Chapter 6

Attitudes That Can Prevent You from Becoming a True Digital Minimalist

Your attitude towards digital minimalism matters a lot.

In Chapters two to five of this guide, we explored various ways to achieve digital minimalism. But even if you put in a lot of efforts into achieving digital minimalism in your life, you are still likely to fail if you don’t have the right attitude. People love to say attitude is everything, and in many ways, they are right.

Our attitude can be the determinant of what the outcome of some of our actions will be.

Many of us are familiar with the names of many successful tech startups from Silicon Valley, and yet, not too deep in our contacts are also the names of friends and family that information technology and its attendant lifestyle have ruined!

A big difference between these two classes of people is attitude. Both have technology at their disposal, but they have differing attitudes on how they are using it.

For these tech companies, they see the technology they create as a tool in achieving an end. But unfortunately, for some consumers of these technologies, they allow it to become a master controlling their lives.

If this problem is not a stinging reality today, there won’t be anything called Digital Minimalism. We guess you are already familiar with this term. If you are not, please read Chapter one of this guide.

Digital Minimalism is usually practiced by deliberately cutting back on irrelevant (digital) information.

Digital Minimalism, and Digital Detoxification, became important because it became more and more obvious that modern information technologies seem to be “using” us more than we are using them.

And this needs to stop.

Many different approaches have been recommended to become a digital minimalist, in fact, we made our own recommendations too. But today, it has become clearer to us that nothing will change if users of digital technologies do not change their attitude towards their devices.

Attitude!

To become a digital minimalist is quite easy, but only if the change starts from watching our own attitude towards our digital devices.

The way we treat our digital devices should first change. It should be treated just like the tool it is, and not our master!

From that perspective, let’s look at ten attitudes preventing you from becoming a successful digital minimalist:

1. You Go Online to Look for Everything

Going online to check for information is not bad in itself, but when it becomes your habit to check every single information – even those you can ask a family member living next room – from online sources, then you already possess an attitude that might prevent you from becoming a digital minimalist.

 Achieving digital minimalism is a journey of discipline, and it requires perseverance. Having portable internet-enabled devices, while certainly a good development, has come with a huge cost.

The cost is that we have become so dependent on the internet that we have neglected other sources of information around.

For example, on certain matters, your own physical aunt(s) can be a better source of information than the pages you follow online.

And have you taken time out to analyze many of your friends or community members? Some of them can be a better source of knowledge for you on some subjects than the internet. But you will rather be clicking away than ask them physically!

Extreme dependence on online sources is an attitude you need to drop if you want to achieve digital minimalism eventually.

After all, it is our own digital life we want to minimize!

2. You Allow Almost Every Form of Content to Reach You

This is a weakness that can truncate your digital minimalism goals entirely if left unchecked!

Allowing every online content to reach you, no matter how interesting they appear, will naturally lead to a waste of your time and productivity (well, unless you have no time and productivity to guard).

Online contents can come in three forms:

1. Those you deliberately seek for yourself;
2. Those you have allowed to come to you but didn’t deliberately seek; and
3. Those you have not sought but come regardless of whether they have allowed or not.

Our concern here will be for the second and third types.

The majority of what will reach you digitally are probably stuff you have sought yourself or allowed, so if these are becoming overwhelming, then you must make a frantic effort to bring them under control.

As for the third type, simply unsubscribe from them if they come in the form of emails. If they come in the form of pop-up notifications, look for a way to block them.

To achieve digital minimalism, allowing almost every kind of content to reach you is an attitude you need to stop.

3. You Love Creating More Accounts

Love is a beautiful thing. But the kind of love that can invite you irrelevant information or negatively affect your productivity is not the best kind of love.

Of course, there are often many benefits attached to creating online accounts: for example, it can win us shopping coupons or give us access to some exclusive contents.

But more often than not, we soon find a better coupon code or richer exclusive contents elsewhere!

So what do we do with our already existing numerous abandoned accounts? We are usually left with accounts that keep sending us notifications and spams.

Having many unused accounts is like keeping a reservoir for a future supply of irrelevant information through emails, pop-ups, and others.

It’s a matter of good, better, best. Having a close watch over the number and types of accounts you have on the internet is a good attitude; deactivating irrelevant accounts is better. Finally, drastically reducing the number of accounts you open in a year may be the best attitude for digital minimalism!

4. You have a Weakness for Notifications, or You Get Distracted Easily by Notifications.

Many users of digital devices have become hostages to their own notifications.

Notifications are wonderful features that let us know what is happening within our devices. They are actually very useful when used appropriately. However, for many people, it becomes the reason why they leave every other thing they are doing – these types of people want to check their notifications immediately!

For many, it’s already like a thirsty urge for water; for some, it’s almost an addiction! In some quarters, users mindlessly scroll through their devices while subconsciously expecting (or wishing) some notifications to arrive.

Note that this is a bad attitude that can fight your attempts to join the exclusive club of digital minimalists once and for all.

