People are sometimes confused about my personal relationship with digital communication technologies. Minimalists tend to spend much less money and own many fewer things than their peers. They also tend to be much more intentional and often quite radical in shaping their lives around things that matter to them. Minimalism is a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. Money Moustache. These ideas, of course, are not new. The minimalism movement can be directly connected to similar ideals in many other periods, from the voluntary simplicity trend of the s to Thoreau.
But what is new is their embrace of tools like blogs that help them reach vast audiences. This was the early days of Study Hacks and these sources soon played a major role in transforming my writing and speaking during this period.
Most notably, they shifted my attention away from the technical aspects of studying and toward the philosophical aspects of creating a meaningful student experience the Zen Valedictorian , for example, owes an obvious debt to Zen Habits. It occurred to me recently, when I was pondering my philosophy on technology, that my thinking continues to be influenced by minimalism.
I am, I realized, perhaps usefully described as an advocate for a new but urgently relevant branch of this philosophy β a branch focused on the proper role of digital communication technologies in our increasingly noisy livesβ¦.
Adapting some of the above language from Joshua and Ryan, I loosely define digital minimalism as follows:. Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps you question what digital communication tools and behaviors surrounding these tools add the most value to your life. It is motivated by the belief that intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimizing your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life.
