I’ve been reading and listening to various books about the attention/surveillance economy, the rise of fascism in the Anglosphere and beyond, and have decided to disconnect from the daily outrage and the impotent swiping of “social” “content”. The most immediately actionable advice came from Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. I will therefore be undertaking a digital declutter in May.
Specifically this means:
- no social media. In fact I haven’t been on most of them all of April, so this is already in play. By continuing it into May, I intend to do a better job of choosing things to do when I’m not hitting refresh.
- alerts on chat apps on for close friends and family only.
- streaming TV only when watching with other people.
- Email once per day.
- no RSS.
- audiobooks only while driving.
- Slack once per day.
- Web browsing only when it progresses a specific work, or non-computering, task.
- at least one walk per day, of at least half an hour, with no technology.
- Phone permanently in Do Not Disturb mode.
It’s possible that I end up blogging more, if that’s what I start thinking of when I’m not browsing the twitters. Or less. We’ll find out over the coming weeks.
My posts for De Programmatica Ipsum are written and scheduled, so service there is not interrupted. And I’m not becoming a hermit, just digitally decluttering. Arrange Office Hours, come to Brum AI, or find me somewhere else, if you want to chat!
