896: The Pitfalls of Modern Technology, Nature Deficit Disorder & a Better Computer With Anjan Katta

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by LMNT. That’s L-M-N-T. And this is one of my go-to companies in the summer, especially when we’re outside playing sports, sweating all the time to help replenish key electrolytes. My kids love it as well. And we drink many of their flavors with cool water and use them in the summer. But today I really want to talk about their hot drink mixes, which are not as talked about. And I absolutely love these, especially in the winter.

So LMNT has all these amazing mixes that help anyone stay hydrated without the sugar or the other dodgy ingredients that are found in a lot of sports drinks. You may not know, but electrolyte deficiency or even minor imbalance can be correlated to headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, and so much more. And each stick of LMNT, or they now have sparkling cans, delivers a meaningful dose of electrolytes in the right ratio and free of sugar, artificial colors, or other dodgy ingredients. LMNT is formulated for anyone on a mission to restore health through hydration, and it’s perfectly suited for athletes, people who are fasting, those following keto, low-carb, whole food, or paleo diets.

And a lot of times we forget about hydration when it gets cold or at altitude. So for winter activities and as we get to cooler months, I love their chocolate flavors. Now these, I wouldn’t think to add to cool water, but I love them in the winter. In warm water as a hot chocolate mix, or even a lot of people are adding these to their morning coffee. They have hot drink packets featuring chocolate mint, chocolate chai, and chocolate raspberry. And these are only available when the temperatures drop. So you want to get them now and enjoy them while you can. Think hot cocoa, but with the added benefit of electrolytes. Try LMNT totally risk-free. If you don’t like it, give it away to your salty friend and they will give you your money back, no questions asked. You can check that out and get a free sample pack with any purchase by going to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmama.

This podcast is brought to you by NativePath. And I love this company. I actually get a lot of things from them, but today I wanna specifically talk about their collagen. You might know that collagen is the most abundant protein in our bodies. And it’s essential for the health of our bones, our skin, our hair, our nails, joints, digestion, and more. I know there’s been a lot of talk about the benefits of collagen, which I’m so happy to see, but specifically the benefits of collagen are that they support the growth and repair of cartilage tissue. Collagen can help relieve joint inflammation and pain, can lead to more youthful looking skin, healthier nails, and noticeably thicker hair. I’ve noticed that myself. It can lead to improved gut health and decreased digestive discomfort, as well as easier weight loss and more appetite control.

I love NativePath because their collagen has 10 grams of collagen per scoop, and it’s easy to add to almost anything. My go-to daily habit is to add this to coffee or tea in the morning or a smoothie if I make one. But another thing that is important to note here is that they use type 1 and type 3 collagen. So there are actually 28 different types of collagen, but you only will find type 1 and type 3 in NativePath. And this is because these two types make up over 90% of the collagen found in our bodies. So it’s crucial to maintain levels of those two in particular. I also love that theirs is certified grass-fed to make sure that it’s from happy, healthy pasture-raised cows. And when you consume grass-fed beef as opposed to grain-fed beef, you’re getting the best nutritional profile that is also free of growth hormones. And so I love that their collagen is a single ingredient from grass-fed cows, flawless sourcing, and is also flavorless, odorless, and tasteless, so it mixes into anything. NativePath is offering a BOGO of free collagen jars on every option, plus a free gift and free shipping to our listeners. Check them out at wellnessmama.com/go/nativepath/ and try out their collagen.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and this episode goes deep on the topic of the pitfalls of modern technology, especially screens and what to do about it. We talk about nature deficit disorder and a more circadian aligned ways to still navigate the modern uses of technology. I love this conversation and I’m here with Anjan Katta, who is the founder and CEO behind Daylight Computer, which is something I found and fell in love with. This is a groundbreaking technology, they launched their first product this year, and it’s essentially a more circadian aligned, more nature and human focused, distraction-free digital experience. In fact, I hope they’re not listening, this is going to be all of my kids’ Christmas gift this year.

Because his motivation for founding Daylight comes from his personal struggles with the physical and mental health impacts of the conventional computer. And so driven by a vision to create a healthier, more humane computing ecosystem, this computer embodies his belief for the potential of technology to enhance rather than detract from our well-being. And this means a computer that is flicker-free, no blue light, that lets you do a lot of your deep work, writing, listen to podcasts, audiobooks, many of the things you can do on a regular computer but without the downside. So this is now what I’m using to write my next book, what I’m using at night, what I use when I travel, and what I’m so excited to give to my kids.

