I'm sitting and chatting calmly with a friend, but I just can't hold out. I'm hooked, so I reach into my pocket and pull out the phone. I simply have to see who wrote. Why did the damn thing buzz a second ago?! And while I'm at it, I'll take a quick look at how many people have liked my new post…
We're all like that.
Today a fierce battle is being waged for our attention, and every weapon is fair game. For now, the online giants are winning it by a huge margin, and they are allowed absolutely everything. They take advantage of us, luring us to sink into our own bubble and to wait breathlessly for every next like. Of course, this is also closely tied to the way we take in information these days.
One of the solutions we use to save ourselves one by one is “digital minimalism.” But does it stand a chance of bringing about change, of going mainstream? How does it work? Are there alternatives?
The Phone Keeps Us Connected, the Phone Keeps Us Apart
“Addiction is the process of developing a psychological and/or physical dependence on a particular substance or activity. (…) The pleasure and enjoyment experienced at first, with prolonged use of the substance or activity, lead to a need to use them in order to restore one's normal state.”
I'm using the definition most of us would check first, taken straight from the Bulgarian Wikipedia. Well, doesn't it apply to all of us? Honestly, the nervousness with which heavy smokers reach for the pack once the precious minutes have passed is often a far more harmless sight than the ferocity and persistence with which we all dig into our pockets for the next dose of internet.
Sure, we think of it as a little bit of communication, of contact. But, clearly, at some point it turns against real contact.
Almost all of us today are victims of this addiction. And no wonder: Facebook has resources and capabilities Philip Morris could only dream of.
I Walk Through the World and Even Whistle as I Go
There is no doubt that computers, mobile phones and communication platforms are all technologies that make our lives easier and perhaps more interesting. But at some point we become their slaves… and here we thought the day when machines would take on that role was still far off.
Here are some specifics. According to an analysis of a 2018 study, we open our email on average every six minutes or less.
We use at least 56 apps a day, switching between them more than 300 times.
We spend about 4.5 hours a day tapping away on our phones.
For at least 40 percent of those hours, we are doing more than one thing at once.
Three years later, there is no reason to think the numbers aren't even higher. The battle is only getting fiercer.
Silence, Silence… It's All I Have Left After You
In the early days of the internet and computer games, there was more talk about addiction to them; then the topic quieted down. We were left with crude jokes about how in Asia they send people who can't tear themselves away from the internet for 10 hours to sanatoriums… and today we all spend that much time, and a lot more, interacting with the web. Without anyone trying to scare us. So there's no problem, right?
“I Used to Be a Human Being.” That's the title of the essay by blogger Andrew Sullivan that became a hit online in September 2016. Its subtitle reads: “An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you, too.” The blogger tells, with great emotion, what he concluded from watching himself.
He writes that he was among the first people to move their lives online on the scale that all of us do today. And how he gradually felt himself turning into a creature bombarded by meaningless notifications, one that had completely replaced its natural priorities with constant staring at a screen. With attention taken up by (almost entirely) meaningless information that has no end and knows no rest. Of course, it rarely goes to such extremes, but for Sullivan fifteen years of life online ended in a hospital with neurological problems. When he got out, he set himself very strict limits and, as he puts it, returned to real life.
Calling Out Like a Partridge
Yes, we are innocent victims. Today everyone, on- or offline, is chiefly concerned with grabbing our attention. If it's a store, so that we buy its products; if it's a showcase site, so that we're impressed by what its owner can do. And if it's a communication platform, a chat or a social network, it wants to engage us so that we keep going after every click. So that we scroll. Again and again.
At first it feels good. And it really is good: you stay in touch with people, you can always satisfy your curiosity about what became of little Petar from fifth grade, whom you haven't seen in 20 years. Your best friend is always at hand, so you can ask whether you did the right thing by not saying “good morning” to that airhead who gets on your nerves…
But at some point it becomes too much.
As if I'm Walking Toward an Abyss
All of this brings terrible exhaustion in its wake. The effect accumulates. We follow the work chat, the likes on the blog, what's new in the stories, on Instagram and who knows what else… Every new channel tugs at a bit of our attention, tries (and often succeeds) to stir up emotions in us. And the more it succeeds, the more things spin out of control.
