Apple CEO Tim Cook: “Hiking is my meditation”

Apple CEO Tim Cook: “Hiking is my meditation”

 

Tim Cook Apple

Apple boss warns against mindless scrolling, says he unplugs with walks in nature.

Some may feel Apple CEO Tim Cook has no business talking about the merits of being offline. But just being in tech does not disqualify him from speaking on the subject. Life is such that online and offline both have to be straddled.

At the New York Times DealBook conference on November 9, Cook discouraged users from purposeless scrolling. Some saw it as a veiled attack on Facebook, but his words had some truth.



“If you’re scrolling mindlessly or letting yourself being spun up on negativity, I think this is bad,” Cook told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “I think it’s bad for your mental health. I think it’s bad for the people around you.”

Cook said living a connected life can be healthy as long as people unplug and recharge on a regular basis. His own way of doing this is spending a lot of time outdoors.

“My meditation is hiking,” Cook said. “It’s the being out in nature and feeling so insignificant in the world, and a lot of the problems tend to seem a little smaller.”

According to a 2020 report from social media management platform Hootsuite, nearly half of the world’s total population—3.8 billion people, out of 7.9 billion—now uses some form of social media. On average, these users spend at least two hours and 24 minutes per day scrolling through various apps.



There is also evidence that excessive time spent on the phone damages mental health. Several studies have exposed a link between increased social media use and depression and anxiety.

Cook knows Apple’s own products contribute to people being online. He said it’s therefore become his company’s responsibility to help users realize just how often they’re staring at screens. He told Bustle in October that this was the rationale behind the company’s 2018 release of the Screen Time app, which shows users how much time they’re spending on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

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