A Learning a Day

I always appreciate when a panel of researchers comes together to share a consensus statement that summarizes deeply researched opinion. This happened in May 2025 on the impact of smartphones and social media on kids. Here was their consensus statement:

To clarify expert opinion, we convened over 120 international researchers from 11 disciplines, representing a broad range of views. Using a Delphi method, the panel evaluated 26 claims covering international trends in adolescent mental health, causal links to smartphones and social media, and policy recommendations. The experts suggested 1,400 references and produced a consensus statement for each claim.

The following conclusions were rated as accurate or somewhat accurate by 92–97% of respondents:

First, adolescent mental health has declined in several Western countries over the past 20 years.

Second, heavy smartphone and social media use can cause sleep problems.

Third, smartphone and social media use correlate with attention problems and behavioural addiction.

Fourth, among girls, social media use may be associated with body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, exposure to mental disorders, and risk of sexual harassment and predation.

Fifth, evidence on social deprivation and relational aggression is limited.

Sixth, the evidence for policies like age restrictions and school bans is preliminary.

Overall, the results of this deliberative process and the set of concrete recommendations provided can help guide future research and evidence-informed policy on adolescent technology use.

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There are moments when I wonder if we ever needed such a statement. Having experienced the impact mobile phones and social media have had on my life, it is easy to imagine the tumult it can cause in the mind of an impressionable kid.

But I also recognize my view isn’t the mainstream view.

I’m convinced we’ll look back at this time just as we look at cigarette-filled media from the 1980s and wonder how no one came to the conclusion that the smoke would destroy our lungs.

Until then, we need these statements to be read out on speakerphones all over the world.

I came across an article about the newly created Alice Walton (Walmart heiress) School of Medicine. Here’s an excerpt about what’s different about the approach they’re taking.

Instead of drilling young physicians to chase symptom after symptom and perform test after test, Alice Walton wants her school’s graduates to keep patients healthy by practicing something that most doctors today don’t prioritize: preventive medicine and whole-health principles, which involve caring for (and not just treating) the entire person and all of the factors—from their mental health to their living conditions and lifestyle choices—that contribute to wellbeing.

Those aren’t new ideas, of course, but traditional medicine has only paid lip service to them. Experts have noted that while as much as 80% of medical education focuses on biology, about 60% of premature deaths are due to behavioral factors including lifestyle habits like diet, exercise, and smoking.

I also appreciated this excerpt on nutrition.

While the medical school accreditation organization recommends that curriculums devote at least 25 hours of instruction to nutrition, most schools average about 20 hours, in some cases only as electives. AWSOM’s curriculum currently includes more than 50 hours of nutrition-related training, including culinary classes.

Doctors-to-be will spend class time gardening and at a teaching farm, learning about the seasonality of fresh foods and how to cook them—then passing those lessons onto patients. “There is a lack of understanding of nutrition and so much exposure to fast food,” Bunch says of her own struggles with weight and finding healthy food options growing up. “It wasn’t until a doctor talked to me about nutrition in a whole-health way that I understood the mental and psychological aspects of weight, and that empowered me to finally take control of my health.”

Some of the most transformative lessons I’ve learnt in the past year have been on the impact of nutrition on my health. I couldn’t be more excited about Alice Walton’s approach at her School of Medicine.

It lives up to its acronym – AWSOM.

When you hear a prediction, it’s helpful to ask 2 questions –

(1) How much of this prediction is based on logic vs. belief? Belief plays a big role in the outcome of predictions. Moore’s law, for example, held true in part because Gordon Moore’s belief became a self fulfilling prophecy.

(2) Once you have a better understanding of the belief, it is then worth asking – how much of this belief is driven by the predictor’s incentives?

For example, it is common to hear venture capitalists predict the death of incumbents because of AI. It is also completely aligned with their incentives.

Predictions are guesses about the future. They can be useful when we understand which ones have true signal.

Very few of them do however.

And the two questions above help us eliminate a fair bit of noise as we attempt to parse the signal from the noise.

Often, experiencing the consequences of occasional sub-optimal behavior helps us recommit to the habit we fell out of.

The Wimbledon tennis tournament has made some fascinating decisions over the past decades – most of it involving sticking with traditions that began ~150 years ago. Here are 3 of these –

(1) All-white dress code. Started because sweat stains were considered improper. These are still enforced.

(2) 8mm grass. Signifies attention to detail.

(3) Strawberries and cream. Over 200K sold every tournament – with prices that haven’t changed in over 15 years. Their equivalent of the Costco Hot dog.

Despite their deliberate decisions to minimize the number of sponsors (around half of the other majors), they make more money than everyone else.

All of Wimbledon’s quirks – 2.5 hours of weekly trainers for ball boys and girls who have to pass a 3 minute stillness test, their official hawk (Rufus) who keeps pigeons away – translate to incredible demand. Debentured seats or guaranteed seats on Center Court for 5 years are in the market for over $400,000.

