Better Social

I began reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport right before the explosion of the pandemic in Europe. The author already mentioned in his book Deep Work how social networks impact our productivity, and this second book aimed at detailing strategies to do more by using connected technologies less. I enjoyed the read, because it challenged me to rethink once again how I spend my time online.

Why am I online anyway? To grow both as a professional and an individual, and to satisfy social needs.

I need to learn, grow a business, and leverage online tools to work better, but I also need to stay in touch with my friends and family. The rest is superfluous.

In both situations, I don’t think my use of social networks is optimal yet. 

As of now, I use Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp to get some news from my friends, acquaintances, and family.

I have too many “friends” on Facebook to keep in touch with everyone, let alone nurture meaningful relationships with every connection. If I want to make the best use of it, I need to decrease my “friends” list to the size of Dunbar’s number by removing the people I met once and probably never will see again. I also joined several groups and liked several pages, but ultimately none proved to be useful throughout the last ten years.

I only keep Instagram because I want to grow an audience there, so I should stop following people to clear my feed and redirect my friends to Facebook Messenger.

I barely use Whatsapp, so I might as well remove it permanently.

I also permanently deleted my Tinder and Badoo accounts a few days ago, but I’ll write in detail about this decision in a future post.

Of course, what ultimately matters to grow interpersonal relationships is spending quality time together. Social networks are but proxy for that.