic.

00:28:48 ◼   ► I've never gotten a chance to try that.

00:28:50 ◼   ► I've been watching some documentaries on a YouTube channel called Noclip, which I'm

00:28:56 ◼   ► thinking there might be something in there for a later Cortex movie club, but they're

00:29:02 ◼   ► like multiple hour documentaries.

00:29:03 ◼   ► I watched the documentary about Half-Life, which is like a two hour documentary.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Noclip you say?

00:29:08 ◼   ► Noclip, yeah.

00:29:09 ◼   ► It's really cool.

00:29:10 ◼   ► I will add that to my list.

00:29:13 ◼   ► One of the interesting side effects of me having left most of the internet, but I specifically

00:29:17 ◼   ► excluded YouTube from that list.

00:29:19 ◼   ► And I've been watching much more.

00:29:22 ◼   ► I've been using YouTube a lot more like Netflix, just trying to find stuff to

00:29:27 ◼   ► watch. So I'm always looking for more channel recommendations.

00:29:31 ◼   ► That's a really good one. I thoroughly recommend it.

00:29:33 ◼   ► I would say like just in general though, that my YouTube usage is always

00:29:38 ◼   ► very high. It's always like my number one or number two app typically

00:29:42 ◼   ► in my screen time.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Because I would say at this point, YouTube is my largest media source just in time consumption.

00:29:51 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:29:52 ◼   ► So like even more than something like Netflix.

00:29:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:57 ◼   ► For me personally, for what I am doing, yeah.

00:30:01 ◼   ► I watch more YouTube than Netflix.

00:30:03 ◼   ► America, can you describe to me like what it is that you're watching on YouTube just

00:30:09 ◼   ► like in a very general… because like if someone says, "Oh, they spend a lot of time

00:30:13 ◼   ► on Netflix. I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what it is, right? But everybody's

00:30:19 ◼   ► YouTube is so very different. Like what are you spending your time consuming on YouTube?

00:30:23 ◼   ► Well, I don't think it's too surprising, right? That I watch a bunch of technology

00:30:26 ◼   ► channels, you know, people like MKBHD and iJustine and Austin Evans, TLD Today, it's

00:30:32 ◼   ► a bunch of people like that. I watch some game streams every now and then, like there

00:30:37 ◼   ► might just be like a game that I'm interested in. So I'll like check out YouTube gaming

00:30:41 ◼   ► and like watch a stream.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Okay, that'll add time pretty fast, adding a stream.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Yeah, and I watch, sometimes I watch Philip DeFranco just to see like what on earth is

00:30:49 ◼   ► happening in the world if I want to know, like he's just in there.

00:30:52 ◼   ► I've recently, it makes me feel so funny to say this, I've recently started watching vlogbrothers

00:30:57 ◼   ► videos, just like, hello Myke from 15 years ago, I don't know what took me so long.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Benjamin Babish is a channel I really enjoy.

00:31:08 ◼   ► There's tons of stuff, like obviously a bunch of vloggers, I will just pick and choose some

00:31:12 ◼   ► stuff and then again like I'm also started watching some like documentaries

00:31:18 ◼   ► and video games just I watched tons of stuff and I actually watch a lot of

00:31:23 ◼   ► suggested videos too because YouTube's algorithm knows me really well oh my god

00:31:28 ◼   ► Jack Black's new gaming channel Jablinski games is incredible it's so

00:31:33 ◼   ► good gray Jack Black has a gaming channel yeah it's part gaming part vlog

00:31:38 ◼   ► It's excellent. It's one of my favorite kind of... I'm not going to say "find"

00:31:44 ◼   ► because it's been massively popular already, but I'm so pleased to have come across it

00:31:49 ◼   ► because it's brilliant. He clearly understands YouTube. He's not like a celebrity on YouTube.

00:31:56 ◼   ► He gets it.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Well, there's no celebrity that we could possibly mention who would be like that. So,

00:32:04 ◼   ► okay, Jack Black has a YouTube channel.

00:32:06 ◼   ► BlackBlack 100% gets it.

00:32:08 ◼   ► Like there's a mix between people filming him and him filming stuff himself, right?

00:32:12 ◼   ► Like with his phone or whatever.

00:32:14 ◼   ► But like the references he makes, the jokes that he makes, like he 100% gets it.

00:32:18 ◼   ► And every video he's made so far, he publishes one a week, has been excellent.

00:32:22 ◼   ► So yeah, I watch loads of stuff and I'm finding new stuff all the time.

00:32:26 ◼   ► Like I keep myself very open on YouTube to recommendations.

00:32:31 ◼   ► Like I probably subscribe to like 60 channels or something and we'll just pick and choose

00:32:35 ◼   ► stuff and new stuff comes in and goes out all the time.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Hmm, that's interesting. I feel like YouTube has gotten better at recommending channels.

00:32:45 ◼   ► Like it always seems to go in waves, that there's like periods where it seems like it's

00:32:49 ◼   ► very static and then periods where it seems like it's much more aggressive about recommending

00:32:52 ◼   ► stuff. And I know over the last couple months it's done a reasonably good job at trying

00:32:57 ◼   ► to bring smaller channels to my attention. Like, oh, that's really interesting. Like

00:33:00 ◼   ► are you basically just going to YouTube and just surfing whatever it suggests to you along

00:33:04 ◼   ► the top? Is that, would you say that that's mostly your user pattern?

00:33:08 ◼   ► Typically I'm going to my sub list and I pick out videos from the subscription

00:33:15 ◼   ► list and save them to my watch later playlist and then I so like then I will

00:33:20 ◼   ► typically when I want to watch something I'll go to my watch later playlist but

00:33:23 ◼   ► like a couple of times a day I like curate what I'm seeing so like maybe a

00:33:27 ◼   ► couple times a day I'll just go in and like just poke around like oh great

00:33:30 ◼   ► here's a bunch of videos I want to save and I save them and then whenever I sit

00:33:33 ◼   ► And most of my YouTube viewing is happening at two different times of the day.

00:33:37 ◼   ► One is like when I'm eating, so if I'm eating a meal, like if I'm eating breakfast or I'm eating lunch.

00:33:42 ◼   ► And then the other is before I go to bed. I watch like probably one to two hours of YouTube videos a night in bed before I go to sleep.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Yeah, because like I was going to say, like if people are looking at this and they say, oh my God, YouTube is number one.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And then, you know, maybe we can add in the TV app as, you know, as another three hours there at the bottom.

00:34:02 ◼   ► But averaging that over a week, that's pretty reasonable entertainment consumption amounts

00:34:09 ◼   ► of time.

00:34:10 ◼   ► It's actually probably way under the average of what most people spend as far as just watching

00:34:15 ◼   ► stuff.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Like there are literally, I'm looking at it over the last seven days, there is not one

00:34:20 ◼   ► other video app in my entire list.

00:34:24 ◼   ► That's all that there is.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Wow, that's really interesting.

00:34:27 ◼   ► And I feel like this is also, like this is a fair representation of how you're actually

00:34:32 ◼   ► spending your time.

00:34:34 ◼   ► One thing that I wonder because, well I've just been saying like I find myself watching

00:34:39 ◼   ► more YouTube lately.

00:34:41 ◼   ► YouTube for me will be completely absent from my screen time report because I've actually

00:34:46 ◼   ► tried to make a real effort of if I'm going to watch YouTube I'm going to watch it on

00:34:50 ◼   ► my Apple TV at home.

00:34:51 ◼   ► I'm going to make an intentional decision to like I'm sitting down to watch something

00:34:56 ◼   ► to give it my full attention instead of just having something on in the background.

00:35:01 ◼   ► And it is something I would like to see is for screen time to expand.

00:35:06 ◼   ► It's like I'm logged into my iCloud account on the Apple TV and I think it would be nice

00:35:10 ◼   ► if more of the activity was captured.

00:35:13 ◼   ► So if you ever did want to know your YouTube statistics, YouTube have it built into their

00:35:17 ◼   ► own app across the entire platform.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's such a like it's such a hassle.

00:35:21 ◼   ► I'm never going to do that.

00:35:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I want it all in one place.

00:35:25 ◼   ► I will say as well their statistics don't match up with Apple statistics.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I'm assuming my offline viewing did not get counted.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

00:35:33 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:35:34 ◼   ► But Apple counted it.

00:35:35 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:36 ◼   ► It doesn't count for YouTube because you didn't possibly earn the many ad money during that

00:35:39 ◼   ► time.

00:35:40 ◼   ► So I'm like, "Ah, who cares?

00:35:41 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

00:35:42 ◼   ► He's giving us money directly with YouTube Premium.

00:35:44 ◼   ► We don't need to track that anymore."

00:35:46 ◼   ► It's not important now.

00:35:48 ◼   ► All right.

00:35:49 ◼   ► So under YouTube, we've got Tweetbot as number two.

00:35:52 ◼   ► to squidge under seven hours of Tweetbot.

00:35:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I really don't feel good about it.

00:35:58 ◼   ► - That's the one that seems like a lot to me, Myke.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - I really don't feel good about it.

00:36:02 ◼   ► - Tell me why, what are you thinking?

00:36:03 ◼   ► How do you feel about Tweetbot?

00:36:05 ◼   ► - Well, Sid, like the thing is,

00:36:07 ◼   ► is Tweetbot is serving multiple functions for me, right?

00:36:11 ◼   ► And that it is also my news source.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So I'm picking up news from there.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So like, if I just took, you know,

00:36:18 ◼   ► like let's imagine if I had,

00:36:19 ◼   ► if I had there three and a half hours on Tweetbot

00:36:22 ◼   ► and three and a half hours in an RSS app, no one would bat an eyelid to that.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:26 ◼   ► But like that's what's going on here.

00:36:28 ◼   ► I'm also picking up news.

00:36:30 ◼   ► So it's like, OK, but just because my relationship with Twitter is changing

00:36:34 ◼   ► and I find it like as with many people, like

00:36:37 ◼   ► it isn't as great as it used to be, you know, like I think I said on on,

00:36:42 ◼   ► yeah, on the last episode that like I feel like I'm going into battle

00:36:45 ◼   ► sometimes when I'm opening Twitter

00:36:49 ◼   ► because the general discourse has changed.

00:36:53 ◼   ► So to seeing it as that many hours

00:36:56 ◼   ► when I'm also kind of feeling that maybe

00:36:58 ◼   ► I shouldn't be using it as much is kind of a bit like ugh.

