3-minute quick read
We are becoming social media and mobile junky.
On average we check mobile every 12 minutes sometimes up to 96 times a day, adding to almost 35 days per year! Social media use is topping the chart with an average 2 hours 22 minutes per day. Try adding that for a year to find the lost time!
But worst is its effect on our mental health and reducing the most important psychological variable in our life – autonomy.
This is not accidental, but tech firms are carefully introducing it like a Nicotine in Tobacco.We must block this. Andrew Sullivan has called it information addiction and you can find addiction evidence in scientific research. This is an attention economy at its worst!
We certainly want to get value from technology innovations, but must block its detrimental effects. Often the haphazard effort like a digital sabbatical, removing apps, and notifications don’t show long lasting result. What we need is the overarching tech philosophy.
Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism provides a road map of it. It introduces tech philosophy and shows action steps to adopt it in life.
The book outlines philosophical underpinnings, the aggressive intervention of 30-day digital quarantine. Then how to apply a balm of meaningful, satisfying activities. And adding carefully chosen value-adding social media activities only. Book also talks of 1600 people’s experiment of going on digital quarantine underscoring the importance of solitude, leisure, and attention resistance. It looks like a complete therapeutic package on this addiction.
I hope the book will help us to regain control of those lost 35 days per year and gain our foregone happy & satisfying life in post-Corona life!
[This is my review of “Introduction” of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. Reviews of remaining book chapters will follow. Watch this place!]
[Image Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/135807]
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