Why Our Generation Needs Digital Minimalism

oh

i had hair then

when i first came to university upper

years told me that

student life gets pretty busy and i

would have to try and balance between

school work social life and sleep

this has been an interesting model to

frame the last four years of my

experience with

where at different times the balance of

these fluctuated quite dramatically

it wasn’t until recently that i realized

that this model

is increasingly compromised to a fourth

category

of time use we’re spending more and more

of our time

operating this space though it’s seldom

referred to in what our days

should look like even what they do look

like

slowly but surely it has positioned

itself as a new pillar of our time

without many of us realizing it this new

pillar

is digital devices it’s not only that

device use doesn’t fit into this rough

model

where we’re balancing between our social

life dedication to work and need for

sleep but that its effects

on these aspects range from mirror

interference

to total debilitation even though i’d

operated with a basic flip phone for the

last four years

i didn’t realize how addicted i actually

was the applications on my laptop alone

youtube netflix facebook pornhub

that’s all the digital chimp like myself

really needed to feel the side effects

in these other aspects of my life

it wasn’t until i totally disconnected

and got rid of the laptop

that i realized the absurdity of my own

behaviors

and the behaviors of people around me

it’s the absurdity of holding yourself

up in your room with your devices and a

plate of food

trying to find something to watch while

you eat it’s staying up until three in

the morning

binge watching a show or going down the

recommendations rabbit hole

it’s waking up with your device beside

you in bed or at least within arm’s

reach

and for the first moments of your day

scrolling through your

social media it’s the panic that

overtakes you

when you can’t feel your phone in your

pocket

it’s this vacuous state of never being

fully alone with your thoughts

free from input while struggling to feel

the peaks of real social connection

and community because there’s always

this impulse to reach into your pocket

and if not isolate yourself to feed that

impulse

just from what i’ve gathered from my

peers in my own past

these seem like fairly common

experiences they’re certainly not

unheard of

it made me wonder what’s going on with

our generation

there’s got to be some totalizing effect

of all this device use

some new never before seen set of

consequences

that all lead back to this fundamental

change

it feels like all of a sudden devices

have positioned themselves

along the foundations of our livelihoods

nearly all of us habitually consume

without questioning the fact that

these technologies have crept into the

heart of nearly everything we do

remolding our social and solitary lives

it turns out if you were born between

1995 and 2012

you’re part of a generation dr gene

twenge calls igen

we are the first generation to be

subjected to these technologies and

their applications

we’re the rats in the experiment so to

speak and as such

our generation is largely defined by a

relationship with this technology

eigen are different in several ways from

gen x

and millennials some of which i take to

be intuitively positive

we’re less religious then we emphasize

tolerance and equality much more

other trends are more alarming

particularly in the decline

of our mental health igen are more

likely to feel lonely

inadequate more likely to have a major

depressive episode

and what’s particularly troubling is the

dramatic increase

in the suicide rate and igen teens

igen are spending their time much

differently than their parents and

grandparents

we read less we do less homework

we’re less likely to go to the movies or

malls as often

we’re less likely to get our driver’s

license we sleep less

we drink less and have less sex which

you wouldn’t guess by the state of

aberdeen

but that’s just how the data reads

in short we’re replacing our time spent

with one another and with

slower analog media with time spent on

devices

take the film kids by harmony karine set

in the 90s it follows a group of new

york city teenagers

their time primarily defined by just

hanging out

straying from one circle of friends to

the next often allied

to a close friend exploring sex drugs

and alcohol

with little parental supervision

the movie was filmed in 1995 the year of

the marked igen

a youth which tended to be very

different from that depicted

in korean’s film today

the likelihood of a teen seeing their

friend every day has been cut in half

in the last 15 years the average high

school senior is spending six hours a

day

on new media devices

this all seems to be strongly correlated

with the decline in our mental health

we can’t replace the kind of in-person

experiential learning

that allows us to mature and adapt to

the stresses of life

with a life spent online and we really

can’t replace the kind of

real in-person connection and community

with its digitized form

if the data is so clear about the

relationship

between our happiness and our device use

then why are we still using them to the

extent that we are

the answer’s simple because facebook

apple and other technology companies

make money

off of your attention the reason it’s so

difficult to disconnect

is because these corporations have every

motive to the opposite effect

it’s not because we don’t know that

device use makes us unhappy

it’s worth mentioning here that the only

reason i was able to fully disconnect

was because my laptop broke by accident

and when it did i was ecstatic because

the option to disconnect was just

granted to me by mere chance

it wasn’t only a matter of having the

willpower

it was having the psychological space to

imagine what a life without instant

access to technology would look like

a re-evaluation of my values and

aspirations

