- If I were to ask you
why you originally created your social media accounts, you might come up with
something similar to, well, to keep up with friends and family and see what they're
doing and stuff like that. And that's not a bad reason at all. In fact, it's quite an honorable sentiment but as society becomes more
dependent on these technologies, there's an ever-growing problem and that is that our intended use for these social media applications and what our daily use actually looks like are often two completely different things. Many of us use social media and our smartphones compulsively, it's like a nervous tick. There's a certain need to
check your phone all the time. It's constantly pulling
your attention away from whatever's in front of you and back into your other online life. And I'm not gonna say
this is ruining the world or anything like that, people are still showing
up to work on time and countries are still being
run decently well I guess but the effects of this underlying itch is still measurable and it's
felt by pretty much anyone who owns a smartphone. Maybe it's when you're mid conversation with somebody and things are going well and you're having a good conversation. And then that itch starts to happen and you just wanna pull out
your phone for no reason even if you're just swiping between pages, you're not really paying attention to what the person is saying. Or maybe it's when you're
trying to write an email or an essay or an article
and it's a little bit boring and you find yourself drifting
towards the new tab button just to hit F, Enter and realize that you already checked
Facebook like 45 seconds ago and there were no notifications but you still checked anyways. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. And the weird thing is this whole thing is an entirely new struggle. Humanity has only been dealing
with it for about nine years. Apple rolled out the
original iPhone in 2007 but it didn't launch with
any social media apps and it didn't even have an app store. Facebook didn't reach 500
million users until July 2010, a number which is now
2.3 billion and Instagram wasn't even invented
until later that year. So the relationship between
humanity and social media is still in its infancy. And we're just kind of stumbling around, hitting our heads on
walls, trying to figure out the best way to reap the
rewards and the usefulness of these apps without hurting ourselves and our well-being in the process. So if you are somebody who looks at their phone way more often
than you would like to admit, I've definitely been guilty of this, there's actually evidence to believe that it's not your fault. Because most of these apps are designed from the ground up to be addictive, behind the glimmering promise
of increased human connection is basically a slot machine in your pocket where you pull a lever
and fun stuff comes out. And these rewards are
some of the most powerful and ancient rewards that can be exploited in the human brain, social validation and I'm not making all this up, this isn't some giant conspiracy. This is literally how
these apps make money. They get paid by third-party
companies who purchase ad space on their platform in the hopes that you, the user interacts with it. So the more time you spend on these apps, the more likely you are
to click on or engage with these ads and the
more money these companies and these platforms make. These multi-billion dollar
companies are built entirely by taking control not of your money, not of your land or your
livestock but of your attention because your attention is their currency. And that's the underlying issue
is we feel kind of helpless to compulsively use these apps
but they're kind of useful so you sort of need them, they do enhance your life in some ways and you do use them for useful things but they're taking away
from your life in other ways because of their addictive nature. Thankfully though, if you
watch this channel at all, I don't make videos about
why we're all screwed and can't do anything about it because that's definitely not
true, you can find a balance, you can maximize the
benefits of social media while not falling prey
to it's addictive effects but unfortunately you can't
attain this sort of freedom by little quick tips and tricks. Don't use your phone as an alarm clock, only use your phone for
one hour in the day. You really do need a paradigm shift. You need to adopt a new
philosophy towards technology use. One philosophy in particular is leading a sort of silent revolution and it's helping people regain their focus and take back control over their lives, it's called digital minimalism. In his book by the same name, Cal Newport defines digital minimalism as, "A philosophy of technology
use in which you focus "your online time on a small
number of carefully selected "and optimized activities
that strongly support "the things you value
and then happily miss out "on everything else." So to better understand digital minimalism and how you can apply it
to your life right now, one thing that was useful to me in understanding how
digital minimalism works is to compare the philosophies
of digital minimalism and digital maximalism, okay. So the digital minimalist
doesn't mind missing out on a potential small benefit that a certain technology might give them if it has any risk of
decreasing the quality of things that they already know to be
of tremendous value to them, like their ability to focus, contrast this with the philosophy
of the digital maximalist who believes that any
small potential benefit is worth downloading the app. If they think that Instagram will be a little bit fun for them or they have any sort of
impulsive reason to download it, they downloaded it immediately. If some application claims
to make you more productive or more connected or anything,
they'll just download it without considering the larger picture of how that applications daily
use will fit into their lives and whether they really need it. So we've talked about the
theory of digital minimalism but I wanna leave you guys
with some practical wisdom as to how you can apply
this directly right now in your lives so the
number one thing you can do is a two-fold process. The first one is to vet
