In AI and data lectures, we often hear about the Caveman Law—a simple but sticky idea from behavioral design. Michio Kaku has spoken about this principle arguing that while our technologies have evolved rapidly, our brains largely have not. Primitive human desires –comfort, predictability, and cognitive ease – tend to override technological adoption when in conflict.

I still vividly remember our professor saying “because humans are lazy”.

I understand the logic. But I don’t accept the conclusion.

We are often told that if we resist certain technologies, it is because we are lazy, nostalgic, or fundamentally afraid of change. The “caveman” label quietly shifts responsibility onto the individual: you just haven’t adapted yet. But what if resistance is not a failure to adapt? What if it’s making a conscious choice?

We live in the attention economy—an ecosystem built not just for convenience, but for capturing and holding our time, focus, and behavioral data. Many of today’s platforms don’t make life simpler in a human sense; they make it noisier, more fragmented, and more exhausting.

Endless scrolling, carefully curated recommendations, and emotionally charged feeds don’t happen by chance. They are designed to keep us hooked, not to make us feel at ease.

So when I find myself spending less time on Instagram by choosing to scroll for just a few seconds at a time, stepping away from X, or closing Netflix, I don’t see a caveman retreating into the cave. I see someone deliberately choosing friction. I see boundaries.

There’s an important distinction we rarely make: comfort is not the same as well-being. Stability is not the same as growth. Many technologies promise ease while quietly increasing cognitive load. They remove effort in the short term but demand attention continuously. The result isn’t comfort—it’s mental fatigue over time.

I feel it even after an eight-hour workday with constant Outlook, Teams, and WhatsApp messages arriving one after another. And if I then go looking for rest and quiet on Instagram or Netflix, I only feel more depleted. If that’s what you call comfort, it isn’t working for me.

If “comfort” means being constantly stimulated, nudged, recommended to, and tracked, then opting out makes sense. Not because we fear technology, but because we expect more from it.

True human-centered innovation should give us more control, not take it away. It should help us focus, not interrupt us constantly. And it should earn our adoption by improving our lives—not by pulling us here and there.

So no, I don’t think I am the caveman in this story.

I think the real primitive idea is assuming that more consumption, more engagement, and more data extraction automatically equal progress. The more evolved response might be this: to pause, to choose consciously, and to decide where our attention truly belongs.

And sometimes, at least for me, progress looks like logging out.

Published on Linkedin.