Digital Minimalism (2019) - Cal Newport

“Simply put, humans are not wired to be constantly wired.”

Even the most futuristic thinking tech forward people in the world must surely have that gnawing feeling that somehow what we're experiencing in the information age is leaving us all dumb and doomed? I defy anyone to watch a fifteen year-old mindlessly hyper-scrolling through the internet and think 'doesn't the future look bright'. That is what is addressed here by Professor Cal Newport; the battle for our soul in the age of the iPhone. 

The book spends less time than you might imagine expounding on the virtues of the analog versus the digital, or the wider societal implications of the attention economy. Instead the focus is primarily one of understanding that the problem exists and immediately working out how to take the power back. Newport's enemy here isn't technology itself, it's the feeling of involuntary impulse that technology commands. He makes the case quite pointedly that it's hard to argue that google maps isn't a good thing, it is simply a case of using technology as a tool, and not letting it become your life.

'Digital Minimalism' itself isn't a philosophy that the professor himself pioneered, or had anything to do with the creation of, it is simply one he has found to be successful in creating a better life for oneself and keeping the attention pillagers at bay. It is one of a myriad of tools that he has discovered through extensive, diligent, study and there are some fascinating ideas/methods explored. The facts are well-researched and presented with the sort of impartiality that makes them not only more credible, but all the more concerning. One example was the discovery that the average human checks their phone 48 times a day (!). This contrasts starkly with the test group's estimation of 10-12 (which would've been my guess). 

There are insights of such nature aplenty but where this book really excels is in the practice of helping people understand how best to utilize and integrate these wonderful technologies into our lives without becoming a gormless automaton. The central tenet of the theory proposed by Newport begins with the '30-day digital declutter', a process by which you write a list of strict rules and regulations to abide by for 30 days. This is designed to cleanse you from your baby chimp-like attachment to that thing in your pocket and offers a slew of excellent pointers on how to do so. 

This process, he quite clearly understands, will be a very difficult task for most people for it is not just the phone being taken to task here. It's the streaming, and the youtube, and the algorithms, and the alerts, and the notifications, and the texting, and the news watching and the money watching and generally the endless carousel of titillation that envelops us these days. All of which not only fragments our ability to think straight but overwhelms you with such effortless persistence that, for most of our waking hours, we don't even realise it's happening. I was shocked to learn that I had written three entire pages of notes for my personal 30-day declutter to even get started. This is how intertwined we have become with the technology that we know and love. 

The book covers a variety of fascinating asides too. Things such as the value of solitude, the virtue of meaningful work, the problem with constant connection and it is all ultimately filtered through the prismatic lens of 'is this actually good for my life as I want to see it?'. The answer will be different for everyone but for anyone who fears we might soon be living in Terminator 2: Judgement day, or that we are already there, this book is likely an essential read. The one concern, which Newport himself addresses, is that the people who most need this book will almost certainly never read it, and while the teachings within these pages are incredibly useful and potentially life-changing for a lot of people, the problem is so far along that it feels like using a water pistol to quench a forest-fire. Nevertheless, this is a highly practical, thoroughly well-researched effort and one that should probably become part of the national curriculum. In every country on the planet. Immediately.  

★★★★☆

JB.