Digital nihilism
Intro
A term I have just came up with to quickly describe my idea. It is not the next logical step after “digital minimalism”, rather a diffirent approach: not limiting and controlling device usage, but using a computer strictly as a tool and not using it when there are more effective tools. Setups matter little in this context, as long as you have bare minimum of programs and shortcuts the work can be done.
There is an app for everything
Do you really need an app for that? I’ll start with the basic premise of digital minimalism. There are a lot of apps for almost everything out there, and not all of them are good or even useful, let alone optimized and functional.
Your phone and computer can do everything
They can’t. More importantly, there are a lot of things they suck at and relatively few things they are good at. Actually, let’s list some stuff.
What a PC or a laptop can do really well
- Computations and programming, any kind of it
- Typing and, more importantly, editing text and documents
- Processing and visualising formatted data
- Editing images, audio, etc.
- Storing data on drives
- Research
What a phone can do really well
- Keeping you in touch with people
- Looking stuff up
- Taking photos, videos, recording audio
Here is a new feature for tagging your tasks
So, here is my point: any computer, being a fancy physical representations of mathematical algorithm enclosed in shiny box, is terrible at processing loosely-organized data. And your life, personal notes and planning are loosely organized and won’t fit a nice layout of that app, no matter how hard you try. The entropy will take over, partly because these devices were not designed for it. If you can’t do it with spreadsheet and a barebones txt file, you are probably better off with pen and paper.
Ditch notion, todoist and whatever it is you use. The only real application for them is to organize work tasks, with well-known workflow and a need for shared access. Ditch habit-building and note-taking apps on your phone and throw a small A6 notebook in your pocket or backpack. It will nicely replace all of them and do a better job at it. You need backup? Photocopy the necessary pages and throw them into the cloud. This is faster and more convenient than all the popups, tables and pages you could neatly organize on your screen.
Only use your device when it’s the best tool for the bank. Forget about using your phone to learn or read, you will end up on tiktok or other time sink of choice anyway. People who designed this get paid to make sure you do, your “willpower” is no match for the team of engineers. Buy e-book reader or get paperback in the library. Get a mobile, lightweight laptop and use it to learn stuff on the go if you have to.
But how about all my friends on social media?
Messaging apps are great for keeping in touch. Social media are terrible at virtually everything, especially at supplying you information. Use them if you have to, but do keep in mind that what you read is an algorithm maximising the profit and not the depiction of real world.
Outro
This is, for the most part, a rant. Maybe it will prove useful for someone, who knows. The majority of it is inspired by Luke Smith and George Hotz and the linux laptop I am typing on.
Dixi.
@FailForward
Thorough analysis, as always. Thanks for feedback, I appreciate it. Digital pragmatism may be a better term, indeed.
I don’t hesitate to use multiple apps and accounts if I need to, even momentarily. The majority of my data will leak anyway, and there is not much to leak, honestly. And most of sensitive stuff is now on paper.
Bank apps are, indeed, great… Except they are way more vulnerable and buggy than, say, facebook. At least Russian ones. I use one, because it’s easy and I don’t have a lot of money most of the time, but if I ever do - a paper with password and incognito tab on linux laptop are a way to go. My dad does this, except for linux part.
@FailForward a nice tool for your phone is "Librera PRO" available free on F-Droid. It will text-to-speech any document and give you the option of going beyond audible books. The downside is that you won't have a natural voice, though one does get used to it quickly. Also in regards to listening to books, one can easily listen to audio at twice the speed and with some practice even up to three times. And based off of some studies, it seems that we can retain more information when listening at higher speeds. It mainly has to do with the process of becoming an active listener over having side thoughts that are distracting you from the current information source. Thus making you focus more on what's being conveyed.
@barefootstache Thanks for the tip. I am using @Voice Aloud Reader TTS since a couple of years. Works fine for me, not only for reading long-form web stuff, but also Gutenberg books.
As for listening at speed, I do not like it. The point is not how quickly I can "absorb" the information. I need to think. So the speed of thoughts about what is going on needs to match the flow of information. For fiction books, that can be faster than for fact-literature where I often need to slow down, take notes, or even rewind often.
@academicalnerd there is a point in time where a DIN-A6 notebook makes sense and that is when you have the comfort of supporting the book for jotting down ideas. Otherwise if you don't have this fortune, the phone is a more convenient option, especially if you record your thoughts. It is simple and quick, the downsides are privacy and the ability to quickly overlook the content.
There is a more important detail to me than just the convenience. The text on phone is just text, you don't get sketches, diagonal or even vertical text on margins and all the various ways to mess the entire thing up. This is what makes paper unique tool, as powerful as silicon processor.
Definitely an use-case situation.
One could say a draw app could come close to paper, though they are buggy compared to a good old writing utensil.
Plus research shows that pen and paper outperforms any text writing software.
Would be neat if there's a study that compares digital vs physical pen and paper.
@barefootstache @academicalnerd
There's another angle to all this. Since many years (you see, I am an old fart here :-) ), I use A4 hardcover paper notebooks. It's partly for reference (only mid-term, at most weeks retention), but primarily I need it to simply "integrate" the information I am taking in. I.e., I understand stuff better when I externalize it, i.e., either say aloud (impossible in a talk or a meeting), or write it down in words. I do not expect myself to refer back to that information. I only need to externalise in order to to "own it". For that, paper notebooks are ideal: no boot up time, freeform output, available anywhere (if you make it a habit of course).
@academicalnerd
Welcome back :-).
Good start of an opinionated conversation.
Reaction summary
Good topic. My lifelong on and off obsession too. Good start. Let me grab a coffee… :-)
Seriously, this is a topic worth exploring further.
Notes
Digital nihilism –> Digital pragmatism?
For a long time I resisted apps on my phone. My private reasons, mostly security, privacy, etc. I discovered that the resistance was sometimes warranted, but some phone apps are better than replacement in pen and paper, or general purpose thin client (e.g., browser). The thresholds for me are: 1. either a significantly lower friction than alternatives; or 2. use anywhere, anytime; or 3. new mode of operating in the world.
Examples of 1:
Examples of 2:
Examples of 3 are mostly digital content consuming apps mostly. Firstly, I read a lot. I used to waste time on this. Then I discovered Text-To-Speech conversion and it changed my life. Several months ago I decided I want to read more books, but I do not have much time to read really and many books ended up drying up on my desk. I switched to Audible/audio books and it’s a revelation. Over the last 3 months I read more books than last year altogether. I intend to continue with that. Finally, I value listening to meditations. Without mobile device it would be a huge hassle for me.
Todo lists, note taking, etc. I totally agree with you.
The key observation is that none of those methods work on their own. It started to work for me after I realised 1) what I actually want and need in my life; and 2) how those activities like note taking etc. support it. From that the technology/tooling flows easily.