Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

by Cal Newport

They didn’t necessarily want to give up Google Maps, or abandon Instagram, but they also felt as though their current relationship with technology was unsustainable—to the point that if something didn’t change soon, they’d break, too.

A common term I heard in these conversations about modern digital life was exhaustion. It’s not that any one app or website was particularly bad when considered in isolation. As many people clarified, the issue was the overall impact of having so many different shiny baubles pulling so insistently at their attention and manipulating their mood.

Few want to spend so much time online, but these tools have a way of cultivating behavioral addictions.

I’ve become convinced that what you need instead is a full-fledged philosophy of technology use, rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.

a theology of technology

The sudden rise in anxiety-related problems coincided with the first incoming classes of students that were raised on smartphones and social media.

depending on whom you ask, social media is either making us lonely or bringing us joy.

place a call based on the same spur-of-the-moment inspiration with which you might casually drop in on a relative living down the street.