00:00Welcome back to Bloomberg This Weekend. I'm Christina Raffini with David Gurra.
00:03We've talked a lot about AI. It has streamlined work and home life for many people.
00:07It also includes some hobbies that have historically been technology-free.
00:11One such hobby is birding, which saw a boom post-pandemic.
00:15Bloomberg Pursuits looked at how smartphones are changing this and other hobbies.
00:19We spoke with writer Alexandra Marvar.
00:22Talk a bit about what's made this so popular.
00:25So I have this Merlin app from the Cornell Ornithology Lab.
00:29Do you actually have it on your phone?
00:30I do have it on my phone.
00:31Of course you do, giant dork.
00:32It does both things. I mean, it can pick up the sounds of birds.
00:36If I turn it on, it'll tell me what's in the area.
00:38You can also photograph them, and it will match the photograph to whatever species might be in whatever area I'm
00:43at.
00:44How has that changed the way that we go birding?
00:49Well, I think it's made it much easier, for one thing.
00:55To address your question about why it's become more popular,
00:58I think there's a complex variety of reasons, and one of them, you know, just during the pandemic,
01:04the fact that we were all leaving our normal routines, observing the natural world more closely,
01:10I think that helped people tap into their sort of innate interest in birds that might date back to prehistory.
01:18But now I think there's a whole other series of reasons.
01:22Like, increasingly, many outdoor pursuits are kind of booming in a sense.
01:27There's this curiosity about the natural world that feels sort of like the antithesis of AI and its infrastructure
01:34as that takes a larger role in our lives.
01:36So I think it's sort of becoming birding and similar hobbies are becoming this, like, haven
01:41or this way we develop a relationship with nature.
01:44You know, I think it feels like almost rebellious to some people.
01:47So I think that has made it a lot more popular.
01:51And then, you know, parallel to that, people are discovering these apps, and the apps are getting better,
01:56and the apps have enormous stores of new data to train from.
02:01So they're acquiring new users, and they're getting smarter at the same time.
02:06So, you know, these apps have made it easier to identify birds, as you say, in your environment in multiple
02:12ways,
02:13and to find them through, like, GPS locations.
02:17As I was reading your article, I was like, oh, that's cool.
02:19You can kind of keep track of all the birds you've seen and, like, get a little list.
02:22And I like to be competitive.
02:23And I was like, oh, I could win at birding.
02:24But then people who are really into this is like, that's the exact opposite of what the original intention of
02:30this was.
02:31And if you're out there on your phone the whole time, it kind of defeats the purpose of maybe dialing
02:35out of all those technologies.
02:37I mean, maybe.
02:38You know, for some people, birding is really, it's like a sport.
02:43It's very competitive.
02:45There are leaderboards and, you know, targets to hit.
02:47And for other people, it's this sort of meditative way of spending time in nature.
02:52It's like filter through which to see the natural world.
02:55So I think it depends on who you are.
02:57But, I mean, I think people largely agree.
03:01Everyone I've talked to in the last year nearly about this feels that these apps are, you know, really a
03:09good thing.
03:09They're making it easier.
03:11They're welcoming new people into this pursuit, helping people kind of understand what it is.
03:18But it's also like I think we need to, you know, we're at this point in the world where we
03:25need to take stock of what we really enjoy doing and then understand, you know, do I enjoy doing this
03:31because it's challenging me, because I feel intellectually challenged or, you know, because I feel like it requires some physical
03:39or intellectual effort from me to participate.
03:43Because we're constantly being offered these ways that things are easier.
03:48And, you know, if we make this, like, conscious decision, you know, to use those things or not, it changes
03:54the way our hobbies feel to us and what we get out of them.
03:58You've taken us right where I want to go.
03:59Because, so, I grew up, my dad is a hobbyist, birder, my sister is an ornithologist, and I remember walking
04:05with both of them, and they've developed this kind of corpus of knowledge.
04:09My dad can identify tons of birds by sound.
04:13Sister can do the same thing.
04:14She's got, like, a great encyclopedic registry of all of the birds where she lives out in Wyoming and out
04:20west.
04:21It's funny, like, you can think of these apps as a gateway, but it's not leading to the kind of
04:24rigorous engagement that you would have had in the past.
04:26You don't have to build up this kind of corpus of knowledge that you would have had to in the
04:29past.
04:29And I wonder, sort of, what's lost in the context of birding, but maybe in some of these other hobbies
04:34more generally?
04:35I think of, like, sky watching, star watching is another one where you don't have to do the work.
04:39What does that take away from the pursuit?
04:41What did people tell you about that?
04:43I mean, for some people, it doesn't take away anything.
04:46They want an escape.
04:48They want to relax.
04:49They want, you know, something that feels simple and easy.
04:52But for other people, you know, they're there to learn, and they like the feeling of getting better.
04:59And, you know, I talked to a cognitive psychologist who studies learning and memory, and he was, you know, explaining
05:05to me this concept of desirable difficulty.
05:08Difficulty in learning and memory is a good thing.
05:11It means your brain is doing the work.
05:13It's creating pathways to this information that you can access in the future.
05:18And so when we're learning a new subject or a new hobby, and we hit a wall of understanding where
05:23the material becomes challenging, we might mistake that as not being good at something.
05:28But that's the moment where we are actually improving cognitively.
05:33Do you have either a favorite bird that you've seen or heard or something that you're really dying to see
05:38or hear?
05:39Holy grail.
05:39Yeah, or your white whale, as our producer was calling it.
05:42And there's this bird called the Screaming Pia in the Amazon that sounds like a bomb dropping.
05:47It makes this, like, whistling descent of a fall.
05:50Do you want to give us your rendition of it?
05:52No, no, I wouldn't dare.
05:55But please, you know, download Merlin and look it up and play the sound of the Screaming Pia.
06:00But, you know, just hearing that bird in the wild is something that I got a chance to do.
06:07And as soon as I heard it, I was like, I know this one.
06:10And it was a very gratifying feeling.
06:14Yeah, I did look it up.
06:19I don't know if that sounds exactly as it was described.
06:24Well, yeah, R2-D2 we're hearing from the control room.
06:27It does sound like R2-D2.
06:28That's very true.
06:28I hope that continues throughout the show.
06:30The Screaming Pia will just keep coming out of my phone.
06:32And every time I say something annoying, you can just hit the bird call.
06:34I love that.
06:34The Screaming Pia button.
06:35I really enjoy that.
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