Whether or not you are interested in the Daylight Computer, I hope that you will listen to this episode as we talk about and go deep on the downfalls of too much technology and how to mitigate these, whether or not you ever get a Daylight Computer, especially when we talk about nature deficit disorder and how we need more time outside. Also what happens if we’re looking at screens after dark. This is one rule in my house is no screens after sunset, other than I now use the Daylight Computer after sunset. But I think this one change alone can make a massive difference, especially for kids. Like I said, we go deep on this and many other topics in this episode. I know you will enjoy, so let’s jump in now. Anjan, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Anjan: Thanks for having me on, Katie.

Katie: I’m excited for this conversation because you are the creator of a product that I’ve been using a lot. And we’re going to talk more about that a little bit later in the episode, but essentially spoiler for that is it’s an amazing tool for being able to use technology without a lot of the downfalls.

Before we get to that though, I feel like it’s actually important to establish some baseline and talk about what are the actual downfalls of technology, especially for the parents listening, because we all hear sort of those soundbites about the rise in screen time and how we are all, our kids included, on screen much more than we used to be and how things like the blue light and the attention issue and the lack of time outside that we’re trading for the screen time, how all of these things kind of come together to create this sort of, you know, the pitfalls of modern technology.

I also know, and I speak about this a lot, we’re not going to be able to get away from technology. And I don’t think most of us would want to. And I feel like this is especially true for our kids. They are growing up in a world where they’ve never known a world without the internet, without iPads, without technology. This is so ubiquitous in their lives. So to me as a parent, I think of how do I give them a solid foundation for navigating technology and having a healthy relationship with it as they grow up and understanding what an amazing tool it can be while also kind of minimizing the negative pitfalls that can come alongside of overuse of technology.

So I know this is a massive topic, but to start, can you kind of walk us through what you see and from your research as sort of the biggest downfalls of the overuse or the modern technology that we have access to kind of 24-7?

Anjan: Yeah, it’s a delight to be able to come on and share about this because so much of this is personal for me. It’s been my struggle and my difficulties with technology. Finally getting frustrated enough to say, heck with this, let’s try to do something about it.

But what, what exactly, what exactly are the downfalls or pitfalls? I think, I think it might be fun to share a little conversation I had with somebody. He was one of the inventors of the LCD screen, which is the type of screen you have in your MacBook, your iPad, blah, blah, blah. And so I met up with him and I was like, dude, you’ve had incredible impact. Like, did you ever guess that, you know, computers were going to be this ubiquitous, that your grandchildren were going to use them and so on? And he told me he’s like when I designed this screen I thought it would be scientists and business people spending 45 minutes to two hours a day at most if we’re being generous on this. He’s like, if I knew, people would spend 10 hours a day and my nine-year-old grandson would be spending many hours a day, he’s like, I would have designed this totally different. He’s like, I would have tested it totally differently.

And that’s when it like really clicked for me is computers didn’t start out as these things that were omnipresent in our life and stuck with us deeply and intertwined with our physiology and our psychology. They started out as calculators. They started as these tools, just appliances for business people and scientists. And they kind of just slowly snuck into more and more of the areas of your life. Color was added in, and it started to get brighter and it started to you know get higher resolution. Computers are almost this like mission creep. And where we all kind of woke up one day and we have these things that are just like full of red dots and notifications, blue light, and all of this stuff.

And I think at the highest level here, so many of the problems from computers come from no one sat down and designed something for, hey, if a human or especially a kid is interacting with this thing for many hours a day, how does the physical health of a human relate to light? How do we relate to ergonomics and holding things? How do we relate to what allows us to focus or what keeps us addicted or distracted? There was nobody who ever sat down and worked backwards from how a human works.

And so I think when we talk about the pitfalls of computing, in many a way, it’s us finally saying enough is enough because no one has sat down and said, hey, guys, these things are now sophisticated enough. They’re great enough, let’s rethink it. And I think that’s ultimately the frame here for all of the problems is no one has sat down with physical health and mental health and so on in mind. And so for me, this is kind of a cool moment that we’re actually recognizing it enough and being able to educate ourselves enough to do something about it cause clearly these companies are not really kind of like turning a blind eye to its negative impacts.

