Digital Minimalism Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
Reviews
Outstanding & Thought provoking book I entered this book thinking I would simply read the platitudes of a minimalistic lifestyle & to just block/ban social media and game apps. This book, however, is so much more. The author took his time to find well thought out alternatives to much of what we thought is common sense.
Wow. This book changed the way I perceive social media use. Easy read, actually useful tips!
Solid arguments and practical tips for drastically scaling back amount of attention we cede to our smart devices and the social platforms that keep us coming back to them. First half is comprised of an argument for the need to scale back, a proposed philosophy of technology use (Digital Minimalism: a philosophy of tech 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), and a suggested approach to right the ship, so to speak - the "Digital Declutter". Second half offers some practices that help cultivate a sustainable digital minimalism lifestyle, including spending time alone, avoiding the "like" feature of all platforms entirely, pursuing deliberate, meaningful, engaged leisure activities, and "joining the attention resistance" (basically taking wartime-like measures to fight for reclaiming our own attention). I really enjoyed this, much like I've enjoyed Cal's blog for years. He strikes a helpful balance of philosophy and pragmatism, and while the book pulls no punches about the reality of our losing war against the tech companies that seek to control our attention, it recognizes the value of modern consumer tech, and seeks to help the reader utilize this tech in a way that enriches our lives, rather than draining them. Why not 5 stars? As a blog reader, there was definitely some retread content; can't blame Cal, as it's really good content, and bundled more completely and effectively in a book than in scattered blog posts. However, I also could have done with a little less in the "here's how readers have found this helpful" section; didn't add much for me. All in all, highly recommend, especially if you haven't spent years subscribed to Cal's blog!
The ideas in the book are good, but even in its relatively shortness it feels longer than it needs to be.
In Digital Minimalism, Newport challenges our passive consumption of technology & social media, and provides a blueprint that asks us to reimagine our digital lives through intentional living. His arguments are strong & often backed with philosophy, history, & literature. Newport's writing is clear, but not concise; he frequently summarizes & re-summarizes previously made points, for which I knocked off a star.
Many ideas and thesis from this book are very well-known by now, but still: very good to remind yourself about them. Great hands-on exercises, too, and a very easy read.
Perfect book to read during the year-end holidays contemplation period.
adding the review of this book on a social media platform while mindlessly scrolling Twitter
In the end, Cal makes good points, explains them clearly, and provides examples. Take want you want and leave the rest, but there's a lot worth taking (e.g. no phone in the bedroom, no social apps on phone, use browser extensions to limit access to social media to certain times, cultivate "hands-on" hobbies that bring a sense of meaning and worth, focus on longer form and ideally in-person communication over likes and comments, etc). Less great parts: the dude is a well-off white man and it shows. No compelling ideological orientation towards society to be found here, and too many throw-away examples that assume an audience who shares most/all of his privilege. He's got a few mentions of women here and there (largely that they've been fucked, historically) but it's in no way fundamental to his argument. If you've done any reading in the productivity realm you're used to this, but it's worth saying just in case.
There were many things in this book that were eye opening. I appreciated many aspects like the need for solitude and leisurely activities that promote learning and actual conversation. I do agree that mobile devices have created many problems while conversely solving many as well. It is essential to find a good balance between living our lives and using technology as a tool to enhance our lives. The thing that was a main turnoff for me was that most of his examples for how to engage in more conversation and set limits on technology were geared towards people who work 8 hours a day with few actual responsibilities outside of work. As a stay at home mom, I don’t have as much free time to go on a 2 hour walk with just my thoughts multiple times a week. But as a result of reading this, I will be making changes and have already seen some results from not using my phone as much needlessly.
“If you must use these services, however, and you hope to do so without ceding autonomy over your time and attention, it’s crucial to understand that this is not a casual decision. You’re instead waging a David and Goliath against institutions that are both impossibly rich and intent on using this wealth to stop you from winning.”
Very interesting and totally reflects my approach when it comes to social media as well. Sadly, in the context of the pandemic where some social media platforms are my only way to contact and spend quality time with people outside of my household, I cannot apply all these tips just yet. But either way, this was extremely informative and a book I plan to revisit.
