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How to Think Like Malcolm Gladwell

19 Tuesday Nov 2013

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By David Ryan Polgar

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most prominent thinkers in the world. Weaving together novel research in the social sciences with interesting stories, Gladwell has delivered four highly-influential bestselling books–The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw. He has a gift for boiling down complex ideas into an entertaining narrative laced with insights and counter-intuitive surprises. This has led to countless accolades and millions of fans across the globe.

On Thursday, November 21st Malcolm Gladwell will be coming to Hartford as part of Connecticut Forum’s Big Thinkers event at the Bushnell Theater. The Connecticut Forum is a live, unscripted panel discussion that brings together a diverse range of noteworthy experts and celebrities for a lively and unpredictable discussion. Gladwell, who just released his latest book David and Goliath, will be joined by historian Douglas Brinkley and moderator Michel Martin (NPR’s Tell Me More).

So, what makes Malcolm Gladwell a big thinker? How does he reach a deeper level of thought in a world saturated with information and distraction that often keep others on the proverbial surface? I reached Gladwell by phone recently to discuss the issue and explore how we can be original thinkers.

“The most creative and innovative people have no fear of disapproval,” states Gladwell. “They are people who don’t need to be in agreement.” Gladwell affirms that he might have a certain level of disagreeableness that allows him to challenge the status quo of established understanding.

Most important, however, is the quantity and quality of time that one points towards considering an idea. When asked about how he approaches a topic, Gladwell asserts: “It takes a lot of time. You have to be very methodical in challenging your own conceptions.” Above all, “You can’t be in a hurry.”

The problem that many of us face today is not necessarily the quantity of time we have to put towards a certain task, put the quality of the time we are giving. High cognitive tasks require a deep level of thinking that comes about through extended periods of contemplation. This isn’t easy to do with the buzzing and beeping and multiple forms of entertainment at our fingertips via the Internet.

“We have never had as many potential distractions as we have today.” In discussing this issue, Gladwell puts the onus on the thinker to remove the all forms of distractions when you are trying to mindfully consider a topic or problem. “You have to be alone with your thoughts.”

Gladwell emphasizes the infancy of the Internet and how we are currently feeling our way through how it is used. He brings up the invention of the telephone and how it took many years to establish rules of normal behavior about how we relate to the product. “By comparison the Internet has only been around for a nanosecond.”

That doesn’t mean that Gladwell possesses a hidden secret or Jedi-like level of discipline. “I have been struggling with this as much as anyone else.” In discussing areas that may draw his time and attention, Gladwell points out that “Twitter is the great temptation.”

One practical solution that Gladwell uses in his own creative process is to schedule activities according to his peak levels of brain performance. Since he is most productive early in the day, he schedules all of his low-skill tasks for when he is mentally burned out. “I do all of my email at the end of the day.”

Certain tasks, like writing a book, require prolonged periods of being alone with your thoughts. I ask Gladwell what he does when he needs to write. “I go away for chunks of time.” Gladwell has taken an extended trip to write each one of his bestselling tomes. For his latest book, David and Goliath, Gladwell rented a house in Italy with his brother and his brother’s family.

Another key to Gladwell’s success has been flipping conventional wisdom on its head. In David and Goliath, he challenges our preconception that David was the underdog and Goliath the clear favorite. Instead, Gladwell uses the simple paradigm of the children’s game Rock, Paper, Scissors to illustrate the contextual nature of advantages and disadvantages. Does Rock have the advantage? It clearly beats Scissors but loses against Paper. So, does Paper have the advantage? Not against scissors. It all depends on the match up.

Given that conventional wisdom is often wrong, I ask Gladwell why we are so prone to accept it without reservation.  “The world is so complicated and there is so much to know.” He adds that modern day complexities have upped the ante with how much we need to know. “It is a demanding task to be intelligent about an issue, so we use shorthand.”

I point out that the Internet has theoretically made it incredibly easy to be highly knowledgeable about any given area. Gladwell tacks on the fact that the Internet has dramatically equalized our access to information. No longer is the quality of information relative to the stature of your university or size of your town.  “The Internet has removed the barriers to getting smarter.”

Therein lies the rub. Will the infinite access to information allow us to know more and become deeper thinkers, or will the vast amount of information overwhelm us and lead to shallower thinkers? Gladwell again emphasizes the newness of the Internet and how our relationship to it is constantly evolving. Right now, “We are working on how to use it.”

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Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be iPads

01 Friday Nov 2013

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Should an infant be using an iPad?

The medical community firmly states no. The public, however, is increasing saying yes. Content producers are creating apps, games, and TV programming specifically targeting the 0-2 demographic. Something has got to give.

