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Somehow the idea of digital minimalism spans a spectrum from > don't waste too much time and attention on things you don't really enjoy all the way to > dele
by jstx1 5y ago
Somehow the idea of digital minimalism spans a spectrum from
> don't waste too much time and attention on things you don't really enjoy
all the way to
> delete every social media account, never listen to a podcast or an audiobook, don't watch any videos, throw out your phone, and if you ever even glance at a screen for reasons other than work, your precious brain will be damaged
The first position seems reasonable to me. The second one is only mildly exaggerated from an opinion a lot of people actually seem to have, it's pseudoscientific at best and it's just a reason for people to feel smug about themselves while achieving absolutely nothing (or to feel bad about themselves when they fall short).
In some ways it's similar to the "nofap" community where a very small group of people with porn addictions or sexual health problems snowballed into a large cult full of people who all think that any form of masturbation is always wrong. The similarities are in all the talk about your brain "resetting", the fact that they take some reasonable idea and distort it to an extreme, and of course the lack of evidence and all the broscience that's used to justify all of this.
- Rerarom 5y agothe motte
- qsort 5y agoI agree that 'digital minimalism' is an extremely vague and, what's worse, generally paired with unscientific new-age Zen broscience bullshit, but I do think there's a legitimate point: we should question our tools. It's easy to use gadgets, technologies, apps, subscriptions, whatever, just out of habit, without actually being conscious of the tradeoffs they involve. I used to have social media accounts, but I deleted them after I realized they weren't valuable to me. My phone is now a dumbphone, because I thought the additional mental energy one devotes to apps, notifications etc. wasn't really worth much to me. Of course everyone needs to draw their own conclusions, I'm not claiming my decisions have universal validity, but the general principle "use all the tech you need, but not more" is a good one.
- RobertKerans 5y agoAlways been that way, always will be I guess. Someone happens on a set of very specific behaviours they use to fix some aspect of their behaviour/health/etc. Sometimes delusional, sometimes not, sometimes fake, sometimes not. Normally taps into something that seems "common sense". They or someone else sells it as a more general fix. Rinse and repeat. Just taps into a human need to find simple solutions? Diets, self-help, temperance, etc etc etc. Sometimes descends into cult-like behaviour, sometimes goes other way -- origins get lost, edges get sanded off, become folk wisdom