They now touch base via video app Zoom. Geoff said, “I have this new thing called Zoom to chat with her, but I leave all the technology to younger people. They’re much better at pressing all the buttons.”

The goal of this book is to make the case for digital minimalism, including a detailed exploration of what it asks and why it works, and then to teach you how to adopt this philosophy if you decide it’s right for you.

To do so, I divided the book into two parts. In part one, I describe the philosophical foundations of digital minimalism, starting with an examination of the forces that are making so many people’s digital lives increasingly intolerable, before moving on to a detailed discussion of the digital minimalism philosophy.

CLICK FOR A FRIEND?

How would you feel if moving to a new town meant losing track of your friends? What if the only way of getting news from faraway friends was writing letters that took ages to be delivered? This was how things worked not very long ago. Thanks to advances in technology, how we make friends and communicate with them has changed significantly.

Nowadays, we can move around the world and still stay in touch with the people that we want to remain friends with. Social media tools let us see what our friends are up to and maintain friendships. All you need is a wi-fi connection.

The digital age also enables us to find people who share our interests, such as collecting model cars or playing an unusual instrument. Whatever our hobbies, the Internet can connect us with others who also enjoy doing them, even if they live on the other side of the world.

But when you “friend” people online, does this mean that they really are your friends?

It depends. 

If people always exchange true personal information online, then yes, these friendships can be real and meaningful. But we need to keep in mind that what we see on social media is often not the whole truth about a person.

On social media sites, people tend to post only positive updates that make them appear happy and friendly. But smiling photos can hide real problems. Remember the saying: on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. A young person could be old; a woman could be a man; we could even be sharing our information with criminals.

But this doesn’t mean that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Although technology has changed the way we acquire friends, the meaning of friendship and our longing for friends remain the same. As Aristotle said, no one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other goods.