But what are some of these impacts? The way I think about it is it’s kind of a nerdy term, but hopefully it kind of ties it together. It’s called evolutionary mismatch. And what it means is we as humans were evolved in a certain way, a certain environment for hundreds of thousands of years. And that’s what kind of composes our psychology, our nervous system, our physiology. That’s kind of what we’re adapted for is that environment in which we evolved. And things in the modern world that we’ve invented with technology, i.e. so many of the aspects of the computer. Well, we didn’t ever evolved with some of those things. And so there is a strong mismatch between how we’ve evolved and how these choices we made with technology.

So the simple example here would be like, there’s a strong evolutionary mismatch with sugar, just to kind of give a small analogy. We all think we’re like low willpower or bad or dumb for like wanting to crave, you know, donuts and candies and treats. And, oh, there’s something wrong with us. Actually, there is nothing wrong with us. In the environment in which we evolved, sugar was super rare. And so if it like made total sense to always orient or crave sugar, and if it was around you like wanted it, that was actually the smart thing to do. And that’s how our psychology evolved. It’s only in this modern environment, which we’ve artificially created, that it’s now mismatched. And we blame ourselves and say, oh, we suck. Actually, we’re just doing what the body’s supposed to do. It’s the fact that the environment is artificial and mismatched.

And it’s the same thing with computers. It’s that type of bright, flickering light, believe it or not, the way modern computer screens work is when you change the brightness, you’re actually changing something called the flicker rate. And so when you’re looking at your iPad, it just looks like, oh, it’s white light. But if you put it under a high-speed camera, you will see that it’s turning on and off, on and off, black, white, black, white, black, white, black, white. And you’re like, what the heck is that? I don’t see that. How come it’s like flickering on and off? And actually what’s happening is it’s doing it at such a high frequency that you supposedly don’t see it. The reason they do it is that’s how they change brightness. If it’s a little bit more black versus white, like it’s kind of off for, you know, a quarter of a millisecond and it’s on for three quarters of a millisecond, it’ll look like it’s 75% brightness. And so you change the brightness on a modern computer by kind of flickering it.

But there was never objects that flickered that quickly in a natural environment. And so they didn’t really at the time have a way to test what are the long-term impacts of this. You know, they put it in front of people and okay, five hours later, it seems like they’re fine. But now we’re realizing over time, actually what the flickering light does is it jacks up your nervous system. It puts you into a parasympathetic response, a fight or flight response. Because you’re basically constantly changing the environment. And your brain is like, what the heck is going on?

And so this was like one subtle example of where if you just use computers for a long period of time, you’re like, I feel a little more anxious, feel a little more tense, feel a little more tight. I feel a little more on edge. I feel a little more tired. And flicker is one of the things that might be causing it.

And what’s really interesting is when you then compromise the brain, when you kind of remove our ability to adjust to things, you start to notice it way more. And so the example here would be people who have concussions or traumatic brain injuries or even PTSD. If you have a TBI or a concussion or PTSD, screens will really hurt, eye strain and nausea and migraines and headaches. And the theory is basically their brain no longer has the same buffer to adjust because of the injury. So things like flicker, it go from being something that’s subacute and over time to like hurting and being acute. And I think that’s a really powerful clue because it’s revealing what’s actually happening.

And so this first category of like the light of a computer is artificial and mismatched to how we’re evolved. I’d say number one is flicker, number two is blue light. The way a modern computer works is it uses these white LEDs that are actually a blue LED with a little coating on it. They pick that because it’s the most power efficient. But nobody at the time knew anything about circadian rhythms. Nobody knew anything about the time of how we relate to different light spectrums. And so the problem with blue light is it screws up your body clocks. It confuses the hell out of your body because in the natural world in the environments in which we evolved blue light meant it’s 1 p.m. It meant it’s the afternoon. Because it’s kind of like why in the morning when the sun rises, it’s like red. It’s because the longer wavelengths of light, the red and orange, that’s what makes it. And things like the blue, they get blocked.

