If you haven’t read it, Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism is mostly about this topic. The value of giving your brain time to simply exist without any outside input, with many examples from history of people who carved out time explicitly for this, especially when needing to make big decisions or figure out answers to problems.
I haven’t read the book but I like this idea and intend to check out the book. I’m not on social media but I find Hacker News – and even Wikipedia – to be addictive enough. When I was younger, I found it very hard to just sit there without some form of external stimulation, e.g. I couldn’t sit down to eat by or have a coffee by myself without reading a magazine or newspaper at the same time – or listening to the radio. I still find it hard to do this.
Hacker News has been useful in that I’ve come across a few inspirational ideas on consuming less input (and producing more output):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44702212
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39674619
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781463
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24582837
I’ve made some changes to my life in that listening to music is more intentional – not just a distraction to have in the background. It probably helps that I’ve also started to learn a musical instrument. I can also go for a walk without needing to have music or a podcast to listen to.
Consume less, create more: “These are not the only two options. There's a third activity most of us seem to have forgotten - to simply be.
For me, the very act of everyday living has become very enjoyable and fulfilling in recent years. Doing the dishes, cooking, gardening, sweeping the floor, putting out the trash. Those are not "chores", that's what life's made of. Some of it creative, some not, but the difference is you're simply present in the moment and in the world.”
Next time I do the dishes, I will appreciate being alive, and be thankful to be doing something healthy for my brain. Thanks!
So true! I still think of these things as being chores and don’t look forward to doing them. Worse still, I sometimes procrastinate and let them build up into being much bigger jobs than they need to be.
Every now and again, I try to re-frame the way I view these tasks and try to be more positive about them. I remind myself how fortunate I am to be a (reasonably) fit and healthy adult who can physically do them. And I always feel good when I complete them.
That's probably a great read based on what I've heard from Cal, but I don't think you need an entire book to know how to scale back on your social media use. Just hand your phone to your friend and have them put a lock on the addictive features.
It’s not just social media. Most people have their thing… the news, podcasts, music, books, games, etc. In the modern era we can always have something that allows us to distract our brain or provides external ideas to direct it. Being alone with our own thoughts, devoid of outside influence, is something that seems to take an intentional choice these days.
I find that just setting it to grayscale is enough. Its not that colors are actually an important part of my mostly text based social media experience, but when I use them without colors I get distracted with:
> What am I doing? This dumb.
And then I remember that it is dumb and I go back to leaving it alone.