00:37:01 ◼   ► But there's some stuff I could probably do

00:37:04 ◼   ► but I just haven't done yet.

00:37:05 ◼   ► Like trying again with RSS apps for like the 70th time

00:37:10 ◼   ► to see if I can--

00:37:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's doomed to fail from the start.

00:37:14 ◼   ► That was the moment when I got Twitter.

00:37:17 ◼   ► I remember really having an epiphany that,

00:37:19 ◼   ► "Oh, Twitter is just like RSS.

00:37:21 ◼   ► This is a new kind of RSS."

00:37:24 ◼   ► And that was what, 'cause I remember for a long time

00:37:27 ◼   ► not really using Twitter and kind of not getting it.

00:37:31 ◼   ► And then there was that period of time,

00:37:33 ◼   ► it was very sad, when Google Reader went away

00:37:35 ◼   ► and RSS clients kind of failed,

00:37:36 ◼   ► and I latched onto Tweetbot as being a new sort of RSS.

00:37:41 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, okay, now I have a place

00:37:42 ◼   ► in my life for this."

00:37:44 ◼   ► - 'Cause like, there are news outlets

00:37:46 ◼   ► that I don't want to get all of their information,

00:37:51 ◼   ► but I follow reporters at some of those outlets

00:37:55 ◼   ► whose articles I want to read and they will share them.

00:37:58 ◼   ► So I don't have to subscribe to whatever news source

00:38:03 ◼   ► and get the fire hose of their Twitter account

00:38:06 ◼   ► or their RSS feed, but I will just get

00:38:09 ◼   ► like this person's articles and stuff that they write

00:38:13 ◼   ► and I can just read those

00:38:15 ◼   ► because they're the ones of interest to me.

00:38:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I would suggest you don't waste your time

00:38:20 ◼   ► trying to get into an RSS reader again,

00:38:22 ◼   ► because again, it's just not quite widely supported enough

00:38:26 ◼   ► and it's going to be frustrated.

00:38:27 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be successful.

00:38:28 ◼   ► But that gets right to the core of,

00:38:31 ◼   ► you have complicated feelings about Twitter,

00:38:35 ◼   ► because it isn't like it's useless.

00:38:37 ◼   ► It isn't like you're just wasting an hour a day on Twitter.

00:38:41 ◼   ► It's incredibly valuable as a service.

00:38:43 ◼   ► but I just don't feel as happy about it as I used to.

00:38:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause you open it up, and like you said,

00:38:48 ◼   ► you've gone into battle and you find yourself

00:38:50 ◼   ► in the middle of a New York versus Chicago war

00:38:52 ◼   ► that you wanted no part in.

00:38:54 ◼   ► And meanwhile, your co-host is just tee-hee-hee

00:38:58 ◼   ► giggling away in his isolated cave

00:39:01 ◼   ► far away from the internet.

00:39:03 ◼   ► - Something that I've enjoyed greatly.

00:39:05 ◼   ► People keep replying to my tweets, saying,

00:39:07 ◼   ► "I thought you weren't gonna do any more hot ticks."

00:39:09 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Oh, damn it, they're watching me."

00:39:11 ◼   ► - Right, right, yeah, okay.

00:39:13 ◼   ► So you're on the record, you're still doing your hot takes.

00:39:15 ◼   ► I greatly appreciate the cortex and calling me out on this

00:39:20 ◼   ► because it's like, yep, you're keeping me in line.

00:39:24 ◼   ► You know, and there's some stuff where I'm like, no, I'm comfortable with this.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Right. Like, I appreciate you.

00:39:29 ◼   ► You you're mentioning it, but like, I don't consider this one necessarily a hot take.

00:39:34 ◼   ► It's something I don't care about people's opinions either way.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Right. Like, I'm not like there's some stuff where, like, if I'm making like a

00:39:40 ◼   ► prediction about something, I don't care if people think it's wrong because I don't necessarily

00:39:44 ◼   ► think it's right, you know?

00:39:45 ◼   ► Right, yeah, yeah, prediction is different. But I feel like you're already trying to weasel

00:39:49 ◼   ► out of this with some of these, like, "That's not a hot take, it's a medium take."

00:39:54 ◼   ► It's not even a take, really, it's a give.

00:39:58 ◼   ► It's a medium give, this is not a hot take, please leave me alone.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Tepid at best.

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00:41:49 ◼   ► [BEEP]

00:41:49 ◼   ► "Messages" is always a surprise to me.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Thanks.

00:41:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this is a really good case for your...

00:41:57 ◼   ► your screw... your... your phone telling you what it is that you really do.

00:42:00 ◼   ► Messages is like the prime example for this.

00:42:03 ◼   ► - Five and a half hours in Messages.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And it's like, I know I send lots of Messages every day.

00:42:07 ◼   ► My notifications can show you that.

00:42:09 ◼   ► But like, it doesn't feel like I am spending time

00:42:13 ◼   ► in the app, right?

00:42:15 ◼   ► I don't ever think of spending time in the Messages app.

00:42:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm with you 100%.

00:42:21 ◼   ► I am always shocked that Messages even is in the top 10.

00:42:26 ◼   ► - Even like for me to see how much higher Messages

00:42:29 ◼   ► than Slack. So I'm spending five and a half hours of the last seven days were spent in

00:42:33 ◼   ► messages and two hours and 50 minutes was in Slack. And that is a surprise to me.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it always is. Like, I don't know why it is, but it's like your brain just, I think

00:42:46 ◼   ► maybe I kind of know just, just talking to you now, I think I've had something click

00:42:50 ◼   ► about why am I always surprised about how much time messages takes and why like you

00:42:54 ◼   ► find yourself at your surprise as well.

00:42:56 ◼   ► And I think it's related to the frustration

00:43:01 ◼   ► when you're talking with someone else

00:43:04 ◼   ► and they get a text message

00:43:07 ◼   ► and that person then goes to just quote,

00:43:10 ◼   ► "Quickly reply to the person they're talking to."

00:43:12 ◼   ► It's very clear that everyone is horrifically bad

00:43:18 ◼   ► at estimating how long it actually takes them

00:43:20 ◼   ► to reply to the text message.

00:43:21 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:43:22 ◼   ► because in social situations,

00:43:24 ◼   ► a number of times I have found it awkward

00:43:30 ◼   ► because I don't wanna take out my phone in these moments,

00:43:33 ◼   ► especially 'cause now I don't have social media to check,

00:43:36 ◼   ► that I'll just sort of sit there and wait.

00:43:39 ◼   ► - Just watch them.

00:43:42 ◼   ► - It is frankly astounding how long people take to reply

00:43:48 ◼   ► and they clearly have no sense about it.

00:43:52 ◼   ► And I too am in this category of not perceiving

00:43:56 ◼   ► how long it takes me to reply to text messages.

00:43:58 ◼   ► - When you reply to a message,

00:44:01 ◼   ► how often is that the end of the conversation?

00:44:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think of this as a half-life,

00:44:08 ◼   ► of like, is the conversation really over?

00:44:11 ◼   ► And in the grey household, this usually comes up,

00:44:14 ◼   ► say if we're going to be watching a movie,

00:44:17 ◼   ► and someone is wrapping up a text message conversation.

00:44:22 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:44:22 ◼   ► - And it's like, okay, you'll get a go on movie

00:44:26 ◼   ► and I'll think, is it really a go on the movie though?

00:44:29 ◼   ► And you wait for the half-life

00:44:31 ◼   ► of the text message conversation to really die out.

00:44:34 ◼   ► So that's another good point.

00:44:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think there are times

00:44:36 ◼   ► where we are experiencing that exact same half-life.

00:44:39 ◼   ► - Look, I think, look, I'm not saying

00:44:43 ◼   ► that there might be a point of communication

00:44:45 ◼   ► between the Grey household and the Hurley household around the same time that would

00:44:49 ◼   ► be delaying the beginning of movie time. But yes, it's definitely a thing. It's a possibility.

00:44:56 ◼   ► But it's kind of astounding, really, isn't it? And I feel like it's so interesting

00:45:03 ◼   ► that this behavior exists, where we have no idea how long it's going to take us to reply.

00:45:09 ◼   ► And also, there is this idea that if you get a message and you feel like you need to reply

00:45:13 ◼   ► to it, like you have to take a break from whatever you're doing to reply to it, it means

00:45:17 ◼   ► it's important, which means there is very likely to be subsequent messages that come

00:45:20 ◼   ► from it, right? If it wasn't important enough for you to have to reply to it immediately,

00:45:26 ◼   ► then it's probably not a thing that's going to take time to resolve the conversation,

00:45:30 ◼   ► you know?

00:45:31 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, I really do think messages is ground zero for you're going

00:45:36 ◼   ► to be surprised by how much you use it and how much you think you use it.

00:45:38 ◼   ► So this is exactly one of those things where it's like when we talk about, like, when,

00:45:42 ◼   ► when I was introducing this segment of like,

00:45:44 ◼   ► I feel like I have a good handle of my time from work,

00:45:48 ◼   ► but I have no idea what's going into that five

00:45:51 ◼   ► and a half hours.

00:45:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:53 ◼   ► - I know there's work in there,

00:45:54 ◼   ► I know there's social stuff in there,

00:45:56 ◼   ► but like that is a lot of unaccounted time.

00:45:59 ◼   ► And it's the same with Slack.

00:46:03 ◼   ► So if I combine messages and Slack together,

00:46:05 ◼   ► we're looking at like nearly 10 hours of the week,

00:46:10 ◼   ► which I have not tracked in any way.

00:46:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, at least Slack is clearly more

00:46:16 ◼   ► on the work end of the spectrum

00:46:17 ◼   ► of what it is that you're doing.

00:46:18 ◼   ► - But it's very unlikely that I,

00:46:21 ◼   ► the way that I time stuff, that I've like,

00:46:23 ◼   ► all right, open in Slack, starting a timer.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Like that's just not, you know?

00:46:28 ◼   ► Like I'm picking it up and doing stuff

00:46:30 ◼   ► and then moving on from it, right?

00:46:33 ◼   ► So it's like, you know, I find that kind of fascinating.

00:46:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's also a case where,

00:46:40 ◼   ► like even if you have screen time on,

00:46:42 ◼   ► which is good and it is helpful,

00:46:44 ◼   ► I still recommend that people manually track their time

00:46:47 ◼   ► in terms of activities,

00:46:48 ◼   ► because these are like two views into the same thing.

