Advice From Someone Who’s Never Had Social Media
Could this be the way to bring more meaning into your life?
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Everyone’s online these days.
Even the most personal moments are captured, edited, and posted for the world to see.
Have you heard about this new TikTok ‘birthing makeup” trend, for example?
Not just that, social media is highly addictive. Most people find themselves hooked — scrolling through newsfeeds multiple times a day.
So what can we do about it?
Enter Cal Newport
Cal is a computer science professor who’s never had a social media account. And by all appearances, he never will.
What did this guy know that we didn’t?
Cal, like me, was an undergraduate when he first heard about Facebook. While his classmates quickly joined, he decided not to.
His question was this:
“What problem do I have that this solves?”
It seemed no one had an answer.
Now, many years later, Cal appears to have an ability that many of us don’t: the ability to deeply focus.
He even wrote a book on the topic of deep work.
In his words,
“I have close friends. I still have lots of readers and still sell lots of books. And I’ve preserved my ability to focus, allowing me to make a nice a living as a theoretician.”
Improve your focus
Getting away from your smartphone might seem like a big ask. But in a few simple ways you may introduce more mindfulness and focus into your life.
Cal’s advice is simple:
Remove any app that makes money for your attention. That’s because their only goal is getting you to ‘compulsively look at your phone screen’.
The biggest culprits are the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. But even news platforms, emails, and messenger apps can be highly attention sapping too.
