Last week we asked what makes an individual life feel meaningful, through Jung and Frankl. This week the question moves from the person to the mechanism: the phone in your pocket that quietly decides where your attention — and therefore your meaning — actually goes. Arthur Brooks, the Harvard professor who studies happiness, draws one simple, useful line: some problems in life are complicated — solvable, with a finish line waiting at the end — and some are complex — meaning, judgement, people, questions you can understand completely and still never finish. The average adult checks their phone about 205 times a day, and almost every check lands on the solvable side. Brooks’s verdict on the resulting day is blunt: it is a simulation of a real life. Frankl’s answer, picked up again from last week, is that the fix is not more discipline but a turn outward — toward work that matters and the people already sitting in your office.
This one lesson comes in three CEFR levels. The topic, the core distinction and the Frankl callback are the same at every level; the reading, the tasks and the discussion scale up. B1 and B2 are full rebuilds, not simplified translations of the C1 text — different openings, different vocabulary, different task scaffolding at each level.
Read the companion article → [Meaning, Part 2 — link]
Every task cycle in this lesson runs on The BEBB Method — The Agency Loop (dt. etwa: Handlungsfähigkeit im Umgang mit KI — du bleibst die Entscheider·in), a five-step framework for using AI in language learning without letting it replace your own thinking. It is my own configuration of established best practices in human-AI collaboration, built in direct response to Gerlich (2025) on cognitive offloading, and informed by the “AI Sandwich” tradition (Ippolito, 2023) and “AI as Critic” scaffolding (Mollick, 2024).
Agency = your own capacity to decide, think, and act. In The Agency Loop, you keep your agency at every step — you, not the AI, remain the one deciding what happens to your thinking.
The five steps: think first, unaided → use AI for facts only → draft it yourself → challenge your draft with AI → combine the two into something better. The loop is delivered at different depths by level: B1 runs two cycles (think first, then challenge — the challenge step is completed in the homework), B2 runs the same two cycles with a short in-class challenge added at the discussion, and C1 runs the fullest version, closing with a group-wide “what did you keep, what did you reject” reflection. Steps 4–5 often finish in the homework at every level — that is by design, not a shortcut.
Before you search — Agency Loop, Step 1. Take one minute. Do not use your phone or computer. Write down two things you already think about phones and free time. Two or three words is enough.
Your teacher gives you one item. Items 1–3 are for everybody; items 4–6 are extra.
What is “screen time”? How many hours a day do people look at their phones?
What is a “notification”? Why do apps send them?
What is a “digital detox”? What do people do on a digital detox?
Who is Arthur Brooks? What does he study?
Who was Viktor Frankl? What did he say is important in life?
Why do many people today spend a lot of time on slow hobbies — making bread, riding a bicycle very far, making perfect coffee?
Tell the group in 60 seconds: (a) what it is, or who this person is, in simple words; (b) one fact — a number, a year, or a name, or one example; (c) why it is interesting for our lesson about phones and attention.
Copy this into your AI tool. Replace [MY ITEM] with your item.
I am a B1-level business English learner. Our lesson is about phones,
free time, and what is important in life.
Please tell me about: [MY ITEM]
Give me:
1. What it is, or who this person is - 2 short sentences. Easy words.
2. One fact - a number, a year, or a name. Or one example.
3. Why it is interesting for a lesson about phones and free time -
1 sentence.
4. One short sentence I can say to start my 60-second talk.
Total under 100 words. Explain any difficult word in 5 words or less.Read it, then tell the group in your own words — do not read from the screen.
Quick guessing game (3 min): in pairs, guess how many times a day a normal person picks up their phone. Write your number, then say one sentence: “When I hear this number, I feel…”
Match each word (1–10) with the correct meaning (A–J).
a phone
to scroll
busy
a reason
important
free time
to care about someone
to turn off
a break
to notice
A. the time when you are not working
B. to see something and think about it
C. to stop a machine from working; to switch it off
D. a small device you use to call people, write messages, and look at the internet
E. to move text or pictures up and down on a screen with your finger
F. when a person or thing matters a lot to you
G. having a lot of work; with very little free time
H. a short time when you stop working and rest
I. the answer to the question “why?”
J. something that matters; something with a big effect on your life
Agency Loop, Step 1: your own thinking, before any tool.
Prepare (4 min, alone, in writing, no phone). Think about one normal working day. Write two short lists — three things in each is enough.
List A: things you can fix. You do the work, then the work is finished. (A report, a broken printer, an email.)
List B: things you cannot fix. You can only live with them. (A difficult person at work, the question “is my job important?”, a decision about your family.)
Write one sentence: “List A is longer / List B is longer, because…”
Deliver (4 min, pairs): tell your partner one thing from List B, and why you cannot fix it.
Reflect (2 min, whole group): was List B easy or difficult to write? Say one word.
Keep your notes — you need them for Task 2.
