Long-time readers (or fans of Cal Newport) will recall that there are two kinds of work: deep work and shallow work. Deep work is difficult and important; it requires your full attention. Shallow work is easier and less important; it can be done amid distractions or interruptions. Both are necessary, but deep work is more meaningful and creates more value.
We often neglect deep work because shallow work is easier. We respond to the emails and check off the simple tasks on our to-do lists, but we avoid the challenging work we really need to do.
So if your goal is more meaningful productivity, you should prioritize deep work over shallow work. Likewise, if you want more meaningful and joyful leisure time, you should prioritize deep fun over shallow fun.
Deep Fun?
Deep fun refers to activities that you truly love to do, as opposed to shallow fun, which refers to things you merely like to do.
This might seem like a trivial distinction, but it’s not. Life is short, and shallow fun often comes at the expense of deep fun. So if you want to make the most of your brief time on this Earth, you’d be wise to spend less of your time on shallow fun.
For example, I love birding. For me, going out in nature with my binoculars and looking for birds is deep fun. I also enjoy looking at photographs taken by other birders. I follow two different birding groups on Facebook (and I’ve unfollowed everyone else), so my newsfeed is all birds. For me, looking at birds on Facebook is shallow fun. Which one brings me more joy? Actual birding, of course. And at least some of the time I spend on Facebook is time I could spend going outside with my binoculars.
Whatever your favorite things to do are, they’re probably deep fun: hobbies and passions like skiing, making art, playing board games, dancing, hiking, and reading. Few people would honestly say their favorite things in life are Instagram and Candy Crush.
What constitutes deep fun varies from person to person, but there are certain features that are common to deep fun. If you keep these in mind, you’ll have an easier time distinguishing between deep and shallow fun, empowering you to make better use of your free time.
Depth of Engagement
The most important hallmark of deep fun is the depth of engagement it provides and requires. Deep fun is fully engaging, and you can’t do it while distracted. It often provides the opportunity for flow or the cultivation of passion. Shallow fun neither requires your full attention nor manages to capture your full attention.
Let’s say you love basketball. Compare the depth of engagement you’d experience from the following:
- Playing basketball
- Watching a live basketball game at the arena
- Watching a live basketball game on television
- Checking updates about a basketball game on your phone
If you love basketball, all of these are fun. But the depth of that fun decreases as we go down the list. This example demonstrates that deep and shallow fun are not black-and-white categories, but rather a spectrum. Satisfaction increases as we go deeper.
True Social Connection
The hallmark of deep social fun is that it involves real personal connection. This is why spending time with friends is far more satisfying than seeing what your friends are up to on social media.
My favorite hobby is playing board games. These days, it’s possible to play board games online with strangers, but I prefer the meaningful social connection of playing games in person with my friends.
The spectrum idea applies here, too. Compare the level of social connection from the following:
- Playing a video game with three of your friends in your living room.
- Playing a video game with three of your friends online (each friend is in their own home).
- Playing a video game online with strangers.
Deeper social connection means deeper fun.
Production Value
The most insidious form of shallow fun is an entirely modern phenomenon: short-form video. It started with YouTube and evolved into the now ubiquitous super-short videos seen on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Many people now spend hours every week watching videos that range in length from ten minutes to ten seconds. These videos are mostly made by amateurs or, increasingly, by AI.
Compare the production value of such videos to the production value of a television series or a movie. The amount of time, money, expertise, and creativity that goes into making an actual film or series is vastly greater than what goes into short-form videos. That’s why watching long-form video is usually a lot more satisfying than watching short-form video. So if you’re going to spend your time watching something, choose media with a higher production value.
The same goes for playing video games. There are countless poorly made but addictive games you can play on your phone. The production value of such games is vastly inferior to the production value of an actual video game for PC, Nintendo, or Xbox. Phone games are shallow fun compared to traditional video games.
Deep Fun is Good For You
The final hallmark of deep fun is that it’s usually good for you in some way.
Deep fun often facilitates personal growth. It frequently involves learning, creativity, or pushing your limits. Many forms of deep fun involve exercise and spending time outdoors.
Deep fun is also restorative. It is not merely recreation, but true re-creation, as Stephen Covey puts it in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. We need deep fun to recover from stress.
Deep fun, like its counterpart deep work, is a core feature of living well. To live “the good life,” you should make deep fun a priority.
The Good Life
Shallow fun is largely a modern phenomenon. The easy-access entertainment we find on our phones and computers didn’t exist for our ancestors. Their lives consisted of work, deep fun, and stillness. In this regard, we’d be wise to design our lives to look more like theirs.
I’m not saying you should eliminate shallow fun entirely, and I’m not saying shallow fun is inherently bad. I’m saying we should be mindful about the time we spend on shallow fun and consider if it’s costing us precious time for deep fun.
The typical arguments against shallow fun are that it’s a distraction from your work, that it’s a form of procrastination, or that it keeps you in a constant state of stimulation, which shortens your attention span and keeps your stress level high. These can all be true, but I don’t think they’re as important as the opportunity cost I’ve described here.
A large part of what makes life worth living is deep fun: the activities that bring us joy and fill our lives with meaning, passion, and connection. It has become too easy to mindlessly spend so much time on shallow fun that we rarely have time for deep fun. That is the problem with shallow fun.
So when you have some leisure time, and you find yourself drawn to shallow fun, pause. Ask yourself, “What else do I want to do?” Consider what deep fun activity you might do instead. And then ask yourself, “What do I want more?”
Chris Loper has been writing about self-improvement and helping busy adults with habit formation since 2017.
He also writes an education blog for parents and students for Northwest Educational Services.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the cocreator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of transformative classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
His most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, Chris published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.