The American Academy of Pediatrics(AAP) has stated:

“Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2. A child’s brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens.” 

If the AAP was chiming a warning bell, it got lost with all the other pinging, ringing, and dinging that forms a cacophony of noise around us. A recent New York Times article, “New Milestone Emerges: Baby’s First iPhone App,” makes clear that there is a large disconnect between recommendations and reality. A new study by Common Sense Media points out that 38% of children in the 0-2 age group now use mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones.

Is an iPad for a toddler a toy or educational tool? The more parents consider it an educational tool, the more apt they are to allow their toddler screen time. Also, how active do we consider a toddler who is using an iPad? Parents are increasingly making a distinction between the passive-nature of television-watching versus the perceived interactive-nature of using a touch-screen.

The concern is that children under the age of two undergo a massive amount of brain development that may be adversely impacted by exposure to screens. Does giving an iPad adversely affect their social skills along with reducing their attention levels? That’s the million dollar question that’s being debated from scientific forums to parenting groups.

It is easy to fall into the “Hey, this is educational!” trap. It is visually impressive to see a toddler swipe a smartphone. We may imagine the diaper-clad multitasker as a mini Zuckerberg or Sandberg. However, it is long established that toddlers benefit most from human interactivity and solo play time where their brain can wander. The 0-2 set do not learn the same way adults learn.

Baby Einstein videos are a case in point. A lot of parents buy the DVDs with the hope that it is beneficial to their baby’s intellectual development. In 2009 Disney, the owner of the franchise, removed any mention of “educational” from their advertising and reached a settlement to offer earlier purchasers a refund. It is interesting to note that the actual Einstein was notorious for daydreaming by staring out windows for hours at a time. Would Einstein have become Einstein if he grew up with Baby Einstein?

Of course, many parents are happily giving their toddlers iPads. In a development that is both slightly amusing and slightly creepy, the use of iPads and iPhones by toddlers is starting to alter how that child views fixed mediums like a book.  There are multiple videos of frustrated little ones tapping and swiping at books. Is this a harmless sight gag or the dangerous hard-wiring of the next generation?

We assume that the most tech-savvy parents will want the most tech-savvy children, but that is not always the situation. Many of the parents out in Silicon Valley, the epicenter of tech, send their children to schools without a heavy emphasis on using technology in the classroom. Many of the people saturated in tech understand the time and place for tech.  

The point is that our focus should be on raising children with the greatest amount of social skills, motor skills, cognitive function, and attention levels. Baby tech wizardry may give us the illusion of raising geniuses, but it might just be that—an illusion.

Forget Your Phone

06 Sunday Oct 2013

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Imagine two friends are sitting at a bar drinking a beer. Clanking their glasses together, they go about trading stories from their week. They laugh, argue politics, needle each other about their respective sports team, and occasionally have philosophical meanderings. It is a moment of joy and connection.

Now take those same two people and place the focus solely on the beer consumption. Instead of laughing, their attention has shifted primarily to drinking. Each frosty pint delivered by the bartender offers endless possibilities that slowly dissipate with each gulp. Despite their physical proximity of nearly touching, their engulfment in alcohol borders on loneliness. The scene is sad and desperate.

Alcohol, as most of us are aware, can often be a springboard to joy OR a pathway to misery. It is all about how you are using it (or, if it is using you). Smartphones deserve the same nuanced view. They can offer a tremendous source of personal connectivity that paradoxically leads to disconnection and alienation if, like the example above, they are abused.

There is a wonderful video that is making the rounds on the Internet called “I Forgot My Phone” that illustrates this point quite succinctly. The main character, without her phone, walks through a world with people obsessed with texting their whereabouts, recording special moments instead of feeling them, taking pictures of champagne flutes instead of enjoying it, and giving virtual friends status updates while ignoring actual friends. Lying in bed with her boyfriend, he seeks outside connection while being oblivious to the missed connection in his arms.

As the video makes clear, something is fundamentally changing about how we not only live life but how we view life. Are we living our life or are we observing our life? Somewhere along the line many of us have been experiencing what media theorist Douglas Rushkoff calls “present shock.” Present shock is our inability to bridge the gap between our online and offline identities. It’s a dissonance between being elsewhere and being in the present moment.

Our smartphones, if abused, can take us out of the present moment. For example, a concertgoer who takes out her smartphone to snap a few photos of the band is using the phone to supplement her experience. If, however, she keeps the phone out for the entire show to take pictures, videos, send tweets, and check-in, she becomes a viewer to her own experience. She would need to see her pictures, watch her videos, and read her tweets to later experience her own missed experience. She moves from being an active participant to a casual observer—in her own life.

