If you want to build the next Facebook stop using Facebook

This is a strong statement, when you think about addiction you can picture someone using heavy drugs, alcohol or gambling… But it was nothing like that. My addiction was to something that only someone that has been living under a rock doesn’t use: technology and specifically social networks.

Cal Newport’s book digital minimalism is an exploration on how technology has affected us, how it has shaped every aspect of our lives and how can we regain control over them. I am a coder and this seem kind of strange for a technology guy, but reading this has help me in many aspect of my life including improving the quantity and quality of code I code everyday.

Social media has introduces us to a new world, a world taken out of an Asimov book. We don’t longer has to wait weeks or days to know something on the other side of the world or reconnect with relatives we haven’t seen in ages. The possibilities are endless, we are entering the age of knowledge, everybody has a voice, everybody can know everything they want, this is a huge step in human history, so what when wrong?

How can we build our goals if we are trapped using technologies? How can we gain meaningful relationships if we prefer to watch our phone instead of looking to the person we have upfront?

Digital minimalism is the philosophy of choosing very carefully where you concentrate your time online in a small quantity of activities that support the things that you most value.

This is huge for me, since I read it I stopped hitting the like button and very scarcely use it. Before that I felt that every like was a kind of an amazing support to my friends and a way of connecting to them.

Human communications are very rich and this little bit of information has replaced a whole complex human interaction. Our brain has evolve to interpret huge torrents of information when we are in person. Is like we are making a horse pull a Ferrari.

Texting is not a real conversation . Real conversations happens face-to-face, the quantity of body language that we send and receive when we talk with another human will never be as slightly similar as sending an emoji. Texting almost seems like an infinite conversation, you must constantly pay attention to it. You will never going to make something significantly if you are continually interrupted.

Even if everything seems to make sense for working hours we do have the after-work hours . In order to have a great life we need to have some sort of entertainment. Social networks at first seemed like a great place to start. It is entertained to watch 10 hour of Friends, but are you doing something meaningful? Do you feel energized, inspired and happy after hours and hours of watching Netflix or scrolling the feed on your Instagram account?

I always feel tired and kind of empty after doing so. We need to start doing stuff that actually give us a sense of satisfaction after doing them, things like learning to play the guitar, jogging, painting your room, etc. There is something inherit human when we are using our hands, when we do stuff that are actually in the real world, subject to real physic laws.

After reading this book I deleted my Instagram and Facebook phone apps. The book make this suggestion, my friends told me that was extreme and internally I feel like I was missing out. As I carry my phone everywhere the temptation of opening one of this apps for a quick look will trap me in a rabbit hole that will very difficult to stop, and after I stopped I feel so tired and empty. I have done nothing meaningful. After some couple of days I realized I don’t need them anymore I don’t even need to enter from my laptop. I have read this book, play piano, arrange my finances, make an organization and productivity system, taking a freelancing job, talking with my parents more frequently and writing this article. The world is out there not in our screens. Regain control of technology, use them not the other way around.

Thanks for reading

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