Can I Be a Digital Minimalist in 2026? | Monday Advice

0:00Back in 2019, I published a book called Digital Minimalism.

0:06It argued that we should be much more intentional about what digital technologies we use and how we use them.

0:13Now, when I started working on the idea for this book, we were still in the tail end of that golden age of social media where we still saw these devices as offering a societal good, a sort of inevitable evolution of the town square that would ultimately empower us all.

0:30But by the time the book actually came out, people were beginning to get fed up, which turned out to be great timing for me.

0:37That book became my first New York Times bestseller and it led to opportunities that I never would have previously imagined for myself.

0:46But here's the thing.

0:48A lot has changed since 2019.

0:51Back then, social media meant Twitter, Facebook, and that old version of Instagram where you mainly just followed creators that you cared about.

0:58Today's social media, by contrast, has become a race to the bottom of the brainstem as every service is trying to copy the highly addictive, algorithmically optimized short form strategy of TikTok.