Book Summary (Digital Minimalism)

Facebook started in 2004 as a tool college students could use to look up boyfriends or girlfriends of those they knew. It was a novelty, designed to play the minor role of connecting college students with friends in their lives. The iPhone was designed to play the minor role of playing music files and enabling phone calls. At its unveiling, CEO Steve Jobs hailed it as "the best iPod we've ever made," and touted its ability to make calls as "its killer app." Andy Grignon, who was part of the team behind the iPhone's creation, described it as essentially an iPod designed to make phone calls. Today, both technologies and every other digital technology radically change our experience of the culture — our social and civil lives. From their rightful places at our lives' peripheries, they have become the core around which we organize our lives. For example, 1.5 billion people use Facebook every day for at least an hour, and the average iPhone user engages their phone 85 times during a typical day. These digital technologies crept up on us. We never had the chance to ask ourselves what we wanted from them. We just signed up for them and woke up one morning to find out they had colonized the very essence of our lives — our autonomy. Technology companies are to blame because they designed their products for these exact outcomes so they can gain financially. Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer, said, holding up a smartphone, in his interview with Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes,” “This thing is a slot machine... there's a whole playbook of techniques that get used by technology companies to get you using the product for as long as possible… because that's how they make their money.”

Aristotle once declared, "Man is by nature a social animal." Our minds are adept social systems designed for complex social engagement and discerning the thoughts of others. Thus, we should be pessimistic when digital technology surfaces and threatens to disrupt the ways we connect and communicate with others. If technology messes up with this core function of ours, something somewhere has to break. Matthew Lieberman, a psychologist and author of "Social," suggests that the brain evolved over millions of years not to focus its free time on activities irrelevant to our lives. His research reveals that our brains exist to formulate rich social connections, and a lot of this socializing is programmed by nature to happen in our spare time. A study led by Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh and published in the "American Journal of Preventive Medicine" concludes, "the more time one spends 'connecting' on these services (social media), the more isolated one is likely to become." Another study led by Holly Shakya of the University of California and published in the "American Journal of Epidemiology" reports, "the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being." Both studies indicate a truth - the more time we spend on social media, the less time we have for offline communication. And because our minds have been purpose-built by nature for socializing in offline contexts, we break. In "Reclaiming Conversation," MIT professor Sherry Turkle emphasizes the significance of face-to-face conversation, noting it as the most humanizing activity, where empathy is nurtured, and the joy of being heard and understood is experienced. So, what do we do to reclaim our sanity? Let's start by rebelling against the "Like" button on Facebook and all social media networks. Let's refuse to engage. Let's stop leaving comments after posts. We should stop all texting too — SMS, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. Text messaging lacks the depth to satisfy our brain's craving for genuine conversations. Unhurried telephone conversations are a viable alternative to face-to-face conversations, so we should set specific times aside and let our circle of family, friends, and colleagues know these times. A Silicon Valley executive, for example, notified his circle of his availability for telephone conversations from 5:30 p.m. every weekday.

The author, Cal Newport, once found an article titled "How I Kicked the Smartphone Addiction — and You Can Too" in the "The New York Post.” The gist was that the columnist “kicked” his compulsive use of his iPhone by disabling 112 apps. Using clever life hacks like this to deal with our compulsive use of digital technologies is not enough. To re-establish our control and autonomy, we need to rebuild our relationship with them from the standpoint of the values we hold dear. And digital minimalism will enable us to do just that. Digital minimalism advocates for a deliberate approach to technology, where we prioritize a few online activities that align closely with our values and willingly ignore the rest. It has its basis in implicit cost-benefit analyses. If digital technology offers more style than substance, a minimalist will overlook it. For the technology that holds some promise in supporting a value one holds dear, the minimalist will still ask if using the technology is the best way to support the value. Digital minimalists carefully choose a small number of technology tools to deliver evident and massive benefits to their lives. Tyler, for example, quit his compulsive use of social media "to improve his network, further his career and get entertained" and instead volunteered more near his home, exercised regularly, read 3-4 books every month, and learned to play the ukulele. Also, he had more time to spend with his wife and kids and soon earned a job promotion because of his increased focus on the job. There are three principles to digital minimalist behavior. 1. Clutter is costly. When we jam-pack our time and attention with too many devices, apps, and services, an overall negative cost cancels out the totality of the small benefits we would have enjoyed. 2. Focusing on optimization is critical. Deciding that a particular technology will support a value we hold dear is insufficient. We need to think carefully about how we will use it. 3. Purposeful action brings satisfaction. We will derive more pleasure from our intentional use of technology.

