User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Cal Newport provided practical advice on how to embrace the philosophy of Digital Minimalism:
- Spend time alone to gain solitude
- Leave your phone at home
- Take long walks
- Write letters to yourself (journaling)
- Don't click "likes"
- Avoid falling into the slot machine feedback loop of likes
- Consolidate texting
- hold conversation office hours
- Reclaiming conversations
- Reclaim Leisure
- prioritize demanding leisure activity over pass consumption
- use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world
- seek leisure activities with real world, structured social interactions
- fix, or build something every week
- schedule low quality leisure
- join something (e.g. a community)
- follow leisure plan
- Join the attention resistance
- delete social media from your phone
- turn your device into single-purpose computers
- embrace slow media
- dumb down your smart phone
Rating: really liked it
I badly wanted to like this book. I really did. Because I have very much enjoyed other books by Cal Newport: So Good That They Can’t Ignore You and Deep Work. Both have inspired me a lot and I have recommended these to others in many occasions.
This book was way below my expectations. I'm afraid it’s not the book, it’s me. The practical value for me was minimal as I have already implemented a lot of things he proposes in the book.
As Cal Newport mentions that he sees the digital minimalism trend gaining momentum I thought this book has the potential to be the bible for this movement. But I don’t believe that happens because the message in this book is not clear enough. There are really no core underlying principles for this digital minimalism philosophy that Cal Newport tries to communicate in this book or he just did a poor job at it. I would have expected that he would lay out the laws or principles of digital minimalist at the start of the book and reinforce them through anecdotes in the rest of the book. For me there were only loosely related anecdotes where sometimes I scratched my head and thought: “how is that relevant to this topic?”
This book seems to have identity crisis. As Cal himself mentioned at the start of the book he usually doesn’t write practical books. And this book is neither theoretically coherent nor is it well-structured practical book. It’s somewhere between and it’s a shame. His research in this topic is very thorough and the examples and tips he offers are actually useful.
One thing that irritated me a little was his dismissive attitude towards blog posts with tips to turn off notifications on your smartphone and then he goes on in the book and does exactly the same thing. Of course he also talked about that you need a more deeper philosophy to actually make these changes in your life but for me he failed at communicating it clearly enough.
One of the biggest grievances for me was lack of authors understanding of how habits work. This book would have been sooo much better when he would have actually connected our harmful digital behaviours with fundamental habit changing theory.
If you would like to get pretty much the same content in a much clearer and practical form I would highly recommend you read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. Former gives a very solid understanding of the psychology behind habit change and the latter gives over 80 highly practical tactics to find better focus and more energy in this distracting world.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars. I appreciate the thesis that by choosing to minimize technology in our day-to-day lives, we're choosing to be more deliberate with how we spend our time. I liked some of the advice to consolidate texting, hold conversation office hours, and in general, choose to be more purposeful with what energy we give to reacting to others. I think this book would have been stronger if he provided research to this points rather than random anecdotes about people who decide to step away from technology. A few pieces throughout the middle also felt like fluff to fill up the book (i.e. the rock-paper-scissors championship, the fantasy board game groups, and anecdotes about old white dudes like Henry David Thoreau). It would have served better to take more stories of the modern-day person who has to be ingrained in technology, like someone working in Silicon Valley, and solutions for how to balance professional requirements with self-preservation and mindfulness.
Rating: really liked it
I know the irony of writing such a review on a social media platform, but as always there is potential for both good and for bad, for modest consumption or addiction.
One should always keep in mind that humans are social animals, prone to getting addicted to interacting with each other. Online. 24/7. Until real life (which one was that still...) collapses
Probably the one or the other reader might tend to eat too much sugar, fat, has quit smoking or even worse things like online gaming. In each of these cases, a different strong bodily and or physical addiction has triggered the craving for more. It´s not difficult to see the problem when the doctor tells you that you ought probably lose weight, quit this, reduce that, yada yada yada, what does he know, it´s my body, health and life.
