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
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