The Digital Minimalism — Less is More

Why consuming less information is good for you and here is how you should do it

Minimalism is an art of living with less stuff and letting go of the rest. The rest is nothing but the stuff which you actually don’t need it but you believe that you need it and having less stuff is a product of a minimalistic mindset. Having less stuff will make you happy about the fact that you are focused and in control. Now, the fewer things you own will have more meaning and value in your life.

Chuck Palahniuk once said

“The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.”

This is true when you have more stuff, having more stuff creates chaos, They take up your time and attention and that’s why things end up owning you. There are many things in our life that don’t provide us any value and can better when ditched, such as possessions like clothes, furniture, etc.. and they can also be immaterial possessions like bad habits, poor values, etc..

This applies to your digital part as well. Tech has become the extended part of ourself and on our daily basis, we constantly interact with mobiles, laptops, multiple apps, frequent notifications, a never-ending newsfeed that pushes you to do mindless scrolling. They take away our time without our realization, the same as physical stuff. So, it is important to declutter your digital space and remove the unwanted noise and make room for what really matters to you

The Attention Economy

Our attention is a valuable resource in the digital age and the attention economy was born when advertising on the internet become a thing. When you think about how social media works, it starts to make sense, they are just the service on the internet that we think of as free. But they are not free, they are paid for by advertisers. Why do advertisers pay those companies?
They pay in exchange for showing their ads to us.
We are the product and our attention is the product being sold to advertisers

Simply, when we don’t pay for the products that we use, advertisers pay for the product we use. Advertisers are the costumes and our attention is the thing being sold.

“If you are not paying for the product then you are the product”

That doesn’t apply to Medium right?

but that applies to all social media out because most of them are free. They try their best to keep us engaged in their application as long as possible. like Instagram has great visuals and keep you engaged, Snapchat uses daily streaks to make you keep coming back, YouTube tries to play the next video before you’ve even decided to watch it. Tick Tok algorithm shows the content you are most likely to watch.

And those likes, comments, share, tag, etc.. on social media give you instant dopamine(hormone). It makes you feel good and makes you want more of that feeling so you keep going back. The more time you spend on their platform the more advertisements they can show and the more revenue they will earn.

Not just social media, From blogs to mobile phones that display advertisements on the lock screen.

Displaying ads is not necessarily a bad thing after all people just want you to buy their product and so would if you were selling a product but too much information takes your time, you just have to be disciplined enough to spend less time to make more time for your work or something which you want to do but procrastinating on the internet and you can’t blame tech giants altogether.

“Wealth of information creates a poverty of attention!” Herbert Simon

And by being a digital minimalist you are following selective ignorance, Tim Ferriss talks about this in his book The 4 hours work week. He tells that most of the information you consume that is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence So, by cultivating a sense of selective ignorance you are filtering out the information you consume. with that said here are the steps which you can follow to be a digital minimalist.

Know where your Digital time goes

This is the first step to digital minimalism because if you want to reduce the time and attention you spend, you must know how much you spend in the first place and this applies to anything and everything.

Now, if you are using android mobile, go to settings and look for digital well-being application. It shows the amount of time you spent on every app in your mobile, once you look at the amount of time you spent on social media, other apps, or the amount of time you spent in your mobile, you might find it alarming so did I when I looked at it for the first time

If you don’t find it alarming you are spending less time That’s great. Less time is based on your definition, daily routine, tasks, and work.

(There are many such apps in the play store in ios as well)

Clear the Clutter and Organize

Once you know the amount of time you have spent, you might have figured out what you are spending most of your time on. It can be social media or entertainment apps, etc. Now, remove anything in your device that doesn’t provide any value to you

Mobile and PC

Remove the apps which you don’t use, keep your homepage clean and Don’t have multiple apps in your home screen, close all the recent tabs once you are done with work

Turn of notification except calls. Notifications on your mobile can distract you easily. Turn on do-not-disturb mode when you have something to work on or when you want to be productive.

Organize the files in your PC and have fewer folders delete the one which you don’t need, uninstall the programs which you don’t use.

Social media and Internet

Unfollow the profiles on social media that don’t mean anything to you, and avoid mindless scrolling. You don’t have to completely quit social media instead use app blockers to limit your usage.

Don’t look for what happened in the world every now and then, instead spend time at a certain time of the day and consume from a good and trusted source because there are a lot of junk information on the internet

Ditch those subscriptions and newsletter which you don’t find interesting anymore.

Don’t constantly check for e-mail, messages, and notification it might become an addiction you might keep checking even if you didn't get any mail, messages ect.. so turn off notification and schedule it.

Try Digital Detox

Digital detox is not just a fancy word for saying stay away from gadgets for a few days and focus on real life. It is for your mental well being and digital detox doesn’t mean that you must completely stay away from a mobile or any gadget for that matter, it is about spending a healthy amount of time with your devices.

Try giving up all digital devices for a short period of time, such as a day or up to a week. For some of you, it may not be possible because of the work thing.

Signs You Might Need a Digital Detox

• You feel anxious or stressed out if you can’t find your phone(except a costly iPhone)
• You feel compelled to check your phone every few minutes
• You are preoccupied with the like, comment, or reshare counts on your social posts
• You’re afraid that you’ll miss something if you don’t keep checking your device
• You often find yourself staying up late or getting up early to play on your phone
• You have trouble concentrating on one thing without having to check your phone

I personally tried digital detox during the lockdown in my county India and I felt this huge void in my life, I had a hell of lot of time despite the whole quarantine thing and I felt like tech was taking a big chunk of time, before detox I used to spend my time on social media, browsing, Netflix...

whenever I wanted to learn something new like a skill, I didn't find time to do it. Now after a week of digital detox, I learned to spend my time mindfully and I didn't feel the constant need to check my mobile. Which is why I wanted to write this story here on medium.

Final thoughts

Digital minimalism is a process and it isn’t about just cleaning your mobile once and forgetting it, unnecessary things will keep accumulating, you should find it and clean it frequently and ensure that our technology doesn’t rob us of our time, energy, and life.

And at the end of the day, it all about you, and what you chose to keep in your digital space. Remove the stuff that doesn’t add any value to your life.