00:46:53 ◼   ► And like you said, you're picking up Slack

00:46:56 ◼   ► and dropping it throughout the day,

00:46:57 ◼   ► and you're almost certainly,

00:46:59 ◼   ► you aren't starting a Slack timer

00:47:00 ◼   ► and starting a Slack timer.

00:47:02 ◼   ► But screen time is helpful because it can show

00:47:06 ◼   ► where there's little leaks that you're not aware of.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And you feel like, God, I'm spending more time in this.

00:47:11 ◼   ► You know, there's two minutes here and three minutes there,

00:47:12 ◼   ► or five or 10 minutes, like they really add up

00:47:15 ◼   ► in a way that's not always really,

00:47:17 ◼   ► that's not always super visible.

00:47:19 ◼   ► I don't think Apple would ever do it,

00:47:20 ◼   ► but I would love to be able to click on an app

00:47:22 ◼   ► and see a heat map of when are you likely

00:47:25 ◼   ► to be using this throughout the day.

00:47:27 ◼   ► Like, I think that that could be interesting to see.

00:47:30 ◼   ► - I can imagine them doing that,

00:47:31 ◼   ► because like, I feel like some of the charts

00:47:33 ◼   ► that they have are not too far away from that kind of stuff.

00:47:36 ◼   ► I think it would be much more useful than a "here's how much you used it during the

00:47:40 ◼   ► day".

00:47:41 ◼   ► I would also like a breakdown of time spent per thread.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Just so I know what's going on there.

00:47:48 ◼   ► Because if it turns out that it's like my thread with Adina and my thread that I have

00:47:54 ◼   ► with like a few friends, like I don't care about the time, but if it turns out that it's

00:47:58 ◼   ► like threads that are like work related then maybe I should be knowing about that, maybe

00:48:04 ◼   ► they shouldn't even exist there. Yeah. All right. How are you feeling about your grams

00:48:08 ◼   ► use? You good with the grams? The time spent. So we've got four hours and 56 minutes. And

00:48:17 ◼   ► I'm honestly encouraged by that. Okay. Because I want to use Instagram more and other networks

00:48:25 ◼   ► less. And I know that that time spent is creeping up. And there is a when we get on to talk

00:48:33 ◼   ► about pickups, I have something interesting that I've noted there, but that time spent

00:48:37 ◼   ► 4 hours and 56 minutes on Instagram, that's creeping up and that doesn't bother me at

00:48:43 ◼   ► all. Like, what is it, less than an hour a day? That doesn't bother me. I think that's

00:48:47 ◼   ► great. Because that is, you know, I consider that 4 hours and 56 minutes of pure enjoyment.

00:48:55 ◼   ► Because that's how I feel when I use Instagram.

00:48:56 ◼   ► And then you have Google Docs at three and a half hours, which I presume is mostly show prep.

00:49:02 ◼   ► It's all show prep, and that makes perfect sense to me.

00:49:05 ◼   ► So let's jump over to pickups, because I can see immediately, I think, the thing that you think is interesting data that you want to point out.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Do you want to tell the people what's here in pickups?

00:49:14 ◼   ► So we have a couple of things. So my total pickups, 1,164 times I picked up a device

00:49:21 ◼   ► my iPhone or my iPad over the week, averaging out 166 per day.

00:49:26 ◼   ► By this, when I first saw these numbers, like first ever, I was horrified by them.

00:49:31 ◼   ► But now I am not because everyone I know is in this range, so I don't feel like a monster.

00:49:36 ◼   ► And first, this was the chart that was the most interesting to me

00:49:41 ◼   ► out of all of the data, because it has a little list of apps. So the first used

00:49:46 ◼   ► app after a pickup. So this kind of... so messages is the top. 229 times after

00:49:54 ◼   ► picking up my phone or picking up my iPad. And Apple by the way clarified that

00:49:59 ◼   ► this was not just like checking the time these pickups it's like what they deem a

00:50:03 ◼   ► meaningful interaction with the phone in some way. So 229 times and then using

00:50:08 ◼   ► messages. This makes perfect sense if I'm getting over a thousand message

00:50:12 ◼   ► notifications in a week that I should have 229 times right there.

00:50:16 ◼   ► That all makes sense.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:18 ◼   ► But then my next most used app after pick up is Instagram.

00:50:22 ◼   ► And it's more than tweetbot.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Which is more than tweetbot.

00:50:26 ◼   ► That's the interesting thing.

00:50:27 ◼   ► So it goes messages, Instagram, Slack, tweetbot.

00:50:30 ◼   ► Slack being where it is makes sense because I get Slack notifications.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:36 ◼   ► And when I get a Slack notification, I kind of have it set up in such a way

00:50:40 ◼   ► that if I get a notification on Slack, I pretty much should be opening Slack.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:45 ◼   ► And I would have always assumed that Tweetbot was super high up.

00:50:49 ◼   ► It's in the top four because like I feel like that's what I'm always doing on my phone.

00:50:53 ◼   ► But what I'm doing is when I'm opening Tweetbot,

00:50:56 ◼   ► I'm spending a long time in it and then leaving it.

00:50:59 ◼   ► But Instagram, I am checking it more than any other app except messages.

00:51:06 ◼   ► And I have no notifications for Instagram.

00:51:09 ◼   ► So this is all pure opening the phone.

00:51:13 ◼   ► What app do I only use?

00:51:14 ◼   ► Oh, I wanna use Instagram.

00:51:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, in YouTube land, we would say that Tweetbot

00:51:19 ◼   ► has an average watch time per interaction

00:51:23 ◼   ► than Instagram does.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Like Tweetbot is holding you there longer

00:51:26 ◼   ► per time you open it than Instagram does.

00:51:28 ◼   ► - Which makes sense to me, 'cause there's more information.

00:51:30 ◼   ► I'm clicking or reading stuff, I'm watching videos, right?

00:51:33 ◼   ► Like I'm doing a lot more multimedia interactions

00:51:37 ◼   ► in tweetbot where Instagram, most of the time I'm watching stories and then I'm

00:51:41 ◼   ► going through the feed as well.

00:51:42 ◼   ► I spend more time with stories really.

00:51:44 ◼   ► And this is actually a thing that Instagram is finding in general these days.

00:51:48 ◼   ► So people spending a lot of time with stories and then they're also going

00:51:50 ◼   ► through the feeds as well.

00:51:51 ◼   ► But that is like an interesting and for my own personal use and encouraging

00:51:57 ◼   ► statistic because of the way that I want to use my devices.

00:52:00 ◼   ► So what I am clearly doing is I am being more drawn to Instagram.

00:52:06 ◼   ► The other thing that is interesting to me about this is Instagram is just on my iPhone.

00:52:10 ◼   ► Oh, right. Of course. Yeah.

00:52:13 ◼   ► Do they still not have an iPad app?

00:52:14 ◼   ► No, they don't have an iPad app.

00:52:15 ◼   ► So what I find interesting about that is I am most of the time using my iPad in the day.

00:52:22 ◼   ► So I so tweetbot is getting that like, what shall I do now?

00:52:25 ◼   ► I'll open tweetbot thing.

00:52:27 ◼   ► That's getting that a lot.

00:52:28 ◼   ► But Instagram, even just being on my iPhone.

00:52:31 ◼   ► So like it's something I've noticed myself doing.

00:52:33 ◼   ► I'm on my iPad and I just pick up my phone and open Instagram

00:52:38 ◼   ► because I just want to go see what's happening on Instagram.

00:52:39 ◼   ► So that is a, this is the most interesting data to me

00:52:43 ◼   ► because it's showing a change in my device usage.

00:52:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, interesting.

00:52:48 ◼   ► Yeah, and Instagram would be the app to pick up

00:52:50 ◼   ► when say you're waiting for someone else

00:52:52 ◼   ► to finish a text message that they just got,

00:52:54 ◼   ► you know, at lunch or whatever.

00:52:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, because like, geez, it takes so long.

00:52:56 ◼   ► - That would be the go-to check app.

00:52:58 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:52:59 ◼   ► But you know.

00:53:01 ◼   ► - Okay, so then going to your notifications,

00:53:04 ◼   ► if we correct out the math here,

00:53:06 ◼   ► you have gotten 1,700 notifications in the last seven days.

00:53:11 ◼   ► So that works out to be about 250 notifications a day

00:53:17 ◼   ► if we're dividing by three.

00:53:18 ◼   ► How do you feel about that?

00:53:21 ◼   ► - I'm all fine about it.

00:53:22 ◼   ► 'Cause like the apps that are there at the top,

00:53:25 ◼   ► yeah, I expect that, right?

00:53:27 ◼   ► Messages, Slack, Spark, and Todoist,

00:53:29 ◼   ► like these are the applications that I want to be notifying me multiple times a day about

00:53:35 ◼   ► the things that they need to be notifying me about. Like I have no problem with my notification

00:53:39 ◼   ► numbers at all. That's just, that makes sense to me.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, I think they make sense too. And again, especially because you, like the

00:53:49 ◼   ► nature of your work is very communicative and like you're talking to people, so like

00:53:54 ◼   ► Slack and Spark and Todoist, like those, it totally makes sense that these things are

00:53:57 ◼   ► up there as notifications that you get.

00:54:00 ◼   ► And I think sometimes people can be a little bit

00:54:03 ◼   ► like tsk-tsk about the number of notifications,

00:54:06 ◼   ► but these are devices that you're using to do stuff

00:54:08 ◼   ► like of course they're gonna notify you a bunch.

00:54:11 ◼   ► And 250 notifications a day,

00:54:14 ◼   ► especially when you're including

00:54:16 ◼   ► what are basically like iMessage threads

00:54:17 ◼   ► where when you're not looking,

00:54:19 ◼   ► someone messages you five sentences.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Like it doesn't seem like a crazy number to me.

00:54:23 ◼   ► - No, and also as well, like is thing to remember,

00:54:26 ◼   ► I don't have this strapped to my wrist anymore.

00:54:30 ◼   ► - Oh right, of course, yeah, so this is, right.

00:54:32 ◼   ► - These notifications, they only are getting to me

00:54:36 ◼   ► when I want them to, and that has become a very different,

00:54:40 ◼   ► a very different part of, like a,

00:54:45 ◼   ► it's become a very different feeling for me.

00:54:48 ◼   ► I'm actually, I'm happier not wearing the Apple Watch.