I urge everyone who engages with social media on a daily basis to read this book. Prior to reading this book, I was already keen on maximising my time online while keeping my screen time under control. Cal Newport enabled me to deepen my knowledge on what is it exactly that big companies do to keep us glued to our devices and thus motivated me to go further in my digital minimalism journey. Why is this book enlightening? It doesn’t focus on extreme minimalism and offers tips on how to reduce the digital noise and lead a much more fulfilling life.
My review: https://mattstein.com/books/digital-minimalism
The effect of social media applications and internet use on our lives and the importance of being physically social are clearly mentioned in the book. In addition, things that can be done to get rid of this addiction are mentioned. It is very useful and creates awareness, but there were points that I found a bit exaggerated compared to our period. That's why I rated it 4 stars.
Probably one of the best books I've read recently.
A few good tips here and there, but felt pretty phoned-in I have a hard time writing this because Cal’s first two books were real game changers for me, but I really feel like this was phoned in and not deeply thought out. Easily could’ve been been a blog post with a list of 10 tips for cutting down on digital distractions. Hoping the next one feels like more deep work went into it.
This book makes me contemplate how well is the relationship between me and my digital devices, is it beneficial for me or do I use it mindlessly? I read this during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, and overall it's a really interesting and enjoyable book. This book feels like it force me to take a step back from my daily routine, and observe my past behavior with my phone and digital devices. A very practical philosophy for anyone who's seeking a way to get off from phone or digital addiction, or for anyone who haven't realize it yet. Although some of the steps are seems a bit radical, it could be understandable since it could be a drastic change in your life. Just reading it is not enough, implementing the philosophy in our daily life is the real game changer.
El libro nos recuerda cómo debemos limitar la tecnología, cómo nos afecta diariamente y evolutivamente. Cal nos da muchos tips, apps, ejemplos e ideas que pueden ayudarnos a reducir nuestro tiempo en las pantallas para invertirlo en cosas que realmente puedan llenarnos como seres humanos ✨.
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" (p. 28). This books helps me pause for a moment and reevaluate the amount of time I have spent on social media in the past few years. It's surprising how much time has passed when I'm busy browsing my social newsfeed when not making real connection with anyone, only to feel exhausted at the end. In this book, Cal Newport suggests practices you can do to reduce the amount of unproductive time you spend on social media, or your phone in general, and instead, focus on activities that bring you more satisfaction in life. He goes as far as suggesting you to quit social media for 30 days (crazy, right?) and during that time without the distracting online world, build connections with the people whom you care about, learn a new hobby, and create something in the physical world. If you find yourself needing some motivation to regain the time technology has taken from you, I hope you give this book a try.
Some good points on Socialmedia distractions and digital stress
The missing manual to dislike the like button. Most digital applications, including social networks, are not good or bad, but they are for sure dangerous. They can be installed with just one click, and come without a manual, at least not the one you need to use these applications at your advantage. The core of the problem is our attention. If it was an unlimited resource, there would be no problem to clutter our devices with so many applications. But it isn’t. We must get back the control of our attention, and reading this book is a good start. This book is not about turning the clock back and living as if these technologies have never existed. This book is about using them while still being present in the physical world. I like the idea of measuring the value that digital tools bring to us compared to the time we invested in them. We must not seek value. All applications have value. We must try to extract only the core value we are looking for and ignore the rest. The question is not simply which application to use or not, but how. You can check Facebook on your desktop computer on Friday evening and still get the value you are looking for (note that Facebook will certainly not extract the same value from you as before). Each chapter ends with a list of similar practices to try. Digital Minimalism is not the definitive book on the subject (I think we still ignore most of the answers) but is a great contribution that can change your life. The best motivation to reclaim your attention is to finally start new activities like playing board games with kids, and finally get the fulfilling life you deserve.
I really enjoyed the side stories to make certain points clear. Since I’m already using some of the methods, I really liked a more entertaining way to explain it.
Great book. Explains the toxicity of social media and how to take control of your life, without abandoning it totally, but live with it in peace.
Highlights
If lots of people click the little heart icon under your latest Instagram post, it feels like the tribe is showing you approval which we're adapted to strongly crave. The other side of this evolutionary bargain, of course, is that a lack of positive feedback creates a sense of distress.