(1) Markus works in an office in Stuttgart. He is 41 years old. Last month he did something very small. On the first Monday in June, he put his phone in another room at dinner time. Only at dinner time. Only for one week.
(2) The first evening felt strange. He was not relaxed. He wanted to scroll. His hand looked for the phone many times. But on Wednesday, something changed. He talked to his daughter for twenty minutes. She told him about a problem with a friend at school. Markus did not know about this problem before.
(3) Markus is very busy. He starts work at eight o’clock. He has many meetings. In the evening he is tired. In his free time he rides his bicycle, but not often. Like most people, he looks at his phone about 200 times every day.
(4) An American professor, Arthur Brooks, studies happiness. He says there are two kinds of problems in life.
(5) Some problems you can fix. You do the work, and then the problem is finished. A broken computer. A difficult report. A late train. These problems are sometimes hard. But one day they are done.
(6) Other things you cannot fix. You can only live with them. Is my work important? Am I a good father? Do I spend enough time with the people I love? These questions do not have one answer. You cannot finish them. But they give your life a reason.
(7) Brooks says our phones give us the first kind of problem all day long. Prices. Messages. News. Short videos. They are quick and easy. They feel good. But they are not the second kind.
(8) Think about a normal day. Your phone wakes you up. You read the news in bed. You have meetings on a screen. In the evening you watch short videos. Then you sleep next to your phone. Brooks says this is not a real life. It is only a picture of a real life.
(9) He gives simple advice. Turn off your phone at some times: the first hour of the day, meal times, and the last hour in the evening. Take a break from the screen. Notice the people around you. And ask questions that you cannot find on the internet.
(10) He has four words for this idea: use things, love people. Use your phone — it is a tool. But care about the people in the room with you.
(11) Last week we talked about Viktor Frankl. He said something simple. You cannot look for meaning directly. It comes when you do good work, and when you love other people. The two things that make a life — meaningful work and other people — are already sitting in your office.
(~380 words)
Agency Loop, Step 3: you write it yourself, before you use any tool. This is the main speaking task — no right answer, no winner.
Prepare (4 min, alone, in writing, no phone). Prepare three sentences:
“The most ‘screen’ part of my week is…”
“The part with real people is…”
“One small change I will try is… I will do it on … at …”
Model answer (for the shape, not the content): “The most ‘screen’ part of my week is Monday morning. I answer emails for two hours. The part with real people is my Thursday meeting with my team. One small change I will try is: no phone at breakfast. I will do it on Tuesday at seven o’clock.”
Deliver (5 min, groups of three): say your three sentences, about 60 seconds. Use at least three words from the vocabulary list. Make your change small and real.
Reflect (2 min): who has the smallest change? Small changes are the ones that really happen.
What did Markus do in June, and for how long? (Paragraph 1)
What happened on Wednesday? (Paragraph 2)
Give one example of a problem you can fix, and one example of something you cannot fix. (Paragraphs 5 and 6)
What does Brooks say about a normal day with a phone? (Paragraph 8)
What three pieces of advice does Brooks give? (Paragraph 9)
What did Viktor Frankl say about meaning? (Paragraph 11)
Before you talk — Agency Loop, Step 3. Choose one question. Write your answer in two sentences, starting with “I think…” — your own opinion, before you hear anyone else’s.
How many times a day do you look at your phone? Is it too much? Why do you think so?
Have you ever put your phone away for one evening or one day? What happened? How did you feel?
Think about your last week. When did your phone take you away from a person? What happened?
What do you do in your free time that has no screen? Do you have enough time for it?
Some people today spend a lot of time on slow hobbies — bread, bicycles, coffee. Do you know people like this? What do you think about it?
Choose one to finish: Is a happy life the same as an important life? · Can your company give your work a reason, or must you find it yourself? · Computers can now do many jobs that “you can fix.” Is that good news or bad news for you?
Sentence starters: I think… because… · In my experience,… · For me, the most important thing is… · I am not sure, but…
Agency Loop, Steps 4–5 — the challenge step completes here.
For one day, watch your own day. When do you look at your phone? When are you with real people, or thinking about something important? You do not need exact minutes. Choose one small change with your phone that you will really try, and write down one question you cannot find on the internet.
Deliverable: 5–8 simple sentences, or a 60-second voice note. Write or record it yourself first. Then paste it into an AI tool and ask: “What is missing in my text?” Read the answer, then make your text a little better, keeping the parts you like.
Sentence starters: On Tuesday, I looked at my phone… · The best moment of my day was… · My phone took me away from… · One small change I will try is… · The question I cannot find on the internet is…
Time needed: about 10 minutes. When we meet again, we talk for five minutes about your change and your question — send it by WhatsApp or email beforehand.
(If this is your last lesson before the summer: it is not homework. It is a small experiment for the summer.)
Before you search — Agency Loop, Step 1. One minute, no phone, no computer. Write down two or three things you already know or believe about how phones change the way we work. Just keywords.
