News Investigation

In Defense of Thinking

Mar 2026 🇺🇸 The New York Times PAYWALLED — LINKED, NOT HOSTED

In this New York Times opinion essay, Cal Newport revisits the argument he first made in Deep Work a decade earlier, writing that the erosion of sustained attention he described has, in his assessment, worsened rather than improved. He points to workplace messaging tools, an increasingly compulsive design of social media, and AI tools that can shortcut effortful thinking as contributing factors, describing a decline in society's collective capacity for deep thought as a pattern worth taking seriously rather than a proven medical effect. Newport calls for both individual changes, such as removing phones from reach at home, and policy action, including restricting social media access for minors, citing Australia's approach as a model. TechKids Foundation cites this essay as a 2026 example of an established technology critic connecting unrestricted minor access to social media with policy-level concern.

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CITATION

Newport, Cal. "In Defense of Thinking." The New York Times, Mar. 27, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/opinion/technology-mental-fitness-cognitive.html

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