Same thing with sunset in the evening. It’s red and orange because the red and orange are longer wavelengths of light. They make it through. The blue gets blocked. So when does the blue light from the sun ever actually make it? Oh, it’s in the middle of the day. It’s when the sun is at its highest. And for better or worse, that’s basically just been a consistent thing throughout natural history, outside of a solar eclipse or Krakatoa blowing up.

And so the body is like, oh, that’s really dependable. And so all my different organs, my kidneys and my pancreas and my pituitary gland and all these hormones, they all need to kind of go off it. Like, it’s like a choreographed dance, you know? It’s like, oh, at 2 a.m. at night, you need to do this. Oh, if it’s like 11 a.m. in the morning, you’re about to go hunt or gather, you’re about to do stuff, let’s like put some cortisol. It has all these things about when you do certain things in the day, because it’s an incredibly complicated thing.

But the thing is, it doesn’t have an internal clock that can forever keep time perfectly. It’s like your little quartz watch Casio. It moves by a second or two every six months or so on. A similar thing happens to the body, but on a much quicker timescale, on a day or week thing. And so what happens is the body uses the sun as a dependable measure to say, oh, we’re in this part of the day. And so the blue light from the sun, because it’s so dependably in the afternoon, your body says, oh, okay, I’m in that part of the day. And it synchronizes to that.

And all throughout natural history, that is really the only time and place in which you get blue light. Something like you know candle or a fire, those are going to be more of the longer wave, like infrared, red, orange. The sun is the main purveyor of the light. And so with our modern computer screens. When you’re using them at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., and you’re getting the blue light from them, the thing kind of people know about is it suppresses melatonin, which is a core molecule your body produces to sleep. And so when you suppress the melatonin, you don’t fall asleep as quickly or easily. And, you know, we all know the impacts of not having great sleep. That’s I feel like kind of getting more well-known in society that, hey, blue light really can affect sleep. And that’s a core, core, core part of it.

I think an interesting story because less people know about it is we’re more and more realizing When you get blue light at nighttime in the evening and you’re basically telling your body, hey, it’s the afternoon, hey, it’s the afternoon, hey, it’s the afternoon, the clocks in your body get super confused. Because they’re like, wait, what the heck? We’re about to release some growth hormone and melatonin and get you ready to sleep. And now you’re telling me it’s the afternoon? I guess I will rev up the dopamine system. I guess I’m going to release some cortisol. I guess I’m going to like stimulate you because that’s the afternoon. It’s time to do things. And then all the different parts of your body start to get really confused because they’re all on different clocks.

The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the clock in your brain. That is kind of entraining to the blue light. And then now it’s got a different time than your pancreas, than different parts of your metabolism. And so like, I feel it’s so, so early, but I think it’s so important that, oh my God, natural rhythms are super important to keep all of the inner functions of a body coordinated. And as we’re creating this artificial light, particularly from screens, I mean, overhead light, there are all sorts of artificial light in our environment, but screens being so up close and being so blue, they’re desynchronizing us.

And one of the core implications of desynchronization inside the body is essentially chaos. Everything is kind of bumping into each other, doesn’t know what to do. And that chaos, biological chaos we can call inflammation. And so when you have brain fog and tiredness and low energy, or you’re having a hard time getting up in the morning or sleeping or, you know, the kind of rising autoimmune, there’s a lot of science kind of implicating that’s to do with circadian dysfunction.

Andrew Huberman just had a scientist on, an MD-PhD who talked about how there’s a growing body of evidence that a lot of ADHD, not all of it, but a lot of it is actually a circadian dysfunction thing. And your brain is being put into a weird state of how it selects attention because of some of this circadian dysfunction. And so, second part of the light story of how computers affect us is kind of blue light and the impact to circadian rhythms and frankly being stuck inside all the time to use our computers. And so also if we were able to spend more time outdoors and get natural sunlight and the full spectrum of the sun, that would also help entrain our circadian rhythms. Gosh, I feel like I could go on forever.

Katie: That was such a good intro into a lot of the potential downfalls of overuse, at least of modern technology. And I love that you brought in all of those points, especially the nervous system points, because I’ve been excited to see more talk of nervous system health and alignment in kind of the mainstream lately. And I feel like this is an area that’s not talked about still enough within that conversation.