Your trainer will give you one item. Items 1–3 are core; items 4–6 are for a full group or extra time.
What is “screen time”? How much screen time does an average adult have each day?
What is a “digital detox”? Does it work?
Who is Arthur Brooks, and what does he say makes people happy?
What is the “right to disconnect”? Which countries have a law about it?
Who was Viktor Frankl, and what did he say gives life meaning?
What is “conspicuous competence” — why do people today show time and effort instead of money?
Bring back to the group in 90 seconds: (a) what it is, or who they are, in simple English; (b) one clear fact — a number, a date or a name — or one real example; (c) why it matters for the question: where does our attention actually go?
Paste this prompt into your AI tool. Replace [MY ITEM] with your item.
I am a B2-level business English learner. Our lesson is about how phones
and technology change where our attention goes.
Research this for me: [MY ITEM]
Give me:
1. What it is / who they are — 2-3 simple sentences.
2. One clear fact (a number, a date, or a name) — or, for an idea,
one real example.
3. Why it matters for the question "where does our attention actually
go?" — 2 sentences.
4. One sentence I could say to start a 90-second talk on this.
Total under 150 words. Explain any difficult word in 6 words or less.Read it, then tell the group — do not read it aloud from the screen. You have 90 seconds.
Quick prediction (3 min): in pairs, guess how many times a day the average adult picks up their phone. Then answer in one sentence: if that number were true of you, what would you change?
Match each item (1–10) with its definition (A–J).
screen time
a distraction
to check your phone
the “why” behind your work
to live with a problem
meaningful
a habit
a trade-off
to pay attention
to switch off
A. something small that pulls your mind away from what you were doing
B. to look quickly at your phone to see if anything new has happened
C. the reason your job matters to you, beyond the tasks and the salary
D. to focus on one thing and keep your mind on it
E. the total time you spend looking at a screen
F. something you do automatically, without deciding to do it
G. to stop working and stop looking at your devices
H. to accept a problem you cannot solve, and carry on
I. worth doing; important for a real reason
J. a situation where you gain one thing but lose another
Agency Loop, Step 1: your own thinking, before any reading and before any tool.
Prepare (4 min, alone, in writing, no tools). Think of one real working day from the last two weeks. Write two short lists.
List A: things you could solve and finish. (A report. A bug. A booking.)
List B: things you could not solve — you could only live with them or make a judgement. (A difficult colleague. A decision about a customer. The question of whether the work was worth doing.)
Write one sentence: which list is longer, and which list am I actually paid for?
Deliver (3 min, pairs): tell your partner one thing from List B, and why it cannot be solved.
Reflect (2 min): was List B easy or hard to write? Why?
Keep these notes for Task 2.
(1) On a Monday morning in March, Katrin Bauer left her phone in a kitchen drawer. Katrin is a project manager in Hamburg. The week before, her phone had shown her a number she did not like: five hours and twenty minutes of screen time every day. So she made a decision. No phone before nine o’clock — one day only, as an experiment.
(2) The first hour was not relaxing. She was bored, then annoyed. Her hand kept reaching for a phone that was not there. That, she realised, was a habit, not a need. But at about half past eight, something happened. She started thinking about a problem at work she had been avoiding for three weeks. It was not a technical problem. It was a question about a person on her team, and whether she had been fair to him.
(3) Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor who studies happiness, has a simple way to explain Katrin’s morning. He says there are two kinds of problems in a life.
(4) The first kind is complicated — you can solve it. These problems are about information and things. They are about the how and the what. A budget is complicated. A software bug is complicated. Getting to a customer meeting in a city you do not know is complicated. Some of these problems are very hard, and some take years to learn. But they all share one thing: one day they are finished.
(5) The second kind is complex — you cannot solve it, you can only live with it. These problems are about people, meaning and judgement. They are about the “why” behind your work. Was I fair to my colleague? Does this job matter? What do I owe my parents now that they are older? You can understand these questions completely and still never finish them. Brooks uses his own marriage as an example: thirty-five years, he says, and still not solved.
(6) There is a brain story here too, and it needs care. Some researchers say the two halves of the brain deal with the world in different ways — one half for information and things, the other for people and meaning. This is one way to picture the difference. It is not a proven fact. But the picture is useful, because a good life needs both halves. One half tells you why you love your family. The other half works out how to pay for their holiday.
(7) So where is the problem? Only one half is getting fed. The average adult checks their phone about 205 times a day, and almost every check is about information and things: a price, a score, a message, a notification. Think about an ordinary day. The alarm rings on your phone. You read the news before you get out of bed. Four video calls. A distraction every few minutes. Short videos in the evening. Then you sleep with the phone next to your head. Brooks has a hard name for that day: a simulation of a real life. Everything is there except the part that matters most. It is very difficult to pay attention to a person, or to a difficult decision, in a day shaped like that.
