Ep. 398: How Do I Find Purpose in a Distracted World? (w/ Arthur Brooks)

Ep. 398: How Do I Find Purpose in a Distracted World? (w/ Arthur Brooks)

From Deep Questions with Cal Newport by Cal Newport

March 30, 2026 · 1h 18m · Episode 398

About this episode

Cal Newport discusses finding purpose in a distracted world with guest Arthur Brooks.

Here’s a key question: Did technology like smartphones make us miserable, or were we already miserable and smartphones made it worse? To help figure out this answer, I talked to Arthur Brooks, the #1 New York Times bestselling author and Harvard professor, about this new book: The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. In our conversation, Brooks argues that our current Age of Emptiness began in the 1990s, but technology like smartphones and social media made it worse. We then discuss smart strategies for finding purpose in our current moment. Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Send an email to podcast@calnewport.com. Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia INTERVIEW: How Do I Find Purpose in a Distracted World? (W/ Arthur Brooks) [1:44] INBOX: Tech employees being evaluated through LLM tokens [1:01:49] Can Cal comment on reading digital books? [1:07:35] WHAT CAL IS UP TO: What Cal is reading [1:13:00] Deep Work HQ update [1:14:37] Books: Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson) Links: Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at calnewport.com/slow Get a signed copy of Cal’s…

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