Our fascination with real-time updates may be getting in the way of our real-time living. Frankly, it seems more shocking in 2013 to see two people engrossed in conversation than two people engrossed in their smartphones. On one hand it can seem comical: two friends texting other friends to update them about the wonderful time they are having. Their longing for connection juxtaposed with their inability to actually connect beyond the superficial.

So next time you are sitting at the bar with your friend, keep the focus on the actual moment. If someone sends a text to ask you where you’re at, you can politely respond with a double entendre before putting your phone away—I’m here.

Fear of Missing Out!

12 Monday Aug 2013

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Imagine that there is a boisterous party going on in your house. As you sit in your bedroom, you can hear a mixture of conversation, laughter, and singing. You overhear two people discussing a recent trip to Bali—from what you gather, it sounds as if they are showing pictures of their trip to the group located right next to your bedroom. Do you join the group?

Of course you do. You don’t want to be left out.

The internet is one giant house party. It’s exciting and loud, filled with interesting people who are constantly conversing. Being that we are a pack animal, it stands to reason that we would join the party. If there is something going on, we want to be there. We want to be in the know.

Enter a malady of modern day—the fear of missing out (FOMO). Our ever-increasing ability to be connected has created a situation where we feel left out when we are not at the party—a party that is always within reach. No longer is there a clear separation between our analog and digital life. For many people, they are intertwined.

We are constantly changing our conception of the internet. In the age of dial-up, it was a virtual world that we visited (or the Information Superhighway that we drove down). While there were strong reasons to want to visit (message boards, information, email, pictures), it was still viewed as a distinct entity from one’s real life. The comparative difficulty to be connected created an ignorance of what we were missing—therefore we had no reason to miss it. For example, you didn’t feel like you were missing out on updates from high school classmates because never really gave it much thought. Now they are always smiling at you.

Most of us are now aware, thanks to updates and near permanent connectivity, that there is a tremendous amount of activity going on. It’s so easy to join the party. The hook for sites like Facebook is that the ongoing stream of updates, pictures, and videos promotes a feeling of missing out when you are not on the site. The danger, however, is that it can be mentally exhausting to always be on. In addition, studies have shown a negative correlation between time spent on Facebook and user happiness. We tend not to feel good about ourselves when everyone else seems to be having more fun.

The dirty truth is that most people are not as cool, attractive, wealthy, witty, or wise as they appear on Facebook. It’s a curated projection of self which is often miles from the authentic person. As a viewer, however, we can feel uncool, ugly, poor, dull, or dumb by comparing ourselves to these curated projections.

The fear of missing out has created a paradox: we are often so worried about not being at the proverbial party that we become unable to appreciate the activity that is going on in our bedroom. As you forget about the party for a little while, you start to notice the details of your bedroom. There’s a harmonica on the night stand and a beautiful painting on the wall. Looking to your left, you notice your significant other sitting on the corner of the bed. You certainly wouldn’t want to miss out on that…

Fear of Missing Out

The Power of Boredom

12 Friday Jul 2013

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[Photo by joshme17; Creative Commons license through Flickr]

Imagine you are standing in a long line at the grocery store. You’re frustrated by how slow the cashier is moving and curious as to why the person in front of you bought so many fish sticks. Do adults still eat fish sticks? Perhaps he has kids. Is there a real Captain Gorton? Hmm…I wonder what would happen if he fought Chuck Norris. My money is on Gorton…

You’re getting bored! As this curious feeling starts to take ahold, you reach into your pocket and grab your smartphone. What a lifesaver. Having a smartphone or tablet means you never have to be bored. But before you break out the champagne, you should consider just what you are giving up by removing every moment of possible boredom. You’re giving up the potential for creative sparks and real-time social interactions.

Think about what you did yesterday. How much of your time do you spend doing, and how much time do you spend being? The rise of ever-present smartphones and tablets has allowed us to swap every idle moment in our life with moments of action. Stuck all alone for twenty minutes? Not to fear, our smartphone can transform this time of solitude into a moment of action-oriented connectivity. We are treating this feeling of disconnection or boredom as something that needs to be eliminated as opposed to embraced. The tradeoff is that we are becoming less and less present of the authentic world around us.

The good news is that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way. Although technology will continue to get more and more ubiquitous, creating challenges for a healthy online/offline existence, a growing number of people are starting to question the always-on culture. We want to embrace technology, not be engulfed by it. We want to enjoy the many benefits of being connected to the virtual world, while also maintaining a strong connection to the real world.

Who is leading the charge to reframe our relationship to technology? The most tech-savvy individuals who occasionally reach a breaking point with maintaining a robust Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr account. A recent New York Times article outlined the growing movement towards recognizing the value of not always being plugged in. Individuals who were awash in status updates, tweets, and viral videos made their way out to Navarro, California to stay at Camp Grounded—an overnight camp for adults where no smartphones were allowed.

