cal newport | digital minimalism

Reading Notes

• Introduction

  • response from deep work led to a lot of questions on how to curb technology use to be effective
  • are you a minimalist or maximist user of technology

• Lopsided arms race

  • release of iPhone - vision was a music device that made calls - didn’t have plan to be something you impulsively check 100 times a day
  • “tycoons of social media are just tobacco farmers in t-shirts” - bill maher
  • companies in a ‘race to the bottom of the brain stem’

  • 2 forces

    • zeilers pigeons - intermittent variables rewards are addicting
    • social approval
  • these forces are manipulated to hook us

  • tristan harris

    • silicon valley engineer gone whistleblower
    • apps are specifically engineered to keep users on

• digital minimalism

  • principles

    • 1- cluster is costly

      • henry Thoreau

        • Waldon - new economics
        • what is the cost for acquiring that benefit
        • industrial economics says: if you work 1 acre you get $1 - if you work 60 acres you get $60, do work 60 acres

        • why would you do that? better blinds? better copper pot? a wagon?

          • having the wagon saves time to get into the city, but did the time you had to work to get the wagon cost more than the time you are saving walking into town?
        • calculate the cost, don’t just claim the benefit
        • social media comes at a cost - but ppl will just see the benefit

        • example:

          • benefit: that new idea you wouldn’t have had if you were not on social media
          • cost: the hours you were on it before, attention residue, anxiety, fomo
        • ppl are working like crazy and wearing themselves down to acquire! but why?
        • “mass of men lead lives of quite desperation”
    • 2- optimization is important
    • 3- intentionality is satisfying

• solitude

  • Spend time alone
  • no input from outside world and other ppls minds - just yours
  • “We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books”

• don’t click like

  • “The most important person is the one in the room with you”
  • Our brains are social - Brain scans of activity show that when we are no given a task to do the brain still remains active - the parts of the brain that are “active” during non activity are also the parts of the brain that are active during social interaction
  • We think about our place in society as our “default network”
  • The like button is so shallow - the exchange is so pathetic in its richness that it doesn’t do anything for us but screw us up
  • We have potential to be a Ferrari in terms of social abilities, but we reduce our interaction to just dumbed down exchanges that it’s like a Mule towing a ferarri

• Consolidate texting

  • Use do not disturb mode - schedule time to message
  • You don’t have to be on call for everyone
  • Have office hours: person says 5:30 everyday he can always talk

• Reclaim leisure

  • Can’t just stop bad habits - replace them with activity
  • Aristotle Ethics - Kieran Setiya MIT - if you’re life consists only of actions whose worth depends on the existence of problems, difficulties, needs, which these activities aim to solve, you are vulnerable to existential despair. Is this all there is to life?
  • You have to have revitalizing leisure to fill you with inward joy

  • Lessons

    • Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption
    • Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world
    • Seek activities that require real world structured interactions

• Attention resistance

  • Disciplined operating procedures to conduct surgical strikes on attention economy services
  • Drop in to extract value and leave before attention traps can get you