Digital Minimalism

something was too strong to ignore. After two weeks,

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however, she reported: “I lost almost any interest [in
checking things online].”
This detox experience is important because it will help
you make smarter decisions at the end of the declutter
when you reintroduce some of these optional
technologies to your life. A major reason that I
recommend taking an extended break before trying to
transform your digital life is that without the clarity
provided by detox, the addictive pull of the technologies
will bias your decisions. If you decide to reform your
relationship with Instagram right this moment, your
decisions about what role it should play in your life will
likely be much weaker than if you instead spend thirty
days without the service before making these choices.
As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, however, it’s a
mistake to think of the digital declutter as only a detox
experience. The goal is not to simply give yourself a
break from technology, but to instead spark a permanent
transformation of your digital life. The detoxing is
merely a step that supports this transformation.
With this in mind, you have duties during the
declutter beyond following your technology rules. For
this process to succeed, you must also spend this period
trying to rediscover what’s important to you and what
you enjoy outside the world of the always-on, shiny
digital. Figuring this out before you begin reintroducing
technology at the end of this declutter process is crucial.
An argument I’ll elaborate on in part 2 of this book is
that you’re more likely to succeed in reducing the role of
digital tools in your life if you cultivate high-quality
alternatives to the easy distraction they provide. For
many people, their compulsive phone use papers over a
void created by a lack of a well-developed leisure life.
Reducing the easy distraction without also filling the
void can make life unpleasantly stale—an outcome likely
to undermine any transition to minimalism.

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Another reason it’s important to spend the thirty days
of the declutter rediscovering what you enjoy is that this
information will guide you during the reintroduction of
technology at the end of the process. As stated, the goal
of the reintroduction is to put technology to work on
behalf of specific things you value. This means to an end
approach to technology requires clarity on what these
ends actually are.
The good news is that the participants in my mass
declutter experiment found it easier than expected to
reconnect to the types of activities they used to enjoy
before they were subverted by their screens. A graduate
student named Unaiza was spending her evenings
browsing Reddit. During her declutter, she redirected
this time toward reading books that she borrowed from
both her school and local library. “I finished eight and a
half books that month,” she told me. “I could never have
thought about doing that before.” An insurance agent
named Melissa finished “only” three books during her
thirty days, but also organized her wardrobe, set up
dinners with friends, and scheduled more face-to-face
conversations with her brother. “I wish he was