You know, we’re talking about our cortisol levels and signaling safety without, I feel like enough conversation about how light is actually the master signaling mechanism for this. And how, if we’re thinking of our human body and how it signals safety and health, I would put personally put light above even what food we’re eating or other inputs that we’re putting in because of just how, like you explained, it’s so vital to sort of every organ system, to our circadian alignment, to our sleep, which is also sort of a master switch of health as well. And so I feel like this point just isn’t looked at enough when it comes to health. We all want to take the fancy supplements or be on the like specific nuanced diet. But to me, this is a bigger factor worth really looking into.

Same with flicker. I don’t feel like flicker is talked about enough. And in fact, I haven’t even posted about this yet, but I did this in my own house a while back taking slow-mo videos of all the light bulbs. And I was shocked how many of them had flicker and just changing that out, changing all the bulbs to be flicker free. It felt like taking a deep breath and like, oh, in my house. And we don’t think about that because we’re so acclimated to it. It’s everywhere.

But I feel like these points that you just talked about are absolutely potentially game changers and ones that we don’t necessarily think to look at. And I feel like to your point as well, it all kind of goes back to what I’ve sort of been calling nature deficit disorder because of our modern lifestyle and our ability to sort of live indoors at all times and never have to go outside. We’ve created the conditions of nature deficit disorder when I think if the more to the degree that we are in nature more is the degree that we are healthier. And if we’re going to be indoors and separate from nature, it’s like, how do we create an environment that as closely as possible lets us still be in alignment with nature? And it sounds like that was kind of your mission in this project you took on is like, how do we help technology to come more in alignment with nature?

Anjan: I love that nature deficit disorder. And I feel that it so captures the core of this. I mean, like, who am I kidding? Technology is still something that is manmade. It is still something that is inherently a creation of ours. But why can’t we make it more natural, right? Like, yeah, maybe there’s some contradiction there at some point, but I think there’s so much more we can do to make it more natural.

And what’s cool, I think, about making something more natural is it’s healthier, but it also allows us to be more productive, right? Like a flow state is a way to be when, you know, back in the day when we were hunting, we were in a flow state or we were in touch with the world. And so I think what’s really cool here is like, what is good for you is better for you across so many dimensions. And the more and more we’re learning what aspects of nature we took for granted, they’re a key part of us functioning, the more and more hopefully now we can implement that wisdom.

And that’s the way I think about it is. It’s the science of the stuff is coming out, the experience in our own life. I love your example of changing out the light bulbs because I have a bunch of friends. I’m in Silicon Valley and they’re in tech. And they’re like, what are you talking about? Computers don’t disassociate us. You know, affect our nervous system. I’m like, dude, look at your body. Like you’re like completely tense. And then you go camping for a week away from screens and EMFs and everything. And you sleep like a baby and your body’s loose and you’re just like, I can breathe.

And so in a way it’s self-reinforcing, Katie, because your nervous system is shot. You don’t even notice the ways in which you’re not your full self. You’re not loose. You’re not fully breathing and allowing yourself. And how are you going to ever fully think well, if you’re not safe, if you’re in a place of dysregulated nervous system? I mean, that is the point of the nervous system being like on alert is it’s not about relaxing and reflecting and noticing. It’s about safety and vigilance and a spotlight attention, so to speak.

And so, I feel the more we have people who aren’t just, sorry to put it pejoratively, but like dissociated autists making technology and more people who are in their body and can feel, I think more we can realize, hey, this, the status quo is, is not, it’s not great.

And, the science is kind of starting to prove this out too. There’s a term called screen apnea. There’s this disorder sleep apnea, when you sleep, you stop breathing and you stop breathing well. And it kind of has like massive implications on the rest of your life. You’re tired, your cardiovascular health and so on. This is a big problem. And so somebody called this phenomenon with screens and it’s flicker called screen apnea. Where when you’re on screens versus a paper book or a Kindle or a thing like that, when you’re on your iPad or iPhone, you actually breathe less. Your breathing rate goes down. And your tidal volume, how much you breathe, also goes down.

And so we are literally breathing in a way that makes us anxious when we’re on screens because of that flicker, because of the bright light. And that blew my mind when I saw that that’s just happening to all of us. And like, holy mackerel. You know, like no wonder we’re stimming and numbing and escaping and avoiding and distracting and getting addicted. It’s like binging food when you’re stressed. We’re all essentially a little bit more stressed than we need to be with screens. And that’s very convenient for all the social media and so on that then makes a lot of money from us getting distracted and addicted and binging on the information and the dopamine and the content.

