I think we would all agree that we spend too much time looking at screens. This post will help you figure out your relationship with technology and how best to optimize the advantages if offers us.
I’m sure I could find a bunch of stats saying how often people are on their phones, computers, Netflix and in screens in general. You don’t need to be convinced that we are obsessed with screens and we should all be spending at least slightly less time with our devices. But how? Let’s find out. (Everything in italics is take directly from the book)
Obviously, none of these ideas I have thought of on my own. I read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport last year and suggest if you want a deeper dive into less technology, give it a read. I also read 24/6 by Tiffany Shlain which wasn’t the best but I learned a few things. Matt D'Avella has great YouTube videos about digital minimalism here:
General tips
-Delete most apps from your phone. Not having Instagram, Twitter or TikTok to distract you the first moment you get bored will limit your overall screen unlocks. I know I said I wouldn’t bore you with stats but only picking one will make my argument more persuasive. The average person unlocks their phone 79 times a day, according to
This study was completed in 2018 so my guess would be that it’s higher in our age of not leaving our houses.
-Lately I’ve been hovering around 40ish unlocks a day. The majority of those unlocks are to use my podcast app because I don’t need to check my phone for messages since my social status in Seoul is low.
To find out your screen unlocks, just go to your settings which should have a screen time management feature. This will help you determine where you are spending your time each day in terms of apps. I have a feature that “locks” my phone after 90 minutes of screen time. It’s not hard to extend the time but it’s a reminder that I’ve been on my phone too much that day. My phone also tells me when it is time to go to bed and turns my screen grey. I find it helpful.
-Only check your email once in the morning and once in the afternoon or before the end of the day.
-Not using the internet an hour after you wake up or an hour before bed. Waking up, grabbing your phone and scrolling to see how terrible the world is doesn’t seem like a great way to start your day.
-Buy an alarm clock so you aren’t tempted to use your phone first thing in the morning. Leave your phone in another room to make it more difficult to waste your time.
-I only check Instagram once every day or two for probably less than 10 minutes. Once or twice a month I will redownload the app, post a picture or story then delete a day or two after. It works for me.
-One way I am not a digital minimalist if that I have multiple tabs, in multiple browsers. I can’t help it. However, if you want to upgrade this part of your life, try and close all tabs at the end of the day. Good luck with that one.
-On the other hand, I don't have data or a phone number. Is this convenient? No. Should you try it? No; just put your phone on airplane mode as often as you can.
-On the other hand, I don't have data or a phone number. Is this convenient? No. Should you try it? No; just put your phone on airplane mode as often as you can.
-If you want to be hardcore and keep these apps on your phone, at least disable notifications. Why should your day be interrupted for the internet to show you a comment from your aunt liking your selfie from 8 years ago? Stop the notifications.
Unsubscribe from newsletters and anyone else sending you daily or weekly email that is not improving your life.
-Go for long walks or hikes without your phone. You’ll be alright.
-Here is a pro tip from Bert: Send voice notes instead of texts or comments on social media sites. You can say way more, way faster. I was first introduced to voice notes in Shanghai and I’ve been trying to bring it to my social circle. Just press the microphone on WhatsApp or Messenger. People will think it’s strange at first; I did. But once people get comfortable, they won’t want to go back. Send voice notes.
-Limit your news consumption. Listen to a podcast you trust, find a reliable newsletter or subscribe to magazines that keep you up to date. Checking the news constantly throughout the day is not a productive way to deal with boredom.
Cal Tips:
-The Digital Declutter Process Put aside a thirty-day period during which you will take a break from optional technologies in your life. During this thirty-day break, explore and rediscover activities and behaviors that you find satisfying and meaningful. At the end of the break, reintroduce optional technologies into your life, starting from a blank slate. For each technology you reintroduce, determine what value it serves in your life and how specifically you will use it so as to maximize this value
-For this process to succeed, you must also spend this period trying to rediscover what’s important to you and what you enjoy outside the world of the always-on, shiny digital…you’re more likely to succeed in reducing the role of digital tools in your life if you cultivate high-quality alternatives to the easy distraction they provide.
-The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.
“We’re social beings who can’t ever completely ignore what other people think of us.” This behavior, of course, is adaptive. In Paleolithic times, it was important that you carefully managed your social standing with other members of your tribe because your survival depended on it. In the twenty-first century, however, new technologies have hijacked this deep drive to create profitable behavioral addictions. Consider, once again, social media feedback buttons. In addition to delivering unpredictable feedback, as discussed above, this feedback also concerns other people’s approval. If lots of people click the little heart icon under your latest Instagram post, it feels like the tribe is showing you approval—which we’re adapted to strongly crave.*
-The more you use social media, the less time you tend to devote to offline interaction, and therefore the worse this value deficit becomes—leaving the heaviest social media users much more likely to be lonely and miserable.
