I’ve talked before about my interest in Digital Minimalism. You would think that a guy that loves technology as much as I do would be enthralled with all the bells and whistles we have on our devices these days, but honestly, I find much of them unnecessary and distracting.
I also identify as “exhausted”.
I believe much of the “glum” feeling I experience from time to time stems from spending too much time online, and more specifically, getting wrapped up in social media. As a geek of a certain age, I don’t particularly enjoy the GUI (Graphical User Interfaces) we have today; I grew up on character based interfaces and I still enjoy them today. For example, my preferred way of reading email is through the character based application called Alpine.
Now, I enjoy taking photos and making videos and doing all the things today’s modern technology allows me to do, but I really dislike the feeling that I’m being swayed by an algorithm. And if we’re talking about disliked feelings, I absolutely despise advertising. I always mention this an ironic declaration coming from me, because at one time I worked for a radio station owned by an advertising agency, and it was my job for a while to write ads. My income was based on ad generated revenue.
Oof.
Because the U.S. is all about capitalism but the bulk of manufacturing and other building of “things” has left the U.S. for cheaper opportunities across the pond, capitalism today is based on selling services, convincing people they need to be have the latest and greatest, and advertising said services and convincing propaganda, we have entered an unsustainable cycle on consumption. I think about this when I toy with the idea of convincing my husband I need to buy “just one more video camera” or “upgrade to a new computer that will give me everything I need for at least three years”, only to fall foolishly as a victim to advertising from computer companies convincing “thinner! sleeker! faster!” that turns out to be the same old, same old.
And then I feel guilt.
I’m typing this blog entry on my 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad T460s and it’s a wonderful experience. It does everything I want it to do and I don’t find myself lacking because it’s not as instantaneous as the experience on the M2 Mac Mini Pro I use for video editing. I have my M2 MacBook Air sitting upstairs and I haven’t used it in nearly a week; I’ll probably end up selling in the coming days.
Part of my digital minimalism efforts includes getting rid of redundant tech.
There’s a lot of things I can do in the digital consumption space to calm my response to the chaos. Long form writing is a tremendous help for me. I should focus on doing it more often.