That was also a big aha for me is when the physiological impact of a computer with its light is actually feeding a lot more of the kind of attention economy incentives to keep us stimming and numbing ourselves. Like, wow, it’s kind of a vicious cycle of one feeding the other.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. And I think about how all of these things we’re talking about are almost amplified when we think of them in young kids, especially because they are wired to be even more susceptible and in tune with their environment because they’re sort of building their mind, but also their interaction with their environment and how they move through the world. So they’re like hyper attuned to these things and that’s sort of becoming their baseline at such a young age. And this is the first generation that we’re actually seeing this happen in.

But also to your point, you mentioned camping and it sort of like within a week, things being able to change. And I know there was actually a study that they call the camping study that looked at this and that saw that even in one week away from artificial light, that our bodies, our nervous systems, our circadian biology, our hormones, our melatonin, all kind of come back into equilibrium.

And so to your point, like nature is the antidote to all these problems we’re facing as is using technology to our advantage instead of just accepting what is, but creating better solutions through technology itself. And I feel like this is where we have really cool resources like the one you’ve created now. And I’m super excited for this part because the other thing, the flip side of this, you know, we’ve talked about the downsides of technology. There’s also, of course, tremendous upside. My entire, what I do and my passion in life and getting to blog and podcast, these things didn’t exist before technology. Getting to write a book on a computer instead of a typewriter is a massive benefit. So there’s, of course, tremendous benefits to technology, but with great power comes great responsibility. It’s learning how to navigate that in a modern world. And I feel like that’s what you sort of set out to kind of solve this problem for and what I’m super excited for in the Daylight Computer, which we’ve touched on only a little bit. I would love for you to explain actually what it is and how it came to be and all the work that you did to create it.

Anjan: Yeah. It’s fascinating to me to feel like it’s a wave across so many different products and so many different categories where it’s like integrating the best wisdom of the past, of the natural world, of the organic, with the kind of most awesome creative aspects of technology and modernity. And whether it be fermented food, kombucha, BPA-free, going organic, going raw, it’s the same principle. We’re going across each different area of life and that’s what makes me excited that there’s something here that is a society-rebirth thing.

And so my goal simply was to take that same principle and apply it to computers. Can I make it more natural and less artificial? And the main places I want to do that is first with the screen, because I was like, well, that’s what makes a computer. You know, my baby cousin points at the computer, she doesn’t point at the little desktop tower, she points at the monitor, like that is our main interface to computers. So I wanted to make a computer screen that was matching how we evolved, solves the evolutionary mismatch. And that meant three things to me. It meant removing blue light, removing flicker, and being able to use it outside in the sun.

And, the core insight was most things that we look at in the natural world, they don’t produce light. They don’t emit light. They simply bounce the light of the sun or whatever else you have in the environment. They are reflective rather than emissive. And so there is a category of screens like the Kindle, which is they’re called e-paper. And what’s cool about them is compared to normal computer screens, which shine light, emit light, they’re like a flashlight, these are more like pieces of paper or a newspaper or a magazine or a table where it’s bouncing or reflecting the light. It’s an analog object.

And that’s like kind of cool. I became like obsessed with the idea. Wait a minute. That’s not really computer screen, this artificial world of like bright lights and shininess. This is more like an analog object. Where the ink happens to move. It’s almost like Tom Riddle’s diary or the Marauder’s Map from Harry Potter, where for all intents and purposes, it’s an analog paper-like thing, but it’s kind of magical and interactive and dynamic, i.e. computational.

So I got obsessed with the idea, if we can take these e-paper screens, we can make a whole category of healthier computers because they reflect light, they can be used outside in the sun. They can be used without producing light. They don’t have flicker. They don’t produce blue light.

And so kind of what I then wanted to do was, oh, gosh, if you do have this paper-like screen, you could also create a software, an operating system that had a total different set of values that was focused and minimalist and had notifications off by default and kind of pushed away social media apps and things that were addicting and distracting. And instead kind of carved out the good free parts of computing, you know, reading, writing. Audiobooks, listen to podcasts. Typing into Google Docs, like the stuff where you wouldn’t say like, oh gosh, screen time. You know?

