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cosyskog 's review for:
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
by Cal Newport
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
I started out feeling quite positive about this book overall, and its premise - approaches for minimising your time online and reducing the amount of time spent mindlessly scrolling social media. Bonus points for referencing, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, numerous times.
However, while I will say this book has been a kickstarter for thinking about how and why I use social media in my life, I do think over the course of the book, the viewpoint and stance of the author became too rigid and extreme for my own tastes. I felt on the point of conversation-centric vs connection-centric relationships, the definition of conversation was too narrow for my own experience and preferences, while also ignoring anyone whose experience or disabilities may make a face to face or verbal only conversation not possible. (I don't anticipate this was the author's purpose in the narrow definition, but just to point out that most of the suggestions and advice seemed aimed at healthy, well-resourced, and at times "highly successful" people.)
There were points such as, "don't hit like" which did cause me to reflect on my relationships online and whether they are based on more than just breadcrumbs, and that did get me thinking overall about how I want to interact going forward - but overall it was the rigidity that took it too far for me, essentially collections of "do this" and "never do this" type all or nothing stances when it comes to technology. Also there were numerous points where it seems the author is strongly supporting "hustle culture" where you should schedule every moment of your day, the goal of life is for your actions to be "highly productive" or "high value" activities according to someone else's standards, and that even if you've had a hard day, trust him, making yoruself work on another hard task is infinitely better than resting. So while I do think it's well written and thought- provoking, I left feeling like ultimately it's up to each of us to forge our own path when it comes to how we want to define our digital minimalism.
However, while I will say this book has been a kickstarter for thinking about how and why I use social media in my life, I do think over the course of the book, the viewpoint and stance of the author became too rigid and extreme for my own tastes. I felt on the point of conversation-centric vs connection-centric relationships, the definition of conversation was too narrow for my own experience and preferences, while also ignoring anyone whose experience or disabilities may make a face to face or verbal only conversation not possible. (I don't anticipate this was the author's purpose in the narrow definition, but just to point out that most of the suggestions and advice seemed aimed at healthy, well-resourced, and at times "highly successful" people.)
There were points such as, "don't hit like" which did cause me to reflect on my relationships online and whether they are based on more than just breadcrumbs, and that did get me thinking overall about how I want to interact going forward - but overall it was the rigidity that took it too far for me, essentially collections of "do this" and "never do this" type all or nothing stances when it comes to technology. Also there were numerous points where it seems the author is strongly supporting "hustle culture" where you should schedule every moment of your day, the goal of life is for your actions to be "highly productive" or "high value" activities according to someone else's standards, and that even if you've had a hard day, trust him, making yoruself work on another hard task is infinitely better than resting. So while I do think it's well written and thought- provoking, I left feeling like ultimately it's up to each of us to forge our own path when it comes to how we want to define our digital minimalism.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Addiction