Digital Minimalism? What? Why?

What is Minimalism? 

I am sure everyone must have heard the term "minimalism" at least once somewhere. So what does it actually mean? To understand what minimalism means, we must understand its concept.  Basically, minimalism is based on the concept of  "Less is more", in other words, this means living a simpler life, having/maintaining a mindful consumption and thereby reducing our wastage. Now a lot of people misunderstand this concept thinking minimalism requires you to spend money on only bare minimum things, owning less than 100 materialistic things, giving up all of your luxuries, your career and instead, living a simple life like a priest, yadda yadda yadda but that's not at all true. It just means consuming mindfully and reducing unnecessary waste.

Anyway, now let us talk about 'Digital Minimalism'

I can surely feel some of you reading this blog might have already started to think oh my god digital minimalism, really? why even bother....well that's if you understand what digital minimalism means by now. You see Digital Minimalism has a strong logical and practical reasoning behind it and deep inside our hearts/brains we know it is true and good for us but most of us (assuming there are some people who believe in minimalism out there) think it is not possible. Some would panic and think how can one even live to be a digital minimalist? To this let me proudly say - I am a digital minimalist and I am still breathing.
Ok so now let me explain what does digital minimalism actually means? I read a book named 'digital minimalism' by Cal Newport and I sure did love it. It basically explains why digital minimalism, how is it useful for us.  It's just applying the minimalist approach to our digital devices and tools that we use in our everyday life. That means using our smartphones, laptops, etc mindfully, only using the apps that are important not wasting time scrolling social media for like endlessly!  I am going to give you a brief about that in this blog. I will be focussing on smartphones mainly but the tips can be applied to other digital devices as well. 

Why are we addicted to our smartphones? 

Well, it's not you, smartphones are made this way to keep us constantly glued to them- a news update, a new comment on my status! How many likes did I get on my latest video/picture? Wait! they removed the number of likes from Instagram but we all know the owner of the account can still see the total likes so yeah we are screwed! Does this behavior sound familiar to you? Ok, let's not answer that.
Moving on let me just tell you that smartphones are not our enemies, they are a very good piece of technology that was created to help us be more productive if & only if used properly and mindfully. So digital minimalism is based on the concept of using our smartphones judiciously & mindfully and not being addicted to them. 

 Well nowadays they don't work for us, we work for them!

Sad but true!

Well, we all know the negative effects of being addicted to our smartphones...its a long list of Physical and Mental health issues and I am not going to be diving into that but let's get straight to the point - how to fight this addiction and how to follow the concept of digital minimalism. 

Some Tips for Digital Minimalism-

1. Turn Off App Notifications - Before you start wondering if I have gone mad just hear me out, notifications are honestly not that important. Now by turning off notifications, I don't mean turn off all your notifications but yes do turn off the ones that are most distracting like Instagram notifications due to which we are constantly involved in thinking about stuff that doesn't even really matter. Now I turned off notifications for all my social media apps(except Whatsapp) so that I check them when I am free or have nothing to do rather than opening these apps every 30 mins, oh wait did I just say 30 minutes I meant 5 minutes.😬
Turning off your social media notifications won't have any negative impact on your life, trust me rather you will be more focused on the task at hand plus it will help you avoid the constant information overload that we experience throughout the day. In the long term, constant information influx is proven to be one of the main reasons for causing stress and anxiety. Notifications were made by these companies so that you can use these apps/services constantly and they can earn more money with that, this concept is known as the 'attention economics', You can read about this concept more on the Internet if you don't believe me.

2. Declutter your Smartphone- Now by this, I mean deleting old apps that you haven't used in the past 60-90 days and trust me if you haven't used it for long you don't need it. Decluttering your phone like your wardrobe can help you save some memory on your smartphone which a lot of people are running out of! Plus it will also make your smartphone a more peaceful place. I had about 48 apps before adopting this practice and after carefully analyzing I realized I don't need so much trash so I am down to about 32 apps that I need or are useful for me.

3. Evaluate your Screen time- Nowadays both ios and android smartphones have the tools that can help you evaluate your screen time. I would request you to all to go and see your respective screen time, according to various reports a smartphone user spends about an average of 3-4 hours on their phones daily, that's 21-28 hours weekly, that's 84-112 hours monthly, not going to calculate how many hours is that annually, its a big calculation, but I am sure you get the idea! Evaluating your screen time will help you understand what all apps you are using the most and then you can take accordingly decide what to do with those apps. I had an average screen time of 4 hours a day, but after practicing digital minimalism I am down to about 2.5 hours a day, see the improvement? I have more time to focus on things that are important to me, I am not constantly glued to my phone and it sure does feel nice👍

4. Social Media Detox- I know it sounds horrific but it's one of the best things you can do for yourself. I would request you, all readers to try it once, and trust me it will help you. The book I read about digital minimalism encourages all its readers to take this social media detox and the author encourages everyone to find or create new hobbies during this detox which will help you replace your addiction with social media. Its that simple! If done properly it does work, and I am speaking with my own personal experience. It might sound impossible but just go for it and let me tell you it will be tough at the beginning but then who said life is easy? 🙊

Now coming back to my Personal Experience practicing digital minimalism for the past month has really helped me in a lot of ways, it has helped me increase my focus, it has helped me be more organized, have more clarity with my thoughts plus it also helped me cope up my anxiety and stress to some extent. During the past month, I have developed a habit of meditating and journaling every day and those are 2 beautiful habits which I can never let go of, as I liked reading books, during this period I read more books than ever and it genuinely felt good. Well, I hope I have painted a pretty picture of what digital minimalism is, what does it do, and why we all should practice and implement it in our lives. I would urge all my readers to try it at least once and I am sure you wouldn't want to go back! If you would like to know more about digital minimalism or have any query you can go and check out useful links down below or just message me.😊

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Some Useful Links for you all to check-


https://www.amazon.in/Digital-Minimalism-Living-Better-Technology/dp/0241341132/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1588304306&sr=8-1
[ Digital Minimalism book by Cal Newport]

https://youtu.be/TA5Ilzauebo
[ No Social Media Challenge by Yes theory]

https://youtu.be/OFnX4beKdfQ
[ Digital Minimalism by Matt D'Avella]

https://youtu.be/3E7hkPZ-HTk
[ Ted Talk by Cal Newport ]

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