Technology

On Digital Minimalism

Why we should be mindful of our screen time and content consumption habits

The Problem

It’s summer and the sun is shining, time to hit the beach and have a good time with family and friends. On a few trips this summer, I’ve noticed a recurring theme. Everywhere I went, everyone was on their phone, all the time. At the beach and at parties. It wasn’t an unusual sight to see someone scrolling through social media at the dinner table either.

What I found baffling was that the curiosity about what everyone else was doing did not end when it was time for us to come together, to listen to each other and connect. Was it benevolent curiosity or sheer addiction? I began to wonder.

As trivial and common as this may seem at first glance, it’s an example of how we’ve normalized a lack of presence in our real world and are disconnecting from one another one scroll at a time.

It’s not entirely our fault though, social media is addictive by design and is meant to lure us in all the time. The tech mammoths didn’t shy away from designing their platforms to be as addictive as they possibly could be. They did so by utilizing all kinds of psychological techniques that exploit our brain’s reward system, keeping us on their platforms for as long as possible. It’s obvious the competition here is for our attention. It’s a zero-sum game and they are winning. What is it that we are losing in return then?

We’re losing out on our well-being. Studies show that social media addiction has been found to be associated with a host of emotional, relational, health, and performance problems. That doesn’t come as a surprise though, does it? Another study found that teens who spend 5 hours per day using their phones were almost twice as likely to exhibit depressive symptoms than counterparts who dedicated only 1 hour to their phones. I find this utterly shocking and yet it isn’t. We’re in a mental health epidemic and the misuse of social media and technology is an undeniable contributing factor to the prevalence of the unwavering stress, anxiety, and depression that seem inherent and characteristic of the 21st century.

If that’s the case then, how and why did we let ourselves sink so deep?

One reason is that the tech giants exploit some of our most fundamental needs as a species; the need to belong, to connect, and to be accepted by other members of our group. If everyone was on their phones showing off their best lives, then so were we, because we couldn’t miss out. Somehow we all went to sleep and woke up to a world where we satisfy our need for connection and belonging by consuming likes, comments and sliding into each others’ DMs.

The Cure

It’s not all doom and gloom though. The first step to addressing any issue is recognizing that it is an issue and becoming aware of the extent to which it is negatively impacting our minds and hence, our lives. These days, we need to incorporate practicing digital minimalism into our routines more than ever before. But what does digital minimalism mean exactly?

Digital minimalism could mean different things for different people. For me, it is taking frequent social media purges, unfollowing low-quality content creators, and taking note of my screen time statistics. For others, it could mean turning off notifications, checking email once a day, and/or unsubscribing from useless newsletters. In a nutshell, it includes everything that can help us reduce the quantity of time that we spend glued to our phones and raise the quality of content that we are exposing ourselves to.

Saving the best tip for last, I practice mindfulness. Digital minimalism and mindfulness go hand in hand. In order to become aware that our surroundings are calling for our attention, we first have to become aware of our doom scrolling habits and this is where mindfulness comes in. It helps us recognize when taking action is needed.

However, mindfulness takes practice. It takes practice to not only catch yourself once or twice but to catch yourself every time. Our brains are best at doing what we’ve done over and over again; whether it be doom scrolling and reinforcing present habits or breaking those habits and putting our phones down. While writing this, I was reminded by a line from one of my favorite Tame Impala songs:

What we did, one day on a whim, will slowly become all we do.

Great song lyrics aside though, in order to break such a deeply ingrained habit, we have to practice mindfulness. Lots of it. The effort is truly rewarding since its benefits are not only limited to winning back our attention and establishing a better relationship with technology, but its benefits seep into other aspects of our lives as well. For instance, practicing mindfulness can help us sleep better and reduce stress. It can help us become better partners, siblings, and citizens.

With this said, I don’t believe that social media and technology are inherently evil. They are merely tools, and as with any tool, the way we use it determines its impact on our lives. This is why we should no longer turn a blind eye to how we consume technology and the role we allow it to play in our lives.

Conclusion

To sum up, digital minimalism allows us to have FOMO on the present and soak up all that we should. For me, on my trips, it was the beautiful scenery and people that I was surrounded with. When I needed to have a look around, my brain no longer thought that scrolling would be more rewarding and so it didn’t hinder me from putting my phone down. When I needed to listen, look, and feel, my attention was not clogged up by cat videos. Being mindful, not only of the quantity of content that I was consuming but also the quality, has helped me bring my attention towards what matters — the here and now — and I think it will help you too. Every single time I paid attention, it was incredibly rewarding. I didn’t miss out on that beautiful sunset or that flock of birds decorating the sky.

Only once we put our phones down, take a deep breath, and have a look around us will we truly realize how much we’ve been missing out on.

(1) Hou, Y., Xiong, D., Jiang, T., Song, L., & Wang, Q. (2019). Social media addiction: Its impact, mediation, and intervention. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 13(1), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2019-1-4

(2) Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18(6), 765–780. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000403