To succeed at digital minimalism, there has to be a rapid transformation of our technology-use habits, something the author calls a "digital declutter." The digital declutter is a three-step process that will take us from being digital maximalists - using any technology that catches our fancy, to being digital minimalists - using technology to enhance our lives. Step one is for us to define our technology-use rules. We can do this in two sub-steps. Sub-step one determines which technologies we use — apps, websites, or devices — we can classify as "optional." Optional technologies are those we can take a break from at any time without disrupting our personal or professional lives. Sub-step two is to specify "how," "when," and for "how long" we will use these technologies. This way, we won't default to unrestricted and unlimited use of the technologies. A good example is Caleb, a computer scientist who listens to his much-loved podcasts only during his two-hour commute to and from work. Step two is to "detox" from these optional technologies by taking a 30-day break away. The break is important because the period will provide us with the clarity we need to make smarter technology choices at the end of the detox period. The goal here is not just to give ourselves a break from technology but to spark a permanent transformation of our digital lives. Digital detoxing is the step that supports this transformation. Finally, after the 30-day detox period, we can start from a blank slate and reintroduce the important optional technologies one after the other, leaving out the unimportant ones. For each optional technology we propose to reintroduce, we should ask if it supports a value we hold dear if it is the best way to support this value, and if there is a viable way to maximize its use and minimize its harm. Only then should we reintroduce the optional technology into our lives.

Our brains require solitude — regular doses of quiet to support the monumental life we want to live. "Solitude is the subjective state in which our minds are free from the input of other minds," according to Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin in "Lead Yourself First," the book they co-wrote. Solitude is about what's happening in our brains. It has nothing to do with physical isolation or the absence of it. We can achieve solitude standing in a crowded street corner and be isolated yet not have it. Solitude moves us beyond reacting to the information created by other people and focusing instead on our thoughts and experiences, thus enjoying three benefits — insight or new ideas, an emotional balance that leads us to better understand ourselves, and the ability to achieve closeness to others. Digital technologies deprive us of solitude. Solitude deprivation occurs when we have almost no time to be alone with our thoughts, free from the influence of others' ideas. The technology companies that design devices, apps, and social networks have sold us on to the idea of constant communication to the detriment of the practice of solitude. The iPod began by providing a musical backdrop to our day, distracting us all day. The arrival of the iPhone made it worse, as we got used to taking several "harmless," "quick" glances at any number of apps or mobile-adapted websites as our day unfolds. They removed solitude completely from our lives, and it's costing us. The absence of solitude makes it difficult to clarify hard problems, regulate our emotions, build moral courage, and strengthen our relationships. As a result, the quality of the life we live degrades. A 2015 study of iGens - teenagers born between 1995 and 2012 - by Common Sense Media shows that they text and engage in social media for upwards of nine hours daily and, as a result, suffer a higher rate of psychological disorders relative to the general population. Additionally, this group is most at risk for depression and suicide, as they struggle with understanding their emotions, reflecting on their identity and values, forming solid relationships, or simply letting their brains rest. So, how do we find solitude amid these digital technologies' constant distractions? We can deliberately create periods of solitude in our lives and cycle them with periods of connectivity. US President Abraham Lincoln provides us with a good example. During his Presidency, he had the practice of spending his summer nights in a decrepit cottage overlooking a military cemetery in downtown Washington, D.C. and returning to the bustle of the White House in the mornings. Leaving our cellphones at home occasionally, taking long walks, or writing letters to our future selves are ways to cycle periods of solitude with periods of connectivity in our lives.

