💾 Archived View for thesudorm.com › posts › 11_3_2020.gmi captured on 2020-11-07 at 01:27:37. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Earlier this month I started reading Cal Newport's **Digital Minimalism**. The main idea of the book is to embrace Digital Minimalism as a guideline for interacting with technology. When a person comes across a new tool or website, they must evaluate whether it is really worth integrating the new tech into their life.
Newport also talks briefly about why this philosophy is necessary in today's world. One of the earlier chapters is titled "A Lopsided Arms Race". He expresses a thought that a lot of people here in the Geminispace seem to share. Big tech companies are hiring some of the most brilliant people in the world and pumping billions of dollars into their products to compel you to spend time on their products. These companies are in the attention economy. The longer and more often they are able to hold your attention, the more money they make through serving you ads.
Newport emphasizes that you **should not** label yourself as weak. These giant websites take advantage of the mechanisms in our brain to compel us to spend lots of time on their products. This really is a one sided arms race between the average consumer and large, attention seeking companies. It's a struggle designed for users to lose.
I think part in why a lot of people find this user space so enticing is that it is free from the influences of big tech. No one is tracking you or trying to serve you ads for shit you don't need. Your attention is not being monetized. Gemini is free of all of this surveillance capitalism. It's very refreshing.