(8) His answer is four words long: use things, love people. The screen teaches us the opposite — we love our apps and our numbers, and we treat people as an audience. Brooks says turn it around. Use your tools, and keep your love for the person in front of you.
(9) And AI? It is a fair question, so let us ask it once and move on. AI is becoming very good at the first kind of problem, the kind you can solve. It is not good at the second kind. Some people find this comforting: if machines take the solvable work, what is left is the work that means something. Other people are not so sure — perhaps that is just a comfortable story. It is a real trade-off, and nobody knows yet how it ends.
(10) Brooks gives three pieces of practical advice. Protect the first hour of your day, your meals and the last hour before sleep — in other words, learn to switch off at fixed times. Ask questions you cannot Google. And put people before things.
(11) Which brings us back to Viktor Frankl. Last week we said that for Frankl, meaning comes from turning outward — towards meaningful work, and towards other people. He added something important: you cannot chase it directly. It arrives while you are busy caring about something outside yourself. The two things that make a life — meaningful work and other people — are already sitting in your office.
(~640 words)
Agency Loop, Step 3: you write it yourself, before any tool touches it.
Prepare (5 min, alone, in writing, no tools). Look again at your Task 1 lists. Prepare to say three things:
One part of your week that is only about screens, information and optimising.
One part of your week that is about a person, a judgement, or why your work matters.
Where your real life is at the moment — and one thing you would move back from the screen to real life.
Starters if they help: The most “screen” part of my week is… · The part I cannot solve, only live with, is… · The one thing I would move back is… — I would do it on … at …
Deliver (6 min, groups of three): 90 seconds each, without interruption. Use at least three vocabulary words. Make your “one thing” small and concrete — a specific action, on a specific day, this week.
Reflect (1 min): whose “one thing” was the smallest? Small changes are the ones that actually happen.
Why did Katrin put her phone in a drawer, and what surprised her about the result? (Paragraphs 1–2)
What is the difference between a problem you can solve and a problem you can only live with? Give one example of each from the text. (Paragraphs 4–5)
The writer says the brain story “is not a proven fact.” Why does he say this — and why does he tell the story anyway? (Paragraph 6)
What does the writer mean when he calls an ordinary day “a simulation of a real life”? (Paragraph 7)
On the question of AI, the writer gives two different opinions and does not choose. What are they? (Paragraph 9)
Before you discuss — Agency Loop, Step 3. Choose one question. Write your own opinion in two or three sentences, with one reason and one example from your working life — your position, before you hear anyone else’s.
Look at your own working day. Which is bigger — the part you can solve, or the part you can only live with? Which one are you actually paid for?
Last week we said status has changed: not the expensive car any more, but the time and effort you visibly spend — the marathon, the sourdough, the perfect coffee. Do you see this among your colleagues? A real search for meaning, or a new way of showing off?
Where in your week has the screen quietly pushed out a person or a decision? What would you rather have there?
When did you last think about a question you could not look up? What was it?
“Use things, love people.” Where does your phone quietly turn that around — using people (as an audience, as a number) and loving things (the feed, the score)?
Has your company ever tried to solve a problem that could only be lived with? What happened? Was it the right call?
Closer, choose one: Is a meaningful life the same as a happy one? · Can a company give you meaning, or only leave you space to find it? · If machines take the solvable half of the work, is the other half what you were paid for all along — or what the job never gave you time for?
After the discussion — Agency Loop, Steps 4–5. Take the position you wrote earlier and paste it into an AI tool: “What is the strongest argument against my position?” Read the answer, then rewrite your two or three sentences into a stronger version that deals with the counter-argument. Three to four minutes.
For one normal day, notice where your attention goes. Which parts were about screens and solving things? Which parts were about a person, a judgement, or why your work matters? Then choose one small change to how you use your phone that you will really try, and one question you cannot Google that you would like to think about.
Deliverable: a paragraph of 100–150 words, or a 90-second voice note. Write or record it yourself first, then paste it into an AI tool and ask: “What am I missing about why this matters?” Read the answer and improve your version once.
Sentence starters: On Tuesday, most of my attention went to… · The part of the day that was really about a person or a decision was… · The one small change I will try is… · The question I cannot Google is… · The AI suggested … , but I did not agree, because…
Time needed: about 15 minutes. When we meet again: a five-minute share-back of the change you tried and the question you are still thinking about — send it beforehand by email or WhatsApp.
(If this is your last session before the break: treat it as a personal summer experiment, not homework to hand in.)
Before you search — Agency Loop, Step 1. Take one minute. Without opening anything, write down two or three things you already know or believe about how your phone affects your attention. Keywords or short phrases only — your own thinking comes first.
Your trainer will assign you one item. Items 1–3 are core; items 4–6 are stretch items for a full group or extra time.
Who is Arthur Brooks, and what does “the science of happiness” mean?
What is the “attention economy”?
What does “cognitive offloading” mean?