Now we get stimulated with each like (Please, oh please, click the button under the review, I need it so desperately, my whole life circles around it, click it, damn!), message, comment, etc. Our brains are wired to social interaction because happy apes in groups meant survival while lonely apes in the dark jungle meant yum yum for predators. So some of us (except a large, but underrepresented group of introverts, ahem) get pretty stressed as soon as the confirmation of popularity doesn´t grow, stagnates, or even, inconceivable goes down. Why don´t those complete strangers don´t support me anymore? In nature, we could be dead now. No more drug-like hormone exposition in the brain, so that the flow kicks in, just sadness.
Any company with an allegedly free business model, running a social media site, search engine, etc. knows that. So thousand of high skilled experts do nothing except of trying to get as many people as hooked on as possible, considering age, gender, social status. It´s as if an organized drug dealing cartel had employed people to tailor and advertise their products to each possible customer base.
But hey, humans have a free will, at least in theory. What the book is trying to tell us is the same thing each monk and Buddhist says all day long each day of her/his life. Get your mind trained, meditate, stay calm, check your feelings, needs and especially cravings. Ask why your construct of personality in this wet mess up there seems to do what it wants. You are the ego it simulates, so you should really try to at least take control for a few moments every day and expand to longer periods, perhaps half hours or so.
Ideology might play a large part here too. Completely ignoring the social and human part can lead to a technocratic, cold and alienated world. Doing as if no social media exists can destroy possibilities to something that might get closer to Gaia than nothing before. It´s, as many wise doctors often said, the dosage that makes the poison. Or the demonization of the poison, although it would be the only possible cure for many problems.
It could be easy by just checking social media once or twice a day for a certain time and take a day, weekend or even holiday (Is he crazy?) off. A mini-hiatus. Just like computer gaming addiction, the social media addiction is something just existing in your mind and as someone who quit smoking (many times) I can tell you that there are really other burdens that come with real physical cravings and not just the inability to control the delay of the answer to the question of how many people have shared and liked my precious, precious review of this book that can also be read on my:
Fictional twitter link
Fictional Facebook link
Fictional whatever the latest freaking popular overhyped social media thing, app may be.
It is not as if I am playing with fire when using this social book cataloging network, mkay. OMG, the self-deceit. It´s not as if I had already before lost complete control about different social networks or computer games or beer and weed consump... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinkin.... But I have a really fix schedule on using Goodreads and... just more self-deception, look at that poor buddy, now he has even begun talking about himself in the third person as if he thinks he is someone special or some of those strange kings who talk about themselves as "he". And bigotry, of course, too because of the yada yada about enlightenment, preaching water and drinking wine, one of my favorite hobbies. U still reading, anyone else guilty? I hope so, please, don´t let me be the only social bookmarking addict on this site!
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_g...
And here comes the antidote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindful...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogen...
Rating: really liked it
I continue to wonder if Newport ever bears primary caregiving duties for anyone.
Rating: really liked it
5 Stars! Where we want to be cautious . . . is when the sound of a voice or a cup of coffee with a friend is replaced with ‘likes’ on a post.
Read. This. Book. Have you ever told someone in your life you just didn't have enough time in the day to get everything done? Have you thought about why that is? Maybe look down and see what you've been doing for the last 5, 10 or even 60 minutes. Probably scrolling through your phone. Sometimes with intention but sadly a lot of the time we are on our phones because of we are boredom or we are addicted and fear FOMO.
A little background before I get into this book and why it's
very important. I've always been into tech. I started at a young age, went to college and got a Web Dev/Interactive Media degree and I've had jobs in Digital Marketing, Email Marketing and now Cyber Security. I use tech each and everyday so you may be asking why I think this book is so important and questioning why I agree there is a problem? Well because I started to notice it in my own life and around me. I'd go meet a friend and they'd sit there scrolling through their phone while i'm trying to talk to them. I've watched family members sit on their phones while we're supposed to be "spending time" together. I looked around my train car the last couple days at 95% of people sat there scrolling through their phones and most of it was social media, not work. I watch families of 4 go out to eat and all 4 (parents and kids) are on their phones. Why bother going out? I know you may thinking well that's their choice and I agree but I personally don't want to lose human interaction to my phone or my time to my phone/other tech. Mindless scrolling because I'm bored or that I'm afraid I'm going to miss out just isn't worth my mental health or relationships.
