Digital Minimalism
The key to living well in a high tech world is to spend much less time using technology. In recent years, our culture's relationship with personal technology has transformed from something exciting into something darker. Innovations like smartphones and social media are useful, but many of us are increasingly troubled by how much control these tools seem to exert over our daily experiences – including how we spend our free time and how we feel about ourselves. In Digital Minimalism, Newport proposes a bold solution: a minimalist approach to technology use in which you radically reduce the time you spend online, focusing on a small set of carefully-selected activities while happily ignoring the rest.
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59recommend
129mentions
96people
2016–2026years
60% recommend36% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you haven’t read it, Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism is mostly about this topic. The value of giving your brain time to simply exist without any outside input, with many examples from history of people who carved out time explicitly for this, especially when needing to make big decisions or figure out answers to problems.
- I think she confused some things here. When people talk about being alone, they are often still doing stuff that involves outside input. Watching TV, scrolling social media, reading, listening to music, the list goes on.
The benefits mentioned in the video come from being alone with our thoughts, without any external input. This is the piece she missed.
With smart phones able to quickly and easily fill every gap of time, people are rarely alone with their thoughts anymore, there is almost always an outside influence to occupy the mind. The culture largely encourages this, with people encouraging us left and right to put on a podcast while doing dishes or having the TV on just for some background noise.
Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism dives deep into this topic. Talking about the value of time to be alone with our thoughts like this, while pulling many examples from history of people who consciously practiced this to center them and improve the quality of their thoughts and decision making.
- This sounds very similar to the approach prescribed in the book Digital Minimalism. I just finished it and can’t wait to join you with a somewhat similar approach!
- Delete the stuff you’re compulsively checking. Turn off notifications, so you need to make the intention to check things, rather than the phone calling for attention. Spend some time now trying to ween, but going told turkey. Go for a walk, leaving the phone at home. Leave it in another room when doing things around the house. Don’t take it with you into the bathroom. Get comfortable with boredom. Allow your mind to wander and see where it takes you.
Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism is pretty good for stressing the importance of spending time in thought without the influence of the internet, podcasts, audiobooks, or anything else. This used to be the norm for large sections of the day for people… now it’s rather rare.
- Yup, I miss those days.
I had computers from an early age, but being connected all the time has had a negative impact on me personally. I've started really paying attention and doing the "Digital Declutter" that Cal Newport talks about in his book Digital Minimalism.
I have very very few notifications pop up on my phone now and I'm experimenting more with leaving it at home when I go somewhere. Trying to add a bigger disconnection between me and my phone.
- 2023 has been a good year with regard to reading. This has been year of History, Memoirs and Mythology. Some books I liked and would recommend are:
1) Nothing To Fear - This book is about the Great Depression in the USA and how president JFK took steps to bring the economy back.
2) Digital Minimalism - This is one book I would like to revisit every two years. About digital distractions and how to minimize it.
3) The Odyssey By Emily Wilson- This was a surprising easy read with author's notes on the backdrop. Helps you understand Greek mythology and some unraveling of human emotions. Pretty deep. Highly recommend.
4) Long Walk to Freedom - Autobiography of Nelson Mandela plus a good history of events in South Africa during his time.
5) Lies My Teacher Told me - This is about lies that usually are represented in US high school history and the author debunks some myths. This is also a USA history primer, but all the tones associated are negative.
6) India After Gandhi - Sneak peak into some Indian History and political environment after Independence, events leading to formation of states etc.
7) Lend Me Your ears: Great Speeches in History - This is a great collection of speeches grouped by events. Highly recommend. Nice way to learn some history through speeches.