If you are bent on introducing digital minimalism into your online affairs, then it’s an attitude you need to fight!

5. You Keep Old, Irrelevant Documents/Files

Keeping things neatly and securely is a good attitude towards our property. But when we start keeping too many irrelevant things, we become a hoarder. Hoarding doesn’t apply only to physical things.

On our computers and other digital devices, we have documents, files, and software that are no longer in use, yet we continue keeping them. This is a kind of digital hoarding.

Apart from helping us achieve our digital minimalism goals, jettisoning such unnecessary digital baggage has many other advantages.

Firstly, clearing them can make our devices faster, thereby injecting fresh speed and efficiency into our digital life.

Secondly, it simplifies our digital navigation by making it easier to find and reach digital assets we need. If they are apps, clearing them off might also reduce a lot of unneeded notifications.

While the beauty of a simple, uncluttered home is appreciated by many, the beauty of a simple, uncluttered digital space can only be appreciated by those who have experienced it.

It’s great to be a digital minimalist, but sorry, you can only get there by clearing away irrelevant digital documents and files.

Adopt that attitude.

6. The Numbers of Online Accounts You Own have Never Reduced

What an attitude!

Since the advent of the internet, its popularity and adoption have probably never reduced.

Concurrent with its (internet)  development was the increasing ease and need that comes into opening accounts with different online services – from websites to social media.

Many of such accounts are usually used for online shopping, social services or used to receive online freebies. But these are probably the exact reasons why it is so difficult for many of us to deactivate them: since shopping, freebies and social activities can be very addictive!

But for many, these accounts are created to be used once and never again. However, these accounts stick around, reminding us of their existence by sending us adverts and similar content – living with us far beyond their useful time.

Good attitudes are good attitudes, but adding more to the accounts you have without deactivating existing useless ones is a bad attitude for a potential digital minimalist.

7. You are Addicted to Social Media

All addictions start from an attitude.

Social media met all of us with our unique attitudes, but its advent added new attitudes into our lives.

Although it could be an exaggeration to proclaim that social media worsened our collective quality of life, yet, it cannot be an exaggeration that many lives touched by the advent of social media never remain the same.

Addiction to social media, especially, has been among the greatest obstacles for digital users to achieve sustainable digital minimalism. Social media has become so immersive that it makes most other digital distractions pale in comparison. To illustrate this, it is easily observable that many social media addicts pay less attention to other digital content unless it is offered through their favorite social media channel.

To become a digital minimalist, we recommend you eliminate or drastically reduce your social media presence.

8. You are Devoted to Your Online Friends

A true digital minimalist has very little reason to stay glued to their devices. The opposite is true of people who have lost control of their digital life.

One of the fastest ways to acquire and maintain online friends is through social media. But having an excess of online friends works against achieving digital minimalism.

Ever wondered why?

This is because the essence of digital minimalism is to cut back on irrelevant information, yet, having an excess number of active online friends works against that – our excess online friends will become a means of getting some quantity of irrelevant information flowing into our devices regularly!

Being devoted to many online friends is a bad attitude. Instead of this, find more offline friends.

 9. You Subscribe to Almost Everything You Come Across (Especially if it’s Free)

This is a similar but slightly different attitude to the type we described in the point before this. The difference is that while many online contents often reach us without us subscribing to them, many users actually have a penchant for subscribing to almost anything offered to them online – especially if it’s free.

But what is not “free” these days? No wonder we are hooked!

Many online content producers are already aware of this weakness among many digital consumers, and thus supply us with an endless barrage of ostensible freebies.

The main bad effect of subscribing to almost everything you come across is that you will certainly pay for them with your time and attention, if not now, then later.

How?

Subscribing is what brings you spams, it’s what brings you notifications, it’s what distracts you , and what makes you want to check your various inboxes often! Subscribing, at times, is what makes cyber-fraudsters clear your bank account.

To be a true digital minimalist, we need to jealously guide how we subscribe. Subscribing to all online freebies you come across is an attitude that is very antithetical to achieving digital minimalism. Please stop it.

10. You Keep Unused/Unneeded Apps Installed

Today, digital products are ubiquitous features of our lives. They are widely available and easily obtained.

Unfortunately, the ease of obtaining them has deceived many of us into obtaining more than we actually need. Thus, we have software and apps that we don’t need cluttering our digital spaces and adding to our digital baggage!

If you are looking towards achieving digital minimalism by cutting back on irrelevant information, uninstalling unused, rarely used, or unneeded apps might be a good place to start.

One of the hallmark attitudes of true digital minimalists is their hatred for anything that can bring digital clutter into their digital space. Don’t keep too many apps and see how beautiful your digital life becomes.

Conclusion

Digital minimalism comes with a lot of benefits. One great benefit of embracing digital minimalism is that it will free up time for more crucial things in your life. 

Be careful of your attitudes towards digital tools, and your path to digital minimalism will be smooth.