I also started to recently feel depressive and sad feelings while being on social media. It made me feel sad watching others thrive in their life and I felt insignificant in a way. The "Facebook effect" is real and I firsthand have felt it. Just remember there was once a time when we didn't have all this tech or phones and we were more connected, less anxious and we still survived. I realize I'm typing this on a digital site and it has to be read here but just hear me out...
DIGITAL MINIMALISM takes us through different steps that you can go through to become a digital minimalist. What is one you ask? "They’re the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don’t feel overwhelmed by it. They don’t experience “fear of missing out” because they already know which activities provide them with meaning and satisfaction."
Newport takes us through almost "detoxing" yourself from doing tech activities without intention. So if you spend 2 hours a day on facebook, try taking it off your phone so you can get over the urge of automatically opening it and then set aside
specific time to go on it and try to use it with high intention so that you really get something out of it. Technology is not good or bad and Cal is actually a Computer Scientist, it's moreso about how we use it and how we can change that to be more healthy.
I personally made a few changes - my husband and I do not look at our phones during dinner or any meal together. In fact, I try to leave my phone in the car or at home as much as I can. I put on night mode at night. I put my phone farther away at night. I turned off almost all phone notifications. The next step is to delete some low intention (social media) apps.
If you are ready to take back control of your time and not feel like you need your phone attached to you every second then definitely read this book. It's simple but powerful and it has a lot of interesting studies/background on technology as a whole. I personally love technology (it is my job after all!) but I'm ready to use it more intentionally then mindlessly and strengthen my human face-to-face connections rather than hoovering behind a screen. I think my neck, thumbs and hands will probably thank me too!
Rating: really liked it
Every rare once in awhile a Facebook friend announces their imminent departure from Facebook. Or simply quietly slips away, leaving behind a shadow profile in my friends list. I send up a silent cheer when I realize they have deactivated their account, knowing in my belly they are better off without this ubiquitous social media overlord.
For a long time, I've felt a sense of disquiet about social media, but the disturbance has become a growing alarm and a deep sadness in recent months. I feel that we, all of us who are connected, have just lost our way. Then two things occurred almost simultaneously, one horrific, one glorious. First, The New York Times ran a feature on child pornography, a hideous crime that's exploded in volume because of social media. The wretched creeps who exploit and abuse children have multiple platforms that make it harder to track their behavior and make it all the easier for children to be preyed upon. The social media companies, like Facebook with its Messenger platform, are complicit in these crimes, just as they were in the travesty that was the 2016 election. They want users, regardless of the consequences.
And then a friend of mine fulfilled a lifelong dream, which also happens to be one of mine: hiking the Camino de Santiago. She chronicled every day through photos and anecdotes posted on Insta and Facebook. As much as I treasured joining her journey from afar, I also wanted to plead with her to put down the phone, forget all of us, and be there, in her head and body and heart and just walk. Walk for the sake of it, not for the instagrammable moments. Being disconnected from the world is natural, healthy, necessary. I imagine my own Camino and know that I want it to be private, meditative, transformative, not shared, not liked or retweeted. Pure.
Into all this walked
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, giving me yet more reasons, and now a strategy, to reframe and redo my relationship with social media.
Cal Newport isn't a Luddite. He's not against social medial or digital technology. He does throw down the gauntlet, however; challenging his readers to look their use and habits squarely in the screen, to recognize and deeply register the power Silicon Valley has in nearly every aspect of our lives, our time, our children's brains, our attention, our pocketbooks.
