If you take this digital minimalism experiment seriously, the first step is to recognise there is a problem. Anyone familiar with 12-step land or the cognitive approaches to addiction may recognise a similarity. That in itself is telling as resolving to reduce social media use has continual similarities with the fields of addiction and dependency. If I was to define the problem I would start with social media generally being summed up by the shorthand ‘toxic environment’.
The second problem is the Edward Young proposition. If the 18th-century poet and dramatist was alive today, I doubt he
would be remembered for the same line that is attributed to him today. Edward Young wrote a collection of essays under the title ‘Night Thoughts’ in which he suggested ‘Procrastination is the thief of time’. In essence, he suggested that by doing nothing in the short term, you wasted so much time that you short-changed yourself of your own opportunities. That sounds very familiar.
Had he been writing today, I suspect he may have seen social media as the thief of time. I certainly do. Travel on any train or better still on the tube and you’ll see rows of apparent drones habitually scrolling through stuff. It might, of course, be significant content that’s stretching the mind although I suspect it’s adverts and cats.
My second reason for attempting a digital minimalist approach is the loss of time to meaningless doom-scrolling, the reduced interactions with the real world and the resulting lack of mental solitude drowned out by the latest Twitter spat (x-spat doesn’t sound quite right).
So, that’s step one out of the way – we have a definition of the problem and (as I suggested yesterday) some ideas of what I would like to do with some of the time that I assume, rightly or wrongly. this exercise might free up. The last thing I want is to find I have time and nothing to fill it with – which I suggest is part of the initial cause leading to my phone addiction.
The pickier among the congregation will no doubt be concerned at this point that I seem to have jumped from social media being the bete-noire to phone addiction. They would appear to have a point and that gave me pause for thought myself. Where I’ve landed (at the moment), is that these are two distinct issues that are so closely aligned that they need to be tackled together. The reason for that conclusion is that although social media (in its broadest sense) is for me the greater societal problem, the ubiquitous delivery mechanism for the theft of your time is via the mobile phone.
One of the interesting facts I learned from reading Digital Minimalism is that the original i-phone was never meant to be the ever-present, app-laded, attention seeking device into which it has morphed.
At the time of its original launch, one of the main purposes seen as a benefit to the user was that it would allow you to carry one device around rather than your blackberry and i-pod (remember them?). Even the creator of the first smart phone didn’t imagine it becoming the personal tracker and life logger that it has become today. The problem today is that the phone and all it offers is just way too attractive and I would say addictive.
Here’s an alarming statistic for you. (Source: ExplodingStats.com – use of phones 2024)
On average people in the western world spend 3 hours 15 minutes on their phones each day. They pick up their phones on average within ten minutes of waking and will check routinely through the day between 58 and 87 times (depending on whether you’re in the US or elsewhere).
That doesn’t sound like a good use of my time, so can I remove the temptation of my phone drawing me into another pretty pointless exchange about whether the downing street media room can be used to announce a general election, or more adverts for microdosing mushrooms. (Though when I put it that way it doesn’t sound that appealing a prospect).
One of the things that unites most though not all digital minimalists is that their phones are pretty much just that – they’re just phones and the bare minimum of apps needed to get through the day. For clarity, should any be needed this doesn’t include Facebook, X, Twitter, Instagram etc. If I want to use them after the 30 day trial separation then I can do so on a PC – but I don’t need their constant presence and distractions.
So last night I culled the apps on my phone from over 200 to around forty. My phone now has email, ph0ne and text capability with a few apps such as maps, authenticators needed for banking but the rest has gone. Given that I haven’t made a call on my phone more than once a fortnight I’m wondering whether what I’m left with is truly a phone – we’ll see. What I do know is the routine and pointless response to a moment’s calm – checking facebook or messenger is already noticed.
Take away from day 2: Remove the social media and low utility apps from your phone – merciless culling of the apps that bring no value but are designed to maximise your use of the device and increase the time spent looking at their advert laden screens.