I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Destroyed by [Twitter]

Some practical steps to fight the brain rot

I have a theory—still half-formed—that goes something like this: the chaos and stupidity in our politics and culture over the past decade isn’t so much a general decline in the American masses. Rather, it’s a collapse among the top 15–20% once called the “middlebrow.”

People are people; the masses have probably always been susceptible to a reality-show demagogue. The difference, 20-30 years ago, was that there was a critical mass of engaged, moderately sophisticated people who kept the madness at bay. These weren’t intellectuals—they weren’t parsing James Joyce for fun—but they were reading The Atlantic, The New Yorker, or even National Review back when it was respectable (yes, Joan Didion once wrote for them). They consumed work a notch or two below the highbrow and, crucially, in doing so provided ballast for the culture. Today, that percentage seems to be shrinking as more of those hours are given over to scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.

The Upside of Modern Life

Don’t get me wrong: modern life is extraordinary. If anyone tells you they’d prefer the 1550s, 1850s, or even 1950s, stop taking them seriously. Utopianism is the left’s great temptation, nostalgia the right’s, but both indulge in rose-colored illusions. As the old quip goes: the right wants to live in the 1950s, the left wants to work there.

We’re wealthier and healthier than ever. And when it comes to entertainment and intellectual opportunities, the present is a golden age. Just this past week I played an online chess game with a stranger in the U.K., watched Arsenal battle Manchester City, listened to a superb Tyler Cowen podcast on Saudi history, traded political notes with a South African friend over WhatsApp, and explored both Nina Simone and obscure Australian punk via Amazon Prime Music. I’ve been making my way through Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and the experience has been greatly enriched by Footnotes & Tangents, a Substack that offers in-depth analysis of every 30–50 pages or so.

Growing up in Midland, Texas, I remember wondering whether certain films would even make it to the local theater, or if the record shop would stock a new album. Now, I can get nearly any book, movie, show, or album in minutes. At worst, the delivery takes a week. Compare that to young Abraham Lincoln, who devoured the Bible, Shakespeare, and Aesop’s fables because they were the only books around. He would walk miles just to borrow another volume. Today’s kids don’t realize just how abundant their intellectual resources are.

The Downside

And yet, we’re squandering it. I know from experience: lying awake at midnight, endlessly scrolling Twitter, “burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of [the algorithm].” Damon Linker recently wrote about losing sleep after posting takes on Charlie Kirk and spiraling over the backlash. Furthermore, so much of our political discourse is just talking about the talking on Twitter, or talking about the talking about the talking on Twitter. I wonder if more people would be aware of the civil war in Sudan or the fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo if less time was spent analyzing the latest outrageous post from @BuyGoldEagle1776FreedomMAGA.

It’s not just anecdotal. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows and Richard Simon’s Unplug detail how the internet reshapes our brains. Jonathan Haidt has waged a public crusade against social media and smartphones for precisely this reason.

The parallel with food is obvious. For most of human history, our problem was scarcity—just finding enough calories to survive. Now, in an age of abundance, we gorge ourselves sick. Similarly, boredom used to be humanity’s default state. Now, with infinite stimulation available in the box we carry everywhere, we’ve lost the ability to manage it. Our brains, like our waistlines, are suffering.

Like many others, I’ve flirted with the idea of ditching my smartphone and going back to a flip phone. For some people, that’s probably the right move—if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and all that. But let’s be honest: for most of us, that’s neither practical nor desirable.

A few weeks ago, I was in Massachusetts. Sure, it might be more “intellectually enriching” to navigate Boston’s tangle of roads with a paper map and compass, but I’d rather use Waze and actually get where I’m going. The real challenge isn’t abandoning technology altogether; it’s learning how to make it work for you instead of against you.

I’m no guru, but I’ve been working on this for a few years now, and I’ve picked up some strategies and tools that help. One caveat up front: some of these involve spending money. If you can manage without doing so, more power to you. But in most cases, fighting the brain rot requires at least a modest investment. How much you spend will depend on your own circumstances and goals.

Subscribe to at least one quality, nationwide newspaper

For most people this probably means The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal (I still get the WSJ, mostly out of inertia. Yes, the opinion pages have become almost unreadable, but the news reporting is still excellent—and I love the daily book reviews).

If you can, get the paper copy delivered. I’ve read a physical daily newspaper since college, and I suspect I’ll be the last person alive who insists on doing so. But even if that’s not practical, most papers let you read the “print edition” through their apps.

Here’s why it matters: the internet is a chaotic jumble of links, images, and distractions, all begging for your attention. A daily newspaper helps you “box off” the day’s information, reducing the temptation to spiral down endless current-events rabbit holes. And there’s real value in having a team of smart editors say, “this is important; this isn’t”. When everyone becomes their own news curator, you run into the same problem as the self-taught autodidact: you don’t know what you don’t know. A reliable outside hand helps keep your intellectual diet balanced. I don’t always make it through the entire day’s news, but I’ve built a habit of at least reading the front-page summary, the daily book review, and one or two major stories. While you’re at it, subscribe to The Economist. In my view, it’s the best publication in the world. It’s not cheap, but it’s weekly—and it’s the single most valuable thing you can read. Every subscription also includes the “audio edition,” a word-for-word reading of each issue that you can listen to while driving or at the gym. Honestly, the print issues arrive so quickly and are so dense that listening is often the only practical way to keep up. Before I leave the news section, let me make one point: people should read their news, not watch their news. Sure, watching a 24-hour cable channel is probably better than watching The Bachelor (with the exception of Fox—almost anything is better than Fox), but it’s still corrosive.

The real bias in cable news isn’t left or right—it’s toward shallowness. I’ve been on these shows before, and everything about the format pushes talkers toward the quick soundbite or the cheap partisan quip. This isn’t Buckley’s Firing Line.