Who is Iain McGilchrist, and what is his “divided brain” idea? (present it as one lens, not as settled fact)
What did Viktor Frankl say the deepest human drive is?
What is “conspicuous competence” — how has the modern status symbol shifted from money you can show to time and effort you visibly spend?
Bring back to the group in 90 seconds: (a) what it is, or who they are, in plain English; (b) one anchor fact — a date, a name or a number — or, for a concept item, one concrete example; (c) why it matters to the question: where does our attention, and so our sense of meaning, actually go?
Paste this prompt into your AI tool. Replace [MY ITEM] with your item.
I am a C1-level business English learner. Our lesson is about how phones
and technology change where our attention and our sense of meaning go.
Research this for me: [MY ITEM]
Give me:
1. What it is / who they are — 2-3 plain sentences.
2. One anchor fact (a date, a name, or a number) — or, for a concept,
one concrete example.
3. Why it matters to the question "where does our attention actually
go?" — 2 sentences.
4. One sentence I could say to open a 90-second talk on this.
Total under 200 words. Define any technical term in 8 words or less.Read what comes back. Do not read it aloud to the group — deliver it. You have 90 seconds.
Quick prediction (3 min): in pairs, guess the number — how many times a day does the average adult check their phone? Write your two guesses before anyone looks it up. Then, one sentence each: what would you do with that number if it turned out to be true of you?
Match each item (1–12) with its definition (A–L).
the attention economy
cognitive offloading
a complicated problem
a complex problem
hemispheric lateralisation
conspicuous competence
to atrophy
discernment
a by-product
load-bearing
a simulation
to sit with a question
A. the idea that the brain’s two halves specialise in different ways of attending to the world
B. carrying the weight of the whole structure; if you remove it, everything above it sags
C. something you did not aim at, which arrives as a result of aiming at something else
D. a convincing imitation of a thing, containing everything except the thing itself
E. a market in which the scarce resource being bought and sold is people’s minutes and focus
F. to weaken and shrink through lack of use
G. the practice of handing a mental task over to a device instead of performing it yourself
H. a problem made of information and things — the how and the what — which is, in principle, solvable
I. status signalled not through money on display but through time and effort visibly spent
J. a problem made of meaning, love and judgement — the why — which can be understood but never finished
K. the slow ability to tell what actually matters in a situation, as distinct from problem-solving
L. to resist resolving something; to let it stay open long enough to change you
Agency Loop, Step 1: your own thinking comes first, before any reading and before any tool.
Prepare (4 min, alone, in writing, no tools). Pick one specific working day from the last two weeks — a real one, with a date. Split it into two piles.
Pile One: the parts that were solvable. Tasks with a finish line. The how and the what.
Pile Two: the parts that were not solvable. A judgement. A person. The question of why the work mattered at all.
Answer two questions in writing: which pile was bigger, and which pile are you actually paid for?
Deliver (3 min, pairs): read your partner one line — the single most surprising thing in your own notes. Not a summary. One line.
Reflect (2 min): was the surprising line about the size of the piles, or about which one your salary is attached to?
Keep these notes — Task 2 builds directly on them.
(1) Last week we ended on a bicycle. A gravel bike, to be precise — researched for eleven months, specified like a portfolio, ridden at six on a Sunday morning while the rest of the house slept. A generation ago the midlife signal was money you could show: the car, the watch, the second home. Today it is time and effort you have visibly spent. The sourdough starter with a name. The marathon. The espresso setup that takes four minutes and yields thirty millilitres. One writer’s formula for the new status game runs: time plus sacrifice equals status. We called it conspicuous competence — proof of a life lived deliberately, published quietly. And we left two thinkers on the table. Jung said meaning is discovered by turning inward, by slowly becoming who you actually are. Frankl said something close to the opposite: meaning is found by turning outward, in work that matters and in another person.
(2) This week the question moves. Last week we asked what individual people find meaningful. This week we ask about the mechanism that decides where your attention goes — and therefore, whether you like it or not, where your meaning has a chance to form at all. It is in your pocket. You have probably touched it since you started reading this page.
(3) Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor who studies happiness, divides happiness into three parts: enjoying your life, feeling satisfaction in what you accomplish, and knowing the why of your existence. The third is the load-bearing one. Remove it and the other two sag. His worrying observation concerns exactly that third part. Through the 2000s, the share of young adults who agreed with the statement my life feels meaningless stayed modest and reasonably flat. Around 2008 and 2009 the line turned upward, and it has not come back down. Brooks calls it a psychogenic epidemic — an epidemic of the mind rather than of the body. The dates are suggestive. That is roughly the moment the smartphone stopped being a gadget for a few and became the default surface of ordinary life.
(4) Correlation is not cause, and Brooks does not pretend otherwise. But something structural did change. An entire industry now competes for a resource we never used to think of as scarce. That is what people mean by the attention economy — a market in which the product being bought and sold is the quantity of minutes you can be persuaded to give away. The bidding is continuous, it is automated, and it is extremely good at its job.