00:54:53 ◼   ► Like my ultimate feeling on that is

00:54:56 ◼   ► I have no desire to go back to having something

00:54:59 ◼   ► physically attached to my body which can notify me.

00:55:02 ◼   ► I think that, and I'm not trying to launch

00:55:07 ◼   ► like a big philosophical debate here,

00:55:10 ◼   ► but I actually think it's probably pretty unhealthy.

00:55:12 ◼   ► 'Cause if I don't wanna be notified,

00:55:16 ◼   ► I mean, do not disturb is great,

00:55:17 ◼   ► but I can just take my phone and just put it over there.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Or like, if I'm busy doing something,

00:55:25 ◼   ► my phone isn't touching me most of the time, right?

00:55:29 ◼   ► Like I probably got it on a table.

00:55:31 ◼   ► So if I'm caught up in something,

00:55:33 ◼   ► those notifications aren't gonna get to me

00:55:35 ◼   ► and I can just do the thing that I'm doing.

00:55:37 ◼   ► But if I'm wearing my Apple Watch,

00:55:40 ◼   ► it's always gonna be jumping in.

00:55:42 ◼   ► And for me personally, I think it's been a better impact

00:55:47 ◼   ► on my mental health to be able to separate myself

00:55:54 ◼   ► from technology physically.

00:55:58 ◼   ► So I am in the very early stages of formulating this opinion,

00:56:04 ◼   ► having not worn an Apple Watch for basically a year

00:56:08 ◼   ► at this point.

00:56:10 ◼   ► It would be in May where I would have not worn an Apple

00:56:12 ◼   ► Watch for an entire year.

00:56:15 ◼   ► And I have noticed that I am feeling better about that.

00:56:23 ◼   ► - That's interesting to hear.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Partly because of what you said about

00:56:28 ◼   ► not having the watch and not having notifications on,

00:56:31 ◼   ► and partly because of what I find

00:56:32 ◼   ► incredibly frustrating limitations

00:56:35 ◼   ► about how screen time and notifications work

00:56:37 ◼   ► on iOS and the Apple Watch.

00:56:39 ◼   ► I keep going through phases where I either,

00:56:44 ◼   ► it doesn't really matter, but I have experimented sometimes

00:56:48 ◼   ► with basically not ever getting messages on the Apple Watch,

00:56:52 ◼   ► And it's not what I want.

00:56:55 ◼   ► What I want isn't quite technically possible

00:56:57 ◼   ► to my great frustration, but I could totally see that,

00:57:00 ◼   ► like for some people that makes sense as an option.

00:57:03 ◼   ► Like, you know what?

00:57:04 ◼   ► Maybe this thing isn't for you being tapped

00:57:07 ◼   ► and not having your phone around.

00:57:09 ◼   ► The reason so far that I have always come back

00:57:11 ◼   ► from doing that is because ever since I've had

00:57:13 ◼   ► my Apple Watch, I just, I don't really pay any attention

00:57:16 ◼   ► to where my phone is once I arrive in the house.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Like there's a couple of charging pads

00:57:20 ◼   ► and I just sort of drop it on one of them.

00:57:22 ◼   ► And so I have very often ended up

00:57:25 ◼   ► during those little phases coming back to my phone

00:57:27 ◼   ► and there's a whole ton of notifications on it.

00:57:29 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, I should have known about these."

00:57:31 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:57:32 ◼   ► I just wasn't looking.

00:57:33 ◼   ► Like I think my tendency is to get very,

00:57:37 ◼   ► we can put it this way,

00:57:40 ◼   ► to be very unattentive to the outside world sometimes.

00:57:44 ◼   ► And so I do need a system of notifications that works

00:57:48 ◼   ► and because I just lose track of where the phone is with the watch,

00:57:52 ◼   ► I need to have some notifications on the Apple Watch.

00:57:54 ◼   ► But I can easily believe and easily see that you are finding yourself much happier

00:58:00 ◼   ► not having a device with notifications on your wrist at all times.

00:58:05 ◼   ► I can easily see that.

00:58:06 ◼   ► -And we're trying at home to have specific time,

00:58:10 ◼   ► which is like no phone time, right?

00:58:12 ◼   ► We're doing a thing and we're not going to let the outside world bother us

00:58:16 ◼   ► while we're playing this game or watching this movie.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Let's just enjoy this together.

00:58:20 ◼   ► And it's so much easier to do that

00:58:23 ◼   ► when it's not attached to me.

00:58:25 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, you can just, yeah.

00:58:26 ◼   ► - 'Cause nothing can bother me.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And yeah, these controls exist on these devices,

00:58:30 ◼   ► but I know me, and I know that I would be less inclined

00:58:35 ◼   ► to set them up just right, you know?

00:58:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and it's impossible

00:58:39 ◼   ► to set them up exactly right,

00:58:41 ◼   ► 'cause there's some limitations.

00:58:41 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Which will hopefully

00:58:42 ◼   ► be changed.

00:58:43 ◼   ► - All right, so that's mine.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Okay, now Myke, I need to paint you a picture before I show you my screen time.

00:58:52 ◼   ► Yeah, of course you do.

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01:01:35 ◼   ► So it's been a different week than normal.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Although as you said to me one time a long time ago, you're like, "Oh, it's always a

01:01:42 ◼   ► different week," which I think is an excellent point.

01:01:43 ◼   ► There's always something going on.

01:01:44 ◼   ► But my wife has been traveling and visiting some friends for the last 10 days.

01:01:50 ◼   ► So I have been a man on my own in the house.

01:01:55 ◼   ► And here's what I've done.

01:01:57 ◼   ► My office, my home office, perfectly fine.

01:02:00 ◼   ► It's good for a central London home office, but by American standards, it's a small closet

01:02:07 ◼   ► and half of it is filled up with this black monolith.

01:02:11 ◼   ► So I figured, oh, my wife is going to be gone for a big block of time.

01:02:15 ◼   ► I'm going to relocate into the main room of our flat.

01:02:22 ◼   ► And so here's the setup.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Imagine a rectangle.

01:02:25 ◼   ► At one end of the rectangle, I have the old-fashioned, the first setup I think we talked about on

01:02:32 ◼   ► the show, setup of an iPad with an external keyboard on like an elevated desk to use as

01:02:39 ◼   ► a writing area, just like a little dedicated writing spot.

01:02:45 ◼   ► On the other side of the room, table with a computer on it.

01:02:49 ◼   ► And now on the longer wall, screen facing perpendicular to those two is my TV, where

01:02:58 ◼   ► there is a Nintendo Switch connected, and I dragged a chair into the main room to be

01:03:03 ◼   ► able to sit butt feet away from this 38 inch screen like parents never wanted you to do,

01:03:10 ◼   ► to be able to play video games.

01:03:12 ◼   ► And in the last 10 days, I have left the house exactly twice.

01:03:18 ◼   ► times because the garbage needed to be taken out and I have just been rotating between

01:03:23 ◼   ► these three workstations and then sleeping and that is what my life has been for the

01:03:30 ◼   ► last 10 days. It's like, what am I doing? Am I standing at the writing desk? Am I sitting

01:03:35 ◼   ► at the working desk? Am I taking a break on the switch or am I asleep? It's basically

01:03:40 ◼   ► been a graycation without leaving London. It's been kind of amazing.

01:03:44 ◼   ► That's not bad.

01:03:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's also, it's been a little weird

01:03:49 ◼   ► and yeah, I did recognize like, oh, wait a second,

01:03:51 ◼   ► I've actually only left the house twice.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Maybe I should do that a little bit more,

01:03:55 ◼   ► but anyway, that's why I wanted to set up a picture

01:03:59 ◼   ► because of having the iPad in this dedicated spot

01:04:03 ◼   ► and because I've been very focused

01:04:07 ◼   ► on trying to produce a video quickly,

01:04:10 ◼   ► I've ended up just using the iPad a lot more

01:04:12 ◼   ► than I have in a normal week.

01:04:14 ◼   ► So, okay, so this this this week is over representative of iOS use, but I still think it's interesting.

01:04:21 ◼   ► So are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Let me send you some images. Okay. Let's take a look

01:04:31 ◼   ► at what we got here then. It always feels so exposing to share the screen time. I know

01:04:36 ◼   ► it's because you can't lie. You can't all be like, Oh, you know, I'm I'm such a distinguished

01:04:41 ◼   ► individual.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I did all these things just perfectly.

01:04:44 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, here's here it is.

01:04:46 ◼   ► It's very, very intimate.

01:04:49 ◼   ► Although to be honest, just like a quick glance here.

01:04:52 ◼   ► Yeah, see, this is the thing, everything you were doing to slack off has not been recorded

01:04:57 ◼   ► here.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:59 ◼   ► Which is Nintendo Switch time.

01:05:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:01 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:02 ◼   ► So like this is but this is this is why I think it's interesting and why I wish it was

01:05:04 ◼   ► more comprehensive.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Because yes, there's two big things in the last week which are just totally unrecorded,

01:05:11 ◼   ► you know, lost to the sands of time.

01:05:14 ◼   ► It's either playing around on the Switch or watching YouTube or like...

01:05:21 ◼   ► You'll notice there's a dramatic drop on Wednesday.

01:05:24 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:05:25 ◼   ► I'm on a Wednesday!

01:05:31 ◼   ► Like there's a long story short but basically I ordered this this really interesting book

01:05:34 ◼   ► on animation on Thursday.

01:05:39 ◼   ► I should remember the guy's name but anyway fascinating book on like how do you animate

01:05:44 ◼   ► characters in a movie.

01:05:46 ◼   ► I just was interested in it.

01:05:48 ◼   ► Can you find a link and I can put it in the show notes for that book?

01:05:51 ◼   ► Yes I will find you a link for the book.

01:05:53 ◼   ► It's like the illustrator's handbook or something.

01:05:54 ◼   ► It is like a gigantic bible of a book.

01:05:57 ◼   ► - So you got a paper book?

01:05:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was a paper book.

01:06:01 ◼   ► It was delivered to the house

01:06:02 ◼   ► because they didn't have an option for a Kindle edition.

01:06:04 ◼   ► And so Wednesday morning, I was like,

01:06:07 ◼   ► "Oh, let me take a look at this book."

01:06:08 ◼   ► I came in last night.

01:06:10 ◼   ► I'm perfectly fine just reading a little bit in the morning.

01:06:12 ◼   ► This is gonna be a nice start to the day.

01:06:15 ◼   ► And the book was really absorbing.

01:06:16 ◼   ► I spent most of the morning reading it.

