Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport

I've had an interesting relationship with smart phones and modern technology for the past five to ten years. On one side of the coin I feel that these technologies make everyday life so much easier and more smooth than they ever were in the past. But on the other side of the coin however, I feel that these technologies also take advantage of our human wiring to the decreasing benefit of the user (me) and increasing benefit of the company that developed the technology. Things like app based banking, messaging and navigation have become aspects of everyday life that we now can't live without. Things that required their own specialist technology not that many years ago, think the GPS Navigation units that were commonplace on my childhood family road trips, or having to go to the ATM to check you bank balance. These things have become so much easier since the integration of them into smart phone technology. Other technology however that started with innocent intentions such as Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms have slowly become a dopamine IV drip that is constantly pulling at our attention. Things like like the infinite scroll were not present in earlier iterations of these services and I specifically remember reaching the bottom of my feed many times and thinking, "great I'm all caught up, I'll hop of the app now". This feeling is no longer as no matter how long I scroll my finger on the modern day versions of these applications, there is no end. Instead I find that whenever I use these services I get into some sort of weird brainwashed state where I can completely forget why I even opened the application up in the first place and sit there scrolling like a half lifeless husk of a human. The book, Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport has eloquently outlined this feeling and made me realise that I am not alone in feeling this way when trying to utilise these technologies. Taking Cal's teachings on board, I have decided to stop using social media on my smart phone, remove access (via the use of an app blocker) to applications that contain an infinite feed and use a greyscale screen filter to further limit the stimulating nature of the device. I've also invested in a new smart phone, the Unihertz Jelly Star, which is advertised as the smallest Android 13 smart phone on the market. The idea behind this being that the 3-inch screen is so small that doing anything other than the essential tasks will be moderately frustrating and effectively act as a deterrent from participating in them. I'll still use social media but limit it to small intervals on my laptop that I find much less stimulating than the mobile versions of the service. I'll also try to post updates on this site to explain some of the hardships I have faced with these changes and what I'm trying to do to mitigate these. I'm by no means against technology, as I currently work in, and love the software development industry, but I do feel that some of the ways that software is being developed in the modern day is not in the best interest of those using the service.