Become a Digital Minimalist

Recently I watched a family in a restaurant as they ate their entire meal looking at their phones. None of them actually interacted with each other the whole time.

Tech companies design devices and apps to be addictive. It’s how they make their money. In my Authentic Leadership Academies, I ask participants is to leave their phones outside. It’s not an easy ask, especially the first day. But by the end of the week participants leave freer, more at peace, and more connected to themselves and others than they have felt in a long time.

Until about ten years ago, it was unavoidable to have times in your day when it was just you alone with your thoughts…while in line at a store, waiting for an elevator, walking the dog, commuting to work, at the gym. Now we’ve banished that time.

I love Cal Newport’s approach to technology. He calls it becoming a “digital minimalist.” Turn off your phone periodically and take your freedom back. Stop relying on digital media to meet our emotional needs or distract us from the discomfort of reality, and use for the function for which it was developed: information sharing and communication.

Let’s reconnect to ourselves and to the world around us. Let’s become digital minimalists.