01:06:18 ◼   ► And then I realized at the end

01:06:19 ◼   ► that the guy who wrote the book was the lead animator

01:06:22 ◼   ► for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

01:06:24 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh, I've got to watch this movie now!"

01:06:27 ◼   ► And so, like, this is where the whole day went.

01:06:29 ◼   ► But let me tell you, watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit after spending a couple hours looking

01:06:34 ◼   ► at animation tricks by the guy who made the movie was an incredibly interesting experience.

01:06:39 ◼   ► How does that movie hold up?

01:06:41 ◼   ► It holds up fantastically.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I was blown away by how well that movie held up.

01:06:48 ◼   ► I think it could honestly be released almost as a movie now.

01:06:53 ◼   ► I think it would be perfectly fine.

01:06:55 ◼   ► The fact that it's set back in time really helps it.

01:06:58 ◼   ► But anyway, so that-- - Right, 'cause it was

01:07:00 ◼   ► already set in the '50s or whatever, right?

01:07:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, it came out in the '80s

01:07:05 ◼   ► and it was set in the '30s, right?

01:07:06 ◼   ► So it helps it quite a lot.

01:07:09 ◼   ► But anyway, that was a very interesting day

01:07:13 ◼   ► that was sort of my unofficial day off,

01:07:15 ◼   ► but still, like that was not the plan for the day

01:07:18 ◼   ► in the morning for how it was gonna go.

01:07:20 ◼   ► But this is why iOS time just completely disappears, right?

01:07:23 ◼   ► Because nothing's being recorded.

01:07:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause you're like averaging four hours,

01:07:26 ◼   ► 50 minutes a day, but that would have been over five hours.

01:07:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - Right?

01:07:30 ◼   ► If Wednesday was a more in line day

01:07:33 ◼   ► with the rest of the days.

01:07:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:07:35 ◼   ► So anyway, that's why like,

01:07:38 ◼   ► this is not a representative sample of what I'm up to,

01:07:40 ◼   ► but it's nonetheless,

01:07:41 ◼   ► it's the screen time that I have to share.

01:07:44 ◼   ► - So I see something I don't have, which is limits,

01:07:46 ◼   ► and I'm sure this is like app limits,

01:07:48 ◼   ► and you have Slack and Mail, 20 minutes.

01:07:50 ◼   ► Is this per day?

01:07:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a per day limit.

01:07:55 ◼   ► And the reason those limits are there is,

01:07:59 ◼   ► it's actually not because I spend too much time

01:08:01 ◼   ► in those apps.

01:08:02 ◼   ► It's actually, I hardly ever use either of those apps

01:08:05 ◼   ► on iOS, but the limit is there because

01:08:09 ◼   ► I don't wanna get sucked into something,

01:08:12 ◼   ► And if I happen to be opening mail or my secondary Slack,

01:08:17 ◼   ► I always want to make sure I'm doing it

01:08:20 ◼   ► with a real purpose of like, why are you doing this?

01:08:22 ◼   ► Is there something really important you need to do?

01:08:24 ◼   ► - When you're on iOS, these are not the times

01:08:27 ◼   ► to actually be taking care of this work.

01:08:28 ◼   ► It's meant for the Mac.

01:08:30 ◼   ► - That's exactly it.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Like this is not the ideal environment to do this,

01:08:34 ◼   ► do it somewhere else.

01:08:35 ◼   ► And I also like that the way it works,

01:08:38 ◼   ► the way the limits work is if I do spend

01:08:39 ◼   ► more than 20 minutes on them,

01:08:41 ◼   ► it locks the app and then it also just removes any badges that might happen to be there.

01:08:46 ◼   ► So it really becomes totally like out of sight out of mind. So that's why I have those two

01:08:49 ◼   ► limits there. But it really doesn't come into play very often because I just tend not to

01:08:54 ◼   ► use those apps on iOS.

01:08:55 ◼   ► Do you see that like you're soon going to have what you wanted, which was the ability

01:09:01 ◼   ► to customize downtime to certain hours on a daily basis?

01:09:05 ◼   ► Oh, interesting. Okay. I'm glad to hear that that's coming in.

01:09:07 ◼   ► that's coming in iOS 12.2.

01:09:09 ◼   ► So you can customize every single day

01:09:12 ◼   ► and what times you want downtime to start and end.

01:09:15 ◼   ► - On a per amp basis?

01:09:17 ◼   ► - No, this is like the downtime one,

01:09:19 ◼   ► which is that, you know, when you can-

01:09:20 ◼   ► - Ah, okay.

01:09:22 ◼   ► But again, better, but not great, but I'll take it.

01:09:24 ◼   ► I'll take whatever I can get.

01:09:25 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:26 ◼   ► - All right, so let's take a look here.

01:09:27 ◼   ► So Scrivener and Kindle and Good Notes.

01:09:29 ◼   ► I can 100% understand what's going on in these, right?

01:09:33 ◼   ► So, 'cause I know you were working on a video, right?

01:09:35 ◼   ► So I'm assuming Scrivener is the writing of the video,

01:09:38 ◼   ► so you're still using Scrivener.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Kindle is research and just general reading.

01:09:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, research and general reading.

01:09:44 ◼   ► This is also a place where activity is partly uncaptured

01:09:47 ◼   ► because I try to use the Kindle whenever,

01:09:51 ◼   ► sorry, the actual physical Kindle whenever I can.

01:09:54 ◼   ► I do like, I find that screen easier on the eyes.

01:09:57 ◼   ► But if I'm doing reading that is much more for a project,

01:10:04 ◼   ► the ability to do highlighter colors

01:10:06 ◼   ► and to type notes on iOS just wins out.

01:10:09 ◼   ► - I wouldn't be, I mean, I would have imagined

01:10:11 ◼   ► that there was a lot of this Kindle time

01:10:13 ◼   ► where it's open and you're referring to the books

01:10:16 ◼   ► while writing too.

01:10:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I think the way iOS does it is totally fine,

01:10:20 ◼   ► but there is a double counting factor sometimes

01:10:24 ◼   ► where it's like I have Scrivener and Kindle open,

01:10:27 ◼   ► or like very often I have Scrivener and Evernote is open,

01:10:31 ◼   ► or Scrivener and Mind Node are open.

01:10:32 ◼   ► Like, that is happening a lot on iOS.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Like, there's these two things that are occurring there.

01:10:40 ◼   ► - And GoodNotes, my assumption is that this is like

01:10:43 ◼   ► when you're marking up a script.

01:10:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, so GoodNotes is three things.

01:10:50 ◼   ► It's marking up a script.

01:10:52 ◼   ► It's doing animation feedback and storyboard feedback

01:10:57 ◼   ► with the animator, so like getting a bunch of slides.

01:11:00 ◼   ► And then sometimes, and you've seen a couple of these,

01:11:05 ◼   ► doing some pretty terrible concept art

01:11:08 ◼   ► for what should be in the video.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - Sometimes Greg just sends me these like little scribbles

01:11:13 ◼   ► with no context and won't give me any either.

01:11:16 ◼   ► - No, you say, okay, Myke says sometimes, right?

01:11:19 ◼   ► I think only this week have I done that

01:11:21 ◼   ► because I've been in like crazy isolated modes.

01:11:24 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, I gotta show Myke this thing

01:11:26 ◼   ► that I just drew."

01:11:27 ◼   ► I can't remember what I showed you,

01:11:28 ◼   ► but I'm sure you can share it with the viewers

01:11:29 ◼   ► because the video will be out by that point in time.

01:11:31 ◼   ► - It was the book with the tentacles coming out of it.

01:11:33 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, yeah, that's what I sent you.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - Right, but if it's not illustrations,

01:11:37 ◼   ► sometimes you just send me charts with scribbles

01:11:42 ◼   ► and random code in them.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - That is-- - It's like,

01:11:44 ◼   ► oh, look what I did.

01:11:45 ◼   ► - Now, this is Myke being slanderous.

01:11:47 ◼   ► I don't think that has ever happened.

01:11:48 ◼   ► - That is 100%. - You're gonna have to

01:11:49 ◼   ► just pull back a long time to find anything like that

01:11:52 ◼   ► in our iMessage threads together.

01:11:53 ◼   ► - I'm not saying that it happens frequently,

01:11:55 ◼   ► but it has happened on more than one occasion

01:11:57 ◼   ► that you were sending these things.

01:11:59 ◼   ► But it does usually coincide with you being on a graycation,

01:12:02 ◼   ► right, which is basically what you just did, I can't.

01:12:06 ◼   ► I am the most interested though,

01:12:08 ◼   ► and you probably knew this,

01:12:09 ◼   ► in app number four on your list, which is MasterClass.

01:12:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I knew you were gonna ask about this.

01:12:14 ◼   ► - Now, MasterClass, I've always kind of had a raised eyebrow

01:12:18 ◼   ► towards MasterClass, I get the ads a lot.

01:12:20 ◼   ► - Me too, 100%.

01:12:23 ◼   ► - It is one of these training platforms,

01:12:25 ◼   ► and there are lots of them available, right,

01:12:26 ◼   ► like where you can go and take a class.

01:12:28 ◼   ► but the thing that is different

01:12:30 ◼   ► and I just don't know how I feel about it is masterclass.

01:12:33 ◼   ► They are courses by people that are extremely famous

01:12:38 ◼   ► and successful in their field.

01:12:40 ◼   ► So you can take like a comedy class from Steve Martin

01:12:44 ◼   ► or like, oh, you want to take like a directing class

01:12:47 ◼   ► from Scorsese, right?

01:12:49 ◼   ► And it's like, all right, come on now.

01:12:51 ◼   ► Or like a cooking class by Gordon Ramsay.

01:12:53 ◼   ► And it's like, what is going on?

01:12:55 ◼   ► And I always feel like, I always have this feeling

01:12:58 ◼   ► where I'm like, is it possible to actually learn

01:13:03 ◼   ► from these people or should you be using these things

01:13:06 ◼   ► that are a little bit more practical?

01:13:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:13:09 ◼   ► So I really wanna know what you're doing

01:13:12 ◼   ► and I wanna get your opinion on it.

01:13:14 ◼   ► - Right, now I've had 100% that same raised eyebrow,

01:13:18 ◼   ► but also because I'm in the field of educational video,

01:13:22 ◼   ► sort of, there's also been a professional interest

01:13:25 ◼   ► of like, what are you up to masterclass?

