- My prediction is things like digital minimalism are going to become much more popular. When I say “things like digital minimalism,” I mean named philosophies of technology use. I think the right analogy is food and fitness. If you look at the 20th century, we had this influx of highly processed food and fast food, and, as a result, we had a large increase in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome. At first, the way we tried to deal with these was with tips and good intentions: "Try to eat better, try to move more. Here's a food pyramid, look at this. This will tell you what to do." But it was really ineffective. As people got more and more fed up with being less healthy, now we're starting to see changes. But if you ask yourself who's the healthiest person you know, almost certainly they subscribe to some sort of named philosophy that helps them make consistent and value-driven decisions about what they eat and how they move. Maybe they're vegan or paleo. These named philosophies emerged as a response to, "There's a real health issue, and the forces behind it are too strong for just good intentions and advice to solve it."
- How would you define techno-maximalism?
Cal Newport: It arose in the 1990s. The basic idea is that technological innovations can bring value and convenience into your life. So, you assess new technological tools with respect to what value or convenience it can bring into your life. And if you can find one, then the conclusion is, "If I can afford it, I should probably have this." It just looks at the positives. And it's view is "more is better than less," because more things that bring you benefits means more total benefits. This is what maximalism is: "If there's something that brings value, you should get it."
[...]
[Maximalism] ignores the opportunity cost. And as Thoreau pointed out hundreds of years ago, it's actually in the opportunity cost that all the interesting math happens.
The article is a bit run-of-the-mill "I have a book to sell"-piece, but I've been thinking a lot about this topic and whatever neo-Luddism means lately. More and more I shun any tech that tries to influence me, and my life is much more...zen? because of it.
Does anyone else communicate with EVERYBODY on Facebook Messenger?
My parents, my coworkers, my girlfriend, even my drug dealer - I don't really have anyone's phone number. And I don't think I'm unique in that way.
I don't have the Facebook app on my phone, for around 2 years now I haven't posted or viewed my feed.
I do concede I'm still addicted to other aspects of my phone, it's just Facebook that I always found especially distasteful.
However I consider Messenger as an unavoidable necessity for my generation.
Replace "Messenger" with "Whatsapp", and you have about half the globe with the same problem. Literally all my communication since like 2015 has gone through WhatsApp for me and everyone I know, replacing texts swiftly. And since Facebook bought WhatsApp, it's effectively also Messenger. Potato potato - effectively, there's no escape from Facebooks grasp. Even if you don't have an account, Facebook profiles you.
I think it very often looks that way because lookalike audiences have gotten really good. The real issue is that many, many websites have some analytics connection to Facebook, so ads have a lot of data to target you with.
I’ve had this idea for a product. A box that you set up at home that detects when you, or more specifically, your phone comes home. Then it turns your phone off to a degree you specify in the box’s settings (say, limit all internet connectivity + no phone calls after 7pm, or shut off the phone completely within the geofence of my room, etc.). The box ought to be designed in such a way than it’s not trivial to reset it, which would prevent all but the most urgent of urges to get on your phone (which for my case is 98% of the urges I get; a bored look at my phone, a peruse of apps after I end a call and the home screen is just up, etc.)
Is this a product for the digitally minimal future?
Also, what’s a good community tag for this kind of thing? We seem to talk about it often.
Its not the same thing as to what you're describing, but its similar in spirit. I own a box that has a timer that you can set for anywhere from a few minutes to literally a week. You set the desired time, place whatever objects you want inside it, and then it locks itself. It is literally impossible to open until the timer runs out. Though, it is made of plastic, so if you need to get inside it for an emergency or something, you could easily smash it.
I'm not sure if a physical box could do that, but maybe an app could.
A simpler solution (which sadly won't make you any money) is to get a dumb-phone as a second phone and get a twin SIM card (if your operator offers that service). Leave you smart-phone in your jacket or purse so you can bring it when you leave the house, and use the dumb-phone around the house.
My initial reaction to this is that it's more desirable to better yourself than to purposely hamstring your technology.
All this seems a bit overkill for something that can be solved with discipline and mindfulness (along with a good percentage of other changes that we may want to make in our lives).
- All this seems a bit overkill for something that can be solved with discipline and mindfulness (along with a good percentage of other changes that we may want to make in our lives).
