Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

by Cal Newport

The reason most Amish are prohibited from owning cars, for example, but are allowed to drive in motor vehicles driven by other people, has to do with the impact of owning an automobile on the social fabric of the community. As Kelly explains: “When cars first appeared at the turn of the last century, the Amish noticed that drivers would leave the community to go picnicking or sightseeing in other towns, instead of visiting family or the sick on Sundays, or patronizing local shops on Saturday.” As a member of an Amish community explained to Kraybill during his research: “When people leave the Amish, the first thing they do is buy a car.” So owning a car is banned in most parishes. This type of thinking also explains why an Amish farmer can own a solar panel or run power tools on a generator but cannot connect to the power grid. The problem is not electricity; it’s the fact that the grid connects them too strongly to the world outside of their local community, violating the Amish commitment to the biblical tenet to “be in the world, but not of it.” Once you encounter this more nuanced approach to technology, you can no longer dismiss the Amish lifestyle as a quaint curiosity. As John Hostetler explained, their philosophy is not a rejection of modernity, but a “different form” of it.