100% true
Regular doses of solitude, mixed in with our default mode of sociality, are necessary to flourish as a human being.
Because of technology, I’m a better human being than I ever was before
In my experience, the key to sustained success with this Philosophy is accepting that it's not really about technology, but is instead more about the quality of your life. The more you experiment with the ideas and practices on the preceding pages, the more you'll come to realize that digital minimalism is much more than a set of rules, it's about cultivating a life worth living in our current age of alluring devices.
You can’t, in other words, build a billion-dollar empire like Facebook if you’re wasting hours everyday using a service like Facebook
...most people don't realize the extreme degree to which they perform similarly demanding feats of social navigation and mind reading throughout their normal everyday interactions. Our brains, in many ways, can be understood as sophisticated social computers.
A natural conclusion of this reality is that we should treat with great care any new technology that threatens to disrupt the ways in which we connect and communicate with others.
We might tell ourselves there's no greater reward after a hard day at the office than to have an evening entirely devoid of plans or commitments. But we then find ourselves, several hours of idle watching and screen tapping later, somehow more fatigued than when we began... if you instead rouse the motivation to spend that same time actually doing something - even if it's hard - you'll likely end the night feeling better.
We require a philosophy that puts our aspirations and values once again in charge of our daily experience, all the while dethroning primal whims and the business models of Silicon Valley from their current dominance of this role; a philosophy that accepts new technologies, but not if the price is the dehumanization Andrew Sullivan warned us about; a philosophy that prioritizes long-term meaning over short-term satisfaction.
As an academic who studies and teaches social media explained to me: I don't think we're meant to keep in touch with so many people."
Anything textual or non-interactive--basically, all social media, email, text, and instant messaging-doesn't count as conversation and should instead be categorized as mere connection.
We need solitude to thrive as human beings… Humans are not wired to be constantly wired
Conversations enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius
What's making uncomfortable, in other words, is this feeling of losing control - feeling that instantiates itself in a dozen different ways each day, such as when we tune out with our phone during our child. bath time, or lose our ability to enjoy a nice moment without a frantic urge to document it for a virtual audience
What makes general-purpose computing powerful is that you don't need separate devices for separate uses, not that it allows you to do multiple things at the same time.
To sustain this type of compulsive use, however, you cannot have people thinking too critically about how they use their phone.
[…] provide specific arguments for their embrace of strenuous leisure, but these arguments all build on the same general principle that the value you receive from a pursuit is often proportional to the energy invested.
To conclude, let's agree on the obvious claim that text messaging is a wonderful innovation that makes many parts of life significantly more convenient. This technology only becomes a problem when you treat it as a reasonable alternative to real conversation.
For one thing, when you avoid solitude, you miss out on the positive things it brings you: the ability to clarify hard problems, to regulate your emotions, to build moral courage, and to strengthen relationships. If you suffer from chronic solitude deprivation, therefore, the quality of your life degrades.
The loss of social connection, for example, turns out to trigger the same system as physical pain explaining why the death of a family member, a breakup, or even just a social snub can cause such distress.
'...the cumulative cost of the noncrucial probably things we clutter our lives with can far outweigh the small benefits each individual piece of clutter promises.'
The most successful digital minimalists, therefore, tend to start their conversion by renovating what they do with their free time-cultivating high-quality leisure before culling digital habits. In fact, many minimalists will describe a phenomnenon in which digital habits that they previously felt to be essential to their daily schedule suddenly seemed frivolous once they became more intentional about what they did with their time. When the void is filled, you no longer need distractions to help you avoid it.
Erecting barriers against the existential is not new-before YouTube we had (and still have) mindless television and heavy drinking to help avoid deeper questions-but the advanced technologies of the twenty first-century attention economy are particularly effective at this task. Harris felt uncomfortable, in other words, not because he was craving a particular digital habit, but because he didn't know what to do with himself once his general access to the world of connected screens was removed.
This distress is often explained in the terminology of addiction, in which it can be cast as withdrawal symptoms experienced by an addict.
Digital minimalists see new technologies as tools to be used to support things they deeply value—not as sources of value themselves.