It's time for a sensible conversation about screen time

And sorry Cal Newport fans, but his approach isn't it

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Back in January, in a flurry of ‘I’m quitting Instagram’ essays that made me question my own use of, and attachment to, the platform, one quotation from Cal Newport’s best-selling 2019 book, Digital Minimalism kept cropping up:

‘[what we need is] a full-fledged philosophy of technology use rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.’

After several years of working in social media, and too many wrong-turns down dead-ends, doom scrolls, and rabbit holes to count, I fancy myself as already having developed some kind of ‘philosophy’ of screen and social media use, not least because it was a matter of survival in this industry (you can read more about this in my pieces Reasons to Stay on Instagram and Ways to Stay Sane on Instagram in 2024).

But I was curious - how would my approach compare to the ‘philosophy’ suggested by Newport, that seemed so appealing to so many of my peers who were finding their relationships with social media, and Instagram specifically, had turned toxic?

So, I read the book. And I hated it.

I hated it so much that I stopped every few pages to shout my objections at my husband, and when I’d finished rage-reading I added my own cover quote: ‘Smug, didactic, and almost entirely neuro-normative.’

Other notes I scrawled to myself across end pages, margins, and on the inside and outside covers include:

• a classic neo-liberal solution to a neo-liberal problem: blames the individual for conditions [by this I meant the expectation to be constantly available] the individual has little control over, i.e. the individual is the problem

• are all of the examples male? [I later found out this has been a common criticism of Newport’s writing and something he has striven to address in his most recent book]

• scaremongering

• extreme examples - how representative are these?

• moralising

• pointless intellectual flexing [in response to a lengthy section about Thoreau’s, Walden (p36-41)]

• Ha! [in response to his statement, ‘so I’ll resist the urge for dogmatism on this point’ (p151) which provoked me to wave the book in the air and shout at the dog, what are you talking about, your entire book is dogmatic]

• commonality not causality [in response to his interpretation of a study that said the ‘heaviest social media users [are] much more likely to be lonely and miserable’ (p141) - which is a lazy conclusion that fails to consider how productivity-obessessed, materialistic, consumer-driven, urban-centric, late-stage capitalism has created a dearth of opportunity for connection and community therefore people may have turned increasingly to social media in an effort to fill these holes: people become the heaviest social media users because they’re already lonely. This kind of intellectually dishonest cherry-picking of studies drives me mad and this book is full of it].

There were some moments - welcome respite from my fury - when I agreed with Newport.

His characterisation of the ‘like’ as ‘the least informative type of nontrivial communication, providing only a minimal one bit of information about the state of the sender (the person clicking the icon on a post) to the receiver (the person who published the post)’ (p153) had me nodding furiously in agreement, and in the second half of the book I thought some of his practical suggestions for reframing some of our digital interactions, and building in opportunities for (albeit neuro-normatively desirable) more intimate forms of connection were thoughtful and potentially enriching.

I also agreed with his assessment of ‘the attention economy’ created by the social media giants who make ‘money gathering consumers’ attention and then repackaging and selling it to advertisers’ (p215) and that we should not passively accept this dynamic: ‘If you must use these services [surely I’m not the only who hears judgemental disdain in this choice of phrasing though?] ] however, and you hope to do so without ceding autonomy over your time and attention, it’s crucial to understand this is not a casual decision.’

This reminded me of a conversation I had a few months ago with a client about how she wanted to use Instagram as part of her story-telling, without jumping through many of the hoops the platform seems to demand. I followed up with an email, the final line of which read, ‘I’m looking forward to subverting the dominant culture of Instagram and exploiting its tools to get it working for you’, because while I go to great pains to stay clear-eyed about the very many potential pitfalls of using Instagram - indeed I have fallen into many of them myself at some point - it still offers significant benefits and opportunities when used intentionally, consciously and judiciously.

Right questions, wrong analysis

At times, however, rather than providing any meaningful analysis of how digital technology acts upon us, and how we can safeguard ourselves while we exploit it, Newport seems far more interested in lofty assertions of his own prescience - ‘The lopsidedness of this battle is a big part of the reason I never messed around with any of these services in the first place’ (p220).

In other moments, ‘Digital Minimalism’ feels like little more than a personal diatribe against the evils of Big Tech. Now, I am no apologist for Big Tech - they are an enormous driver of capitalist consumerism and I am anti-capitalism. I also share Newport’s perspective that digital technologies are not neutral, and we have been passive in our interactions with them for far too long. But while Newport asks the right questions, ‘Digital Minimalism’ is not a serious analysis of how we should respond to the challenges we face in our interactions with technology and, specifically, screens.

Rather, it is a book that preys on our worries and insecurities about modern technology, promises more that it ever delivers, and is a frustrating exercise in ‘white man says things in an authoritative tone and everyone hails him a genius’.

Read to the end and many of Newport’s ‘solutions’, in a section appealingly titled ‘Join the Attention Resistance’, turn out to be mere variations on the ‘modest hacks and tips’ that he derides in the introduction to his book (pxiii).

Newport is a Computer Scientist who does not even use the tech he criticises. His book is essentially a think-piece, written from his heart or gut (something he acknowledged himself in a recent podcast interview - annoyingly I can’t remember which one); it’s nothing more than an ideology when what is needed is scientific-study, enriched by lived-experience.

In the battle against screen ‘addiction’ (a problematic term that Newport himself uses over and over again but that has no scientific basis - more on this to come in another piece), a concern when it comes to our children especially, ‘Digital Minimalism’ may well offer a salve to our worries and insecurities, but by no means should we treat its ‘philosophy’ as a cure, or Newport as a healer.

For that, maybe we need an actual doctor…

You called for a doctor?

I’m currently reading ‘The Phone Fix: The Brain-Focused Guide to Building Healthy Digital Habits and Breaking Bad Ones’ by Dr Faye Begeti, an NHS neurology doctor and neuroscientist who you can also find on Instagram @the_brain_doctor.

The entire introduction reads like a subtweet aimed at ‘Digital Minimalism’ (I’m sure this is merely the result of me reading both books so close together 👀) and by p22 Begeti had me eating out of the palm of her hand.

Then she wrote this:

‘Technology provides a powerful communication tool and some people, such as those with mental health difficulties or neurodivergent brains, may rely on it to a greater extent. Pathologising everyday behaviours that many people find helpful only worsens the stigma. Blaming the smartphone shifts the responsibility away from deeper societal problems. We absolve societal expectations of constant productivity that make people check their email at night and blame the technology that enables us to do so instead. We condemn social media as the cause of mental health problems, not realising this is a symptom of something bigger…’

Fan-girl mode activated.

When it comes to tackling our screen-sickness, I’m hopeful there’s a cure more nuanced than the moral absolutism of abstention, and, based on what I’ve read so far Begeti’s book may well be the prescription we’re all looking for.

At the time of writing, I’m halfway through The Phone Fix - when I’ve finished reading I’ll be sure to report back.

Photo by Spasimir Radkov on Unsplash