Digital Minimalism is Stupid

To preface this: enjoy what you please, so long as no one is getting hurt. (That includes you, too!)

I hate digital minimalism. I get the idea of cutting out technology so that you aren't getting constant dopamine hits that make you crave another hour of TikTok. I understand not wanting that, but why cut out as much tech as possible?

Many of the people reading this have probably tried and failed to adhere to digital minimalism and caved after 1 or 2 days. This is the main reason I despise digital minimalism. It tells you to remove as many electronics as possible and whittle it down to fewer than 5. Typically, the main three remaining are:

1. Computer, for work and productivity
2. Phone, for calls and texts
3. PDA; can be any number of different devices, but their functions all end up as that of a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)

These are fine, they work perfectly. However, the human brain, in my experience, prefers something it can constantly be doing. Therefore, as your brain continues to be deprived of dopamine, its craving gets heightened to the point of paralysis. It desperately wants to just remove the layers between it, and dopamine. It knows it's not supposed to, yet it craves. It craves, until it caves. Then, it feels awful; for it broke the rules. The ones that were supposed to make it happy. It spirals after that, until it hits rock bottom.

I think that in order to avoid this situation, the brain should simply not be given the option for a quick hit of dopamine. That's right, I'm gonna take a crack at developing my own version of digital minimalism.

My Own Version of Digital Minimalism:

I will make this a set of "steps" that will walk you through my main points and show you the way I recommend going about this; feel free to edit this and mold it to your will, for there is no one-size-fits-all solution!

Step 1:

Revert your social media to ones that are inspired by old social media and block the addicting, new social media. Old social media didn't have any algorithms that tailor themselves to provide you with the fastest dopamine hit; fewer dopamine hits means less dependency on the internet. I think this is better than the typical approach because it still provides your brain with dopamine, but it's much less than before and you can (Do NOT quote me on this next bit) kind of trick your brain into believing social media wasn't even that exciting before.

Step 2:

Move as many things as you can to offline scenarios. The less time you have to be online, the less dopamine you receive. By doing this, you force yourself to step into public places more often and interact with real people. People you find outside of your home are more likely to enjoy being outside, and, if you make a couple of friends, they might make plans with you.

Step 3:

Minimize the amount of things you can carry with you. Limit yourself, maybe, to only your pockets or a purse. Fewer things means fewer distractions. Might not seem important now, but it will come into play later.

Step 4:

Completely remove electronics you don't need (hold on, I'm going somewhere with this). I mean, just completely gut your life of anything; compress as many things as possible into one device. Then, you'll probably be left with just a phone, because those things can do a lot; they can play games, they can act as a GPS, they can watch movies, they can make calls, and check social media.

Step 5:

Expand! Take your phone, think about what you use it for, and the multiple functions it has. Now, make each of them a different electronic (within the boundaries of common sense). Assuming you have followed the previous steps and ended up where I expected, you probably use your phone for music, games, calls, texts, social media, GPS, taking photos, and perhaps the occasional movie or internet browsing session. Here is a list of ideas for electronics you could use for each of this purposes:

Music - For portable listening, try an ipod of your choice; for at-home listening, a good stereo is probably the best bet. Hell, if you wanna be really extreme, use an old FM radio!

Games - For portable gaming, try a Nintendo DS, a Switch, or, idk, a PSP? For at-home gaming, you could use a game console (Xbox, Playstation) or a gaming computer built to your specifications.

Calling/texting - just use a phone, lol. Maybe a dumb phone or an old flip phone.

Social Media - A computer is, probably, the best choice here. A desktop would be perfect, since it takes time to power on your monitor(s) and stretch to reach the power button for the PC. Thus, it takes more time for the dopamine to hit and your brain will probably get bored before the OS loads.

GPS - A dedicated GPS unit that stays in your vehicle or that is portable would probably work best here.

Photos - A camera, obviously, works best here. Choose whatever kind you please.

Movies/TV shows - A TV does this better than a phone ever could; a good quality TV and sound system would be perfect. You can decide how to get the video to play on the thing, not my problem.

Internet Browsing - computer

"But, wait!" you say, "Isn't this supposed to be about digital MINIMALISM?

Yes, dear reader, it is. The minimalism comes into play when you must go outside to complete errands that are necessary (Recall step 2?). When you must step outside, you can't bring all of this with you as you can with a smart phone. Instead, you must pick and choose what to bring. The phone is a given, but will you be out for a run? Will you be waiting for a long period of time, long enough to want to play a game? Are you going somewhere new, and therefore need a GPS? Will you be out with friends, and might make wonderful memories with them? You have to pick and choose, or else you might not get to that errand in time, or your friends might make memories with out you. You don't need all of the functions a smart phone has, so seeing how each of them weighs your pockets down might make you realize how useless they are in a single package. There are less distractions, and the distractions you do have might help you make a long time friend (Trust me, I've talked to some people about my DS for hours).

I hope this might inspire you or help you, or both! I don't mind criticism, so long as it's in good faith, so be welcome to offer suggestions. Take care!

Side notes:

What about productivity? A laptop with Linux would probably work best here.

What about creativity? Idk man, I might as well be pulling all of this out of my ass. I just needed to get this idea out into writing. I figure that if this is meant to help random people, then the random people should be able to look at this and critique it and help to improve it.