Digital Minimalism
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Digital Minimalism is a book that argues we are much happier and more fulfilled as humans if we make an effort to focus on fewer things for longer periods of time. It also argues that an effective way to do this is to dramatically reduce the amount of time we spend with and on our smartphones. So of course I read it in 3-5 minute snatches on my phone.
But that’s exactly why I picked this book up - lately I have found myself increasingly unable to separate myself from doom scrolling the news or getting sucked into the black hole of auto-play reels or tiktoks. I could feel my baseline anxiety rising and my attention span shortening. I didn’t pick up Digital Minimalism to learn if or how the constant incoming stream of notifications was harming my quality of life. I picked it up because I wanted to
learn actionable ways to take back my time and attention. As Newport says in the book,
we’ve been engaging in a lopsided arms race in which the technologies encroaching on our autonomy were preying with increasing precision on deep-seated vulnerabilities in our brains, while we still naively believed that we were just fiddling with fun gifts handed down from the nerd gods.
Very, very smart people are being paid buckets of money to engineer more and more effective ways to catch and keep our attention. We all know the classic casino tricks in Vegas - remove all visible clocks and windows to the outside so people lose track of time. But somehow it's harder to remember that there’s no real difference between the slot machine and swiping down to refresh a social media feed. I haven’t done the full digital detox Newport suggests yet, but even the small changes I’ve made have had a noticeable impact. I lose all sense of time and will accidentally spend hours mindlessly scrolling Insta, so now I have a time limit set so that the app auto closes after 5 minutes. I have a hard time refocusing on a task after being interrupted, so my phone now stays on do not disturb 90% of the day.
I don’t know that you need to read Digital Minimalism cover to cover unless you need the argument for why it’s worth it. Otherwise check it out from the library from time to time and skim through for the different Practices to see which will be best applicable to your life. I plan to revisit this every 6 months to a year to try and hold myself accountable to better digital habits.
In honor of the minimalism proposed in the book, I paired it with a classic margarita - just lime, tequila, and a splash of triple sec. Turns out I like the simple version even better than the flavored and blended versions I usually get!
Classic Margarita
2 ounces white tequila
1 ounce triple sec
3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed
Salt to rim
Rim the glass with salt using the lime juice. (Rub lime slice or dip rim in juice, then dip rim in salt) Add ice to glass. Combine drink ingredients in shaker and shake until cold, strain into glass. Garnish with lime if desired.
Warning - the shaker will pressurize due to friction heat during the dry shake. Proceed with care!
