Cal Newport: On Joining the Attention Resistance

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.

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Cal Newport: On Avoiding the 'Like' Button.

Note: This article is the third in a multi-part series that covers Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. The first two articles can be found 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 reclaiming leisure.

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 idea of “don’t click like” is a byproduct of how the technology has been engineered to not only grab our attention, but also tailor the content in a way that is supposed to benefit us, but in reality is designed to create addictive patterns that keep us checking the various social media apps over and over. A prime example of how social media is engineered to cause addictive patterns is the ‘like’ button.

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Cal Newport: On Reclaiming Leisure

Note: This article is the second in a multiple part series that covers Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. The first article can be found here and covers in greater detail the four key areas of focus to achieve Digital Minimalism, as outlined by Newport. The four key areas are: 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 reclaiming leisure.

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.

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The Importance of Spending Time Away from The Digital World

I touched on the Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World last week in a post on willpower, and felt his important work warrants a deeper overview, so much in fact that I’m going to divide it into multiple articles. Newport is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the author of a number of important books including Deep Work, So Good They Can’t Ignore You and How to Become a Straight-A Student .

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 era of the smartphone is incredibly fascinating. For all the positives these devices have brought to society, so many of us struggle with the nagging feeling that for all the good they provide, there’s a downside. Newport’s use of the famous Henry David Thoreau term, “quiet desperation”, is very fitting. Smartphones and social media apps, with the promise of optimizing our life and making us more connected often have the opposite effect.

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How to Avoid Being "Out of Service" While at Work

Picture yourself taking your kids to Disneyland on a beautiful summer day. As you drive down the 5 Freeway towards the entrance to the park your youngest child points out Space Mountain and everyone in the car agrees that it will be the first stop. You find a parking spot, ride the tram over and walk through Downtown Disney. Your family excitedly rushes over to Space Mountain only to find that the ride is “Out of Service”. Your kids are unhappy. You tell them that things break down from time to time and it’s good that they shut the ride down to make sure everyone is safe. “Out of Service” happens. In the software world, where I’ve spent much of my professional career, we have SLA’s to promise a certain percentage of uptime. We do this because things break down and need to be fixed.

Running into the dreaded “Out of Service” sign is inevitable.

Human beings really aren’t that that much different. There are times that we are “Out of Service.” This doesn’t alway mean that we are physically incapacitated or out of work with an illness. These out of service days are self-inflicted, days when we are absolutely disengaged and going through the motions at work or in our personal life. Of course this is human, to a point. We all have these moments. The problem in today’s world is millions of workers are often out of service more than they are in service.

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