That's part of the problem though. So many of these services, apps, and games are designed in such a way as to pull the levers and push the buttons of your brain to try and get you hooked, to continue to spend time and money on them. They're literally designed with the intention of trying to override our self control.
Newport's comparison with food is a great example. There's a lot of factors that contribute to obesity and poor health, but most people agree is that a large part of the problem is the food that's produced for us and how its priced and marketed to us. Lifestyle choices are crucial, but when your environment is saturated with bad options that are cheap, convenient, and enjoyable, its often hard to stick to those lifestyle choices. When viewed in that light, people with poor health due to lifestyle issues aren't necessarily sinful or lesser, more often than not they're just flawed humans living in an world that's designed to take advantage of those flaws.
- Lifestyle choices are crucial, but when your environment is saturated with bad options that are cheap, convenient, and enjoyable, its often hard to stick to those lifestyle choices.
It is hard. Taking control of your instinctual thoughts and overriding your impulses can take a long time, sometimes years. And like you say, the issue is compounded by the fact that apps are intrinsically designed to be addictive.
But those things are a given. Whilst you can't ignore them as powerful factors, I feel a lot of people allow themselves to use it as an excuse to not face themselves down and make the consistent, difficult choices. They allow it take away their agency and succumb to a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Oh well, I'd like to stop but I can't because it's designed to be addictive". Yeah, well you're just going to have to try harder then.
Regardless of how insidious smartphones and their apps become, you still have a choice. Pick up the phone or don't. Open the app or don't. You know you have these choices. One path will make you feel momentarily good but ultimately bad, the other path the inverse of that. You will succumb to the temptation often. But over time, you will start to make the difficult but ultimately desirable choice more often. In turn, you'll develop the circuitry in your brain for it to become your default behavior.
The way the majority of apps are designed is not going to change any time soon and you can't control that, but you can change.
I think it can be analogous to learning a piece on an musical instrument. You start painfully slow and fuck up every second note. Just as you're thinking that you've got a handle on one part, you focus on a different aspect and lose it again. But gradually, over many days/months, your brain adapts and reprograms itself. Until, one day, you can play the piece effortlessly.
Or, instead of bettering yourself, you can lock your phone in a box, put your fingers in your ears and go: "la, la, la, I can't hear you". And nothing will change.
From my perspective, because the companies behind these technologies are designing them the way they are, people who have a problem with trying to limit their interactions with these technologies shouldn't have to shoulder all of the blame.
- Regardless of how insidious smartphones and their apps become, you still have a choice. Pick up the phone or don't. Open the app or don't. You know you have these choices.
No doubt, but it's not that binary. Different people struggle with different things to different degrees.
Not everyone has a problem with alcohol, but when a person who has a serious problem with alcohol decides to stop going to bars and liquor stores as part of their attempt to tackle their problems, they're not being weak, they're making a mature, responsible decision.
Not everyone has a problem with gambling, but when a person who has a serious problem with gambling decides to stop visiting casinos and racetracks as part of their attempt to tackle their problems, they're not being weak, they're making a mature, responsible decision.
I could go on with examples forever, from food to toxic relationships to types of media exposure, but you get my point. Sometimes part of taking control of ourselves and our behaviors involves understanding how the environments we expose ourselves to affects us and understanding how changing or limiting our exposure to those types of environments can give us that control. For some people, for some situations, that might mean 100% abstinence. If someone decides that "Yes, social media is too much of a problem for me and the realistic solution is to just completely opt out," that's their decision, that's how they're choosing to not pick up the phone, not open the app. There really isn't anything wrong with that, and there's nothing to say they can't change their minds down the road.
I don't think people should have to shoulder all of the blame either. These thing have been designed to manipulate us and it sucks. My point is that you have more power to change yourself than to change the way people are designing apps.
I don't disagree with abstinence if a person feels that's the only option. But if that's the case, sell your smartphone and buy a dumbphone. My objection is to those who know they have a problem with something but essentially just pretend to deal with it by temporarily treating the symptoms instead of working on a permanent cure.
An alcoholic who sips from their hip flask all day and then locks it away for a few hours each evening isn't really helping themselves.
So your issue with the "box" idea is that it doesn't go far enough?
