Digital Minimalism

What is digital minimalism? I first became aware of the term through the work of Cal Newport with his book of the same title; "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World", that I borrowed from my local library. He defines digital minimalism loosely as:

a philosophy that you question what digital communication tools (and behaviors surrounding these tools) add the most value to your life. It is motivated by the belief that intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimizing your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life.

He then goes on to some up some traits that people who are inclined to follow this life-style will share:

• Missing out is not negative. I attribute this as almost the opposite of the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). When a person is swept up in FOMO, it is extremely easy to find yourself dedicating large amounts of time to things that don't truly matter in life. It is okay to not be up to speed on everything that happens in the world. In fact, that's most likely actually pretty healthy.
• Less can be more. This is the 80/20 rule as a principle. Focus on doing things that matter to you, and you'll be better off for it. You can probably get the same, or near to it, satisfaction out of daily life only consuming a few kinds of media at special times rather than trying to consume everything all the time.
• Start from first principles. Rather than signing up for, using, or consuming anything that offers any value what-so-ever, make it a habit to actually think about what you want to to be happy in life and make sure to only add in things that increase that happiness.
• The best is different than the rest. Following on the above, just because something can make your life better doesn't mean that it is the best way to go about making your life better. An example, just because you can keep up with friends and family on social media doesn't mean that it's the best way to do so. You'd probably prefer long text exchanges or even a phone call to simply clicking a "like" button. I can promise that it will feel more meaningful to both people.
• Digital clutter is stressful. Traditional minimalists, those that follow minimalism in their everyday life, correctly note that living with lots of stuff causes stress. This is the same for your digitial life. Every app, inbox, notification, and place to check just causes more and more stress for you and those around you. Just reducing the number of places that make up your digital life can have an improvement on your stress levels. Try it and see.
• Attention is scarce and fragile. Each and every once of us has a finite amount of attention to use each day. If we spend our days doling out tiny amounts of it to every single thing we scroll by on the internet, our attention will be gone before you know it. If we choose to only dive into things that have proper value to us though, then we are using that attention appropriately.
• Many of the best uses of the online world support better living offline. It's a simply fact that human beings are not evolved for a world of being always connected and always on. This is why spending lots of time online or addicted to the dopamine hits caused by a connected life can leave us in a confused state of strung out exhaustion.
• Be wary of tools that solve a problem that didn't exist before the tool. Tools like GPS or search engines solved problems that have been around for a long time (how do I get to a place from where I am, how do I find this piece of information I need). Others, like Snapchat or Twitter don't. Try not to use tools that fall into this second category.
• Activity trumps passivity. Building something or actively consuming something like a book will always feel better to the human mind than simply mindlessly consuming another bite-sized piece of content that the algorithm has shot out upon you.

Now, digital minimalism will mean something different to everyone. If you're someone with a far-flung family or friend group that truly does keep in constant communication by choice then of course social media is probably a good use of your time. For someone like me though, who simply scrolls by everything feeling vaguely interactive but not really getting anything out of it, it's probably not.

I don't have the answers for what this looks like to me, but I do know that I need to start thinking about it. Once I know what my answer is, I'll be updating this page.

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