Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

[Gerontius]

Trying a little experiment here- as someone who spends too much time online I'm forcing myself to use the Internet less, quit doom scrolling, and wait for delayed reactions to things.

I got so bored I ended up building the beginnings of an N gauge model railway (very small trains, 9mm wide tracks scale 1:160) and have to rebuild it. I am trying to do this where I can make the scenery from scratch mostly and am also modifying, building, and experimenting with the locomotives themselves. This was actually quite fun and I like the illusion of seeing a train at a great distance only for it to be traveling on a dining room table (I should move the trains...)

Yesterday was Saturday and I wasn't making progress cleaning house so I knew I'd be stuck online and waste a day. Forced myself to put shoes on and grab my hat and portable typewriter and walk through the forest to the gay coffee shop. Then I accidentally went to a festival (well how was I to know there was a festival there?), ordered an iced latte instead of my usual cup of unsugared black death, sat down on the porch and wrote eleven pages of single-spaced work over the afternoon, had an awkward conversation with a guy in the Mormons and did some people watching, and that was pretty good so when i left I joined the mailing list for a local conservation group, slipped and fell in the mud landing on the typewriter case, and fed a lot of salmon to my pet alleycat.

Finding my old favorite 78s have a depth and fun in the music I had forgotten was there.

I woke up the other day at 2 in the morning and couldn't sleep so I got into the other room and wrote for a few hours as there was ink on the desk and some pens and my notebook.

Now regular minimalism is slowly starting to appeal to me as well I am genuinely hoping to try to downsize try to downsize. The next plan I have is to get started with a lesser accumulation of projects. Many of my current projects, though interesting, I will never be able to finish. As much as I love collecting antiques especially phonographs there are only so many phonographs I can keep working at one time. Spare parts are expensive, and they take up quite a bit of room. It is no longer just me who lives here. I have a cat now, and that is taking some getting used to to adjust to having a cat. And I plan to get married, so my space is no longer entirely my own anyway. But the space that matters the most should be the space between my ears and I should use it for more than a hat rack and a repository of Internet doomscrolling.

Days like this have been far better for me than I expected they'd be. Anyone else out there trying to cut down recreational Internet use? Or not?

 

[AuAL]

I have inhabited the Internet since the mid-80s. But I am on no other social media than LinkedIn (obligatory for professional reasons.) Since I retired, the daily email is now probably down below 100 messages. The internet has been a part of my daily life for so long but, if I were a chippy I expect I might have a hammer in hand every day. It is just a tool. That said, what a day! You are living the life.

 

[AspieChris]

Funny, I realized this morning that I hadn’t been to this forum in about a week because I had been trying to catch up on some needed projects around the house.

The internet is a fantastic tool until it steals the life right out from under your nose. No social media for me. Not ever

 

[Misery]

Similar here, sort of. I've been trying to do more and more of my non-PC activities and such, after realizing that I'd been spending way too much time just watching random nonsense on Youtube. I dont use social media at all, but just sitting here watching cats knock stuff off of things for 2 straight hours isnt really much better.

So, a lot more of other stuff recently. A lot of board games and such, and more random driving and roaming outside of the house. The only issue for me is that if I'm having a day where my chronic pain is acting up, those are days where I just cant really do anything else other than stuff at the ol' screen here, unless I want to just stare blankly at a wall or something for hours and hours. But that's more and more rare as time goes on.

I will say though, it's easier to break away from the things than it was before. As much as I've always been a fan of Youtube it's harder and harder to find anything that's non-stupid on there (other than animal videos). Like, I always watch a bit of something just before bed, sort of to wind down, and the last few nights entirely consisted of random clips from Columbo and Kojak. There's nothing new and actually freaking recent that is any good at all, so many things on there are just screaming and colors, so I end up just watching things that are older than I am, but just clips of them rather than entire episodes or something. Which is kinda dumb, really. So with it being harder to find anything it's easier to break away.

Fortunately I never fell into actual social media at any point. Facebook/Twitter and whatever. I just refuse.

