Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology

by Cal Newport

Few want to spend so much time online, but these tools have a way of cultivating behavioral addictions. The urge to check Twitter or refresh Reddit becomes a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence necessary for an intentional life.

In an open marketplace for attention, darker emotions attract more eyeballs than positive and constructive thoughts.2 For heavy internet users, repeated interaction with this darkness can become a source of draining negativity—a steep price that many don’t even realize they’re paying to support their compulsive connectivity.