from the inside of habitual device use

it’s very difficult to truly grasp

the degree with which it’s affecting

your life this is by design

but once an actual physical separation

was created

i felt like i was seeing the landscape

around me for the first time

appearing over the ruts i was stuck in

and seeing new possibilities

however this isn’t quite what you’d

imagine an act of fair consumer choice

would look like click the like button

on facebook or instagram this button is

one of the main hooks

of these platforms because it takes

advantage of our desire for social

feedback

it feels really good we want to win a

lot of people like your post

but it’s a gamble because not every post

does as well

which uses the power of intermittent

positive feedback to keep us posting

the similar feedback system is used in

notification algorithms as well

every time you open your phone it’s like

rolling the dice

beyond this the like button allows a

platform to create a profile of your

tastes

and preferences sharing that data across

platforms so that your feed

is full of a consistent stream of

advertisements you’re more likely to

click on

which makes that platform more money and

for a platform like youtube

gives you things you’re most likely to

watch keeping your attention so

you see more advertisements

making a rational choice is increasingly

difficult

when our products aren’t in the business

of maximizing reason-based

decision-making

this is an ethical crisis alone for the

effects it’s having

on this generation’s well-being

but i also want to claim that device use

can shroud our drive

for self-actualization

as the pinnacle of maslow’s hierarchy of

needs

self-actualization is the drive to

become everything

that one is capable of becoming

one of the modern ideas one of the

ideals of the modern individual

is discovery discovery of those things

that make us who we are

our values and passions from which we

can derive a meaningful life

with the steady retreat of religion and

traditional social scripts

it’s necessary to fill the void they’ve

left behind by internalizing their

function

your path beliefs and conduct are no

longer given at birth

you’re charged with discovering your

true authentic self

and its direction the process of

discovery can unfold in a variety of

ways

in dialogue with art literature and

science

in conversation and connection with

other people

in creative self-expression and

particularly in periods of solitude

alone with your thoughts

and naturally there are things that

distract us from this process

that constrict our possible ranges of it

that constrict our possible ranges of

experience and fulfillment of potential

just one of these is the chaos of

thoughts that define most of our inner

lives

from the moment we wake up to the moment

we fall asleep

thoughts that we exist in and identify

with and can’t get out of

it’s very difficult to gain control over

ourselves in this way

to cultivate a kind of watchfulness by

which you examine your thoughts

beliefs and reactions to things

all you have to do is encounter

pettiness in a middle-aged person

to realize that wisdom and

thoughtfulness

don’t just unintentionally happen with

age

it’s also very difficult to just

appreciate the ordinariness of the

things around

you the mere scraps of conscious

experience

in an interview chris cornell said that

he didn’t need there to be a god or a

spiritual realm

for the simplicity of a banana to

inspire all in him

this is to look at things with a fresh

pair of eyes like you’ve never seen them

before

to let go of all the presumptions that

cloud the possible layers

of reality surrounding something as

simple as a banana

or a door handle or the steam coming off

a mug

of coffee to just appreciate the quality

of your immediate experience

broadening this perspective from the

mere sensational to

ideas relationships and your own state

of being

is to open up an entire portion of

reality that we’re not privy to

when we’re lost in our thoughts engaged

by our presumptions

what’s so troubling is that being

internally distracted by your own

thoughts

is bound to habitual device use because

it keeps us in an external state

of compulsive distraction a really well

designed

compulsive distraction adding another

layer of fog to our experience

it doesn’t take a philosophy student in

levi’s to tell you that

you’re going to die

still it’s the fact of our mortality

that shrinks all those things in life

except

only those that are worth spending a

single life pursuing

fear of making a radical change is a

mis-evaluation of what’s really

important

fully accepting death is also accepting

those things

those radical decisions that align you

with those things

worth spending a single life doing

convenience entertainment popularity

are these things going to make the cut

this all carries with it a kind of

urgency which can be ignored

an urgency for clarity and direction

the reason i was so happy when my laptop

broke is because my biggest fear

is living in this fog realizing before

it’s too late that

i’d wasted the precious time that i’d

been granted

a slave to my own pettiness and

insecurities

a slave to cheap entertainment and the

frivolity

inspired by device use and that my life

had become demystified

and flat though i’m not totally free

from that fear

i’m at least freer than i was to live

the way i choose

digital devices have the potential to be

valuable

only insofar as their means to our end

so far they’ve encroached into places

they have no business being

disrupting our relationships with each

other

as the trends of igen describe and with

ourselves and so far we’ve been a means

to their end

which is money i don’t have the answer

to these problems

but it almost certainly starts with

seriously considering

how the device in your pocket or on your

desk at home

or attached to the television set in

front of your bed

is shaping how you spend your time that

precious commodity

we only get so much of thank you