Home > Author > Catherine Price
41 " some fungi, like mushrooms, can create vitamin D if they are exposed to ultraviolet light, but that usually only occurs if humans deliberately intervene.) "
― Catherine Price , Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest For Nutritional Perfection
42 " This means that most of the vitamin D you consume in capsules, milk, cereals, and other fortified foods comes from the same source as your favorite sweater. It’s "
43 " Today, just over a decade since smartphones entered our lives, we’re beginning to suspect that their impact on our lives might not be entirely good. We feel busy but ineffective. Connected but lonely. The same technology that gives us freedom can also act like a leash—and the more tethered we become, the more it raises the question of who’s actually in control. "
― Catherine Price , How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life
44 " the more I used my phone to navigate my life, the less capable I felt of navigating life without my phone. "
45 " Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on the New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. "
46 " In fact, many scholars believe that the development of written language was an integral step toward the development of culture. "
47 " You don’t pay for Facebook. Advertisers pay for Facebook. You get to use it for free because your eyeballs are what’s being sold there. "
48 " The key is to keep asking yourself the same question, again and again and again: this is your life - what do you want to pay attention to? "
49 " The stone’s actual powers are debatable, but one thing’s for sure—the Blarney Stone is a germaphobe’s nightmare. Kissed by more than four hundred thousand people per year, it’s covered with trace bits of spit left behind with every pucker. Smooching it might not give you the gift of gab, but you could take home a different souvenir: a saliva-transmitted affliction like herpes, warts, or glandular fever. At least you’re safe from meningitis—to get it from kissing, you’d have to use a lot of tongue. "
― Catherine Price , 101 Places Not to See Before You Die
50 " if you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone. "
51 " Focus isn’t profitable. Distraction is. "
52 " When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail: the more I used my phone to navigate my life, the less capable I felt of navigating life without my phone. "
53 " Your mind wanders because you have a mind. "
54 " In short: the more nuanced and detailed your schemas are, the greater your capacity for complex thought. But schemas take time—and mental space—to build. When our brains are overloaded, our ability to create schemas suffers. "
55 " we pass judgment on how other people should get their vitamins while we insist—especially when it comes to dietary supplements—that no one block access to our own. "
56 " The first thing we need to acknowledge is that our lives are what we pay attention to. Indeed, our attention is the most valuable resource that we have. Think about it. We only experience what we pay attention to. Your choice of what to pay attention to in any given moment might not seem like a big deal, but taken together, these decisions are deeply consequential. "
― Catherine Price , The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again
57 " Smartphones engage in disruptive behaviors that have traditionally been performed only by extremely annoying people. What’s "
58 " as users, we should be using our apps because we’ve made a conscious choice to do so—not because of manipulative psychological tricks that are meant to make money for someone else. "
59 " The fact that they are on the internet gives them more weight than the suggestions of real-life people around you. Barry Schwartz, psychologist and author of The Paradox of Choice, refers to this form of researching as “maximizing.” Not only is it exhausting, but it can also steal the wonderful feeling of discovery that comes from stumbling across things by accident. "
60 " I remember sitting there next to him with my Donkey Kong thinking, Dude, you just entertained yourself for three hours . . . with a f-ing twig! And I thought to myself, Wow, I have to raise my imagination game. "