That pricing power emerges from creating an experience that signals luxury, consistency, and scarcity.

Despite its timeless signature, it is still a quintessential modern, global brand.

All this to say that there are clearly many approaches to building a modern, global brand. Intentionality is perhaps the only non-negotiable requirement.

A collection of Canadian researchers conducted a study with 266 participants that involved blocking access to mobile internet on their phones for 2 weeks. The goal was to build a causal understanding of the impact of continual mobile phone use.

What they found – the intervention improved mental health, subjective well-being, and objectively measured ability to sustain attention; 91% of participants improved on at least one of these outcomes.

And why? Because the participants spent more time socializing in person, exercising, and being in nature.

They concluded with – These results provide causal evidence that blocking mobile internet can improve important psychological outcomes, and suggest that maintaining the status quo of constant connection to the internet may be detrimental to time use, cognitive functioning, and well-being.

In time, I’m sure our language will shift from “may be detrimental” to “is known to be detrimental.”

Our mobile phones are tools. Either we learn to use them carefully… or they use us.

I enjoyed reading this profile of Kevin Kelly – aptly titled “Flounder mode.” It is a beautiful ode to Kevin Kelly’s approach to life – one that prioritizes creativity, discovery, and wisdom.

Here are 3 notes that resonated –

(1) I asked Kelly about the tradeoffs of focusing on a single thing if you want to be great (which is what I had been getting at before). “Greatness is overrated,” he said, and I perked up. “It’s a form of extremism, and it comes with extreme vices that I have no interest in. Steve Jobs was a jerk. Bob Dylan is a jerk.”

(2) Once I heard a serial founder say he started his second company “out of chaos and revenge.” I heard about another prominent CEO that looks in the mirror every morning and asks himself, “Why do you suck so much?” I read a biography of Elon Musk; he seems tortured. There’s some rumor floating around about how Sam Altman was so focused on building his first startup that he only ate ramen and got scurvy. According to Altman, “I never got tested but I think (I had it). I had extreme lethargy, sore legs, and bleeding gums.”

Compared to this, Kelly’s version of doing his life’s work seems so joyful, so buoyant. So much less … angsty. There’s no suffering or ego. It’s not about finding a hole in the market or a path to global domination. The yard stick isn’t based on net worth or shareholder value or number of users or employees. It’s based on an internal satisfaction meter, but not in a self-indulgent way. He certainly seeks resonance and wants to make an impact, but more in the way of a teacher. He breathes life into products or ideas, not out of a desire to win, but out of a desire to advance our collective thinking or action. His work and its impact unfold slowly, rather than by sheer force of will. Ideas or projects seem to tug at him, rather than reveal themselves on the other end of an internal cattle prod. His range is wide, but all his work somehow rhymes. It clearly comes very naturally for him to work this way, but it’s certainly not the norm. 

(3) I want more role models like Kevin Kelly. People that proudly whistle while they work. Who have boundless energy and healthy gums. Whose enthusiasm is contagious. Who are well-adjusted and emotionally regulated. Who have solid relationships and happy families. Who are hungry and impactful and care deeply, without being jerks. And I want more people to talk about these qualities with respect and reverence.

I have never been a billionaire or built a unicorn, so I can’t speak with any conviction about what it requires. I won’t be eulogized anywhere important and no one 300 years from now will talk about what great things I did. But I want to live in a world where you can have an impact and be happy. Maybe that’s naive, but I’m sticking to it.

All of this occurs naturally to Kelly, and he doesn’t have complicated feelings about it. I’m hoping to get there myself by channeling him more. “The more you pursue interests,” he told me on the good day we spent together, “the more you realize that the well is bottomless.”

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There’s a thread of self-acceptance and joy that’s perceptible. It made me think.. and inspired me.

Having watched my fair share of David Attenborough narrated shows about oceans, I knew phytoplankton are the starting point in the marine food chain.

Here’s what I didn’t know – these tiny oceanic organisms produce over half the oxygen we breathe.

Even more remarkably, they absorb more carbon dioxide than all the trees on Earth combined.

Floating on the sunlit surface of the sea, phytoplankton not only sustain the marine food web, they regulate our planet’s climate – one breath at a time.

In his latest masterful 2025 documentary “Ocean,” Sir David Attenborough points out that these creatures might be what separate us from a climate catastrophe.

Once you internalize their impact on our lives, it is easier to understand why.

“No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal.”| Marilyn Ferguson

This is a beautiful visual – guarding a gate or change. It brought me right back to the Adlerian idea of “separation of tasks.”

Change happens only at that intersection of willingness and ability.

The teacher we seek will appear… when we’re ready.

The only kind of conviction that really matters in the long run is the one that comes from within.