01:13:27 ◼   ► because their ads on YouTube are amazing.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Like I think they're just really well done.

01:13:33 ◼   ► - I cannot fathom how they make enough money

01:13:37 ◼   ► to pay the people that they get to do the videos.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - Well, the answer is the courses are shockingly expensive.

01:13:44 ◼   ► - Oh, really?

01:13:45 ◼   ► - Your breath will be taken away

01:13:46 ◼   ► by how expensive they are.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Like that is the answer.

01:13:49 ◼   ► When I decided to look into it, I was like,

01:13:51 ◼   ► oh, this is how they make their money.

01:13:53 ◼   ► Like you do not need many people to sign up for this.

01:13:57 ◼   ► So that's how they make their money.

01:13:59 ◼   ► But yeah, if you've spent any time even remotely

01:14:01 ◼   ► near educational videos on YouTube,

01:14:03 ◼   ► like you have seen masterclass ads.

01:14:05 ◼   ► - Oh, wow, yeah, okay.

01:14:07 ◼   ► They're available for in-app purchase.

01:14:08 ◼   ► They're like 85 pounds each.

01:14:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like 85 bucks for a course

01:14:14 ◼   ► and they have some deal of like $150 for a year

01:14:17 ◼   ► or something for a bunch of courses.

01:14:19 ◼   ► I don't remember exactly, but it's a lot.

01:14:21 ◼   ► Okay, so here's the thing.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I always was curious about them.

01:14:24 ◼   ► I'm like, I kind of want to know.

01:14:26 ◼   ► And when I started getting the ads for Neil Gaiman

01:14:30 ◼   ► talking about writing, I was like, oh man,

01:14:33 ◼   ► like masterclass, like you're getting me close here

01:14:35 ◼   ► to be curious about what this is.

01:14:37 ◼   ► 'Cause Neil Gaiman is an author I really like,

01:14:38 ◼   ► I like a lot of his work,

01:14:40 ◼   ► and I was just kind of curious to see what this is.

01:14:43 ◼   ► But I'll tell you the one that finally got me

01:14:47 ◼   ► was totally unexpected.

01:14:50 ◼   ► Dan Brown, the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code,

01:14:55 ◼   ► did a course in writing on Masterclass

01:15:00 ◼   ► that I saw on one of the YouTube ads.

01:15:01 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, hi Dan Brown.

01:15:05 ◼   ► I've read two of your books and I liked neither of them."

01:15:09 ◼   ► But they were page turners, but especially the second one,

01:15:15 ◼   ► I kind of got to the end of it out of just sheer frustration.

01:15:18 ◼   ► You're like, sometimes you're reading a book

01:15:20 ◼   ► and you're like, "I don't like this book,"

01:15:22 ◼   ► but you're like, "I'm gonna plow through it

01:15:24 ◼   ► and get to the end because of you're frustrated,

01:15:27 ◼   ► not because you're having a great time.

01:15:29 ◼   ► But nonetheless, I thought it's interesting to hear

01:15:32 ◼   ► from people who are doing sort of the same thing

01:15:37 ◼   ► in a very different way,

01:15:39 ◼   ► or I think it can be even more enlightening

01:15:42 ◼   ► to hear someone talk about their work who is successful,

01:15:46 ◼   ► but whose work isn't the kind of thing that you like.

01:15:51 ◼   ► You can sometimes hear different things in that.

01:15:53 ◼   ► So the curiosity totally overtook me.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And I was like, "God damn it, like, here we go.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Okay, I have to see the Dan Brown course on writing.

01:16:03 ◼   ► Like, I just, I need to know.

01:16:05 ◼   ► I need to know what he says."

01:16:06 ◼   ► And so I will say this,

01:16:08 ◼   ► all of my raised eyebrows about "Masterclass"

01:16:11 ◼   ► were 100% confirmed by going into it.

01:16:15 ◼   ► And for me, that's not a bad thing

01:16:20 ◼   ► because what they're really doing

01:16:22 ◼   ► and what my suspicion from many of the trailers were is,

01:16:26 ◼   ► I think they're sitting down these super professionals

01:16:31 ◼   ► for one to maybe three days,

01:16:36 ◼   ► and they're interviewing them in a filmed environment

01:16:43 ◼   ► that isn't going to change,

01:16:44 ◼   ► and having them talk about their work,

01:16:48 ◼   ► and then it is being edited into

01:16:51 ◼   ► like a class that's broken down into little sections

01:16:55 ◼   ► that's like lessons.

01:16:57 ◼   ► But are you going to learn writing or cooking

01:17:02 ◼   ► from one of these things?

01:17:04 ◼   ► No, I don't think you are.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - And this is what concerns me about people paying

01:17:09 ◼   ► for these classes, is that they're super expensive

01:17:12 ◼   ► and like you come out of it hoping that like R.L. Stine

01:17:17 ◼   ► is gonna teach you how to write a young section.

01:17:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, he's on my cue list, right?

01:17:21 ◼   ► So I have the feeling like I actually got exactly

01:17:25 ◼   ► what I wanted for my money,

01:17:27 ◼   ► which is I wanted to hear Neil Gaiman

01:17:29 ◼   ► just talk about being a writer.

01:17:32 ◼   ► And I genuinely wanted to hear Dan Brown talk about,

01:17:35 ◼   ► like, what is it like to be Dan Brown, the writer?

01:17:38 ◼   ► And I genuinely found it really interesting.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Again, even though I did not enjoy his books,

01:17:43 ◼   ► it's like, that was really interesting to listen to.

01:17:47 ◼   ► He talked through the mechanics of like,

01:17:51 ◼   ► how do you write a thriller?

01:17:52 ◼   ► Like what makes a thriller novel different

01:17:54 ◼   ► from other kinds of books?

01:17:55 ◼   ► How do you do certain kinds of setups?

01:17:57 ◼   ► And because I went through that like in quotes course,

01:18:02 ◼   ► which I think is much more like an interview

01:18:04 ◼   ► where the interviewer has been cut out,

01:18:06 ◼   ► I went onto my Kindle and just bought the first thriller

01:18:11 ◼   ► that was at the top of the like Amazon recommends

01:18:13 ◼   ► you check it out list,

01:18:14 ◼   ► something about like a murder in Mississippi.

01:18:16 ◼   ► And I read it out of just interest in seeing the mechanics play out and it's like, man,

01:18:22 ◼   ► this dude is following the Dan Brown formula 100%.

01:18:25 ◼   ► And it's just interesting to see.

01:18:27 ◼   ► In the same way like all those YouTube channels that talk about how movies are made, and you

01:18:31 ◼   ► can sometimes see in a movie a different kind of thing after watching that.

01:18:34 ◼   ► So I watch a bunch of those channels too, if you're wondering about the other things

01:18:38 ◼   ► that I'm watching.

01:18:39 ◼   ► There's a bunch of those as well.

01:18:41 ◼   ► Everybody does.

01:18:42 ◼   ► You can't escape them.

01:18:43 ◼   ► So again, I am very happy with the purchase, but you know, because it's like I watched

01:18:48 ◼   ► um...

01:18:49 ◼   ► Please tell me that you bought the all-access thing.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I bought the all-access thing.

01:18:53 ◼   ► It would suck if you watch one for $85 and you're like, "Oh, this looks good!" and it's

01:18:57 ◼   ► like, "Ah, $170, you get it all!"

01:19:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:01 ◼   ► No, I immediately bought the whole thing and it's like, this is clearly a business expense

01:19:06 ◼   ► as well.

01:19:07 ◼   ► It's like, this is just, this is totally in my wheelhouse.

01:19:11 ◼   ► So yeah, I just, I watched like an hour of Werner Herzog talking about filmmaking.

01:19:15 ◼   ► It's like, you know, again, that's also so funny to me.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:19 ◼   ► It's like, I'm not a filmmaker.

01:19:20 ◼   ► Also, Werner Herzog is like the weirdest filmmaker in the world.

01:19:24 ◼   ► No one.

01:19:25 ◼   ► What are you learning?

01:19:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:27 ◼   ► No one should take his advice because no one could make his movies other than him.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Like they're so squirrely and they're so particular to him.

01:19:35 ◼   ► And it was really interesting hear him talking about, he does all these like, Oh, I always

01:19:39 ◼   ► like to make sure that you hold on the frame until people get uncomfortable. And it's

01:19:46 ◼   ► like, it works because you're you!

01:19:48 ◼   ► Because everyone's always uncomfortable around you, Werner. That's just how it is.

01:19:56 ◼   ► So for me, I feel like, oh, this is great. This is a goldmine of hearing ridiculously

01:20:00 ◼   ► professional people just talk about their work. But, you know, I mean, we don't need

01:20:06 ◼   ► to get into a sidebar of how effective does Gray think education is in the first place,

01:20:11 ◼   ► asterisk, not very, and only under limited circumstances. But I think, yeah, if you think

01:20:16 ◼   ► you're going to write the DaVinci Code after watching Dan Brown's masterclass on writing,

01:20:22 ◼   ► you are going to be sorely disappointed. If you want to know about how books are written

01:20:28 ◼   ► and how authors think about writing books, you will be very happy. So that was my experience

01:20:34 ◼   ► with MasterClass, but the side note here is,

01:20:38 ◼   ► I didn't figure out for a while that on the phone,

01:20:43 ◼   ► you can tell MasterClass to just play the audio

01:20:46 ◼   ► in the background, whereas this is not an option on the iPad.

01:20:49 ◼   ► So the only reason it's showing up as four hours

01:20:51 ◼   ► is because I left the iPad screen on,

01:20:54 ◼   ► and it would play the videos.

01:20:56 ◼   ► And then I eventually figured out on my phone,

01:20:58 ◼   ► I could like use it basically as an audio book.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Like just play me this, just play me Dan Brown talking,

01:21:03 ◼   ► or just play me Neil Gaiman talking about whatever.

01:21:06 ◼   ► And so I was listening to it while tidying up the house.

01:21:09 ◼   ► That's what I was doing with it.

01:21:11 ◼   ► I'm intrigued about this a little bit more than before.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Because I'm pleased to see that it's what I kind of had assumed it would be, which is

01:21:25 ◼   ► interesting.

01:21:26 ◼   ► But it does concern me.

01:21:30 ◼   ► Some of these classes concern me.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Because I don't like the thought of somebody who is an aspiring filmmaker paying £85 to

01:21:38 ◼   ► quote unquote "learn" from Werner Herzog because I don't think this is a class in the sense

01:21:45 ◼   ► of a class.

