In Defense of Thinking
AI Summary
On the ten-year anniversary of Deep Work, Cal Newport publishes a New York Times op-ed and companion essay arguing that the original problem he diagnosed in 2016 has gotten worse: not just that knowledge workers lack time for focus, but that we are losing the ability to think deeply at all. He calls for a revolution in defense of thinking.
Deep Work has sold over 2 million copies in 45+ languages since 2016. Newport diagnoses three forces that compounded since: workplace distraction intensified with Slack and Zoom; social media morphed into a TikTok-ified slurry of optimized brain rot; and AI tools now offer quick-fix shortcuts to whatever intellectually engaging work remains. His prescriptions are concrete: stop consuming social media (treat it as digital junk food adults must eliminate), keep your phone plugged in and charging at home rather than on your person, push Congress to follow Australia's ban on social media for kids, build work cultures where phones and laptops stay out of meetings, and stop vague demands to "use AI" — integrate it only where it makes us smarter, not just busier.
The larger frame matters more than any single tactic: Newport refuses to keep ceding his brain to the financial interests of a small number of technology billionaires or to hyperactive communication styles. The piece is for anyone tired of fretting about cognitive shallows and ready to act.
Highlights
- ▸Deep Work's diagnosis got worse, not better: the problem in 2026 isn't lack of time for focus — it's losing the ability to think deeply regardless of how much schedule space you carve out
- ▸Five concrete revolution actions: quit social media as junk food, charge phone away from your person at home, ban social media for kids, no phones/laptops in meetings, integrate AI only where it makes you smarter not busier
- ▸Deep Work has sold 2M+ copies in 45+ languages since 2016 — but adoption hasn't reversed the cultural slide, which is why Newport now frames this as a revolution rather than a productivity tip
Original excerpt
Ten years ago, I published _Deep Work__._ It was my second mainstream hardcover idea book. The previous title, _So Good They Can’t Ignore You__,_ hadn’t sold as well as we hoped, so the expectations were lower for this follow-up.
This turned out to be freeing, as it allowed me to write _Deep Work_ largely for myself – exploring the conceptual edges of the issues surrounding distraction that interested me most.
I was fascinated, for example, by the economic reality that so many knowledge work organizations systematically undervalued focus, and was convinced that this provided a massive opportunity for those willing to correct for this mistake. In this way, I saw myself as articulating…
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