Digital Minimalism: It's Not About Fewer Apps. It's About More Life.

I thought I knew something about digital minimalism. Then I read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

In the first chapter, he told me that my routines only stop "an uncomfortable feeling of losing control".

Ouch.

Hey, if you don't want to read the whole article, the golden nugget of everything I write today (and also a summary of the book) is this:

Our main goal is not to use fewer apps. It is to go back to what we really are. What do we enjoy? What will we do instead of social media? Reading, writing, knitting, walking?

Last updated: 27 March 2026

Digital Minimalism as an Answer to Losing Control

Tools that limit time on social media are useful, but they are not enough. We need to change how we think. Goliath is really strong.

It is true that if I did not use browser extensions to hide feeds on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, I would be like everyone else. 🤔

We are fighting against millions of dollars invested in studying human behavior and turning it into code. The goal is to keep us on these platforms longer. The more we give them, the more money for their owners.

According to Cal, people use their phones compulsively to hide the emptiness they feel when they cannot fill their free time.

Oof, that was not easy to admit.

I write books, blog posts, I read, run, do yoga, meditate, cook, and ferment. I thought I had Facebook and Instagram under control. And then every evening I stared at my phone looking for more apps with new things to read.

Filling the Emptiness

Only when we bring the joy back into life — joy that slowly went away — do we want to spend more time on the things we rediscover. We notice that we feel better doing them than when we fall into a virtual rabbit hole.

We try to make technology support the things we care about. We use YouTube to find knitting tutorials, recipes, how to fix things, whatever.

Technology is great. We just have to tame the horse, not become a tamed horse ourselves.

20 Books a Year Means Reading 38 Minutes a Day

Do you want to read more? Say how many books you want to read in a year.

How many? Twenty? Then 38 minutes a day is enough, dear reader.

Where will you find those minutes? Take them from social media!

An average novel has about 350 pages. Reading one page takes about two minutes → 350 × 2 = 700 minutes per book × 20 books = 14,000 minutes a year → 14,000 / 365 = about 38 minutes a day.

We Will Not Miss Anything

A common reason for checking Facebook (or another app) many times a day is that we sometimes find useful information there. But think about the ratio: write down how many posts actually helped you, then divide that by the total number of posts you saw in that time. What number did you get? One percent?

If we connect once every two days for 10 minutes on a computer, I do not think we would lose that 1%. What we would not lose is dozens of minutes of time and energy spent comparing ourselves to others:

• (for women:) comparing yourself to a classmate's gym photos.
• (for men:) comparing your partner to her classmate.
• (for both:) comparing your neighbor's car or their all-inclusive holiday by the sea.

"A new user who got an iPhone in 2007 for its music features would probably not be happy to learn that within ten years they would compulsively check their phone eighty-five times a day — a 'feature' that Steve Jobs certainly did not think about when preparing his famous presentation." A quote from Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

Efficient Communication, Not a Replacement for Meeting People

Cal does not suggest getting rid of smartphones or all apps.

It is enough to keep only the apps that serve something important to us. Important — not just useful in some vague way.

According to Cal, technology should be used for making it easier to arrange meetings in person — not for replacing those meetings and conversations.

Wow! That is the silver nugget (the gold one is at the top).

What Changed After Reading the Book

After reading Digital Minimalism, I:

• deleted from my phone:
  • Facebook — I now only use it on a computer.
  • Discord, which I eventually forgot about completely.
  • Slack, which I open once in a while (I have a few clients there, or rather they have me 😅).
  • Degiro (an investment app), where I used to watch how my investments were doing and look at charts for too long. Now I check Degiro about six times a year. I do not think about how stock ETFs are performing — I just let them be, as a good passive investor should.
• I kept Instagram because I can use it to post on Facebook at the same time.
• On my computer I keep using feed blockers.
• On my phone I still limit the time I spend on Instagram.

These changes gave me back about half an hour every day. And also a lot of energy that used to go into falling down the rabbit hole of comparing myself to others (I do not follow my partner's classmates on Instagram — I only have an author profile, and for some reason other authors never post things like that 😅😅).

Now, before I install any app, I think about whether I really want it on my phone. If I do, after installing it I turn off all notifications (seeing things inside the app is enough for me).

I am thinking about turning my six-year-old Nokia into a spare phone for:

• a backup when traveling
• a "dirty" phone where I would have Instagram for posting to my author social media profiles. My main phone would have none of that.

Practical Tips for Starting Your Digital Minimalism Era

Digital minimalism will not come by itself. Do not wait for someone else to do it for you. And do not rely on government rules! We have our own heads. Take an hour for yourself. Go to a café, take a pen and a notebook, and do a digital audit. Also write down the activities you would do if you had more time.

Digital Audit

Find the apps:

• That distract you the most.
• That you spend the most time on during the day.
• That you keep "just in case they might be useful one day".

Create Offline Routines

Keep writing. Rediscover your hobbies. Write down the activities that make you feel good. What would you do if you had more time?

Take Action

Delete the distracting apps. Visit them on your computer at a fixed time or with a clear purpose (checking local events, reading updates in a group you like, …). For the apps you keep, turn off notifications.

Take Care of Real Relationships

Next time you want to like or heart something, think about whether you could message that person and meet them in real life instead.

One hour outside with someone is worth more than thirty-three likes. Actually, more than forty-two.

And write to your favorite online creator here — it gives them the energy to keep making things (wink, wink).