Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

He also started listening to records on a record player, from beginning to end, with no earbuds in his ears or skip buttons to tap when antsy—which turns out to be a much richer experience than Caleb’s normal habit of firing up Spotify and seeking out the perfect track.

we need a more serious strategy, something custom built to swat aside the forces manipulating us toward behavioral addictions and that offers a concrete plan about how to put new technologies to use for our best aspirations and not against them. Digital minimalism is one such strategy.

the modern hyper-connected existence as one in which “a moment can feel strangely flat if it exists solely in itself.”4

Is this the best way to use technology to support this value? If the answer is no, the minimalist will set to work trying to optimize the tech, or search out a better option.

Digital Minimalism 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.

minimalists don’t mind missing out on small things; what worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good.

how tech companies encourage behavioral addiction: intermittent positive reinforcement and the drive for social approval.

When any student writes me to ask a question, or request advice, or share their experience with one of my books, I can point them to my regular office hours and say, “Stop by or call anytime.” And they do. The result is that I’m much better connected to the student body at my university than I would be if I were still trying to arrange a custom-sch

As stated, the goal of the reintroduction is to put technology to work on behalf of specific things you value. This means to an end approach to technology requires clarity on what these ends actually are.