My Media Fast – Learnings from Digital Minimalism
What do you do if you don't have media to distract you?
My Media Fast Rules
Hey All,
No curation this week as I’ve been on a media fast for the past 10 days. That means…
No scrolling
No consumption of feeds, news, social media, or emails.
Only books or movies.
All use of tech has to be purposeful. I can send a DM on X just no scrolling.
About 5 days in I started seeing the benefits. And now I’m becoming and advocate.
Want to be more fit? More focused? Have more Friends? Literally all possible with a media fast….
Why might you want to do a media fast?
You want to reclaim focus.
You want to have a better mood, remove background unease or stress
Your sleep is off, or you’re not working out enough
You want to discover your values, passions, hobbies, creativity again
You feel like there’s some opportunity cost to how you’re operating but you’re not sure exactly what that cost is.
If I can do it, you can do it. I enjoy technology and find many benefits from it. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn from taking some space from it.
Let’s talk about some changes that can take place in doing this experiment and what else I’m hoping to get from it.
To caveat I’m not against social media and technology and I hope that’s obvious. I’m interested in how to form productive, useful relationships with social media and technology that help you have a better life and more fulfilling work. This is not a “detox” but a chance to reshape how I use tools in my life.
I’ve been loving Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, it might be my favorite book of his. Much of what I’m writing about I’ve learned from that book.
Work Projects & Focus
When you don’t have 10,000 ideas competing for your attention every 10 minutes, the level of focus you bring to your work changes. You think about your ideas longer, with more sustainability. You naturally shift from consumption to creation.
Focus is about what the alternatives are.
Imagine you’re in a dorm room with just a bed and a window. You’re absolutely bored. Then someone gives you a book. Compared to boredom, that book is amazing!
Now you have a book. Someone gives you a VCR where you can play movies. You drop the book and suddenly you’re in the world of cinema!
Now they give you an iPhone…
The point is that you want to create contexts where the “best alternative” for you is what you’re hoping to accomplish and achieve. It goes without saying that my reading time has increased drastically given having no ability to view feeds.
Friendship & Social Life
Your brain is hard-wired to seek social interaction when you have downtime. This is proven in brain scans that show that any time your brain is idle from a focused task, the areas of the brain for social connection light up. Imagine you get back from the hunt. Now that you’re no longer focused, you’re in the group connecting and socializing.
You’re primed to seek social connection when you have downtime.
And yet… that has been disrupted by pseudo-social experiences through our phones. The trick that Facebook and Instagram play on your brain is this:
You get bored
Your brain wants social connection and ties
You give yourself a “hit” of social media or podcasts which give you a pseudo-lo-fi version of social connection, or you get the parasocial feeling of connection through a podcast.
You never get the “real thing,” the full high-definition experience of connecting with other humans face to face or in groups.
So basically the reason you feel lonely despite having access to 1 Billion people is that you’re never getting the full human experience of social connection.
When you’re not distracted by psuedo-social experiences, you begin using technology in ways that create more social experiences not less.
Imagine you can’t get any “social” experience from social media… What would you do?
Here are some social connection rules you can employ:
Don’t text, set up a time to connect (by phone or IRL)
Don’t comment or like, set up a time to connect (by phone or IRL)
Call people when you think of them. FaceTime more.
Find local social groups to attend
Come up with creative dinner experiences for your friends
Plan travel
Talk to strangers
Plan new projects or hobbies with others
Books & Fitness
My media of choice has been books. I use every format; phone (kindle), tablet (kindle), physical, audio. I already read a good deal, however now I think my pace is probably 2-3 books every 2-3 weeks. You can do that fairly easily if you read ~20 pages every so often when you have downtime. I’m also watching a good deal of movies with my wife.
I wouldn’t say I’ve shifted my fitness by much, however there’s only so much of that you can do per week.
I have found myself walking for longer stretches without a phone (totally crazy, I know). I’m sure I at least have the general impetus to work out more often given not having alternative media to suck me in.
Re-Introduction of Technology
I still have about 20 days left of my media fast. I’m hoping to get more into hobbies (guitar, film photography) as well as plan some more social events with friends.
I’ll most likely post again in the future related to how I plan on re-integrating technology. I already have some ideas around RSS feeds, Saturday “cheat days” where I binge on media, and more use of my dumbed-down iPhone.
What do you think about this? Have you ever done a media fast and then re-integrated or found value in new ways?
Lmk and have a great week!
xx David