And while we’re at it: be careful even with what you read. It’s all too easy to waste your life bouncing from one news cycle to the next. Ask yourself: are you really learning something new from the 65th reaction to the State of the Union that you didn’t already get from the 5th? Probably not. Instead, choose a handful of high-quality commentators and largely stick to them. Depth beats volume.

The Freedom App

This has been a game-changer for me. I bought a lifetime subscription a few years back, and it’s easily paid for itself.

The key to mastering bad phone habits, in my view, is to reintroduce friction into a digital world designed to eliminate it. Some people can say, “I won’t check Twitter during work hours,” and actually stick to it. I am not one of those people. The Freedom App lets me set up guardrails when the better angels of my nature are in charge.

It’s flexible: you can create recurring sessions that block whatever apps or websites you want, at whatever times you choose. You can also spin up ad hoc sessions for however long you need. I started by blocking all social media on my phone, tablet, and work computers during work hours—and again at night when I should be winding down.

Of course, you can get around anything if you’re determined enough. But there’s a big difference between opening Facebook in half a second and spending five minutes trying to outsmart the app. That added friction makes it far less likely you’ll look up at 1 a.m. with the intellectual equivalent of a hangover.

And speaking of hangovers: in my experience, it’s often easier to quit something 100% than 90%. The ultimate goal should be to cut out social media altogether. But in the meantime, try restricting it—say, only on a desktop computer, and only during a set window, like 5:00–8:00 p.m.—and see how much of a difference that makes.

The Dumbphone App

Billions of dollars and millions of engineering hours have gone into making the smartphone as addictive as possible. The colors, the sounds, the frictionless ease of use—every detail is optimized to keep you hooked.

If you’re not ready to go full flip phone (because you don’t want to get lost in Boston, or because you need email for work), this is the next best thing. Here’s what my phone looks like:

It’s boring. It’s clunky. It doesn’t light up the lizard part of my brain with slick animations and candy-colored icons. And that’s exactly why it’s perfect. After a few months of interacting with your phone this way, you may find the constant compulsion to unlock it begins to fade.

Bonus tip: turn your phone to grayscale. With the Dumbphone app, you can still keep the essentials—camera, email, podcasts, maps—within reach, while making everything else harder to access. The goal, again, is friction. It won’t give you the full flip-phone experience, but it delivers many of the same benefits without forcing you to give up modern conveniences.

The Bookly App

I hate to sound preachy, but you should be reading books. Journalism and longform essays are great, but nothing substitutes for books. One day I might write down my full thoughts on how to read and what to read—(be ruthless about abandoning bad ones, commit to just one page a day and watch that number grow, don’t feel guilty about only reading the introduction and conclusion of an overstuffed nonfiction tome, etc.)—but for now, I’ll just say this: books remain the greatest technology ever invented for improving the human condition.

The Bookly App helps keep me honest. It’s simple: when you start a book, you scan the ISBN to “load” it. Each time you read, you tap continue reading, then stop when you’re done, and log the page number. That’s it. But the magic is in the stats. I love looking at my reading data: I’ve read every day for 421 days straight, completed 30 books this year (and dipped into many more), and currently average 45 pages a day.

Our lizard brains love streaks. Last year, I ran my first (and probably only) marathon—the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C.—and could barely walk afterward. That night, I still forced myself to read one page just to keep my streak alive. No one else knew or cared. But I couldn’t stand the thought of my counter dropping back to zero. That’s the trick: understand your lizard brain, and put it to work for you.

The Streaks App

On a related note, I also use the Streaks App. It’s simple and flexible: pick the habits you want to build (or break), set them up, and then tap to log each one as you go. Here’s my screen (black and white on my actual phone):

Nothing fancy—but surprisingly motivating. There’s something satisfying about seeing, “I’ve played chess every day for 11 days,” or whatever the habit may be.

Duolingo

I try to carry a book or a physical newspaper everywhere I go, but sometimes you’re just not in the mood to dive into heavy reading. For those idle moments—standing in line, waiting for an appointment—I’ve found Duolingo to be a great substitute for scrolling social media. I also dedicate at least half an hour each day to it more intentionally.

It’s fun, stimulating, and surprisingly addictive in the right way. Right now, I’m working through Latin, with plans to switch to Spanish in 2026. Think of it less as a language app and more as a puzzle app: it keeps your brain active, sharp, and engaged. Reading is invaluable, but it’s still a passive intake of information. Learning a language exercises the mind differently—active problem-solving, instant feedback—and Duolingo has mastered the art of making that both accessible and enjoyable.

AI / ChatGPT Tools

I’m new to these, but I’ve found them useful—not as a replacement for reading, but as a way to enhance it. A few months ago I worked through Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, and it was a slog. Normally I would have abandoned it, but I’d heard so much about the novel that I pressed on. Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT if my experience was common. It explained that many readers struggle early on, and that Eco intentionally wrote the beginning as a kind of penance before the plot opens up. That perspective encouraged me to stick with it—and I’m glad I did.

Eco also laces the novel with untranslated Latin phrases, and ChatGPT helped me make sense of them. After finishing, I asked it for essay and review recommendations to better process what I’d read. I did the same with Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian.

The point isn’t to replace books or deep reading. It’s to deepen the experience, giving you tools and context that help the text open up in new ways.

***

Okay, that’s enough. I really do despise puritanism, and I generally take a live-and-let-live approach to life. This is starting to sound a little too judgy, which isn’t my intent. My point is simply that we have an astonishing cornucopia of resources at our fingertips, and we’re still fumbling around trying to use them well.

What terrifies me is the thought that future historians might look back on the collapse of the American republic into idiocracy and ask: why didn’t they just figure out how to use their phones for good?