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The book is divided into two parts. First, a survey of why the smartphone feels designed to leave you unsatisfied and unhappy. Being 7 years old, this doesn't feel especially new. I'd recommend Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants as a more interesting exploration, both on the supply and demand side (we aren't being forced to consume addictive content, in many cases it's our revealed preference).

The second half is a more practical, month-long effort to add mindfulness and intention to your phone usage. Again I didn't find a lot new here; but it could be useful to have it structured into a formal plan.

The struggle I have with this kind of self-help approach is that it feels like you're cutting against the grain of a systemic problem, and I'm not sure how durable these changes can be. For a while, I had been keeping my phone charged outside my bedroom, so I wasn't falling asleep and waking up to it. Then, with the onset of COVID, those habits went out the window.

I appreciate the social aspect of Catherine's advice (having your entire household go through the "digital detox", and putting names to common annoyances ("phubbing" for ignoring a real-life conversation to swipe on your phone). But I'm still pretty pessimistic that barring legal changes to how software is designed, and a cultural reckoning as big as our turn away from smoking, we're going to see this get worse before it gets better.

I've heard folks refer to Mastodon (and other fediverse software) as methadone when compared to Twitter. That feels right. How do we feel about normalizing the digital equivalent of heroin in everyone's pockets at every age?

I listened to the audiobook, which made the Socratic Dialogue feel like a podcast, and would recommend the format.

As for the contents of the book, it appears to be a good generalist entry to Adler; a psychologist I hadn't heard of before. With an overview that noted his philosophy was the underpinning of other self-help gurus, I went in skeptical. But there are elements I found compelling. As an example, he discriminates between the teleological (fated from the past) and etiological when discussing a person's barriers towards achieving happiness. This feels less fatalistic and provides more agency in the here-and-now than many psychologies, which seem more rooted in determinism.

I'm also not sure the book offers much in the way of practical solutions. As an example, he notes that in a parent/child relationship, it is ultimately the responsibility of the child to want to study and perform well in school; the parent is simply there to encourage, but cannot take on that responsibility themselves. But practically, what is to be done if the child doesn't want to study? There's a tenant of "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" that feels hard to square with the realities of any relationship.

All in all I enjoyed the book and would be interested in a deeper look into whether contemporary psychologists incorporate any of Adler's ideas. It certainly feels like a foundation I'd prefer to stand on than Freudian psychoanalysis, but I'm not well versed enough in either to make judgement calls.

I did not expect to finish reading this book 72 hours into a citywide power outage, but here we are.

This book is old enough to drive, and in some ways it shows. There is lots of discussion of how to survive a terrorist attack, solidly carbon-dating the era Ripley authored the book. But even when it shows its age, there are a number of interesting bits I picked up:

• Holy smokes, airline crashes were way more common in the 70s and 80s. Even the current Boeing 737 Max scandal paddles in comparison.
• There are a few references to mass shootings, but nothing predicts the humdrum nature of the current fear. It only shows up in the section on how many people freeze under pressure; much different than the current “run, hide, fight”

I don’t think the author effectively chose a lane for what kind of book she was writing. Half of it seemed an “investigation” of the kinds of responses disasters elicit. And the other half masquerade as a how-to guide on how to “increase your survival odds”, as it says on the book cover. It’s not a bad read, just a little disjointed. I’d be interested in a contemporary take on the subject.

If you spend enough time around amateur athletes you'll hear about all kinds of techniques and products to accelerate recovery, from "golden hours" that maximize supplement intake, to pneumatic compression pants. Good To Go investigates the science behind these products, and finds a lot of them to be overcomplicated, and claims overblown. Most athletes can maintain homeostasis by listening to their body, getting enough rest, and not overthinking it. But the author doesn't swear off every technique, and grants the value of the placebo effect. She concludes where I'm generally at: if it's not hurting you, and makes you think you're doing better, go ahead and enter that cryo recovery chamber.

One aspect I wish she'd have spent more time on were the systemic issues around this research. While she mentions issues like funding from the manufacturers, and shelving studies that show zero correlation, as a FiveThirtyEight author I was expecting her to dive into p-hacking and other techniques to garner the desired results. She even starts with an example study testing beer as a recovery fluid, and finds no correlation for the overall group, but that it "works" specifically for women!

Still, a fast and enjoyable read.