Few want to spend so much time online, but these tools have a way of cultivating behavioral addiction. And as Newport demonstrates throughout
Digital Minimalism, while some of these addictive qualities are accidental, many have been exploited by tech and social media companies whose driving purpose is to keep us online as often, and for as long, as possible. Through intermittent, unpredictable social approval (likes, loves, retweets), we become dependent on the feedback that shows someone, somewhere, has noticed us.
I've moved around so much as an adult- cities, states, countries- and it's precious to keep in touch with friends from lifetimes ago. Facebook and Twitter have brought me into communities of writers that were crucial to the development of my career; I might never have started writing if it weren't for this very space: Goodreads. Writing thoughtfully about the books I read became a DIY MFA. I learned story structure, narrative depth, character development, and how to construct a beautiful sentence not only by reading great (and not so great) books, but by being a part of a community that discusses them.
It's not that any of these tools is bad. To be fair, they can bring pleasure and satisfaction. It's just that they are too much. And we, no matter how professional, intelligent, disciplined, have been manipulated to respond like rats to a sugar drip. Our brains are tired. We're overstimulated, over-connected, over-info'ed. It's not natural to have hundreds of "friends," to share not only the minutiae of our daily lives, but its most intimate details, with people we wouldn't recognize if we passed them on the street, to constantly seek social approval, not to spend time in solitude, not to look up and observe the world around us.
Newport, and his co-frères/sœurs James Clear,
Atomic Habits, Jenny Odell
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy ,among others, are part of the emerging Attention Resistance, a loosely-knit group of educators, researchers, artists, and business professionals who are decrying the outsize role digital technology and social media play in our lives.
'Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, has called the platform a “social-validation feedback loop” built around “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” Tristan Harris, who worked as a “design ethicist” at Google, has said that smartphones are engineered to be addictive.' "What It Takes to Put Your Phone Away," by Jia Tolentino,
The New Yorker April 22, 2019.
This just isn't right. I don't want to play the game anymore. Or more accurately, I don't want to be played anymore.
I am accepting, moving toward embracing, that time spent on social media is "low quality" time. No matter how much I appreciate the connections, the sharing of fun moments or commiseration over the bad, I am coming to accept that I will be happier, more focused, productive, and peaceful the less time I spend on social media. I already take periodic breaks, employing various tips and technologies to reclaim my time and attention, but as Newport states, “willpower, tips, and vague resolutions are not sufficient by themselves to tame the ability of new technologies to invade your cognitive landscape.”
Social media isn't that big a part of my life. I have a full-time + day job and rarely check social media during the day, even though my actual job requires that I post on both Facebook and Instagram. I am finishing the first draft of my fourth novel; most days I work out at twice a day; I read copiously. I'm busy, engaged in the real world. But still. I think social media is compromising my—and our society's at large—mental, intellectual, physical, and communal health. It's time to start doing things differently. Hey, there's an app for that! (actually, quite a few: Moment, Forest, Freedom, Focus, and one new to this Mac user: Ulysses, which looks an awful lot like Scrivener).
Seriously, Cal Newport has a plan. Detox for thirty days, And then, once your 30-day detox is over, rebuild your relationship with digital technology from the ground up, with intentionality and minimalism, where technology serves
you and what you deeply value.
"The goal is not simply to give yourself a break from technology, but to instead spark a permanent transformation of your digital life." Newport recommends that you spend your time away from optional technology by discovering, or rediscovering, what you enjoy. It's the Marie Kondo approach to a digital life: if it's not useful or doesn't bring you joy, it needs to go, as much as is reasonable. Most of us have aspects to our jobs that make some of these technologies, including emails or texting, inevitable.
There are engrossing sections of this book that discuss the beauty of solitude- a beauty we've all but lost with constant presence of our phones in our pockets, sharing the carefully curated moments of our lives or reading about others'. He argues that we are suffering from
Solitude Deprivation - A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds. . There are also alarming looks at younger generations who've never known life without iPads or smartphones: the stunted growth of empathy, focus, motivation, and observation. It's not just terribly sad and weird, I believe it's a public health crisis.
