At a time when our lives are increasingly intertwined with digital devices, the idea of digital minimalism has emerged as a powerful potential antidote to the overwhelming presence of technology in our lives. As our daily screen time continues to climb, many people are feeling the need to step back and reassess their relationship with technology. While we all recognise the many benefits our intertwining with digital devices has bestowed on us, recognising when and where this relationship starts to negatively impact our lives is a tougher question in many ways.
Recent studies have linked excessive screen time to a range of issues, including poor sleep quality, increased anxiety and depression,decreased attention span, and reduced face-to-face social interactions. The intentionally addictive nature of many digital platforms, designed in order to best capture and hold our attention makes it challenging to break free from this cycle, and digital minimalism has emerged as an attempt to learn how best to mitigate these risks and enjoy the benefits of technology without succumbing to its more nefarious side effects.
Digital minimalism seeks to create strategies not to reject the use of digital technology outright but simply to analyse and determine the overall effect on our lives of the digital tools we use in order to retain only those that give us practical benefit or align with our core values and goals. This approach stands in stark contrast to the maximalist tendencies encouraged by tech companies which may be in many ways leading to the host of side effects listed earlier.
Aims.
Some of the aims of digital minimalism include:
- Less time wasted on social media: Recognising when social media use has gone too far and understanding how social media algorithms attempt to capture our attention through feeding us info and posts which keep scrolling as long as possible.
- Better Daily Routines: Understanding our digital habits and striving to build a better routine where time spent online doesn’t interfere with pursuing our goals, desires and personal relationships.
- Boredom: Learning to fill our excess time with useful hobbies or rediscovering old passions like painting, reading etc to fill our downtime with instead of simply scrolling to pass the time.
- Less hours spent in mindless watching: Using the digital tools at our fingertips more towards inquiry into topics that really interest us or will positively affect our lives and careers rather than endlessly scrolling reels or tik tok’s which may merely occupy our attention with useless information.
Strategies.
- Screen time tracking: Using apps or built in phone features to analyse and monitor where our time is being spent digitally and if a change is needed.
- Prioritising Quality over Quantity: Focusing our time spent online on meaningful and personally beneficial content over aimless scrolling.
- Digital Decluttering: Sometimes our devices or our usage of them may benefit from a decluttering, think of it like a spring cleaning to refresh your home but with your phone instead. Take a step back from apps and networks you use for a period of time and then reintroduce them in a more measured way having had the time to realise which digital tools are really enhancing your life.
Resources:
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4872178
- https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2737909
- https://calnewport.com/on-digital-minimalism/
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