i got stuck into a new rabbit hole, actually is a rabbit hole that i already i'm familiar with, the name of this rabbit hole is: digital minimalism.

it's been a while since i got sick of my phone, got sick of google, got sick of microsoft, got sick of the internet as we know. as i said before, i love the internet, i love watching youtube videos, looking at memes, scrolling through my twitter feed, but it's been a couple of years of living like this, since my teenage years, and i got to a point where i'm stuck.

i can't focus anymore, everything i want to do is just scroll through twitter and laugh at memes, get angry at random news, destroy my entire mood because of people i don't really know. that's how the internet is working for me lately, and if it's not scrolling through twitter — i'm watching random youtube videos on "how to be productive" and getting dopamine by watching other people live their lives, while i'm at work not doing anything and have thousand of tasks right in front of me.

i went full ninja mode for the past months, i completely ditched google and microsoft as email providers, i only use VPN to browse the internet right now, and i use obsidian because i have access to my own files. look at me, a real weirdo. however, being a weirdo is saving my ass, because if you look through how the "attention economy" works and how your data is being used by the big bad tech companies, you'd become a weirdo too.

all of this started in 2023, i was scrolling through youtube on my tv, and i came across a video of a guy with a mustache talking about how his phone is completely "social media free" and how to achieve "a minimalist phone" — i got hooked on that. i started thinking to myself "am i chained to my phone?" and the answer was: YES. i'm chained to my phone. but, how can i change that besides just watching this youtube video turning my phone into a minimalist phone? that's how, ladies and gentleman and people of other genders, i became obsessed with digital minimalism. i got to know every single thing out there, tried every single thing and tried digital detox so many times and failed so many times. it was sad to realize how i'm addicted to my phone.

every single person that falls into this rabbit hole, will get to the basics:

• notion
• dumb phones
• being productive
• stoicism
• meditation
• lots of "self-improvement" videos
• digital detox
• cal newport
• being tired of google and microsoft
• attention economy
• wanting to break your skull seeing so many people glued to their phones while you know how bad it is to be just stuck to your phone

and the one that hurts the most... everyone doesn't care as much as you do about all of this.

yeah, that's right, people do not care. that sucks. i wish i could make my dad realize on how he's turning into a zombie watching tiktok all day, how much i hate when i go to public places and people are watching reels or tiktok so loud and they can't not wait 5 minutes before grabbing their phones and not being able to be bored in a line, i hate feeling this itchy thing on my hand every time i'm away from my phone for so long. it's insane to think that i'm addicted, the people around me are addicted, and i can't do anything about that.

it's crazy how being inside of the digital minimalism universe also can make you feel like you need to buy other things to be more "minimalist", it's quite ironic, correct? people get too excited about things (me included), i don't understand this need of buying a dumb phone and leave your smartphone behind, you're going to need your smartphone at some point. unless, you're a 50 year old person who owns a car, doesn't have to leave the house that much and don't have adult or teen kids. you don't really have a "use" for the smartphone, but if you're someone who's in their 20s, just like me, it's impossible to live without the smartphone, and i don't mean this in a "i need to watch tiktok and twitter and brain rot all the time", nope, i mean i can't watch a freaking movie without the QR code, i can't pay for my bills without having the apps on my phone, everything is digital, and i don't know if i like that — life's simpler, for sure, we have an amazing mini computer on our pockets that helps us throughout the day, but at the same time, people use this mini computer to numb their brains. we are so fucking dumb today it really pains me, and this is not chatgpt's fault (entirely).

besides the fact that we're getting dumber by the minute, we're getting sold to every single company out there so we can buy more stuff, that's something that really bothers me. i'm an apple user, i don't have the "morale" to be talking about data being sold or something, my soul is already sold to my macbook, my airpods and my iphone, however, there's something vicious on how google just installed gemini on my girlfriend's android phone without her consent, and made it impossible for her to uninstall gemini because gemini is now integrated to google search, so no gemini = no google. at least, apple wouldn't do that to me. i think. i hope. please, tim cook. microsoft is a piece of shit, i hate microsoft so badly because their website so freaking bad, and because they installed copilot on my PC without my consent. windows 11 is a joke. please, use linux or macOS, you'll be happier. the worst part of all of this: my data is being sold. i have thousands of profiles of my data out there being sold to companies to show me ads so i can buy stuff. i don't want to buy stuff. i don't want to see ads all the time. that's something i got to understand once i started learning about digital minimalism, and crazy enough, studying data science.

right now, i'm 16 days on my new digital detox, no twitter, no tiktok, no youtube (kinda of), no instagram, no reddit, nothing. what changed in these 16 days? i got diagnosed with adhd and anxiety, so not only i'm addicted to social media, i'm already fucked up since birth and social media doesn't help that. i've finished books that i was procrastinating for so long because "i didn't have time", i've been focusing way more at work and on my studies, i feel more present, i started mediating, practicing mindfulness, i started reading again "digital minimalism" by cal newport to help me on this journey and i started going to the gym again. nice, right? the plot twist: my smartphone is not the problem, technology is not the problem, social media and how we use technology? for sure, that's the problem. i'm doing all of this with my phone right beside me; listening to music, listening to podcasts, journaling, tracking habits, reminders, calendar, etc. i just changed the way my phone works — it's working for me, not me working for my phone.

i love my phone, i can't go a day without this guy, i just don't want it to be something that drains me, i just want it to work. i don't like gaming on my phone, i don't like watching things on my phone. my phone, is just a tool.

something that really helped me, especially with my adhd (besides the medicines) is managing my time and waking up early. seriously, having a calendar, really setting goals for myself and pomodoro technique, has been a real life changing experience for me. i feel like i have 24h a day, something i never thought i actually had, i thought the day should be even longer. managing my time and having a routine it's been amazing, it's kinda of hard sometimes to follow everything, but something that really helped me was: setting 3 top priorities for the day. that's it. it doesn't have to be something huge, extraordinary, just 3 things i want to focus on the day and that's it.

my therapist said something to me that really changed my perspective on things — i choose what i want to do. it seems very simple and stupid, however, is very effective because is true. i choose to stay in bed and get late, i choose to eat more, i choose to not do my chores, i choose not to be present, i choose not to work, i choose. i have choices. i can only control my choices and what i want to do with my life.

i chose owning my time.