And so, this was kind of the whole premise I had, a healthier, focused operating system on top of an analog, paper-like, more natural computer display. The problem with the existing e-paper displays is by material science, they’re incredibly slow. So if you’ve ever used a Kindle paperweight, just to flip the page, you know, it takes a second. If you want to type, you know, the letters show up like half a second after you do it. This is not because the chip is slow or something like that. It’s actually the display technology.

Historically, this e-paper technology has been really slow at moving the black ink around. So you can’t really use it for more than reading Harry Potter or taking some basic notes. If you want to use it to replace the computer screen in a Chromebook or in an iPad or in your phone, it wouldn’t be able to handle, it wouldn’t be able to scroll, it wouldn’t be able to type, you know, you wouldn’t be able to have animations for Khan Academy or whatever it may be, scrolling through a Google Doc.

And so the core thing that took six years from beginning to end was inventing a way to make kind of the first high refresh rate e-paper screen, or another way to put it, it’s kind of the first blue light free, flicker free, use it outdoors in the sun computer screen that doesn’t strain your eyes or impinge on your nervous system. And so that’s kind of the core thing we invented. We call it Live Paper. And the hope is we can come out with a whole set of computers that are based on this more natural computing screen technology.

Our first product is a tablet because we thought that’s useful for a wide variety of people, especially kids. But even my grandma, who’s just doing the crossword puzzle at night and folks like me and you who have lots to read and write and take notes. In a way, it’s a replacement for a legal pad or a printout or an iPad. But the hope is to create a phone that’s distraction-free and healthier, a Chromebook that’s distraction-free and healthier, and kind of create a whole new category of computing that really prioritizes health and wellness and focus.

And, yeah, it’s been six years to kind of invent the technology and we finally just launched this year. So it’s super exciting to be able to share about it and kind of hopefully more and more people realizing how current technology is a little more junk food than you want it to be. And there’s this potential for, you know, more natural organic technology.

Katie: Yeah, this is why I was so excited to have you on when I got a Daylight Computer and then when I was learning about all of the ways that you’ve sort of brought us back to a more natural interaction with technology through the way you developed it. Because I know a lot of moms, we hear about the downsides of too much screen time and the downsides of too much blue light and all the attention issues that you just mentioned. And like we also talked about, there are wonderful advantages to technology and getting to learn and getting to write.

And I feel like you managed to create a resource that I feel like is especially valuable for parents. And I can feel good about giving this to my kids, even at night, if they want to read Kindle books, like you said, or listen to an audio book or a podcast or work on their schoolwork and write in Google Docs without the blue light, without the flicker.

And even for myself, this has become my travel computer and my nighttime computer. And what I’ve noticed is that I’m typically more productive because there are not the notifications. I can’t get distracted by the notifications in the same way I do on my phone or my computer. And I’m able to do more deep work without the sleep disruption. So I also find myself getting tired more easily, but able to kind of tap into the creative work until that point more easily.

And I’m hopeful this is kind of going to lead the charge of a new wave where we learn how to use technology to our advantage rather than in a way that’s not biologically aligned. And I’d be curious what kind of you view as the next steps of that and what kind of is next for you guys at Daylight Computer as well.

Anjan: Yeah, I’m really inspired by this book called Brave New World. And Neil Postman has a great line in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, which I find talking about what happens in an increasingly screen-based culture. And his point is 1984 said, what we have to fear is those who oppress us. And Brave New World said, what we have to fear is those who love us to death. This kind of fake love that is this content, that’s this overstimulation, that’s this indulgence, that’s these distractions. It’s this candy, these little things you snack on, you know, that a computer is filled with.

And so in a way, I just think like to your point, what happens to this next generation when we are surrounded by these absolutely overstimulating objects that have been engineered to be as addicting as possible? And we have, it’s, you can’t be a Luddite and say no to it because that’s where you have to do your schoolwork. That’s where it’s like some of the best resources for learning. It’s such an impossible situation. I empathize with a lot of yeah, the parents are like, oh my God, this is such a hard thing to navigate.

And so I think the hope here is how do we make the least computer possible? How do we make like the least screen timey screen time? How do we kind of reduce technology away from being a hyper stimulating object to kind of just being a tool, just something that you kind of pick up, you do what you need to do, learn, get your work done, and you put it away.