So, in a couple of weeks, beginning November 1, I will be starting my digital declutter. The first step is a 30-day digital declutter/detox from optional technologies. For me, that will be Facebook, including Messenger, Twitter, and Instagram. I may also let go of Goodreads and just upload my book reviews after I come back online, but I don't feel a digital drain here.
I'll journal my detox, maybe I'll return to loving my blog, that I always seem to be too busy to post on. I won't force myself to finish this first draft of my novel by the end of November, but at the rate I'm going even before I begin my detox, I just might! I look forward to all that I will add to my life, as I let go of the ubiquity, the artificiality, of "connection." I want to learn to be better connected to and present in my real world life.
Rating: really liked it
I liked this book, but I will be sincere. The methods offered here to be a minimalist aren’t realistic for many of us, including me. It’s not that I, and many others, don’t have the will to be a minimalist but it’s that we can’t. Newport does show the benefits of reducing technology use quite nicely but unfortunately this book wasn’t made for everyone. Newport’s previous book was significantly better.
Rating: really liked it
I like the idea in here--less is more. We do not need all the apps and the social platforms. He's definitely talking to someone like me here. I am not a huge consumer of these platforms (mostly this is age-related). However, I listened to his book using audible and some apps have really helped me expand my mind (meditation apps and audible are two). There is no room in Newport's framework for using smartphones in a good way. He's sort of an intellectual luddite. I get this and sometimes I think it's easier to draw crisp and bright lines and never walk over them lest you get sucked in, but perhaps we need to think more about our relationship with our app-filled phones before we just swear them off. I think the better plan would be to practice radical consciousness when dealing with tech. To not walk numbly and dumbly into each platform and let it take our free will.
Rating: really liked it
2.25
I have somewhat complicated feelings on this book. I feel like I need to say these are all just my opinions. Anyway..Through-out there were so many times I was internally screaming "DISABLED PEOPLE EXIST!" and wanting to DNF it. I almost wish I had. There is so much privilege that goes unseen that I wanted to scream. That's not to say I didn't get anything good out of this book, because I did, but it was a chore to wade through the privilege, so much of it I don't have myself, and the pretentiousness as well as an almost complete lack of being able to acknowledge the good social media has done. I know it has it's cons and flaws and people can definitely have an unhealthy relationship with it and the internet. Many do. That's a part of why I picked up this book. That doesn't mean it's evil, and I had heard that this book doesn't paint it as completely evil, and it doesn't. But it still drove me up a wall. The author even admits he has never used social media so you can take that how you want to as well.
Personally I am physically disabled (as well as mental health issues that i've had long before social media-PTSD, Depression, Anxiety-that I have had my entire life due to my medical issues and I did grow up in a time before social media and the internet like it is today-mentioning that because it talks about how teens today are more anxious then ever before due largely to social media) as well as queer (non-binary trans and bisexual specifically), and i'll get to why I mention that in a second.
Social media, even with it's cons, has given me a world of good. I grew up with VACteRL Association (used to be called VAteR syndrome) (capitalized like that because it's an acronym). I have rare medical issues and grew up with doctors constantly telling me "never heard of that" and looking at me like I got 3 heads. I still, less than 2 weeks away from being 31, have never, to my knowledge, met, in person, a SINGLE other person with vacterl. Not one. I grew up feeling all alone and like a freak of nature, in constant physical pain, like a burden because of the way people (including parents-not all of them-had 4 with stepparents) treated me, and like no one understood or even cared to. Add to that fact that at 13 I realized i'm bisexual and grew up thinking that's a sin and that I was going to hell for it. So I tried to pray myself straight for a few years. Obviously it didn't work. I'm proud to be queer now but man was it a journey. I also was confused as to my gender all my life but never had the words to describe how I felt.
What does that have to do with social media? As an adult I found facebook groups for people with vacterl. Finally, I can talk to others that have the same medical issues, have had the exact same pain and problems, that understand because they go through it too. Some even older than me despite being told if I was born just years earlier i'd be dead. Do you know how valuable this is? In addition to realizing i'm not alone and that there are others out there that understand and care...we can also share medical information. This can save lives or at least help each other live a little better. With rare medical issues this is an understatement. Feeling all alone is the worst feeling.
