Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where your time is well spent even though you should probably be doing something else.

3 things worth procrastilearning over

1. The reason Dubai chocolate is so popular

Three years ago, nobody had heard of Dubai chocolate. But now every supermarket chain has brought out their own version of it. This gooey mix was apparently started by a pregnant lady living in Dubai who had weird cravings and combined some ingredients to make a new dessert. A few years later, it's everywhere. But its popularity isn’t just some organic viral fluke - it’s been quietly orchestrated thanks to the popularity of 'mukbang', namely the phenomenon of watching people eat indulgent food on the Internet.

Mukbang, which started in South Korea, has become huge. There’s a whole supply chain of businesses sending free food (with profits in mind), often with a payment attached, to anyone who can get enough online eyeballs on themselves “unboxing” it and devouring it.

Maria Vehera is now the poster child for the mukbang circuit, as she’s the influencer a couple of years ago everybody started sharing as they watched her eat a strange new chocolate bar from Dubai. She looks like she doesn't eat much at all (like many mukbangers, suspiciously), yet she’s carved out a niche regularly shoving masses of calories into her gob in front of a huge audience.

@mariavehera257

@fixdessertchocolatier WOW, JUST WOW!!! Can’t explain how good these are! When a chocolate, a dessert and a piece of art meet this is what... See more

In case you're wondering why people like mukbang at all, apparently one of the main draws is the sound people make as they eat all this stuff. Some people find it relaxing… Not me 😆 

The pandemic was when the phenomenon became really popular - many people were sitting at home and eating alone, so it became nice to pretend you were eating with somebody else via the screen beside you, especially if they were eating something you couldn't get off your local Ubereats driver.

Humanity is so weird - don’t you just love it?

2. Reading for pleasure is declining

Turns out, curling up with a book is becoming a vintage hobby - a recent study highlighted in the New York Times shows the number of Americans reading for fun has plummeted by a whopping 40% since 2004. Only 16% now say they read for pleasure on any given day, down from 28% at the start of the millennium. (And yes, this counts books, magazines, e-books and audiobooks. No literary bias here.) So yep, it looks like doom-scrolling has officially replaced page-turning as the pastime of choice.

But before you start assuming “well that's just Americans for you”, don’t get too smug: the same thing is happening around the globe. In the UK, young readers’ love for books is at its lowest in decades according to the National Literacy Trust's latest report, and, although it's better than the UK and US, it's not great in continental Europe either (unless you're from Luxembourg or Switzerland, for some reason).

Digital distractions, busy schedules and dwindling attention spans are international phenomena, so I assume there are similar statistics to be found in every country. Whether you’re in Seattle or Szczecin, taking time for a little pleasure reading is fast becoming a radical act. Next time you finish a book chapter, you now have permission to feel like a bit of a punk.

3. Dolphins are in meditative states all the time

Dolphins have been outperforming your meditation app for millions of years.

While we silly humans leave our basic functions (like breathing) on autopilot, dolphins flex their aquatic mindfulness by breathing consciously every single time. Their brain does something called “unihemispheric sleep“ - half their brain stays on guard while the other side naps, all to keep one watery eye out and to remember (yes, remember) to take their next life-saving breath.

What's crazy is this disciplined breathwork doesn’t just keep dolphins alive, it might keep them zen. Every breath a dolphin takes is deliberate, so every moment is present and mindful. Scientists have found their brains naturally hum along at the kinds of synchronised, alpha-theta wave frequencies we foolish humans pay good money to chase at yoga retreats. Some think this is why people like swimming with dolphins so much - their advanced brainwave patterns help chill out our own monkey ones.

For those of us who can't afford to swim with dolphins, you can always try guided “dolphin breath” meditations on YouTube (whether they do much is doubtful, but they are entertaining).

2 quotes to keep in mind

1 simple tip to access really good AI for free

Get a free year of Perplexity Pro via your Paypal account via this link.

Perplexity.ai has set up a new deal with Paypal - if you hook up your Paypal account to Perplexity, you get Perplexity Pro for a whole year for free (it's normally $20 per month, so you're saving yourself $240). I'm not sure now long it’ll be available but I jumped on it when I found the deal, and it took about a minute to setup too. If you have a Paypal account, I think it's a no-brainer.

In case you're wondering, I found the deal here. It was posted by a German with a PhD in Computer Science, and you can't get more legit than that, surely.

That's all for today. Many thanks for reading.

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff

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