Trying Digital Minimalism

Mar 26, 2026

  Helloo! I'm taking a literature class that is centered around science fiction hopepunk anime. We had to choose a book to read for this class to do a presentation over at the end of the semester. I chose Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I mainly just wanted to get off my phone and this is a good excuse to do so and maybe do a fun experiment for the presentation.

  Here is the gist of the book: declutter your technology usage and be more purposeful with how you use it. The definition of technology is pretty vague but I'm focusing on technology that is designed to get you “addicted” and exploits your attention. There are three steps to doing a technology declutter.

1. Take 30 day break without optional technologies
2. Discover or rediscover beneficial activities and behaviors
3. After 30 days, reintroduce optional technologies, according to what you think actually is necessary

I'll go into what I consider to be optional technologies, why, and what I'll do instead.

• I think messaging apps like Discord, Whatsapp, and Messages are needed for me. I have lots of long-distance friends and family that I talk to at least 2-3 times a week. But, I find that I get addicted to compulsive notification checking. It takes up too much of my time as well as affecting my mood and anxiety.
  • I plan to take off Discord, Whatsapp, Messages on my computer. I don't want to have access to my phone all the time by it being in my pocket, so I'll put it in my backpack and try to just carry around a watch and a book to tell the time and entertainment.


• All social media are optional. I don't count Neocities. The social media app I use the most is Twitter, I like the community and posting my art on there. I've also made pretty cool friends. But I can see some of my compulsive notification checking happening there too.
  • I DMed all the people I wanted to continue to talk to to move to Discord while I won't use Twitter. I think having a separation between friends and social media would be helpful.


• Youtube is optional :( I try to keep mostly watching educational videos and just the few Youtubers I find entertaining. But I think the worst part about it is that it doesn't mix well with my ADHD. Multitasking is absolutely awful for me. I get distracted while trying to do my work from YT and then I don't actually learn anything from the YT video I'm watching.
  • I'm going to stop using outside of tutorials. I'll try to get my educational/entertainment content from reading. I want to try to read physical books as I get easily distracted by being able to use other apps when I try to read on phone/iPad.


• I honestly don't think I play Minecraft or Genshin Impact enough for it to even be a problem but yeah that's optional too. I do think I play for way too long when I play though, and then I get migraines.
  • I won't play for now. I really need to be more strict on a 1 hour a day limit.


• I am obsessed with short, repeatable games such as minesweeper, sudoku, quordle, and state.io. So much of my time gets consumed because once I start playing these games, I can't do anything else.
  • I will only do the daily NYT sudoku and NOTHING ELSE.


• If I watch any show, I shouldn't binge it. I want to keep it to two episodes a week.
  • This also applies to manga because I have a tendency to binge those.

  My god, that is a lot of text without any photos... Here is Kusum in an oversized wig and oversized outfit...
  And some cool art from a Telugu magazine called Yuva.

  Okay, that's all. I'll update this in a month to see if I could do it and what it taught me. Bye!!