Thoughtful: Long-form Learning

As verified by iPhone’s screen time feature!!Instead of spending time on reels, I’ve been watching interviews and listening to podcasts and reading some articles as well. I still use Instagram a lot, but the time there is less and overall I just feel calmer and better, and I thjnk it’s just a question of being more conscientious about choosing this alternative now that I have one. Thoughtful’s also displaced some time I spent listening to music, which I’d always turned to for calm (and I still do), but going to my “focus” of comedian interviews on YouTube and podcasts for some light listening actually ends up working better for me when I’m doing laundry or walking the dog. It just kinda scratches that itch without making me feel like I’m wasting time and turning my brain into slop-processing mush, and I still end up learning interesting things even though I didn’t set out with that goal. Maybe that doesn’t really sound different than YouTube or a podcast app, but YouTube is too algorithmy and there’s too many distracting things I want to click on there and they’ve also filled it with shorts, which no thanks. And there are the ads, obviously. And podcast apps are too rigid and chronological, if that makes sense? And they doesn’t really help me find stuff—I kinda have to already know about a podcast, and I end up just having a few podcasts I follow that I’m not always in the mood for. Thoughtful’s search feature is SUPER cool, definitely my favorite feature. I told it I was interested in art, and it gave me subcategories of the topic, and then clicking a subcategory gives you sub-subcategories that it searches the internet for content for. So it turned this general interest into specific ideas of what I might find interesting. Super cool and not something I’ve seen anywhere else.

I’ve been using this app for a bit now and it’s such a breath of fresh air. Much better than an RSS reader for today’s types of content, and I get to pick. Mostly I don’t feel guilty for being on my phone for hours on the toilet anymore 🙊

Also getting content reccomendations from other people is pretty cool.