With social media I can now find many other disabled people who even when we have different issues we can often relate in certain ways. And I can find many other queer people now and see what teen me didn't get the chance to, that being queer isn't a bad thing. And now I know the word non-binary...finally, I understood my issue with not being able to describe my gender growing up. I knew how I felt LONG before I had the words. The word may be new to me, but the feelings aren't. Someone knowing that they aren't alone can save their LIFE. Many people don't have the privilege of having someone in their real life that understands or seems to care.
Time and time again this book talks about strenuous activity and walking. Umm...physically disabled here. I can't walk much or physically do a lot. Some people...can't walk at all. It even says (talking about someone named Thoreau) "But if we remain inspired by his vision, and try to spend as much time as is reasonable on foot and engaging in the "noble art" of walking, we too will experience success in preserving our health and spirits." I didn't know I had picked up a fitness book. "Noble art" of walking? So what about those that can't walk? That can't get out much? My medical issues keep me home-bound and i'm far from the only home-bound disabled person. Through-out this book it completely forgets disabled people exist, that not everyone can walk or do strenuous activity, or get out of the house often, or has people around them in real life that actually care about them or that understand them in some way.
It talks about craftsmanship, making things with your hands (not everyone has hands), and how making something in the physical real world is superior and seems to be what makes a person...matter. Time and time again it gives off the impression that if you are disabled, if you can't be handy in someway, you don't matter. Granted it seems to completely forget disabled people exist. The pretentiousness oozing off the pages made me want to throw it.
It also constantly mentions smartphones and to use your desktop computer once in awhile and you're smartphone a lot less so you are on the internet less. I'm sure that can work for some people but it believes that everyone HAS a desktop computer. Many people are too poor and the only access they have to the internet is their smartphone. I'm quite the opposite, smartphones confuse the fuck out of me. I do have a tablet but I use that for ebooks mainly. I do have a desktop...that i'm always on. Because i'm home-bound.
It also constantly says that downtime is overrated. Why must we always be productive? Why can't we just relax once in awhile? We aren't machines. We are human. Downtime can be necessary. Why must leisure activity be yet another thing to use as a measure of productivity and why must how productive someone is be tied to their worth as a human? When talking about leisure activities it kept saying "high quality" leisure activities aka strenuous and productive stuff.
If you are wondering why I even picked it up, it's because I do want to be on the internet/social media less because I want to do other things. I want to draw, paint, write, read more. I thought maybe I could get something out of this book. And as I said in the beginning, I did. It's not without some words of wisdom or information that is useful as well as some things I wish more people knew. I don't actually regret reading it, I just didn't like reading it and it was hell to get through. I can't really recommend it and I feel like I wasted my money on it because I bet I could've just googled stuff. But the good stuff in it is why it gets a strong 2 stars from me, rather than ya know, 1 star.
It talks about how we are social animals and how that evolved in our brains and why social media is kinda fucking with it. And how we aren't wired to be constantly wired, which i'd agree with. How we could generally use some solitude to be with our thoughts. A part of me hates to give it a low rating because of how valuable I actually do find the good in it. I would love a book on this topic but more nuanced and inter-sectional. I'm glad for what I got out of it and i'll try to take that and forget the rest of my frustrations with it.
This review can also be found on my blog
Here .
Rating: really liked it
Have you read any other book written by a self-proclaimed minimalist? If so, no need to read this one. It's like a checklist: uncritical quotations from Thoreau, unquestioned male privilege, neoliberal individualism, smug superiority.
Did you know, the internet is addictive! But, it's not like an *actual* drug; you'll get over it if you just set very firm rules and get a new hobby. Like woodworking! Welding! Cross fit!
We desperately need to have nuanced and sophisticated conversations about technology and social media. This is not one.
Rating: really liked it
The most pretentious and rambling book I've ever read.
