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The Watermelon Problem 🍉
Millions of people watched a livestream of two people exploding a watermelon with rubber bands — for hours. The internet is built to colonize attention, and where your attention goes, your life goes.
Today's Plan
- ☕ Catch up & popcorn20 min
- 🍉 Chapter summary10 min
- 💬 Discussion questions25 min
- 🌱 One take-away each5 min
1 · Catch Up ☕
First 20 minutes
Before we get into the chapter, let's land together. Fire up the popcorn picker and share whatever feels right:
- How was your week — actually?
- One thing your attention got eaten by this week (no judgment).
- One thing you're glad about right now.
2 · Chapter Summary 🍉
10 minutes
A walk through Chapter 5 — attention as the substance of life, the watermelon livestream as a parable, and the case that distraction is the business model, not a side effect.
3 · Discussion Questions 💬
25 minutes
Pick the ones that feel interesting — no need to go in order.
- Burkeman's claim is that attention isn't a resource for life — it is life. Does that frame change how you think about a typical evening on your phone?
- What's your version of the watermelon — content you've consumed for hours that, looking back, you can't even remember and didn't really enjoy?
- Where does your attention go when you're not steering it? What does that say about what's happening underneath?
- The chapter argues distraction isn't a side effect of modern tech — it's the product. How does that change how you feel about your own habits?
- What's something you used to do for fun that became "content" — and did the shift help or harm it?
- If you could only spend attention on three things this week (besides essentials), what would they be? What's already eating the time those three should get?
- What's one small experiment you could run this week to see what your attention is actually like when you stop feeding it?
4 · One Take-Away 🌱
Last 5 minutes
Around the group, one sentence each:
- One thing you're taking with you from today.
- One thing you'll actually pay attention to this week.
Notes from the session
Filled in after we meet