Digital Minimalism, a Worthy Endeavor

"Addictive properties of new technologies are not accidents, but instead carefully engineered design features.” - Cal Newport

Dec 18, 2020

A perfect day is…

Imagine your perfect day. What does it entail? Think through how you would feel on that day. What do you feel now, thinking about such a day? Take a step back from the computer screen and close your eyes for a minute and think through those aspects.

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For me, the perfect day would include:

Being outdoors in warmer weather
Conversing and joking with family
Eating yummy food
Reading a non-fiction book

On my perfect day, I would feel free. I currently feel happy envisioning that day and determined to live it out as frequently as possible.

How about you; what do you feel?

Also, what is stopping you from living out that perfect day?

Time as fleeting, as ephemeral

Ephemeral means “lasting a very short time.” Day in and day out, I find time to be the best exhibitor of the word ephemeral. I wake up, and, as soon as I know it, I am back in bed, ready to sleep. It is not because I am a sloth that sleeps for the vast majority of the day. Rather, I feel this as I conceive of time as lasting a short while; as soon as I recognize it and experience it, gone is that moment and along comes the next.

For me, this problem used to be highly exacerbated up until a few years ago. I would awake, do things during the day, and then, find myself back in bed, not knowing where the day went. Sure, I exercised, walked to classes, and “did” my work. But, what filled the roughly 16 hours a day I spent conscious?

A quick look at my phone helped answer my nagging question. With the introduction of IOS 12, Apple released a feature called “Screen Time.” The feature showcases how long you spend on your phone and apps. Additionally, it showcases how many pickups you conduct with your phone; meaning how often you unlock it.

What I found did not take me by surprise; instead, it made me feel saddened: I spent 4+ hours a day on my phone, the bulk of it on social media and non-academic related apps. Rather than joking with family, I used my time viewing their lives from afar on Instagram. Rather than connecting with old friends, I used my time replying to texts. Rather than using my phone to read books, I used my time exploring the depths of twitter.

My screen time has gone down. More importantly, I focus on areas important to me (cooking, Spanish)

Even with improvements, I still have a ways to go to reduce my dependence on messages.

Ultimately, instead of living out my days how I wanted, I lived them according to the guidelines set forth to me by a 5 ounce, handheld device.

Digital Minimalism; a potential solution

Around the same time as my explorations with my screen time, Cal Newport began promoting the concept of “Digital Minimalism.” As he defines it on his blog:

Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps 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.

Reading this changed the way I thought about my days. Instead of completing what was prescribed by the structure of my environment, I could instead turn my attention to activities, tasks, and projects that I wanted to complete yet were not in my immediate reach. For example, 81% of the US has a smartphone (including minors and elderly) and 80% of the US does not meet the requirements for exercise. Thus, one object is near-ubiquity within US society, while the other activity is not. Within this structure, it is much easier for me to use my phone then it is to not, and instead, exercise.

Digital minimalism provides a system to create an environment where technology does not rule our lives, but, furthers them. To the above point on phone usage vs. exercising, digital minimalism can be utilized. For instance, I can use an app that pre-selects my workout for the day, schedules the workout on my calendar, and send a notification (or a handful) reminding me to complete the exercise, thus removing previously installed barriers to working out.

(For more examples and tenets to living out a digital minimalist life, please consult the book.)

My journey on Digital Minimalism

As described in my previous post, over the past couple of years, I have been actively working towards enabling a positive mindset. Ultimately, I am aiming to live a better life, one day, one action, one thought at a time. I believe Digital Minimalism is a philosophy to follow in order to achieve that goal.

I have always been weary of smartphones and the enormous usage society places with them. While this was not true of my view towards video games, it has been true for smartphones. I did not get a smartphone until 2015 - as I saw in school, this was far later than the vast majority of my peers. When I did get one, it was my mom’s old phone (along with her case). While grateful for the phone at the time, it opened up a wide range of effects on my life, previously unknown to me — similar to Pandora’s Box. Additionally, because I received a smartphone later than my peers, I was able to analyze the effect phones had on them before those same effects could as extremely be passed to me.

Ever since obtaining my first smartphone, I have been conscious of my phone usage. I texted friends instead of living in the moment with family. I viewed the scores and stats from 15 other football games while missing the actual plays from Giants games broadcast in front of me every Sunday. I peered through the profiles of people I never spoke to on social media whilst missing opportunities to properly connect with them in reality. I noticed these actions occurring in my life, however, I did not change my actions according to what I wanted. Rather, I took the route of least resistance (and most traveled) — spending increasing time on my phone even though it was inconsistent with what I enjoyed, valued, and wanted.

