Modern Wisdom #1067 - Cal Newport - The collapse of modern attention (and how to get it back)
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Mar 5, 2026 
Cal Newport, a computer science professor and author known for Deep Work, discusses attention collapse in the AI era. He explores how AI and collaboration tools create noisy, shallow work. He argues for retraining focus, protecting thinking time, redesigning workflows, and embracing hard cognitive work to regain deep attention.
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Early Warning About Social Media And Email Overuse
- Cal Newport noticed social media and constant email/SaaS collaboration made no sense even a decade ago and warned against ubiquity.
- He argued ubiquity pressures everyone onto attention-mining platforms and predicted worsening attention problems, which have now become common sense.
Microsoft Data Shows Attention Fragmentation
- Microsoft 365 telemetry shows interruptions average once every two minutes and deep work often shifts to weekend mornings.
- Newport uses this trendline to demonstrate hyperactive context switching has grown worse, not better.
Slack Is The Right Tool For The Wrong Way To Work
- Slack solved a tooling mismatch by enabling the hyperactive hive mind but reinforced a destructive collaboration style.
- It became loved because it fits constant ad-hoc coordination, yet that very fit creates context-switch misery.