So next time you are at the grocery store and get bored, embrace it. Allow your brain to both wander and wonder. And if you are wondering why that guy is buying fish sticks, ask him. You might just strike up a real-time conversation that is both random and refreshing.

You Talkin’ to Me?

17 Monday Jun 2013

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There is an iconic scene is the 1976 movie Taxi Driver where Robert De Niro, manically pointing a gun at a mirror, utters the now well-worn phrase: “You talkin’ to me?” The statement carved its way into pop culture as a bit of chest-thumping rhetoric, where the question was a line of bravado without an intended answer. Today, with the rapid adoption of wearable technology like Bluetooth headsets, the phrase is more likely to be asked in a genuine manner: “You talkin’ to me? Are you talking to me?”

This is a frustrating trend. We are only beginning to address the intrusion these devices create in public places and spaces. The social norms of how and when we use devices like a Bluetooth are still being established. The conversation will become livelier if Google Glass, wearable technology that resembles racquetball goggles, is embraced by the general public when it’s fully released next year.

One unusual sight is seeing a person keep their Bluetooth device in while NOT using the device; wearing the Bluetooth as if it were an earring or baseball cap. If you scan around a restaurant next time you are out, there is a decent chance that you will see a person keeping an electronic device in their ear—while maintaining a conversation with their tablemate. The device stuck to their ear sends a pretty strong nonverbal cue:   “Where I am and what I am doing now is not where I actually am or want to be.”

Consider, for a minute, why as Americans we place such a high level of importance on eye contact. How does it feel when someone is talking to you without making eye contact? You find the person disinterested, distracted, or emotionally detached. Likewise, it can feel extremely uncomfortable to be next to a person with a Bluetooth still stuck in their ear. They are not fully present and that bothers us.

The Bluetooth-wearing individual may be triggering certain psychobiological safety and survival mechanisms that create this feeling of unease. It disrupts our ability to fully understand what the person around us is doing. Wearable technology alters our normal space and time construct that allows us to appreciate our surroundings.  It has created a crop of electronic phantoms that are physically, but not mentally, present.

It has yet to be seen how far social norms will bend with wearable technology. What was once seen as rude behavior (i.e. taking out your smartphone in a meeting) can later reach the point of acceptability. The pendulum swings both ways, though. We have seen this in case entertainment venues that are creating stricter policies to prevent the annoyance of a ringing/buzzing phone during an event. Likewise, many of us are getting awfully tired of having to do our best De Niro impression. Next time, let us know when you’re talking.

Overplugged: Are You Smarter than Your Smartphone?

01 Saturday Jun 2013

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A few years ago, Jeff Foxworthy hosted a show called Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? Mark Burnett, the producer of the show, may want to consider a new concept that taps into the Zeitgeist—Are You Smarter than Your Smartphone?

This column, Overplugged, is a discussion about our relationship to technology. It seeks to provide practical advice on methods to strike a healthy balance between our digital and analog lives. Overplugged embraces modern methods of communication (blogs, smartphones, social media, apps), but not without first considering its effects.

The issue of technology often gets framed in an either/or proposition: either you unquestioningly step into the brave new world or you are behind the times. In reality, there is a large gap between a tech fundamentalist and living off the grid. That large gap contains most of the public: people who may love their iPhone but also love to be creative, productive, and happy. If the phone is negatively impacting those areas, it may be time to reconsider the relationship. It’s not about getting rid of the phone, but more likely using it differently.

This is the first part of reclaiming real-time living (analog life): taking control of how you use your smartphone. How often do you look at your smartphone? If it is too often, you will need to start altering your habit of unconsciously peeking at the phone. Habits, as we know, die hard. You will need to untether that automatic twitch you’re getting to check if you have another message. You’re fighting against a neurochemical habit that has you conditioned to reflexively look at your smartphone, so it will take some time to alter.

A smartphone taps into our nervous system with its use of various beeps and buzzes. Each sound gives off a possible award. Perhaps you are receiving an important email from the boss or a love text from a paramour. You need to check it. The sound triggers a release of dopamine to your brain.  (You’re disappointed to see that it was a monthly email blast from a list you don’t remember signing up for.)

If constantly looking at your smartphone is getting in the way of your real-time living, it is time to consciously think about your behavior. By being more aware of your constant checking you are better able to gain control over your use of the phone. The next time you are hanging out with friends or family, make a conscious effort to fully connect in your conversation. This may mean putting away your phone for an hour or two. It’s difficult at first (for heavy users), but soon you will begin creating new neurological pathways.

It’s fine to be plugged in, but sometimes we realize that we have to plug back into life.