every application you use and you do this by asking two questions. Number one is what are the benefits of using this application? And number two is, is this the best way to achieve these benefits? So let's take Instagram again for example, I like to rip on Instagram because I actually deleted it right after reading digital minimalism so when I was deciding to delete it, my thought process went like this. What are the benefits of
using this application and my perceived benefits
that I was getting from Instagram probably was two-fold. First one was like, I like
to keep up with friends and family and see what they're up to. And by seeing updates on baby pictures and engagements and stuff like that, I felt more connected
to my friends network and the second benefit I
experienced from Instagram was probably that it was just fun, I guess it was mildly entertaining when I wanted to break from something I could check Instagram and it gave me a little dopamine hit. So then I ask the second question, is this the best way to
achieve those benefits? And no, they weren't the best
way to achieve those benefits. If staying up to date with my
friends is important to me, then the best way to achieve that benefit is to call them or text
them to set up a time to actually connect with
them on a profound level. Maybe not even a profound
level, just a genuine level because Instagram is super
superficial, super superficial. You're not actually exchanging
ideas and information and getting to know the person any better. So in a way, Instagram wasn't offering me that perceived benefit that
I thought I was getting from it to begin with. Secondly, there are way better ways that I can entertain myself
that doesn't completely waste my time. If I want a dopamine hit,
maybe I should go work out. There are healthier ways that
I can get this entertainment. So for that reason, Instagram
didn't really offer me much value that I couldn't
get in other areas of my life. So I deleted it. And since I deleted it
that's one less thing that's pulling me away and
sending me push notifications and tempting me to go waste my time on it that way I can use that gained time and redirected towards the things that are important in my life. And that's what digital
minimalism is at its core, it's being intentional
with why you use your apps that are on your phone, on your computer and figuring out why
they exist in your life. For instance, I also
deleted LinkedIn recently because my perceived
benefit of having LinkedIn was that I was more
available to collaborate with in my professional network. I have only ever gotten
one job opportunity from LinkedIn earlier on in
my freelance video career and that's it on a day-to-day basis, all it's doing is sending
me push notifications and emails and stuff like that, telling me that people joined my network and I'm like, oh great, in my mind, I'm like this is more business
opportunity potentially. I'm a well-connected
guy, it's not worth it. It offers zero value but since I used to be
a digital maximalist, I'm like, oh, there could
be some potential value to having this app and that's just done. So the second way that you
can apply digital minimalism to your life right now is to optimize. Digital minimalism isn't all
about just deleting every app and then just facing the
consequences of the ones you don't delete. Part of it is optimization. So for instance, I can't
really get away from Facebook. A good example of this
is my Facebook group for this YouTube channel, it's doing very well, it's
very helpful for people, it has over 3,000 members and
that sort of accessibility for a group isn't really
available on any other platform. So I know this whole Facebook group thing is a useful thing for my YouTube channel. So how do I use Facebook
and not get distracted by it and that's where optimization comes in. The main thing about Facebook
that pretty much anyone would find distracting is the newsfeed. One thing that I did was I installed a Newsfeed Eradicator, it's
available for Firefox, Chrome, I'm pretty sure Safari as well. And that replaces the
home page, the newsfeed with a motivational quote. I don't really read the quote but just like it just
gets rid of the newsfeed and that's super helpful. And the second thing I did
was I deleted the Facebook app from my phone because that
also has all these options for watching videos and playing games and stuff like that at the
bottom, I don't need that crap. I basically only need the messenger and then when I really want to check in and allow people into the Facebook group, I'll physically type
in Facebook and do that and that's it, that's my
entire Facebook experience. It's a really stripped down
and it allows me to focus and it has allowed me to
view Facebook more as a tool for my business rather than a excuse to waste like 30 minutes watching these viral Facebook videos. So those are just a few ways that you can apply digital minimalism to your life right now, it's a dense book, it's so rich with great knowledge and it is probably one of
the best books I've read in a long time in terms
of changing my perspective and I think it's a must read for anybody who uses technology on a daily basis especially for people who are struggling to pull themselves away from their phone. I'll put a link in the description where you can pick up
your copy of the book. Couldn't recommend it enough. If you like this video, make sure to hit that like button because when you like it, YouTube recommends it to more people, YouTube algorithm sees it as a good video and I think this topic in
particular is really important for people to see in today's day and age. If you're lurking here,
consider subscribing because I make videos like
this on a regular basis and hopefully I can help you out when I randomly appear
in your YouTube homepage. Inaction is a Slow Death T-shirts and hoodies are available now to buy, link is in the description. Lots of people are
buying it and wrapping it and it is a good reminder
that while inaction is a slow death (laughs),
it's a good daily reminder to take action rather
than succumb to inaction and letting your soul decay. That's all for today,
exciting things coming guys, can't wait to put out the next video. Thank you for watching and we'll catch you in the next video.