(5) Here Brooks introduces the idea worth carrying out of the talk and into your working week. There are two kinds of problems in a life. The first is a complicated problem. Complicated problems are made of information and things. They concern the how and the what. Getting from a hotel to a venue in an unfamiliar city is complicated. So is your car’s transmission, your tax return, your quarterly forecast, the architecture of the system you maintain. Complicated problems can be genuinely hard — some take a career to master — but they share one decisive property. They are solvable. There exists a state of the world in which the problem is finished.
(6) The second kind is a complex problem. Complex problems are made of love, meaning, judgement and mystery. They concern the why. And they are not solvable — not because we are insufficiently clever, but because solving is simply the wrong verb. Brooks’s example is a thirty-five-year marriage: still, by his own account, not solved. Why your work matters. Whether to tell a colleague something they will not want to hear. What you owe an ageing parent. You can understand these questions completely and still never finish them. Discernment — the slow capacity to tell what actually matters here — is the faculty they call on, and it is nothing like problem-solving.
(7) Brooks borrows a frame from the psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, who argues that the brain’s two halves attend to the world in different ways: hemispheric lateralisation, in the technical phrase. Treat this as one way to picture the difference rather than as settled neuroscience — the science is contested, and the frame is doing metaphorical work here. Pictured that way: one half of you handles information and things, the other handles meaning and people. A whole life needs both. The right side tells you why you love your family; the left side works out how to support them. Neither half is the enemy.
(8) The trouble is that only one of them is being fed. Estimates put the average number of daily phone checks at around 205. Almost every one of those checks lands on the solvable side: information, notifications, prices, scores, messages requiring an answer rather than a thought. Consider the shape of an ordinary day. The alarm sounds on the phone. You scroll before your feet touch the floor. You take four calls through a screen. You optimise something in an app. You end the evening on short videos and fall asleep with the device forty centimetres from your head. Brooks’s verdict on that day is the line this lesson is named for: it is a simulation of a real life. Everything is present except the part that carries the meaning.
(9) Two things atrophy under that arrangement. The first is attention itself in the older sense — the capacity to hold one thing steadily for long enough that a judgement can form. The second is subtler. Cognitive offloading is what we do when we hand a mental task to a device: the phone number we no longer learn, the route we no longer hold in our heads, and now the paragraph we no longer struggle to write. Each individual offload is entirely rational. What remains unclear is what happens to a mind that has been offloading steadily for a decade.
(10) The digital world teaches a formula, Brooks argues, and the formula is backwards: love things, use people. Stated plainly it sounds absurd, which is the point — nobody would endorse it and a great many of us practise it. The feed is loved. The metrics are loved. The people become an audience, a number, a source of response. The inversion he proposes is four words long: use things, love people. Use your tools with gratitude and without ceremony. Reserve love for whoever is actually in front of you.
(11) There is one honest question here, and it is raised once. Machines are now becoming very good at the solvable side — the summarising, the drafting, the optimising, the how and the what. One reading of that is generous: if the solvable half of the job is being cleared away, what remains is precisely the half that carries the meaning — judgement, care, why any of it is worth doing at all. The other reading is less flattering. That may simply be a comforting story told by people whose competence is being commoditised, and there is no law guaranteeing that the space freed up will fill with anything better than more of the same. Both readings are available. Notice which one you reached for first, and why.
(12) A sceptic deserves a hearing too. Every generation has accused its newest tool of hollowing out the inner life; the novel, the telephone and the television all had their prosecutors, and the species survived each of them. Nor is the solvable side a lesser world. It is where competence lives, where craft lives, where the rent comes from. A person with time to worry that his life is a simulation has usually had his complicated problems solved for him by somebody else.
(13) Brooks’s practical moves are unglamorous, which is a point in their favour. First, a new relationship with the device: protect the first hour of the day, protect meals, protect the last hour before sleep. Second, ask questions you cannot Google. Asking an unanswerable question is one of the few remaining acts a search box cannot complete for you — and the skill it requires is to sit with a question rather than close it. Third, reorder your loves, deliberately and on purpose, in a way somebody else would actually notice.
(14) Which brings us back to Frankl. His claim was that fulfilment can never be aimed at directly; it arrives as a by-product of commitment to something outside yourself — work that matters, and another person. That is an inconvenient answer, because it cannot be optimised and it cannot be delivered. It is also a hopeful one. The two things that make a life — meaningful work and other people — are already sitting in your office.
(~1,400 words)
Agency Loop, Step 3: you draft it yourself, in your own words, before any tool touches it. This is a reflection, not an argument — nobody is assigned a position and there is no verdict.
Prepare (5 min, alone, in writing, no tools). Go back to your Task 1 notes and add the reading’s vocabulary. Prepare to say three things:
One part of your week that is pure complicated — screen, information, optimising.