01:21:48 ◼   ► They are like mini documentaries or whatever, right?

01:21:51 ◼   ► Like long interviews as you say and that's a better way of framing it but their whole

01:21:56 ◼   ► thing is around "it's a class and we're going to teach you" and I just don't know if it's

01:22:01 ◼   ► that, but that doesn't mean that they're not super interesting and/or valuable, but

01:22:05 ◼   ► people just need to frame it in a different way in their minds, maybe.

01:22:09 ◼   ► B: Yeah, here's the thing. Again, so I've watched or listened to bits of five of them,

01:22:14 ◼   ► let's say. Dan Brown's is the only one I went all the way through, and then I'm

01:22:18 ◼   ► just like, whatever's interesting to me, just play some parts and click on the thing

01:22:20 ◼   ► that sounds interesting. If this was released as a series on Netflix, it would 100% be Cortex

01:22:28 ◼   ► homework as a work documentary to talk about, which is not the kind of thing that we would

01:22:34 ◼   ► be saying if it was like a university writing course. So it's, you know, I think people

01:22:41 ◼   ► should know what they're getting into. But yes, your suspicions were confirmed. And every

01:22:45 ◼   ► time I watch one of those trailers with like, the celebrity sitting, facing the camera directly

01:22:51 ◼   ► and talking to them, like, I think I know exactly what this is. It's what I want, but

01:22:55 ◼   ► But I'm not sure it's what people think when they're laying down 80 pounds for a

01:23:01 ◼   ► course.

01:23:02 ◼   ► I feel like I might want to pick up on some of these.

01:23:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I figured that was going to be the one that you were interested in.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it was like it just screamed at me the moment I opened it.

01:23:13 ◼   ► It was calling to you, Myke.

01:23:14 ◼   ► It's like Grey's taunting you with his screen time.

01:23:17 ◼   ► I feel like Masterclass is a conversation that I've intended to have with you like

01:23:21 ◼   ► 20 times and I've just never mentioned it.

01:23:23 ◼   ► Alright, so Slack, I'm honestly surprised to see that you're in Slack for three and

01:23:28 ◼   ► a half hours.

01:23:31 ◼   ► I mean, I can understand how you would be, but it also surprises me at the same time.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Do you mean it's, do you find the number high or low?

01:23:38 ◼   ► I think it's high.

01:23:40 ◼   ► It feels high.

01:23:41 ◼   ► So the reason it is high is because I'm in this video crunch time, which now requires

01:23:47 ◼   ► much more coordination than normal.

01:23:50 ◼   ► So that's why Slack is showing up much higher than it would normally.

01:23:55 ◼   ► Everything is skewed because of the intensity of purpose and limited options.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Because again, it's like OmniFocus, I get it.

01:24:03 ◼   ► Safari is, I don't know what you're doing in Safari.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Messages I get, MindNode I get, Evernote I get, music I get.

01:24:10 ◼   ► I guess Safari and Numbers are the two on this list that are a surprise to me because

01:24:16 ◼   ► I don't know what you're doing on the internet.

01:24:18 ◼   ► Safari one, you know, because you because on screen time, you can expand out and say, like,

01:24:24 ◼   ► show me everything down to the absolute second. And if you do that on my screen time, it just goes

01:24:28 ◼   ► on for pages and pages and pages with, like, two minutes on this website, and a minute and 30

01:24:35 ◼   ► seconds on that website. So because a lot of times I'm just checking for something, I'm in the

01:24:40 ◼   ► process of writing and I just want to check something. So for example, a thing that just came

01:24:46 ◼   ► up before we started recording I was wrapping up some feedback and I was like what's the

01:24:50 ◼   ► flag for French Guiana? That makes perfect sense I get that like but it was just I wanted

01:24:55 ◼   ► to double check that but I think overall I am pleasantly surprised and about the amount

01:25:03 ◼   ► of time that you have spent on your iPad to produce a video. Does it does it make you

01:25:08 ◼   ► happy to know that the iPad is involved in video production? You know it does I think

01:25:12 ◼   ► but this is a little bit of a move back to using the iPad in this way for this type of work.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And again, I know that you had some physical circumstances that really helped it, but

01:25:25 ◼   ► it's just interesting to me because it felt like you would maybe, even for work like this,

01:25:30 ◼   ► at least in my opinion, had moved away. I know that the new iPads swung it back again,

01:25:35 ◼   ► but it's just cool for me to see this data because it's proving that point.

01:25:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it really is true that,

01:25:44 ◼   ► what I said a couple episodes ago,

01:25:45 ◼   ► that I feel like I have found the role in my life,

01:25:47 ◼   ► that it is this assistant to video production

01:25:50 ◼   ► in various ways, and this week to see for screen time

01:25:55 ◼   ► just happens to be useful because I happen to be using it

01:25:59 ◼   ► much more, simply because I just, I like pacing around,

01:26:03 ◼   ► I'm able to stay at home because I have the house to myself,

01:26:06 ◼   ► and the iPad was the easiest device to just mount

01:26:09 ◼   ► on the opposite end of the room,

01:26:11 ◼   ► so I can walk up to it and type.

01:26:12 ◼   ► But if this was a regular video production week,

01:26:17 ◼   ► I think the order of all of these things,

01:26:20 ◼   ► except for MasterClass, which I just finally caved on,

01:26:23 ◼   ► the order of all of these things would be the same,

01:26:25 ◼   ► just the amounts would be less,

01:26:27 ◼   ► and probably Kindle would be number one,

01:26:30 ◼   ► and Scrivener would be much reduced,

01:26:32 ◼   ► because while the app is perfectly fine on iOS,

01:26:35 ◼   ► I actually can't believe how much of it works on iOS,

01:26:37 ◼   ► but Scrivener is designed really to work on the Mac mostly.

01:26:41 ◼   ► And so I would shift most of that writing work,

01:26:44 ◼   ► but like the Evernote, MindNode stuff,

01:26:46 ◼   ► like that would still be the same.

01:26:48 ◼   ► Same with GoodNotes as well.

01:26:49 ◼   ► GoodNotes only exists on iOS.

01:26:51 ◼   ► So yeah, it's involved in video production.

01:26:54 ◼   ► Don't you worry, Myke.

01:26:55 ◼   ► - Now your pickups and notifications are interesting to me,

01:26:59 ◼   ► but even though your numbers are way smaller,

01:27:02 ◼   ► it works in line.

01:27:03 ◼   ► So you've got like average 65 pickups per day,

01:27:06 ◼   ► which is about somewhere between a half and a third of my pickups,

01:27:10 ◼   ► and 662 notifications, which is again about half to a third of my notifications.

01:27:16 ◼   ► So like they're definitely in line, and I expect that this is like a two things going on here.

01:27:22 ◼   ► One Apple Watch, two less notifications turned on in general.

01:27:25 ◼   ► That's kind of what I expect is happening.

01:27:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's fair. I'm not sure how it counts the notifications on the watch.

01:27:30 ◼   ► I mean I guess it just must include them.

01:27:32 ◼   ► I don't think it does include them.

01:27:35 ◼   ► because there is no device which is Apple watch.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Yeah that's true. Yeah in that case, yeah I don't know how to think about what this would be like

01:27:45 ◼   ► if it was capturing all the data because I have a lot of situations where stuff only goes to the

01:27:50 ◼   ► phone, it doesn't go to the watch, so I like I just don't have any sense of...

01:27:54 ◼   ► Yeah we don't know what the like are those 144 iMessage notifications also going to your

01:28:01 ◼   ► your watch or are they, you know what I mean? Like I don't know if it's completely clear

01:28:04 ◼   ► what's going where, but the Apple Watch is not included in the device list.

01:28:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. I also enjoy, I didn't notice until now that in terms

01:28:14 ◼   ► of pickups, Master Class just makes the list at 11 first use after pickups, and that's

01:28:20 ◼   ► where I know exactly what's happening there. I'm picking it up because some section got

01:28:24 ◼   ► boring and I want to jump to the next section. You know what my favorite is though in this

01:28:29 ◼   ► pick up list though right? What? Deliveroo. Well I mean Myke why is Deliveroo there? I

01:28:36 ◼   ► had a boys weekend that's why. That's exactly it right? In case you're not in the UK Deliveroo

01:28:42 ◼   ► is one of these food delivery apps like Postmates or whatever where you can basically say hey go to

01:28:49 ◼   ► this restaurant and bring me restaurant food on a bike to my home please. Yes. And if you are not

01:28:55 ◼   ► leaving the house for a week. I'm expecting this is like two Deliveroo meals a day,

01:29:01 ◼   ► which counts to the 14. That's what I reckon is going on here.

01:29:05 ◼   ► I'm going to say that's exactly correct. Because the way Deliveroo works is I'm hungry.

01:29:12 ◼   ► Pick up the phone, open Deliveroo order, and then I don't have any reason to open Deliveroo again

01:29:18 ◼   ► until the next time I think I'm hungry, send food to me. So yes, we have seven days, 14

01:29:25 ◼   ► times Deliveroo was used as the first thing on the phone.

01:29:29 ◼   ► There's 11 notifications which somehow lines up kind of around that idea of like every

01:29:34 ◼   ► time they're coming they're sending you a notification.

01:29:37 ◼   ► Yeah and I feel like two meals a day. In the past 10 days I've left the house twice to

01:29:42 ◼   ► take out two garbage bags full of mostly bags from other places. So yeah this is all it's

01:29:48 ◼   ► all it's all telling a particular story.

01:29:51 ◼   ► And then again, which is also funny to me in the notifications, you've got iRobot, which

01:29:55 ◼   ► is the Roomba.

01:29:56 ◼   ► It's like, "I'm not doing anything here, the robot can clean up after me.

01:30:01 ◼   ► Come on robot, clean up the crumbs that I've made from my burger."

01:30:04 ◼   ► Okay, it's actually not that.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Oh god, iRobot is there.

01:30:10 ◼   ► I know I've said this before, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but it really is true.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I find it a great psychological boon to productivity that if I am doing work in the house, there

01:30:26 ◼   ► are robots doing work in the house.

01:30:28 ◼   ► So if I'm having a little bit of a hard time getting started with writing, it is such a

01:30:37 ◼   ► like it works so often as a trick to just put a load of laundry in the laundry machine

01:30:42 ◼   ► and start the Roomba, and somehow it feels like, "Oh, well I guess I should be working

01:30:47 ◼   ► too now." And it might be the single, dumbest psychological trick that I play on myself,

01:30:56 ◼   ► but it works, so I don't care, and I'm still going to keep doing it. And those nine

01:31:00 ◼   ► iRobot notifications are all, "Help, I'm stuck on a cliff," or "My bin is full."

