Note: This article is the fourth in a four-part series that covers the key themes in Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. The first three articles can be found here , here, and here, covering in greater detail the four key areas of focus according to Newport: 1) Spend Time Alone, 2) Don’t Click Like, 3) Reclaim Leisure and 4) Join the Attention Resistance. Today I’ll be focusing on the concept of joining the attention resistance.

Newport’s thesis on digital minimalism:

Our current relationship with the technologies of our hyper-connected world is unsustainable and is leading us closer to the quiet desperation that Thoreau observed so many years ago. But as Thoreau reminds us, ‘the sun rose clear’ and we still have the ability to change this state of affairs. To do so, however, we cannot passively allow the wild tangle of tools, entertainments, and distractions provided by the internet age to dictate how we spend our time or how we feel. We must indeed take steps to extract the good from these technologies while sidestepping what’s bad. We require a philosophy that puts our aspirations and values once again in charge of our daily experience, all the while dethroning primal whims and the business models of Silicon Valley from their current dominance of this role; a philosophy that accepts new technologies, but not if the price is the dehumanization Andrew Sullivan warned us about; a philosophy that prioritizes long-term meaning over short-term satisfaction. A philosophy, in other words, like digital minimalism.

The fourth key component of digital minimalism, according to Newport, is the idea of joining the attention resistance. The key to the attention resistance is understanding that social media, smartphones and their associated apps are designed to capture and keep your attention while creating addictive patterns. Newport makes the point that these apps are free for a reason. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram make money by monetizing advertising and user data. The more clicks and views the they receive, the more revenue they make. For this reason they are motivated to create addictive patterns in the user base.

From Newport:

“Put another way, to approach attention economy services with the intentionality proposed by Ginsberg and Burke is not a commonsense adjustment to your digital habits, but is instead better understood as a bold act of resistance. Fortunately, if you take this path, you’ll not be alone. My research on digital minimalism has revealed the existence of a loosely organized attention resistance movement, made up of individuals who combine high-tech tools with disciplined operating procedures to conduct surgical strikes on popular attention economy services— dropping in to extract value, and then slipping away before the attention traps set by these companies can spring shut.”

The idea is not to stop using social media sites or to stop using the Internet to engage with worthwhile content. The key is to find ways to use the technology for your benefit while building habit patterns that stop you from falling into the habit of aimlessly staring at your smartphone. One example would be to access a social media site like Facebook only through the browser on your laptop. If you still find yourself overly consumed with the content on Facebook via your browser you can download browser plug-ins designed to eliminate areas such as the Facebook newsfeed. One example is News Feed Eradicator, a chrome plug-in that hides the Facebook news feed. When you log-in you can still go directly to a Facebook group you want to touch base with or directly visit the home page of a friend or family member. By eliminating the news feed you are eliminating the temptation to get caught up in needless browsing. In addition to News Feed Eradicator there are a number of other plug-ins that can make you more effective.

Here are some examples of measures I’ve taken to join the attention resistance:

Hide the Apple News Feed: I purposely avoid the news unless I’m going directly to a site to browse the news. I find it unproductive when I’m checking work emails or responding to texts on my phone and I come across news articles that Apple feels I need to read. Often the mere scanning of the headline leads to the reading of the article and more articles after that. By eliminating the news feed I don’t come across it and can focus on what is directly in front of me.

Deletion of streaming apps from my smart phone: I deleted Hulu and Netflix from my smartphone. Now I only watch these applications on the television in my living room. This also includes the deletion of YouTube. The effort here is to limit the watching of television to the evening when it’s family time. This also eliminates the interest in checking in on sports or other television shows when I have a break in the day.

Twitter Trends: I use Twitter to read interesting articles and share the content I produce on this blog. As I state in my Twitter bio I am apolitical on purpose. This is not due to a lack of interest in politics, but more a reflection of the current bitter state of politics and the tendency I once had to have to get caught up in the ‘outrage of the day’. After unsuccessfully trying to remove Twitter trends I simply changed my location to Tokyo. Thus, my trends are in Japanese, a language I can’t read. As a result I only see the content from the people I follow, who are typically prone to not get caught up in the latest outrage or political talking point.

The broader theme is to find little tricks and tools to limit our engagement with our devices. Use them for how they can make our lives more efficient, but find ways to limit use when they start to make us less efficient. Think back to a time when the devices weren’t so small and easy to access. Perhaps you decide to only read paper magazines or traditional books. Perhaps you make the decision to only watch streaming television while in the presence of someone else. Little habits can build up to real change.

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