For a book about minimalism, Cal Newport sure does waste a lot of time and words to say very little. Ironically, this whole book could have been a Twitter thread. He does offer a few tidbits of practical advice, but it's all bogged down by pretentious musings and circular prose.
Basically, Newport suggests the following: Delete your social apps from your phone. Become more intentional with your social media use; that includes being aware of why you remain on social and how to achieve those goals without mindlessly tapping and swiping. Get "non-digital" hobbies. Read real books. Talk walks. Nothing groundbreaking, honestly, but stuff that's good for us all to hear.
What really pushed this book from a two-star read to a one-star read is just how smug the author comes off. To begin with, he's never even used social media. We're told this repeatedly. Not really sure how he can relate to the rest of us, as he doesn't seem to fully understand the role that social media plays in a lot of people's lives. I have friends I've met on Twitter -- that I only know from Twitter. No, we're not all BFFs, but I value those connections, especially since we share many interests that my IRL friends and I don't.
Privilege is baked into the book. Most of his advice just boils down to being rich or spending money on something. For example, we're told to cultivate more "non-digital" habits to break away from our computers. In the chapter, we meet some dude who has somehow achieved financial independence in his 30s (curious as to how he did that? Me too. We never hear the secret behind this major accomplishment. I'm going to guess it's "having rich parents"). After getting a expensive welding estimate from a metal smith, dude decides to just buy all the equipment himself and teach himself how to weld. He was able to provide his own iron works, as well as sell some to friends and family. It's so out of touch. How do I apply this example to my life? I have a full-time job; I don't have the luxury to while away my days learning how to do underwater basket-weaving.
Newport doubles-down on the home improvement angle, telling readers they should start with small projects to build up their handiness and work their way up to bigger projects. But what if you rent and aren't allowed to fiddle with your home's wall color/electricity/plumbing? What if you have kids and don't or can't sacrifice valuable time to build a deck? What if you just don't want to? How does becoming a handyman help someone break away from their digital addiction, especially since Newport suggests readers visit YouTube for tutorial videos? The whole digression was pointless.
There's so much more I could touch on. Like his weird shilling for the Mouse Book Club, a subscription book service that charges readers $50 for abridged versions of public domain texts. The idea being you keep their tiny books in your purse/pocket so that whenever you go for your phone, the book is there as a solid reminder of your unplugging goals. Why a $1 copy of the same book from a second-hand shop can't do the same, I don't know.
Or his casual assumption that his readers are working at jobs that will allow them to just get up and take a walk in the middle of the day or leave early on a whim.
Or his one piece of advice that's literally just "set a time limit for using social media." It's like going to your doctor and having him tell you to just be healthy.
This book isn't worth it and I can't recommend. It was the cause of my recent two-month reading slump. Just go read Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. At half the length, it's more insightful and more practical. The true minimalist.
Rating: really liked it
I've been thinking a lot these days about making more deliberate tech choices. No one human--not even Steve Jobs--ever expected technology to invade our lives the way it has. Instead, keeping us tethered to our tech and pulling that lever became the most popular and obvious way to monetize the Internet, and we individuals became, not the consumers, but the product being sold. And instead of cutting ourselves some slack--billions of dollars have been spent in the name of making the screens around us stickier and sticker, is it any wonder we're drawn in?—we feel guilty, as I did the other night, about being too weak to just shut it off and look away.
The perfect antidote to that guilt is Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism. Newport skips the guilt (noting that we didn't ask for this and really could not have been prepared for it) and challenges to ask ourselves: what am I trying to do when I use this technology—and is this the best way to serve that goal?
Build a philosophy around your tech use and you’ll use your tech more wisely. I'm trying, and this book is helping.
Rating: really liked it
The author describes digital addiction as a slot machine. This book teaches how to become a digital minimalist and talks about the benefits of spending time without a smartphone. You will discover a lot of hobbies and things to learn.
Rating: really liked it
One of my favorite reads of the year. No, one of my favorite reads ever.
