Digital Minimalism and why it doesn’t mean what you think it does.

Photo by David van Dijk on Unsplash

Last month I picked up Cal newport’s Digital Minimalism and boy, did it change my whole perspective about how I approached the concept of minimalism, it made me realize how misinterpreted the idea of Digital Minimalism is online, and how much control these “services” had over my life. In this article I condense the foundational section of the book into paragraphs which encapsulate the main ideas behind the topics discussed.

Cal starts by mentioning a 2016, 7000-word essay by Arthur Sullivan, for the New York magazine, titled “I Used to Be a Human Being”, describing its subtitle, “An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you too” as alarming. This led Cal to delve into the topic regarding the influence which the internet has over the people living in the modern age. The internet is powerful, there is no doubt to that (Thats how you are reading this article), How google maps helps when you are helplessly lost in a foreign city, or how you can facetime your mom living a 1000 km away, I can give countless other examples where the internet has helped countless people. However, this is where Cal makes a distinction, “It’s not about usefulness it’s about autonomy” this is what this book is about, Digital Minimalism is not about removing internet from your life, but it’s about how you take control of it. Cal backs this notion, by stating that “this” is not what we signed up for, a user creating an account on ‘thefacebook.com’ in 2004 to look up classmates, would have never imagined that an average user would spend two hours per day on the app. A user picking up an iPhone in 2006 to listen to music AND make phone calls (which was how the original iPhone was advertised to be) would never have imagined that this phone, would be check 87 times per day compulsively by him. These changes happened really fast, and it is not our fault as users for getting hooked on these technologies, which leads us to the next part;A Lopsided Arms Race

as mentioned in the last part, an average user signing up on ‘thefacebook.com’ would never have imagined that this app (or website in this case) would end up eating up to 2 hours of his day. This however is not the users’ fault, these big tech companies have whole teams there to design every aspect of their app to be as addicting as possible, banking of the human physiology of boredom. Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer said, holding up his smartphone, “This thing is a slot machine”, He goes on to compare pulling the act of pulling the lever in a slot machine, to that of opening Facebook, or clicking on the notification, the philosophy is the same, you pull the lever, you intently await a prize, and receive it, that thrill, excitement, is what hooks you on a slot machine, Tech companies use a myriad of similar tricks, to get you hooked on Clicking the notification, awaiting the reward which in this case is just the lack of boredom, then getting the reward, the same thrill and excitement is what gets you hooked onto these Social media apps, this is what Cal meant when he said “It’s not about usefulness, it’s about autonomy”, how much can your resist that urge to check your phone when bored, or open up Facebook, YouTube or Instagram? in the next section, Cal describes certain set of philosophies and a call to action, to apply those philosophies onto your life

Digital Minimalism

So, now that you know, how addictive these sites and apps are, what’s the solution? Digital minimalism. as the book states,

“ Digital minimalism is the philosophy of technology use where you focus your online activity on a small number of curated and highly optimized activites, happily missing out on everything else.”

This idea is misinterpreted online as “Minimalism” when in reality, cleaning up your inbox is not minimalism, its organization, minimalism would be to unsubscribe to all of those newsletters except those which truly support your principals. So here are the basic ideas of Digital Minimalism

• Clutter is costly; Digital minimalist recognize the value each app or service brings to their life, instead of measuring the Inherent value of an app by “flashy new features” value them based on life; How much value does 20 minutes on twitter bring me? the answer to this is something you have to decide.
• Optimization is important; Facebook can be a powerful networking tool if used properly, but by default, it is designed to be this addictive app where you spend two hours each day upon, so you must optimize it (say for example, blocking all the notifications, only checking it when YOU want) according to your needs for it to be tool and not a distraction.
• Intentionality is satisfying; Having a single app, that’s highly optimized to add great value to your life, becoming a meaningful asset rather than being just another distraction is better than having 100s which bring no importance.

Now that we have put forward the foundation of the philosophy, how can you apply it to your life? The answer to that, is the Digital Declutter.

Digital Declutter

We have discussed the ill effects of social media, and the principals of digital minimalism, now let’s discuss how you can adopt and integrate these principals in your life. Digital declutter is simple,

• You put aside a thirty-day period in which you will take a break from the technologies in your life; Note — This isn’t a detox where you are strictly forbidden to use the internet, rather this is just for you to get read of all the Facebook(s) and Instagram(s) of your life, if your school or work requires you to use them, then go ahead, just keep the idea in check on your personal time.
• During this break, explore and rediscover your past hobbies or create new ones, these hobbies can range from Art, sports to even Computer Programming it needs to be something other than mindlessly spending your life in the screen.
• At the end, reintroduce the technologies into your life, this time, take it slow, think about why you are reinstalling the said service, and did you really feel the lack of the said service in the 30-day period? if so, then go ahead install it. You can also think of ways to use these services to support the hobbies; For example, say you like book reading, try joining an online community, or maybe go onto Goodreads and write about the book you read, or simply post about the book you are reading on Instagram.

The purpose of this declutter is to reduce the distraction in your life, picking up on a hobby, and then reintroducing technology in a way it suits that hobby or your lifestyle the best.

Conclusion

Digital Minimalism just makes you rethink about your time spent online, then using internet in a way that supports you as a person, instead of being just another way to satisfy your boredom. This book was an awesome read, this is just the foundational section of it, in the second part, Cal goes onto describe how you may structure your hobbies, activities you should practice and a whole lot more, I personally think everyone should read this book, and realize that Digital Minimalism isn’t just about using monochrome wallpapers, and throwing junk mails in trash, it’s much more than that.

ps — this is my first article so if I made any mistakes feel free to point out in the comments