 

[MC1Rcat]

Lately I have been reading a lot more books and using the internet less. It is much better for my mental health and for getting to sleep earlier, which I need to try to do. It also helps me to not get sucked into different "rabbit holes" of looking different things up for hours on end....which can sometimes be pretty frustrating and a waste of time. It is interesting to see that a lot of us here don't use social media very often or at all. I also only use Linkedin for work and stay away from the other platforms. I am glad to hear you are doing well and still have the cat. I think being productive without digital tools is a great way to stay grounded and happy...at least for me it is... knitting, writing and drawing in a journal sketchbook, or painting, planting things, etc. I prefer making things with my hands, rather than on a computer. It is somehow more satisfying. Maybe it is because it is using different senses and engaging with the world in a way that combines the mental with the physical/ tactile. It also seems to bring my "inner world" into reality and makes the "world outside my head" seem less alien and more comfortable to me.

 

[Gerontius]

Hello folks--

Today is another day with very little internet. I disconnected the WiFi router on purpose and now my tablet computer does not work. That is perfectly fine in my book; I can plug it back in a little bit as I figure out how to get my life back off that sort of thing and keep downsizing the digital footprint.

I'm typing this on a 2009 Lenovo ThinkCentre (basically the guts of an old-school cash register) fitted with a solid-state Seagate drive running Windows 10. Let's see how much this cost:

computer, $10
Win Vista monitor, $10
keyboard, $2.99
computer mouse, $0.99
cable to printer, $0.99
Brother office-grade toner printer, $4.99
power cord, $1
old typewriter stand $10
"Fixall" Apple Green brush enamel $2.99 (to get rid of rusted-out lead paint)
Trip to computer repair shop $285
1x3 planks, MDF shelf for monitor, etc., $0 from my stash of scraps

Overall I've been able to get this contraption up & running for a pretty good deal. I now have an actual computer, which is pretty hilarious given the concept of minimalism here, but this should let me lose the tablet computer and as my cellphone is an old Nokia brick phone I should be okay with less and less digital involvement in my life.

As far as handson stuff, I need to get the kitchen back in shape because when I leave it at night the cat jumps in there & ruins it. She is a cute cat but she ate my chicken legs and all the broth I was saving to make chicken soup with--and if I bake a potato she will eat that too and then come bite you. So the kitchen is one thing. And I mentioned model railroads--When I was thinking about trying to get into that awhile ago I was focusing on how much it costs, which is very high. Now I can scratchbuild structures and what-not using scrap plastic and cardstock and it's not costing me anything to get that new platform built. Did get a homemade locomotive running using inexpensive Kato motor chassis and a 3d printed kit for the shell, but I added directional headlights using 85c worth of LED's and some old resistors from my stash.

Time to take a bath, grab a clean shirt, fetch my typewriter case and spend Saturday actually doing things that are interesting instead of lonely and shut-in.

 

[FilterFreq]

I might be one of the few people to say this, but the internet and computing have genuinely changed my life for the better. I couldn't even imagine it any other way.

Before I started internetting, I really had no friends, no skills, no interests, and just generally felt alone in this world. Heck, I hadn't even considered furthering my education or getting into physical fitness and dieting until I really got into 'the internet' as a whole. I met my wife on the internet, too, which people seemed to be talking down about at the time, and I've even dipped into giving full-fledged lectures and all sorts of crazy things I would've never considered IRL (some of which have actually translated to better communication IRL, too, I might add).

I remember having to listen to the same old CDs over and over again because I couldn't afford new ones, straining my back to read books, not being able to read out-of-print books in the dark with a nifty blue-light filter, not being able to play old games if a system broke down, and just basically being at the mercy of a failing world. Honestly, I don't even know how I did any of those things, but... really, I just didn't half the time. It was too much work.

I will say that I deliberately never read the news, refuse to doomscroll, and don't even 'surf the net' (as in, I don't just poke around and look for novelties) because I'm usually on a mission of some sort, so maybe my relationship with the 'net as a whole is different than most. Even here, it's kind of about community and talking with like-minded folks, which feels soul-enriching, rather than like some kind of stress response people get from reading about all the bad things going on in the world that they have no control over.

Maybe I'm a digital maximalist

 

[Gerontius]

I might be one of the few people to say this, but the internet and computing have genuinely changed my life for the better. I couldn't even imagine it any other way.

Before I started internetting, I really had no friends, no skills, no interests, and just generally felt alone in this world. Heck, I hadn't even considered furthering my education or getting into physical fitness and dieting until I really got into 'the internet' as a whole. I met my wife on the internet, too, which people seemed to be talking down about at the time, and I've even dipped into giving full-fledged lectures and all sorts of crazy things I would've never considered IRL (some of which have actually translated to better communication IRL, too, I might add).

