Digital Minimalism: A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else
After publishing “Deep Work”, through readers’ feedback - both for the book and in his personal blog, Mr Newport sensed an opportunity to write another book focusing specifically on our digital life.
Somewhat ironically, as a reader, it seems to me that the better way is to read "Digital Minimalism" first, so that after you have a firm handle on your digital life, you can read “Deep Work” and explore more about how to live a deep meaningful life.
Now, the main argument of this book is that we need to seriously think and develop a philosophy, or at least a proper approach, to our relationship with technology.
_ The first reason is because most of us have never done it. We often installed a new apps because people around us did, and then after a while we realized that we have lost most of our control over the apps (remember the feeling when you just pick up your phone for a quick glance on Facebook/Instagram/etc., and when you check the clock it’s already a couple of hours).
_ Secondly, he brings up to the discussion some convincing reasons why the quick-fix tales (i.e. all the tips/tricks/tools you can easily find online) will not help us to completely and permanently reform our own digital life. The problem here is that “the underlying behaviours we hope to fix are ingrained in our culture, and they’re backed by powerful psychological forces that empower our base instincts", which are continuously developed and applied by the big tech companies like Facebook or Google.
Now, if you have a smirk reading these words, and kind of believe that you yourself can’t be tricked by these social platforms, Cal has a vivid example that might make you re-think about it:
Leah Pearlman, who was a product manager on the team that developed the “Like” button for Facebook (she was the author of the blog post announcing the feature in 2009), has become so wary of the havoc it causes that now, as a small business owner, she hires a social media manager to handle her Facebook account so she can avoid exposure to the service’s manipulation of the human social drive.
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So what is that “Digital Minimalism” philosophy Mr Newport suggests here?
It’s a very careful strategic practical approach to the issue, based on the main activity of 30-day digital declutter in which you will stop using all these digital apps. But the point here is that it’s not simply a “digital detox”, and how you use that 30 days is crucially important: it should be used to find (or ‘re-find’) other activities that are in line with your deep values.
Some of the suggestions in the book include:
- finding solitude in long walk,
- crafting physical things with your own hands,
- or, of course, reading and writing.
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Overall, it’s a really good read, and, I believe, a necessary one for anybody who is struggling with their digital life, who is frustrated with how little control they have on these apps after hundreds of times opening them unconsciously during a day.
The only issue is that sometimes the writing can be a bit too dense, too dry, and too … academic.
But other than that, one can learn a lot about how important it is to protect and treasure one’s time in this distracted world.
Because, after all:
A Dreamer