One part of your week that is complex — a person, a judgement, why the work matters.
Where your real life actually is at the moment, and one thing you would move from the simulation back to the real.
Deliver (7 min, groups of three): two minutes each, uninterrupted — listeners do not respond until the speaker has finished. Bring at least three vocabulary items, and name your one thing concretely — not “spend more time with my family” but a specific act, at a specific hour, this week.
Reflect (2 min): whose “one thing” was smallest? Small is usually a sign that it will actually happen.
What changed around 2008 and 2009, and what does the writer claim that change marked? (Paragraph 3)
In the writer’s terms, what makes a problem complex rather than merely complicated? (Paragraph 6)
Why is the hemisphere framing presented as a lens rather than as fact — and what does that hedge protect? (Paragraph 7)
What does the writer mean by “a simulation of a real life,” and what inversion does he propose in response? (Paragraphs 8 and 10)
Where does the reading concede ground to the sceptic, and does the concession weaken the argument? (Paragraph 12)
Before you discuss — Agency Loop, Step 3. Choose one question below and write your position in two or three sentences — your own argument, in your own words, before you hear anybody else’s.
Split your own working day into two piles: the complicated parts (solvable, optimisable — the how and the what) and the complex parts (meaning, judgement, the why). Which pile is bigger? Which pile are you actually paid for?
Last week we said status has shifted from cash to visible competence — the gravel bike, the sourdough, the perfect espresso. Is that a genuine search for meaning, or the same status game in a quieter costume? What do you actually notice among your peers?
Your attention (≈205 phone checks a day) keeps getting pulled to the “complicated” — information and things. Where in your week has the screen quietly crowded out the “complex”: a person, a decision, the why? What would “a real life” have there instead?
Brooks says asking a question you can’t Google is one of the few purely human acts left. When did you last sit with a question you couldn’t look up?
“Use things, love people.” Where in your week does the phone quietly invert that — using people (as an audience, a metric) and loving things (the feed, the score)? Name one thing you’d move from the “simulation” back to the real.
Closer, choose one: Is a meaningful life the same as a happy one — can they pull in different directions? · Can a company give you meaning, or only get out of the way while you find it? · If machines take the complicated half, is the complex half what you were paid for all along — or what the job never made time for?
Agency Loop, Steps 4–5: stress-test, then combine.
Take the position you wrote earlier and paste it into an AI tool. Ask it: “What is the strongest argument against my position?” Read the response. Then revise your original two or three sentences into a stronger version that addresses the counter-argument, and present it. Three to four minutes. Close with one group reflection: whose position changed most after the challenge, and why?
Over one ordinary day, keep a rough running note of where your attention goes — which parts are complicated (solvable, screen-shaped) and which are complex (a person, a judgement, why any of it matters). You are not counting minutes precisely; you are noticing the shape. Then name one small change to your relationship with your phone that you will actually try, and one question you cannot Google that you want to sit with.
Deliverable: a written reflection of 200–300 words. Draft it yourself first, then paste your draft into an AI tool and ask: “What am I missing about why this matters?” Revise once. Close with one line naming something the AI flagged that you rejected — and why.
Time needed: about 20 minutes. When we meet again: a five-minute share-back at the start of the next session — the one change you tried, and the one question you are still sitting with. Send it beforehand by email or WhatsApp.
(For groups whose next session is after the summer break: treat this as a personal summer experiment rather than a submission — something to carry into the break.)
I taught this across a mix of groups and 1:1 clients in Germany this week, B1 to C1, as the second week of a two-part meaning thread (Jung/Frankl in week one, Brooks/attention in this one). A few notes from the room:
This is a reflective discussion lesson, not a debate. No assigned positions, no card draw, no verdict — the point is a private, honest audit of one’s own week, shared, not argued.
At B1 and B2, never let “complicated” and “complex” become jargon. The B1 reading avoids the technical terms entirely, rendering the distinction as “problems you can fix” versus “things you can only live with.” B2 uses the terms but restates the plain gloss every time they appear. If a learner starts using the labels without the gloss, they have learned words, not the distinction.
Protect the main speaking task (”One Small Change” at B1, “Where Your Real Life Is” at B2/C1). It is the load-bearing activity and the one that gets squeezed. If you are running late, cut a discussion question rather than shortening it.
Keep AI in its box. It appears by design just once (B1, in the discussion closer) or twice (B2/C1, once in the reading and once in the discussion or Task 3). If the room pulls toward jobs and automation, name it once — “that’s a real conversation and it isn’t this one” — and steer back to attention and meaning.
Hold the hedge on McGilchrist (C1 only). If a learner treats the two hemispheres as established fact, restate paragraph 7: it is a picture, not a finding.
Reading time is the swing variable at C1 (~1,400 words). Strong readers finish in about six minutes, weaker ones need eleven or twelve. Standard early-finisher prompt: “In one sentence, what is the strongest counter-argument to this reading?”