At some point it turns into an addiction more insidious than many others. Because it is treacherous, imperceptible, disguised behind momentary pleasures and, not least, free of social stigma. And it leads to the next step: constant anxiety in anticipation of the next buzz of the gadget in our pocket. Real face-to-face communication gets distorted in favor of the other kind.
And one more thing not to be underestimated: it recently became clear just how “contagious” staring at a screen is when two people are sitting together. It takes 30 seconds, and the effect is almost guaranteed: the other person pulls the phone out of their pocket too.
The Past Has Passed, the Future Hasn't
The past year helped this along too, by depriving us of the other, the normal option.
But what can we do to ease the dependence and slow the pace a little?
In 2019, Cal Newport's book Digital Minimalism came out, offering one possible answer. Namely: try a 30-day “diet,” or, to use the trendier word, a “detox.” That way we could find out what really matters to us and then, gradually and in a controlled way, allow ourselves only that.
There is a certain logic to it; in fact, Newport is especially convincing in the first part, where he examines the ways every type of web page tries to keep us around longer. Everyone really does this, and so do I, with this text and every other one, except that the goal is different, and so is the meaning. Take those likes, for example. Yes, there's probably something pleasant about seeing that your friends like your photo, but by tomorrow it will have sunk into the feed, and what is left after it?
Everything Passes Under This Sky
Newport aptly compares smartphones, which have completely changed how we interact with the online world, to casino slot machines. Both were designed to keep you going, to keep you betting and losing, more and more. Except that in one case it's about money. And in the other, about something even more precious in life. Strength and energy you could devote to more meaningful and enjoyable things.
His concept looks back to older expressions of minimalism, from the ideas of Henry David Thoreau and Marcus Aurelius. “Minimalism isn't just spending less money and owning fewer things than others. Minimalists make a far greater effort, sometimes even radically, to focus their lives on the things that mean something to them,” Newport writes.
Like Smoke up the Chimney
“The less, the better” is the core message of digital minimalism.
Newport's own short formulation: “Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps you ask which digital communication tools (and which behaviors around them) 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.”
Newport describes his experience with 1,600 volunteers who joined his experiment and went through the “information diet” described in the book. He sums up the practices they singled out as working best, and still, they largely overlap with the core message.
The first step is to sit down and think about which technologies really matter to you. Then, for 30 days, switch off everything that falls under “I can probably do without this.” During that month it's also a good idea to find more “analog pastimes” that somehow make up for the deprivation. Next comes drawing up a plan based on what you learned in those 30 days and easing back into normal life.
Only, in the best case, with a bit more awareness and 309,832,983 fewer apps on your phone.
You're in a Hurry, You Have No Time
So what, should we all become hermits? Oh no, not at all. For one thing, many people couldn't afford the digital minimalism Newport proposes, simply because much of their work is tied to social networks. And overly strict diets… always bounce back like a yo-yo. The same goes for other addictions.
Among Newport's other ideas are some worth thinking about: spending more time alone, leaving our phones at home when we go out for long walks. Even sitting down now and then to write letters to ourselves. Avoiding “likes” as a form of communication in favor of conversation, online if need be. When resting, preferring activities that take more effort over those where we passively consume information. Reading for understanding instead of just skimming.
At 100 Kilometers an Hour
Or maybe it's enough simply to stay mindful? We can't hand out exact prescriptions; that's not our specialty. But digital minimalism also sounds like a somewhat general and extreme concept that is unlikely ever to go mainstream.
Extremes rarely work in general, and abrupt decisions are not often the best ones either. The topic is big, and yet, in the spirit of minimalism, let's stop here. Coming soon: the fascinating perspective of a psychologist.
It is definitely worth it for each of us to stop every now and then and think about whether we should pull our personal boundary back a bit, toward the analog. To turn off at least the clearly unnecessary beeps the phone makes over every little thing. To pause and think before grabbing the pocket computer again just 10 seconds later. Chances are nothing all that important has happened…
