Digital Minimalism
by Cal Newport

who feel like their technology use is out of control.

who want to overcome digital addiction.

who are trying to implement more deep work into their life.

“People don’t succumb to screens because they’re lazy, but instead because billions of dollars have been invested to make this outcome inevitable.”

It’s Newport’s contention that checking “likes” is the new smoking.

Addiction is defined as “a condition in which a person engages in use of a substance or in a behavior for which the rewarding effects provide a compelling incentive to repeatedly pursue the behavior despite detrimental consequences.”

Newport defines Digital Minimalism as, “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.”

“Minimalists don’t mind missing out on small things,” writes Newport. “What worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good.”

1: Clutter is costly.

“Digital minimalists recognize that cluttering their time and attention with too many devices, apps, and services creates an overall negative cost that can swamp the small benefits that each individual item provides in isolation.”

2: Optimization is important.

“Digital minimalists believe that deciding a particular technology supports something they value is only the first step. To truly extract its full potential benefit, it’s necessary to think carefully about how they’ll use the technology.”

3: Intentionality is satisfying.

“Digital minimalists derive significant satisfaction from their general commitment to being more intentional about how they engage with new technologies. This source of satisfaction is independent of the specific decisions they make and is one of the biggest reasons that minimalism tends to be immensely meaningful to its practitioners.”

Step 1: Define which technologies are optional to you. Write Standard Operating Procedures for handling non-optional technologies with optional aspects.

Step 2: Stop using optional technology for 30 days.

Step 3: decide which technologies to reintroduce.

Delete social media from your phone;

Turn your devices into single-purpose computers;

Use social media like a professional;

Embrace slow media; and

Dumb down your smartphone.

“A life well lived requires activities that serve no other purpose than the satisfaction that the activity itself generates.”

“If you begin decluttering the low-value digital distractions from your life before you’ve convincingly filled in the void they were helping you ignore, the experience will be unnecessarily unpleasant at best and a massive failure at worse.”

The Bennett Principle

Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption;

Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world; and

Seek activities that require real-world, structured social interactions.

When given downtime, our brains default to thinking about our social life.

The loss of social connection triggers the same system as physical pain.

“Social media is either making us lonely or bringing us joy.”

“The more you use social media to interact with your network, the less time you devote to offline communication.”

To subscribe to conversation-centric communication, avoid clicking the “like” button or posting comments on social media, consolidate texting, and hold conversation office hours.

Solitude Deprivation: A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.

To practice Solitude Deprivation, practice leaving your phone at home, taking long walks, and writing letters.