You think hamstringing your technology shows a lack of self control, but getting rid of the technology altogether doesn't? Doesn't seem like a consistent view to me.
- So your issue with the "box" idea is that it doesn't go far enough
No. My issue with it is that it only pretends to solve the problem.
As stated in my original reply, my idealistic solution is to keep using your phone but gradually exert mindfulness and discipline to retrain you relationship to it. This too me is the quintessence of self-control.
However, as binder said, the idea of trying to moderate something you're so deep into sometimes just doesn't seem possible. And it's futile to attempt something you don't believe is possible. In those cases, I think that abstinence is an acceptable secondary solution.
I don't believe it to be as good as my ideal solution and I don't think it's an ultimate representation of self-control. But if it stops a person abusing something and makes them happier then I say 'go for it'. Furthermore, I believe abstinence can be gateway to reintroducing something back into your life once you've had space away from it to reset. From there you can then practice 'true' self-control.
In comparison, the box idea is a middle-ground that accomplishes nothing. It doesn't teach you to use something responsibly nor does give you enough space from it to reapproach it with a newfound mindset.
I find that to be a pretty nonsensical point of view. Your issue seems to be about purity, only "true self control" is good enough to be worthy, it's either that or complete abstinence.
Why? What makes you say that the box accomplishes nothing? What's wrong with a practical solution that doesn't involve true mastery of the self? Most of us aren't Buddhist monks.
If not keeping chocolate at home helps you not overindulge with chocolate consumption, what's wrong with doing that? Are you suggesting someone should only eat chocolate if they're able to keep it in their house without eating it on impulse?
- Your issue seems to be about purity, only "true self control" is good enough to be worthy, it's either that or complete abstinence.
Yes, that is my point view. If I want to make a change in my life, I want to do it properly. Halfhearted solutions do not satisfy my need for self-improvement. Do I expect everyone to share this approach? No.
- What's wrong with a practical solution that doesn't involve true mastery of the self? If not keeping chocolate at home helps you not overindulge with chocolate consumption, what's wrong with doing that? Are you suggesting someone should only eat chocolate if they're able to keep it in their house without eating it on impulse?
Firstly, absolutely nothing is wrong with it, but for me personally it is not the way. I guess the way I chose to word my previous posts didn't do me any favours here. I only meant to share my opinion on my approach to self-improvement. I don't care what other people choose to do. They can live their lives how they see fit and I certainly wouldn't look down on anyone for choosing to lock their phone in box during the evening or not buy some chocolate every so often.
Secondly, an anecdote. I used to be addicted to sugar. The amount of cakes and chocolates I'd get down me each day was not good; I could eat a share size pack of my favourite chocolates in minutes. And it started doing a number on my teeth. Under the advice from my dentist, I stopped eating anything with added or refined sugar. I kept this up for 5-6 months. Then slowly I reintroduced it into my diet in a controlled way.
A month or so back, I made a choice to stop eating a smaller pack of my favourite chocolates halfway through. I put them to the side and actually ended up forgetting about them. When I remembered them the next day, the positivity that I felt from having mastered myself was worth 1000 moments of halfhearted happiness. I had treated something that had previously caused me problem with a newfound responsibility. I had my cake and ate it too. And they weren't left in a shop or locked away in box, they were just to side of me within arm's reach.
Is that really nonsensical?
The nonsensical part for me was that it sounded like you thought it was wrong for people to do "half measures" that work. If you're just talking about your personal preference, that's a different matter.
Personally I agree that the optimal solution is to have self control, and I do have a fair bit of self control. However, I don't always have perfect control, so I try not to put myself in situations where I'm likely to do something I don't think I should.
The problem is that life can be very stressful, and in general I find it demands TONS of self control. I go to work five days a week, I have to keep my apartment and clothes clean, I have to be polite to people even if I might not like them; in short there's a lot of stuff I have to do that I don't really feel like doing. I find this pressure keeps building as I get older.
I don't need some extra source of temptation around to challenge my self control, I already exercise enormous self control just living life.
- They're literally designed with the intention of trying to override our self control.
