Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology
by Cal Newport
In my experience covering these topics, it’s hard to permanently reform your digital life through the use of tips and tricks alone. The problem is that small changes are not enough to solve our big issues with new technologies. The underlying behaviors we hope to fix are ingrained in our culture, and, as I argued in the previous chapter, they’re backed by powerful psychological forces that empower our base instincts. To reestablish control, we need to move beyond tweaks and instead rebuild our relationship with technology from scratch, using our deeply held values as a foundation. “In any discussion about the merits of avoiding the addictive grasp of technology,” he writes, “the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative.” It’s important to understand what exactly makes this alternative honorable, as it’s in these advantages that we’ll uncover a strong argument for the third principle of minimalism, which claims that approaching decisions with intention can be more important than the impact of the actual decisions themselves.
minimalists don’t mind missing out on small things; what worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good.
“Our results show that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being.”
I want you to replace this with a state where your leisure time is now filled with better pursuits, many of which will exist primarily in the physical world. In this new state, digital technology is still present, but now subordinated to a support role: helping you to set up or maintain your leisure activities, but not acting as the primary source of leisure itself.
Declaring freedom from your smartphone is probably the most serious step you can take toward embracing the attention resistance. This follows because smartphones are the preferred Trojan horse of the digital attention economy.
To allow an optional technology back into your life at the end of the digital declutter, it must: Serve something you deeply value (offering some benefit is not enough). Be the best way to use technology to serve this value (if it’s not, replace it with something better). Have a role in your life that is constrained with a standard operating procedure that specifies when and how you use it.
"In my experience covering these topics, it’s hard to permanently reform your digital life through the use of tips and tricks alone. The problem is that small changes are not enough to solve our big issues with new technologies. The underlying behaviors we hope to fix are ingrained in our culture, and, as I argued in the previous chapter, they’re backed by powerful psychological forces that empower our base instincts. To reestablish control, we need to move beyond tweaks and instead rebuild our relationship with technology from scratch, using our deeply held values as a foundation."
"“In any discussion about the merits of avoiding the addictive grasp of technology,” he writes, “the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative.” It’s important to understand what exactly makes this alternative honorable, as it’s in these advantages that we’ll uncover a strong argument for the third principle of minimalism, which claims that approaching decisions with intention can be more important than the impact of the actual decisions themselves."
"minimalists don’t mind missing out on small things; what worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good."
"“I have since become convinced that I had the relationship between these networks backward,” he writes.10 “And this reversal is tremendously important.” He now believes “we are interested in the social world because we are built to turn on the default network during our free time.” Put another way, our brains adapted to automatically practice social thinking during any moments of cognitive downtime, and it’s this practice that helps us become really interested in our social world."
"“Our results show that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being.”"
"I want you to replace this with a state where your leisure time is now filled with better pursuits, many of which will exist primarily in the physical world. In this new state, digital technology is still present, but now subordinated to a support role: helping you to set up or maintain your leisure activities, but not acting as the primary source of leisure itself."
"If your personal brand of digital minimalism requires engagement with services like social media, or breaking news sites, it’s important to approach these activities with a sense of zero-sum antagonism. You want something valuable from their networks, and they want to undermine your autonomy—to come out on the winning side of this battle requires both preparation and a ruthless commitment to avoiding exploitation. Vive la résistance!"
- →“Our results show that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being.”
- →Declaring freedom from your smartphone is probably the most serious step you can take toward embracing the attention resistance. This follows because smartphones are the preferred Trojan horse of the digital attention economy.
- →My final suggestion is to use operating procedures when confronting a technology that’s largely optional, with the exception of a few critical use cases. These procedures specify exactly how and when you use a particular technology, allowing you to maintain some critical uses without having to default to unrestricted access.
- →“The best and most pleasant life is the life of the intellect.”1 He concludes, “This life will also be the happiest.” As Aristotle elaborates, a life filled with deep thinking is happy because contemplation is an “activity that is appreciated for its own sake … nothing is gained from it except the act of contemplation.”
Looking for something similar?
Describe your situation. The search finds the right book from the entire library.