Get Addicted to Your Own News
Back in 2001, at AT&T Labs Research, I was asked to come up with a t-shirt concept for a slogan that captured the intent of our work at the time: “Always On!”
Now, 24 years later, I’ve noticed that my daytime thinking has grown increasingly reactive, as if my attention is being hijacked. And it’s only in the wee hours of the morning when my mind finds the quiet it needs to be inventive.
What was a slogan has become inescapable. We’re losing that world. And instead of getting a dopamine hit from learning, thinking, and creating, we’re getting hooked on outrage and crisis.
I find myself yearning for a world where people aren’t boxed in.
Where curiosity isn’t shaped by algorithms.
Where excitement comes from our own discoveries — not from what’s trending.
This is the kind of world I want to live in.
This is a problem.
When our excitement is constantly shaped by external forces, how long until we lose the ability to generate excitement from within? Deeper, reflective, original thought is becoming rare. The moments when people consciously step away — taking a social media detox, an AI break, reading a book, or simply contemplating nature — feel increasingly radical.
In those moments when the noise fades, something else emerges: our own ideas. Our own creative instincts. And in that quiet, we can get addicted to our own news — the stories we need to tell, the ideas that light us up, the projects that keep us awake at night. Not because we’re doomscrolling, but because we can’t stop thinking about what’s possible.
Here are some recent internal news stories that gave me a dopamine hit:
📰 TADPOLE MEMORY UNLOCKS GENIUS!
📰 STUDENTS STUNNED by NATURE!
📰 LIFE’S GPS HACKED!
Oops! Wait a second. ChatGPT sensationalized my headlines.
Here’s a quieter, gentler internal list:
✨ A Tadpole Pond Where Big Ideas Are Born
✨ Innovation Class Kicks Off in a Rice Field
✨ How Experiential Moments Shape Life’s GPS
My daughter, a singer-songwriter, recently killed her Instagram account and has launched into a new concept album. Her headline might read, “Singer Discovers New Self in Old Photos.”
We all have a personal news channel — a space away from the everyday, beyond work imperatives, where our best ideas bubble to the surface. But we have to choose to tune in.
So, borrowing a phrase from newspaper vendors during print media’s heyday, I invite you to fill in the blank:
“Extra, extra, read all about it! [Your internal news headline here!]”
“Drop your internal headline in the comments! What’s a recent idea, project, or realization that gave you that spark?”
