A subset of minimalism that looks towards your usage of and relationship with the tech you use. When boiled down into its essence, it’s: how are you using your tech, and are you satisfied with it?
Like regular minimalism, digital minimalism is extremely subjective — anywhere from the definition itself to the goals one wants to achieve with it varies greatly person-to-person. I, for example, find it curious how much I find myself doomscrolling on social media, much so after the thought that I initially joined it again after years of intentionally neglecting it because I wanted “to catch up with friends”.
Digital minimalism is important to me in an age where we begin to see the influence that tech has in our lives; anywhere from shortening our attention spans and awareness of the greater world with short-form content to cognitively offloading our thought processes to machines that only give you the impression of thought.
Getting off a screen, if you’re anything like me, will force you to confront some painful realities that constant distraction has allowed you to avoid. … There is pain in sitting and sorting through these emotions. But, and this I promise, there is joy and freedom and life to its fullest on the other side.
The fact that it takes reasonable, tangible effort to intentionally lead a day without our devices shows how much digital tech has infiltrated our day-to-day lives. Digital minimalism seeks to make you reflect on that: how much time do you spend on your devices on the daily? Are you using them healthily?