Technology companies can attract their audiences because by exploiting psychological vulnerabilities to trick audiences into spending far more time on their services than is optimal. For example, Facebook continues to market itself as a "foundational technology" everyone must have, like electricity or mobile telephony. This claim is a psychological sleight of hand. The right approach to these technological tools, is to regard them as a collection of free services, carefully sift through all and use some in a manner that has us deriving the maximum value we can from them. We must rebel against these technological tools to reclaim our time and attention. We can limit ourselves to accessing our social media apps from our desktop computers or laptops by deleting the apps from our smartphones. This will limit the amount of time and attention we spend on the networks. Another option is to turn our devices into "single-purpose computers" per time using "blocking" tools. These tools work by blocking a curated list of distracting websites and applications across all of our devices, leaving them free for us to use for a dedicated purpose at any time. A good use case is setting up a blocking schedule that makes our social media accounts unreachable during work hours. A third option is to use social media "like a pro" and limit the number of "eyeball minutes" we expend. We can use Facebook to follow only close friends and relatives, catch up on their posts in a single 30-minute session every week and use Twitter to follow a select group of same-industry professionals and catch up on their tweets in single 30-minute daily sessions. Finally, we can embrace “slow media” by focusing on high-quality media, seeking out the best arguments against our preferred positions on, say, political and cultural issues, and being deliberate in how, when, and for how long we consume media.

In "Nicomachean Ethics," Aristotle conveys that a fulfilling life involves rewarding activities solely for the joy they bring, without serving any other purpose. We can regard these activities as "high-quality leisure" — pursuits that provide us with a "source of inward joy." We experience a void — lack of joy — when we fail to live high-quality leisurely lives because of the demands of modern-day work and the degrading of our community traditions. We often ignore the void by filling it with digital noise — the mindless swiping and tapping of our devices as we use social media; thus, we avoid asking ourselves deeper, existential questions. Succeeding at digital minimalism requires making plans to fill the void before attempting to declutter. We can start by renovating what we do with our free time and by cultivating high-quality leisure habits before cutting loose from the worst of our digital habits. When the void is filled as nature intended, we do not need distractions to help us avoid it. To cultivate these high-quality leisure activities and live our lives well, three practices stand out: 1. We should strive for financial independence — a fiscal state in which our assets produce enough income to cover our living expenses — as soon as possible. Financial independence is not a retirement goal or something we achieve through a sizeable inheritance; everyone can work towards it. It will leave us with enough time to live purposeful, leisurely lives. Also, it will help us be intentional about the choices we make in our lives. 2. We should focus on honing ourselves to perfection in our crafts because they are a good source of high-quality leisure. Gary Rogowski, a furniture maker and author of "Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction," highlights the intrinsic human need to engage with tools and create things with our hands. He believes this is essential for feeling complete, emphasizing that historically, our hands were the primary means of learning and thinking rather than the reverse. 3. We should supercharge our sociability by building rich social interactions. We can do this by playing board games with family, friends, and colleagues (outside of work hours, of course), working out in a group in the open (social fitness), or joining a book club. Activities like these require real-world, structured social interactions.

Conclusion The compulsive use of digital technologies - devices, apps, social networks - adds no value to our lives. Rather, they clutter it. The technology companies who design and market them want us to believe they are improving our world, but we understand that to be untrue. The only thing they want to make better is their revenue. Understanding this and recognizing that we are not helpless in the face of the onslaught being wrought by these technologies is a good way to begin our journey toward digital minimalism. Try this Download an app to help you track your use of your mobile phone and the time you spend on social media networks. Track for 30 days, record your observations in your journal, then review. What is the data telling you about your use of time and attention? What is your plan for bettering your use of these two resources? Try out a blocking tool such as Freedom or Self-control, and use it to maximize your productivity. Record your successes and failures as you use these tools in a journal and review them after 30 days. What is the data telling you?