I remember having to listen to the same old CDs over and over again because I couldn't afford new ones, straining my back to read books, not being able to read out-of-print books in the dark with a nifty blue-light filter, not being able to play old games if a system broke down, and just basically being at the mercy of a failing world. Honestly, I don't even know how I did any of those things, but... really, I just didn't half the time. It was too much work.

I will say that I deliberately never read the news, refuse to doomscroll, and don't even 'surf the net' (as in, I don't just poke around and look for novelties) because I'm usually on a mission of some sort, so maybe my relationship with the 'net as a whole is different than most. Even here, it's kind of about community and talking with like-minded folks, which feels soul-enriching, rather than like some kind of stress response people get from reading about all the bad things going on in the world that they have no control over.

Maybe I'm a digital maximalist

That sounds AWESOME btw.

It sounds like you are using it well!

 

[stevens]

Trying a little experiment here- as someone who spends too much time online I'm forcing myself to use the Internet less, quit doom scrolling, and wait for delayed reactions to things.

I got so bored I ended up building the beginnings of an N gauge model railway (very small trains, 9mm wide tracks scale 1:160) and have to rebuild it. I am trying to do this where I can make the scenery from scratch mostly and am also modifying, building, and experimenting with the locomotives themselves. This was actually quite fun and I like the illusion of seeing a train at a great distance only for it to be traveling on a dining room table (I should move the trains...)

Yesterday was Saturday and I wasn't making progress cleaning house so I knew I'd be stuck online and waste a day. Forced myself to put shoes on and grab my hat and portable typewriter and walk through the forest to the gay coffee shop. Then I accidentally went to a festival (well how was I to know there was a festival there?), ordered an iced latte instead of my usual cup of unsugared black death, sat down on the porch and wrote eleven pages of single-spaced work over the afternoon, had an awkward conversation with a guy in the Mormons and did some people watching, and that was pretty good so when i left I joined the mailing list for a local conservation group, slipped and fell in the mud landing on the typewriter case, and fed a lot of salmon to my pet alleycat.

Finding my old favorite 78s have a depth and fun in the music I had forgotten was there.

I woke up the other day at 2 in the morning and couldn't sleep so I got into the other room and wrote for a few hours as there was ink on the desk and some pens and my notebook.

Now regular minimalism is slowly starting to appeal to me as well I am genuinely hoping to try to downsize try to downsize. The next plan I have is to get started with a lesser accumulation of projects. Many of my current projects, though interesting, I will never be able to finish. As much as I love collecting antiques especially phonographs there are only so many phonographs I can keep working at one time. Spare parts are expensive, and they take up quite a bit of room. It is no longer just me who lives here. I have a cat now, and that is taking some getting used to to adjust to having a cat. And I plan to get married, so my space is no longer entirely my own anyway. But the space that matters the most should be the space between my ears and I should use it for more than a hat rack and a repository of Internet doomscrolling.

Days like this have been far better for me than I expected they'd be. Anyone else out there trying to cut down recreational Internet use? Or not?

Absolutely yes. This is one reason that I am here. I have a collection of user-curated, bulletin-board sites that I have bookmarked. I visit those and avoid as much as possible the commercial news sites and everything else primarily Wall Street driven. Social Media has been off-limits since it was invented, because I knew what was coming (I was in middle school once, and it was inevitable for Aspies to be screwed over on social media). I am not happy about the way that the Internet has evolved at all. Forums like this one are gradually disappearing, to a model driven by profit, disinformation, and depersonalization.

What I like most about your post here is that you obviously have direct experience with activities and distractions from long ago that are ready substitutes for online time wasting. Grabbing a portable typewriter was the dead giveaway. When I was 9 years old, I took a special interest in my mother's Royal portable typewriter, Ernest Hemingway's favorite model the Quiet Deluxe (it was 1962). I decided to teach myself to touch type. I did, and I've used the skill ever since. When business decided that everyone would type their own product in the 1990's, it was an easy switch for me. It also was some cheap and easy "A" grades back in the high school typing classes, where I was faster than everyone else.

But what do people do today, when they grew up on the Internet? It's like all those wonderful alternatives are hidden behind the curtain. At our age, we do have the privilege of recurring to fundamental principles of self sufficiency and telling the gods of Wall Street who intrude into our lives without much permission to go away.

I'm not sure I'd call this "minimalism" at all. Considering the Internet Brain Rot that I see all around me today, I'd be tempted to call sentient presence in real life "maximalism."