📱 Why you should become a digital minimalist today.
Less can be more, and not just for the physical things.
Life’s been hectic, you feel like you need to catch up on a lot. Especially one year into quarantine, you’re starting to feel the burden of digitally keeping up with everyone. Every notification you get starts to feel terrorizing… or maybe not to that extent.
But in one way or the other, if you’re active on more than 3 social media apps and you get agitated when you don’t check them regularly, it’s time to step back and declutter.
So, what exactly is digital minimalism?
Calvin Newport, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University, has defined digital minimalism as:
A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.
When you try to stay updated with all the info you can get, you will start to put your self-worth on artificial numbers, distracting your focus from what really matters. Here are some steps you can take in your journey to start a digitally minimalist life:
Think about what you value in life (e.g. personal development, friendships, career growth) and write them down.
See if the digital tools you use such as devices and apps, actually help you serve those values.
Delete unnecessary apps and make space for productivity apps.
Learn to spend time with yourself.
Create digital rules such as only checking Twitter for certain times a day.
Read more on the Digital Crisis and how you can save yourself from it here.
Fear of burning out as the new FOMO
At this point, you probably have a little voice that tells you every day to click on that Instagram Story, scroll through the For You Page on Tik Tok, or excessively browse through Twitter. The main driving force behind that voice might be your FOMO, or fear of missing out. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), 65% of people agree that periodically taking a “digital detox” is important for their mental health, but only 28% actually do so.
Instead of holding on to the fear that you might miss out on the live report of a friend’s niece’s birthday party, or which celebrity is getting cancelled on Twitter today, redirect that fear and start to acknowledge the actual scary stuff: feeling burned out. Take action before you start to lose interest even in the things you never thought you would.
See testimonies from computer scientists, lifestyle experts, and more on fearing burned out over FOMO here.
Better habits for better consumption
Digital media does not have to be the evil at all times. Though you will have a better life quality when you minimize your time on the Web, it’s what you do during that minimized time that will actually count towards your growth. The key for better digital content consumption is one word: intentional. Make sure what you decide to keep tabs on actually helps you towards a goal.
Ask yourself these questions to determine whether you should continue to consume certain content:
Does this make me feel happy or excited?
Does this make me smarter or teach me something useful?
Does this help me become a kinder person?
Does this make me better at my profession or passion?
When the answer is no, take action such as:
On your Internet browser, remove all bookmarks you no longer need.
With your email, unsubscribe from everything you open just to get rid of the notification, or things that you just ignore completely.
Remove everything on your to-read, to-listen, or to-watch list on Netflix, YouTube, or other streaming services that has been there for more than a week.
Find more ways you can do to be a smarter consumer here.
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