And one of my favorite frames from one of our early customers is he was like oh for my son it’s the daylight and playing an educational game on it is more interesting than picking his nose or bullying his sister, but it’s less interesting than the backyard. And that to me felt like exactly what technology should be. It should not be more colorful than the rest of your life. But it hopefully provides some magic over what you can do just with pen and paper.

And so what’s ahead for us, I think it’s just getting deeply into community, spending a lot of time with moms and other folks, teachers, kind of really sussing out which parts of technology are worth keeping and you have to have, how can we best support it and how can we best protect against all the harms of it. And really just listening. I feel like a lot of technology is made by an ivory tower in Cupertino, California, kind of telling us all what it is and hey, look, oh, look how beautiful and sexy it is. And, just feels to me, this kind of more homespun organic bottoms up movement of more less industrial, more personal, more organic, healthier technology could be really helpful.

I was kind of showing you before the podcast, but we made a case for it, it’s a flyknit wool weave. So you’re holding a natural material and it’s got a little bit of squish to it. And it just makes it not feel like a computer. And so give us a couple of years. These may not even look like computers. It may look more like Tom Riddle’s diary or a moleskin or something. And I think that would be really cool to have these kind of magical objects in our lives that help us. But for all intents and purposes, they’re just tools and appliances. I get out of the way.

So that’s kind of what I’m really inspired by is this potentially new trajectory to personal computing versus the current trajectory of, hey, let’s stick something on your face and your kid’s face and they’re going to live inside a computer all day. And I just, I just, that’s not the world I want to live in.

Katie: Agreed. And I love that you’re even looking at natural materials for the cases because I’ve been on a quest myself to switch out as much of my wardrobe for natural materials as possible. So cotton, linen, wool, etc. Just because even knowing how our body feels different, we have plastic on it all day versus natural fibers. I love that you even took that into account. And this will be hopefully none of my kids are listening. They usually don’t but a big part of their Christmas this year will be Daylight Computers for a lot of them so that they like me can do their work at night without disrupting their sleep, which as a mom is a huge advantage to me.

And I think like we began the conversation with the other side of this too is like using new technology like this that isn’t harmful and prioritizing time in nature as much as possible. I think for our kids, especially that cannot be talked about enough. And I love that the Daylight Computer also works in the sunshine because I spend as much time as possible in the sunshine and I can now work there as well.

But I love that you took all of this into account in creating this and how obvious your passion for this is. And especially as a mom, how this is such a great solution for kids. So I just want to say thank you so much for creating this for educating us on this today and for the work that you’re doing around this whole area. I’m deeply grateful for what you’re doing.

Anjan: It means so much to be able to, after six years in the shadows, making this to be able to share and hopefully get it out into the world. It’s very personal for me. I’m like very ADHD. I have seasonal affective disorder. And so I’ve just felt so hurt by computers. I felt like my self-esteem so went out the window. I’m always like, ah, I suck. I’m getting distracted. Ah, I suck. I’m procrastinating.

And so, some of the most meaningful parts of the now getting this into the hands of people is seeing others with ADHD, not blame themselves as much because on the Daylight, they’re not getting distracted to the same way because the screen levels the playing field. Yeah. It’s just, that to me is so inspiring where we don’t need to feel like we’re dumb. We don’t need to feel like, we suck. It’s just, hey, these things were not built for us. You know, they’re mismatched. And if you were set up the environment in the right way, we could really bloom and blossom and be a version of ourselves that we all kind of knew we had the potential for.

And so, I’m just so, so excited to see how many more people start to gain some confidence in themselves, gain some of their health back and who knows what’s possible, what books, what blogs, what essays, what, what drawings. And that to me is, is, is what’s most exciting. Thanks again for giving me a chance to share.

Katie: And for any of you guys listening on the go, I will have links to the Daylight Computer and some follow-up resources on a lot of these topics we covered today in the show notes at wellnessmama.com. But this has been such an enlightening and fun conversation. I’m deeply grateful for your time. Thank you so much for being here.

Anjan: Thanks, Katie. And anybody can reach out to me at anjan@daylightcomputer.com. I’m always looking to talk to people in terms of what features or what things you would want in a computer. And we’re all ears to try to build that. So, thanks again for having me on.

Katie: And thank you as always for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.