Homework closes the arc at every level. The final Agency Loop steps (challenge with AI, then combine) are completed there. Brief it explicitly before the group leaves.
Continuity share-back of last week’s homework + bridge · 5 min
Warm-up — micro-research + 60-second mini-talks · 12 min
Warm-up — guessing game · 3 min
Vocabulary matching · 9 min
Task 1 — My Week · 8 min
Reading (~380w silent) · 7 min
Task 2 — One Small Change · 11 min
Comprehension · 7 min
Discussion & Reflection · 8 min
Homework brief · 3 min
Continuity share-back + bridge · 5 min
Warm-up — micro-research + mini-talks · 12 min
Warm-up — prediction · 3 min
Vocabulary matching · 8 min
Task 1 — Two Kinds of Work · 9 min
Reading (~640w silent) · 8 min
Task 2 — Where Your Real Life Is · 12 min
Comprehension · 7 min
Discussion & Reflection (incl. AI challenge) · 11 min
Homework brief · 3 min
Continuity share-back of last week’s homework + bridge · 5 min
Warm-up — micro-research + 90-second mini-talks · 12 min
Warm-up — prediction · 3 min
Vocabulary matching · 8 min
Task 1 — Your Two Piles · 9 min
Reading (~1,400w silent) · 10 min
Task 2 — Where Your Real Life Is · 14 min
Comprehension · 7 min
Discussion & Reflection · 12 min
Task 3 — Challenge and Finalise · included above, folded into discussion timing
Homework brief · 2 min
Short on time? A 45-minute version works at any level: keep the warm-up (trim to 2–3 assigned items), the reading, Task 1 and one round of the main speaking task. Drop vocabulary matching to self-study and trim discussion to two questions. Do not cut the main speaking task or the homework brief — the Agency Loop does not close without them.
1–D, 2–E, 3–G, 4–I, 5–J, 6–A, 7–F, 8–C, 9–H, 10–B
1–E, 2–A, 3–B, 4–C, 5–H, 6–I, 7–F, 8–J, 9–D, 10–G
1–E, 2–G, 3–H, 4–J, 5–A, 6–I, 7–F, 8–K, 9–C, 10–B, 11–D, 12–L
He put his phone in another room at dinner time, for one week, starting on the first Monday in June.
He talked to his daughter for twenty minutes, and she told him about a problem with a friend at school that he did not know about.
A problem you can fix: a broken computer, a difficult report, or a late train. Something you cannot fix: whether your work is important, or whether you are a good parent.
He says it is not a real life — it is only a picture of a real life, because everything happens through a screen.
Turn off your phone at some times (morning, meals, evening); notice the people around you; and ask questions you cannot find on the internet.
He said you cannot look for meaning directly. It comes when you do good work and when you love other people.
Her phone reported five hours and twenty minutes of screen time a day, so she tried one morning without it. The surprise was that boredom eventually led her to a problem about a colleague that she had been avoiding for three weeks.
A problem you can solve is about information and things and eventually finishes; a problem you can only live with is about people, meaning and judgement and never finishes. Examples: a budget or a software bug versus a difficult colleague or a thirty-five-year marriage.
Because the science is uncertain and he does not want to claim more than he can support. He tells it anyway because the picture is useful for explaining why a good life needs both kinds of thinking.
That the day contains all the parts of a life — waking, working, talking, relaxing — but they all happen through a screen, so the part that carries meaning is missing.
One view: if machines do the solvable work, what remains is the work that means something. The other: this may just be a comfortable story, and nobody knows yet how it ends.
The share of young adults reporting that their lives felt meaningless turned sharply upward, having been modest and flat through the 2000s. The writer treats this as marking the point at which the smartphone became the default surface of ordinary life.
A complicated problem is made of information and things and has a finish line; a complex problem is made of meaning, love and judgement, and can be fully understood while never being finished, because “solving” is the wrong verb for it.
Because the underlying neuroscience is contested and the frame is doing metaphorical rather than empirical work. The hedge protects the argument — the two kinds of problems stand on their own even if the brain science does not.
A day that contains every element of a life — waking, working, talking, relaxing — routed through a screen, so that the meaning-carrying part is missing. The proposed inversion replaces the implicit “love things, use people” with “use things, love people.”
In paragraph 12, where it grants that every generation has made this accusation about its newest tool, and that the solvable side is where competence and income live. The concession strengthens the argument by removing the easiest objection to it rather than leaving it unanswered.
(No model answers are provided for Discussion & Reflection or the TBLT task cycles.)
This lesson is part of a weekly cycle: I pick one topic, teach it across my coaching groups Monday to Friday, then publish the paired article and this three-level lesson. Teachers — please use it, adapt it, and share it with your own groups. Learners — pick your level, do the tasks properly (the thinking-first steps are the point), and tell me in the comments: which pile is bigger for you, the complicated or the complex — and which one are you actually paid for?
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