01:31:04 ◼   ► That's what that is. [laughs]

01:31:06 ◼   ► I'm not at all surprised that you have 192 due notifications.

01:31:13 ◼   ► That's hilarious, but makes perfect sense.

01:31:15 ◼   ► The thing that was the most interesting to me is how few OmniFocus there were.

01:31:21 ◼   ► 20, just 20 notifications from OmniFocus over a seven day period.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:31:28 ◼   ► One of the reasons for that is because I try really hard to put anything that's like a

01:31:34 ◼   ► a naggy sort of notification in to do.

01:31:37 ◼   ► And I'm pretty liberal about what is a naggy notification.

01:31:41 ◼   ► So for example, you say you remember to take pills

01:31:46 ◼   ► in the morning and in the afternoon.

01:31:47 ◼   ► I never remember.

01:31:48 ◼   ► So I have a notification that pops up at lunchtime

01:31:51 ◼   ► that says like, don't forget to take the pills.

01:31:54 ◼   ► And that is set to keep bugging me every hour,

01:31:58 ◼   ► you know, if I haven't done it.

01:32:00 ◼   ► And I have a lot of little notifications like that.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I've even been putting some things in there

01:32:04 ◼   ► like the one that popped up while we were recording,

01:32:07 ◼   ► is just a notification that says,

01:32:10 ◼   ► think about what you might want to write this evening.

01:32:13 ◼   ► Because some evenings I have a really good writing session,

01:32:16 ◼   ► not always, but like sometimes those are really prime times.

01:32:20 ◼   ► And I found it useful just to have a little thing pop up

01:32:22 ◼   ► to be like, hey, maybe this is something you do this evening.

01:32:24 ◼   ► It's not a thing that has to happen now,

01:32:28 ◼   ► it's just something you wanna think about at this moment.

01:32:31 ◼   ► And this also allows me then to have a distinction

01:32:33 ◼   ► that when OmniFocus sends me a notification,

01:32:36 ◼   ► this is serious time now.

01:32:38 ◼   ► And I think it's useful to have that visual distinction

01:32:43 ◼   ► that is like purple OmniFocus badge pops up

01:32:46 ◼   ► and it's like, hey, this is a thing

01:32:48 ◼   ► that really needs to be done.

01:32:49 ◼   ► You know, the podcast really needs to be edited today,

01:32:55 ◼   ► or like this errand has to be run,

01:32:58 ◼   ► like this piece of paperwork needs to be filed,

01:33:02 ◼   ► that's where I really try to limit OmniFocus

01:33:05 ◼   ► to just very important things.

01:33:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just super interesting to me

01:33:10 ◼   ► to see the way that OmniFocus stacks

01:33:12 ◼   ► across the three data points, right?

01:33:15 ◼   ► Where it's 20 notifications,

01:33:17 ◼   ► 28 times the first app you pick up,

01:33:21 ◼   ► and two hours and 53 minutes of time spent in the app.

01:33:25 ◼   ► Like they are so counter to the way

01:33:28 ◼   ► that I think about my to-do system.

01:33:30 ◼   ► Like I totally understand that due's there,

01:33:32 ◼   ► but like, you know, there is an hour spent in due, right?

01:33:36 ◼   ► Like and due's notification number is inflated

01:33:40 ◼   ► by its incessantness, right?

01:33:42 ◼   ► Where it's not 192 separate things.

01:33:45 ◼   ► It could have been like 90 separate things,

01:33:47 ◼   ► but they each went off multiple times, right?

01:33:50 ◼   ► - I'll tell you what most of that due stuff is.

01:33:52 ◼   ► I have three different versions of,

01:33:54 ◼   ► "Hey, shouldn't you be going to bed?"

01:33:56 ◼   ► all of which notify me every five minutes.

01:34:00 ◼   ► - Totally, yeah.

01:34:01 ◼   ► - Like that is the most harassing I need is it's nighttime.

01:34:04 ◼   ► And also seven of those OmniFocus notifications

01:34:07 ◼   ► are also around like the end of the day is nigh.

01:34:11 ◼   ► - Go to bed tomorrow.

01:34:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, OmniFocus sends one at eight o'clock,

01:34:15 ◼   ► which is like days over for work, no more work now,

01:34:19 ◼   ► unless you're writing, but like no more work now.

01:34:22 ◼   ► And then two hours later,

01:34:24 ◼   ► Do starts ramping up the harassment campaign

01:34:26 ◼   ► you should be going to bed. And that's what an enormous number of those are because they

01:34:30 ◼   ► repeat a lot, they repeat frequently, and I also blow them off.

01:34:33 ◼   ► This was more interesting than I even thought it was going to be.

01:34:38 ◼   ► I knew you were going to ask about that in Masterclass.

01:34:41 ◼   ► That was some mic bait right there.

01:34:45 ◼   ► That's my big takeaway from today's episode.

01:34:47 ◼   ► Masterclass, wow. I'm genuinely surprised to see it in there, but I'm more, I would say I'm

01:34:54 ◼   ► I'm more intrigued to check it out now than I was before, because I kind of always felt like you're not able to teach me.

01:35:01 ◼   ► Like you can't teach me film writing in four hours, Martin Scorsese. You can't do that because that's just not how this works.

01:35:11 ◼   ► But just to hear that it is more like just interesting people talking about how they work clearly is something of interest to me.

01:35:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I figured that might be in your wheelhouse.

01:35:22 ◼   ► It might be in the wheelhouse of a lot of our listeners, actually, but it is really

01:35:26 ◼   ► expensive.

01:35:28 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm not willing to just say to someone, "Hey, just go spend £170 to check

01:35:33 ◼   ► this out."

01:35:34 ◼   ► Oh yeah, like I said, if it wasn't something that I could clearly regard as a business

01:35:37 ◼   ► expense, I may have just always been the case of, "I think I know what you are, Masterclass,

01:35:42 ◼   ► but I'm not going to pay this many pounds to just find out."

01:35:47 ◼   ► Speaking about stuff to watch, I would like to set some Cortex Movie Club homework, because

01:35:55 ◼   ► you've been setting them recently.

01:35:56 ◼   ► Okay, you're taking charge now?

01:35:57 ◼   ► I just want to recommend something that I really liked for various working reasons that

01:36:02 ◼   ► actually is an overall positive feeling to it.

01:36:06 ◼   ► There is a Netflix documentary series called Seven Days Out.

01:36:11 ◼   ► It's a bunch of episodes, every single one of them is great in a different way, and the

01:36:16 ◼   ► see of the series is they take an event then they go back seven days in time and film people

01:36:22 ◼   ► related to that event over the span of a week. So like for example the Chanel fashion show

01:36:30 ◼   ► in Paris fashion week. Right so you go seven days back from that point and what does it

01:36:35 ◼   ► take for them to get everything ready in the seven days leading up to that event. Right

01:36:39 ◼   ► so there's a every episode focuses on a different thing and they're all wildly different like

01:36:44 ◼   ► an esports competition, the Westminster dog show. There's a bunch of great stuff in there.

01:36:48 ◼   ► That's the one I've seen. Yeah, I figured. The one that I want to talk

01:36:51 ◼   ► about is about Eleven Madison Park, which is a restaurant that was voted the best restaurant

01:36:58 ◼   ► in the world, and then a few months later closed for refurbishment.

01:37:02 ◼   ► Okay. So seven days before their reopening. It's

01:37:07 ◼   ► fascinating and brilliant, and I want to watch it again, and I want you to watch it, and

01:37:13 ◼   ► and I want us to talk about it. So this is one positive, it's gonna make you feel good,

01:37:18 ◼   ► I think. It's not gonna make you feel bad.

01:37:20 ◼   ► Is it gonna make you feel good? Because I have friends who work in back of house, and

01:37:26 ◼   ► if there's one thing I know about that job, low stress. Low stress and relaxing. That's

01:37:32 ◼   ► what it's like to be back of house at a restaurant.

01:37:35 ◼   ► Sure, there's stress involved for the people that are involved in it, but it doesn't affect

01:37:39 ◼   ► you as the viewer.

01:37:40 ◼   ► Oh, okay, alright. It's all swept under the rug. Okay, great.

01:37:44 ◼   ► Well, you can see the stress, but I can't imagine people, unless they do this for a

01:37:50 ◼   ► living, feeling super stressed, but nothing catastrophic happens and it seems like everything

01:37:54 ◼   ► is taken care of, right? Like, spoilers.

01:37:56 ◼   ► Oh, Jesus, Myke. Wow, I even watch it.

01:37:59 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. But it's like, everything in this series, the event is complete, right?

01:38:06 ◼   ► Whether it went the way people want it to or not is another thing. Even in this one,

01:38:10 ◼   ► not 100% perfect but that's what I like about it is like the things gonna happen anyway

01:38:16 ◼   ► how do you deal with it and that's what I find interesting about this series so 11 Madison

01:38:21 ◼   ► Park will be the episode that we're gonna watch it's the one about the restaurant in

01:38:25 ◼   ► case you need help finding it yeah cool I look forward to watching it I enjoyed watching

01:38:29 ◼   ► the the dog episode one there's one on like the I think it's the Cassini space probe as

01:38:33 ◼   ► well like it looks like an interesting series so I've been I've been meaning to watch it

01:38:37 ◼   ► anyway and it's super interesting to me because I do also recommend the one about the esports

01:38:42 ◼   ► competition which both me and clearly the documentary makers thought was going to be

01:38:48 ◼   ► the worst episode but it's actually the best episode of the season but if you watch it

01:38:54 ◼   ► you'll know why I don't want to talk about it on the show I recommend watching it oh

01:38:58 ◼   ► okay well I mean now now I have to watch them all before the before the show but this is

01:39:03 ◼   ► the only mandatory one.

01:39:04 ◼   ► That's the only mandatory one.

01:39:05 ◼   ► And if you want to talk about any of the other episodes, we can.

01:39:09 ◼   ► Yeah, you can't stop me.

01:39:11 ◼   ► I don't want to stop you.

01:39:13 ◼   ► Actually, that's not true at all. You totally can stop me.

01:39:15 ◼   ► I recommend that you do watch it, but you don't need to.