Low Information Diet
Less is more
We’re too busy and still we end up scrolling for hours. If we don’t control our phones then they will certainly control us. This is an area where I would like to improve so I can spend more time focusing on what I truly want to do rather than what the algorithms think would keep me online. Here are some areas which may be relevant.
News
The news will never stop. There are billions of people, so there’s plenty going on at any given moment. Do you need to know what’s happening everywhere all the time? No. I don’t think our brains are made to handle taking in our personal lives, our work, the next iPhone features, what’s happening with tariffs, bombings in Yemen, escalations in India and Pakistan, and just so much more. So, how do you escape, or at least filter?
If something is really news worthy, then I think you’ll hear about it through some source. How I avoid consuming news is to stop checking on it and let it come to me. I don’t check any news website, instead, once a week I get a physical newspaper and magazine. That way my news is distilled into the greatest hits and from there I can further filter by choosing what to read.
Social
I read that many teens spend 5 hours a day on social media. If you continued at that pace you’d spend more than 20 years of your life watching other people’s lives. Even knowing this it is still tough to break away from trying to keep up with the endless stream. I used to open up Instagram in any lull and I didn’t watch reels, just friends’ stories. I ended up deleting the app so I would have to deliberately go to the website if I want to see something. Usage metrics are way, way down. Now I’m working on having less Twitter time.
There are certain “hacks” which can help reduce your time. You can set limits on app usage. Someone makes a physical item called a Brick which will lock you out of non-essential apps until you touch your phone to it again. You could set your phone to grayscale which makes it less appealing.
One person is ironically having online success through her mission of living IRL without a smartphone or laptop.
And More
Sports
Millions of people’s lives revolve around sports. In Portugal there are three newspapers that cover soccer. It is pretty crazy how we can follow a team that may play for a few hours each week and yet manage to speculate and discuss all the remaining hours of the week. I’m not here to stop you, but just remind you to assess whether it’s important to you. Maybe you decide watching the game is important, but following the injuries, trades, and such you can live without.
Stocks
Every weekday stocks go up, stocks go down. Are you richer or poorer than you were 10 minutes ago? With apps like RobinHood you can see in realtime the green and red changes. Unless you are a day trader you can probably forego looking. If you are investing for decades down the road then all this is probably noise.
Hobbies
If you’re really into your hobby that is great, you probably love it and are spending time you enjoy on it. But are there aspects where you are overdoing it? Do you need to spend hours a week researching all the equipment options out there. I’m more of the opinion of just hand me an OK racket and then I’ll enjoy.
Shopping
We are cradle to grave consumers. But maybe we could lay off constantly shopping for stuff we don’t need. Maybe we don’t need to track every launch of a new collection. Somehow a bunch of stuff gets into my inbox, so it can be tough, but I recommend avoiding as much as you can to save your time and money.
Pop culture
Personally, I don’t really care about anything that would be covered in People magazine. I didn’t even know a Jonas brother was married until my wife told me he was getting divorced. Don’t ask me which one, I just learned there are four.