-The “Like” feature evolved to become the foundation on which Facebook rebuilt itself from a fun amusement that people occasionally checked, to a digital slot machine that began to dominate its users’ time and attention. This button introduced a rich new stream of social approval indicators that arrive in an unpredictable fashion— creating an almost impossibly appealing impulse to keep checking your account. It also provided Facebook much more detailed information on your preferences, allowing their machine-learning algorithms to digest your humanity into statistical slivers that could then be mined to push you toward targeted ads and stickier content.
Instead of seeing these easy clicks as a fun way to nudge a friend, start treating them as poison to your attempts to cultivate a meaningful social life. Put simply, you should stop using them. Don’t click “Like.” Ever. And while you’re at it, stop leaving comments on social media posts as well. No “so cute!” or “so cool!” Remain silent.
-Finally, it’s worth noting that refusing to use social media icons and comments to interact means that some people will inevitably fall out of your social orbit—in particular, those whose relationship with you exists only over social media. Here’s my tough love reassurance: let them go. The idea that it’s valuable to maintain vast numbers of weak-tie social connections is largely an invention of the past decade or so—the detritus of overexuberant network scientists spilling inappropriately into the social sphere. Humans have maintained rich and fulfilling social lives for our entire history without needing the ability to send a few bits of information each month to people we knew briefly during high school. Nothing about your life will notably diminish when you return to this steady state. As an academic who studies and teaches social media explained to me: “I don’t think we’re meant to keep in touch with so many people.”
-Being less available over text, in other words, has a way of paradoxically strengthening your relationship even while making you (slightly) less available to those you care about. This point is crucial because many people fear that their relationships will suffer if they downgrade this form of lightweight connection. I want to reassure you that it will instead strengthen the relationships you care most about. You can be the one person in their life who actually talks to them on a regular basis, forming a deeper, more nuanced relationship than any number of exclamation points and bitmapped emojis can provide.
-I learned it from a technology executive in Silicon Valley who innovated a novel strategy for supporting high-quality interaction with friends and family: he tells them that he’s always available to talk on the phone at 5:30 p.m. on weekdays. There’s no need to schedule a conversation or let him know when you plan to call—just dial him up. As it turns out, 5:30 is when he begins his traffic-clogged commute home in the Bay Area. He decided at some point that he wanted to put this daily period of car confinement to good use, so he invented the 5:30 rule.
Leisure Lesson #1: Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption.
Leisure Lesson #2: Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world.
Here’s my suggestion: schedule in advance the time you spend on low-quality leisure. Work out the specific time periods during which you’ll indulge in web surfing, social media checking, and entertainment streaming. When you get to these periods, anything goes. If you want to binge-watch Netflix while live-streaming yourself browsing Twitter: go for it. But outside these periods, stay offline
Tips from 24/6
Her family takes part in a Tech Sabbath. They put their phones away Friday night. Have a dinner, invite people they want to know better. Spend Saturday doing an activity. The day before they print or look up anything they need. Have a landline for emergencies. Let their friends and family know about their technology free Friday to Saturday nights. People are into it.
Exits and entrances: Count to ten with your hand on the doorknob when you’re about to enter a new room, to make sure you don’t bring the energy or emotional baggage from the previous meeting into the next one. And definitely don’t bring in your in-progress phone call. No one wants to be greeted with half a telephone conversation that doesn’t include them: half a hello, a smiley head nod with a finger up saying I’ll just be a minute (right), and then being subjected to one side of a conversation
Focusing on creating an official entrance and exit to the week, and to Tech Shabbat itself, has an extended effect throughout the week to make you think more intentionally about all the other entrances and exits you open and close throughout the day, with your parents, your friends, the people at your work or school, your pets, your partner, your children, and all the people you interact with as you go about your day.
We know that people who keep a rest day tend to live longer. (As a number of studies have shown, Seventh Day Adventists, who keep a weekly Sabbath, live ten years longer than the average American.)
A recent study confirmed that we remember things less well when we use screens to document them.
“Creating a hard copy of an experience through media leaves only a diminished copy in our own heads.”
“Appreciate beauty. Plant gardens. Enjoy sunsets. Help people less fortunate than you. Think big. Nothing is more important than family. Be present.” Much later, I would realize these are exactly the things we do on our screen-free days.
Questions to ask yourself
What are your (or your partner’s or kids’) habits around screens that you most struggle with?
What’s going to be the hardest part about giving up screens for a full day?
What, if anything, do you fear will happen (or not happen)?
How many screens do you have in your house?
How often do you think you’re on at least one screen every day? Every week?
Consider actually tracking your screen time, either with an app on your phone, on a spreadsheet, or through nondigital means.
What aspects of your screen use worry you?
When is the first time you check your phone in the morning?
What is the longest amount of time you can remember being away from at least one screen?
When was the last time you went a whole day without screens?
In summary, companies spend billions of dollars to hijack our attention. It’s time that we take a short break from our everyday technological habits, think about our values and how we want to spend our time. After that short break, reintroduce technologies that add joy to your life. Monitor your own screen time and make time for device free activities. To me, digital minimalism is about getting all of the good from technology while limiting or eliminating the bad.
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