On Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport)

People are sometimes confused about my personal relationship with digital communication technologies.

On the one hand, I’m a computer scientist who studies and  improves these tools. As you might therefore expect, I’m incredibly  optimistic about the role of computing and networks in our future.

On the other hand, as a writer I’m often pointing out my  dissatisfaction with certain developments of the Internet Era. I’m  critical, for example, of our culture’s increasingly Orwellian  allegiance to social media and am indifferent to my smartphone.

Recently, I’ve been trying to clarify the underlying philosophy  that informs how I think about the role of these technologies in our  personal lives (their role in the world of work is a distinct issue that  I ‘ve already written quite a bit about). My thinking in this direction  is still early, but I decided it might be a useful exercise to share  some tentative thoughts, many of which seem to be orbiting a concept  that I’ve taken to calling digital minimalism. (...)

http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/12/18/on-digital-minimalism/
HN discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13205685