Digital Minimalism: "Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes"

[Josh (Josh Cohen)]

@bjoern.gumboldt

Could you elaborate on “that direction” maybe?

Reducing technology use – quitting social media, getting rid of smartphone, etc. Here are some other posts about it:

• "Our minds can be hijacked" - "possibly lowering IQ"
• Do Smartphones Dull Mental Performance?

@bjoern.gumboldt

something that Tim Ferris promotes in his 4-Hour Workweek

Did he mention Mutt there? I thought he just checks email at 4 pm or something like that. I don’t have any limits on when I check email – I just do it with tools that let me get through it as quickly as possible. I spend a lot less time on emails now, because I can use vim keybindings to quickly scroll through and delete most of them. Pointing and clicking on things is much slower.

@bjoern.gumboldt

it seems like some kind of aversion therapy “ugly-fying” web pages

There is a whole field that studies how to get people addicted to technology. I counter it by removing as much of those things as possible (recommended content, embedded auto-play videos, animations, etc.). I’ve noticed major detrimental effects to my thinking from social media and smartphones, and I want my mind back.

Here are a couple of articles about it:

• Social Media Has Hijacked Our Minds. Click Here to Fight It
• Tech Insiders Call Out Facebook for Literally Manipulating Your Brain

If you click the reader icon in Firefox on a news or blog article you can see what articles look like even with CSS and JS removed. They are still readable.

@bjoern.gumboldt

is “that direction” something to do with efficiency, etc. or is it going in the direction of vi as a word processor, pine for email, and lynx for internet browsing? I mean in terms of pure functionalism, those three on a GUI-free OpenBSD or what-have-you could be a nice setup… taken to the extreme: no mouse and a monochrome display.

The “digital minimalism” direction isn’t for efficiency, but I use some of those programs because they are more efficient than regular GUI interfaces – Vim for programming and Emacs Org Mode (with Evil Mode) for notes and writing. My computer isn’t completely text-based, but it uses a minimalist window manager called i3wm that I configured to use vim keybindings. I use Firefox, because browsers like lynx/w3m/elinks can’t render JavaScript when needed. My laptop is mostly keyboard-driven. The main thing I use the touchpad for is on websites. (If Pentadactyl still worked, I would use that. Edit: I found a Pentadactyl replacement called Tridactyl.)