This for me has been the issue. In the main, I'm pretty intentional about my attention. But at the margins, I keep creeping toward smartphone usage. I believe it's because the phone and its contents are just so crazily well-designed. I forgot who said it, but our generation's best brains are being hired in droves by FAANG to get us to spend 10 more minutes a day on their products. They're well past the point of digging into what casinos have been doing to override our self-control.
Is it bad I'm reading this article on gasp a smartphone?
- In 2004, when Cal Newport was still an undergrad at Dartmouth, all his friends were making accounts on a new website called Facebook. Newport opted out.
It sounds like Mr. Cal Newport has been trying to avoid technology for a while. The reason technology is driving him crazy has little to do with the tech itself. Rather, life is driving him crazy, and he thinks if he unplugs from life he'll become magically satisfied having reclaimed that time to stare at a wall and write shitty self help books (also an addiction see: my brother).
- Okay, well what's the cost in terms of my time attention required to have this device in my life?
Or reading a newspaper. What about decades ago when the average American used to spend 5 hours a day watching television? Everything in life is addictive. Information is addictive. Books are addictive. Falling in love is addictive. Comparing it to cigarettes is absolute mayhem given AS A MILLENIAL there are many people my age hacking the darts and posting on Instagram and only one of those behaviours is giving you a fucking tumour. Somehow my dad managed to get distracted enough to fail out of the university in the 70's without smartphones. It was called playing pool and getting piss drunk every weekend. Didn't need any deep work for that.
- Is it bad I'm reading this article on gasp a smartphone?
No, see also what I said to binder below. The comparison to cigarettes is not about whether it literally causes cancer, it's about cultural norms and what is looked down upon.
Have you read this article? Sadly, it seems to have gone, but Wayback archive still has it. The gist of it is that games like Farmville were intentionally maliciously designed to fuck with your brain's dopamine response, that their creators are more than aware of it, and that they did it anyway.
That article was written in good ol' 2011, but the practice has metastasized all over our smartphone apps. You can say a lot about books or television, but it does not deliver the completely personalized addiction-inducing behaviour that Instagram does. Instagram, for example, will track your usage patterns to make sure that every time you check the app, you see new likes and interactions. It'll hold back likes and comment notifications just to get you to check the app faster. Ain't no book pulling that shit on me.
- More and more I shun any tech that tries to influence me, and my life is much more...zen? because of it.
I'm just curious as to your perception. Do you see yourself as shunning tech or learning to do without? It seems like there's a real distinction between the two, the former being fear driven and the latter being healthy lifestyle driven. I think like this article is talking about, more and more people are deciding what technology to allow in their lives being motivated by health, but their behavior is painted by others as fearful shunning.
I think I'm coming down to thinking of tech more and more like a utility. I mean - my homescreen is full of apps that give me instant access to a lot of knowledge. That's not a bad thing.
What is bad is that so many people resort to their smartphones at the slightest hint of boredom, that we are now assumed to be always connected and available, and that apps try to mimick social cues to get people to spend more time liking, hearting and swiping. Remember the original iPhone presentation? It was pitched like a phone, an iPod and a web browser. A decade of feature creep later and it can now do pretty much whatever you want. You can be fully connected to the world, to your colleagues, to your friends, at any moment. Which makes them distracting sonsabitches and leads to the aforementioned problems.
I don't believe in abstaining or shunning the tech, because it still has too much utility for that. It kinda feels like throwing your Swiss army knife in the garbage because you keep cutting yourself with one of its blades, even though the other tools are still useful.
The question that is now still out in the open for me is this: what role do I want this tech to have in my life? "Everything"(i.e. unconstrained techno-maximalism) clearly hasn't worked out. "Nothing" is dumb too. So I'm looking for a healthy, productive middle ground.
Agreed. A person can place the blame all they like on the sources of temptation, but however we slice it, the burden always falls on us, the consumer, to manage the use of technology, alcohol, food, or whatever could become our personal time suck.
I expect our Paleolithic ancestors had to deal with the same stuff in a different context.
Maybe it went like this, “Me, Grog have leg injury from last mastodon hunt. Me need rest to recover. Jackass tribe mates telling me of upcoming mastodon hunt. They tell me of glory of rest of tribe if I go on upcoming hunt of my life. They post cave painting of past success and what future mastodon hunt will look like without me.”
FOMO is invented. Grog must decide to stay home responsibly and survive, or go chasing glory.