After coming across this concept in a handful of Medium articles while abroad in the Spring of 2019, I decided to slowly implement them within my own life. In March 2020, as the pandemic caused a shutdown in Virginia, I read the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

My following of the Digital Minimalist life is a work in progress, full-stop. It started before I received my first smartphone and has not ended since. In fact, the pace in which I pursue the Digital Minimalist life now has an increased vigor — the emergence of stay-at-home orders, and the increased amount of research on technology’s adverse effects have both propelled my pursuit to a higher degree.

Now, I am able to better live my life without the need for technology to be in the driver seat, let alone a backseat driver. Instead, I attempt to enable technology to be a part of the solution, but never the solution. The solution to living a life that is positive and brings me perfect days stems from within me.

Apps do not provide an answer

While apps could assist with living a more digital minimalist life, they are not the silver bullet for implementation of a digital minimalist life.

Using my own life as an example, I have often downloaded an app that promised great benefits: reduced screen time, more time spent exercising, more writing — the list goes on and on. Ultimately, none of the apps provided me a foundation for achieving digital minimalism, let alone assisted on the journey.

In fact, I have found that digital minimalism to be better implemented without the assistance of such apps. Why? With them, we add additional tools to our toolbox of living our best life. However, without being trained in this endeavor, additions to our toolbox predominately end up as additional noise within our lives, instead of additional resources.

Take an example of a ruler and a tape measure. While both work well in measuring objects, you only need one - having the second does not add any additional improvement. Instead, it takes up additional, finite space. Apps operate in a similar manner — they take up mental space that could be better served to focusing on the relevant task at hand

Being productive is different than producing intended outcomes

My goal of living a digitally minimalist life is not centered on my desire to rid my life of technologies; not at all. It is, however, rooted in my desire to live out my life in the most positive manner possible; I want every day to be a perfect day, each in their own regard. I have found that unintended technology usage constantly rid me of that ability.

Thus, I am working to create an intended outcome of living every day to a perfect day. This is significantly different from living every day to be productive.

How to live Digital Minimalism — examine, plan, act, reflect, repeat.

If you are wanting to embark on days that carry more meaning and purpose, I recommend reading Cal Newport’s book on digital minimalism. In addition, I recommend following the tenets of digital minimalism.

To add to the research he presents in his book, I advise a five step process to help live out a Digital Minimalist life:

Examine
Plan
Act
Reflect
Repeat
We learned to walk up and down stairs as a child.

Examine your past and current situations. Similar to the activity at the start of the post, examine what you want. What is your perfect day? What do you want to accomplish but have not yet? What serves as roadblocks to achieving your goals? By answering these questions, you will be better prepared to plan accordingly.

Plan your time. Based on the above answers, plan out alternatives to the way you are currently operating. If I am not living my perfect days, what do I need to do? How do I accomplish what I want to do but have not yet completed? Where will roadblocks arise? Planning for the time ahead will allow you to conduct the next step, act, with full intention.

Act out your plan. Take the steps you planned out to take. Do so with intentionality and without hesitation. (Cal Newport’s book dives into this process well — see his “30-day digital declutter.”) Keep taking actions that you planned to take. In due time, you will be able to reflect on the results from such actions.

With enough actions, you can begin to measure and reflect on how they affected your life. Have you been living out perfect days more frequently? Have you accomplished more of what you set out to do? Have you navigated past roadblocks that otherwise would have stayed in the way? It is important to reflect on the plans you set up and actions you took; without reflecting, you will not know whether what you completed worked or not. By reflecting, you can better examine, plan, and act in the future.

Finally, repeat. One iteration of examining your life, planning it, acting on it, and reflecting on it will not eradicate all the roadblocks you come across. In fact, it will, at first, illuminate more. With additional cycles, you will become better equipped to examine, plan, act, and reflect on your life. In turn, you will live out more days that are considered “perfect.”

I want to live a life with an eye towards the positive, living each day as if it is a perfect one. While there will be hiccups along the way, I implement the philosophy of Digital Minimalism in order to help guide me towards that goal; technology is used intentionally to further value in my life.

G and the World

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