“I am feeling drained and don’t know exactly what I need. What will fulfill me but not lead to more disappointment … I did a whole summer of this and I felt empty. Why would it suddenly feel ok?”

Journal Entry, August 21, 2023

I wanted to share a critical aspect of consuming digital content, and it lies precisely in the distinction between two important concepts: seeking out vs. being served content.
Since the attention economy’s inception, its evolution has stemmed from advertisers’ information about each user, creating a pull for each company to extract as much value from you by taking up parts of your day. For as long as I have been digitally connected and had my first phone and interests, the strongest pull to services like YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit has been their ability to turn off my mind. The primary reason these digital tools stuff my time with random, mildly entertaining, or stressful information is their effectiveness at serving me content. I simply open the app and am given dozens of options to choose between.
But after losing control of innumerable afternoons, study times, and weekends to forgettable and shallow content, I sought a solution. While this specific issue does not warrant a whole system, here’s a few questions you can ask yourself:

1. Which services become a distraction because of their ability to serve me content?
2. If so, can I move, hide, or delete the identified service?
3. If not, can I research and implement limited access to that application through a search function?

I am not villainizing being served content. I feel the pull of discovering intriguing entertainment, but am skeptical of relying too much on this promise to the point of mindless adoption. I even am writing an article (tackling RSS and such) addressing entertainment. But, most of the time, I’ve found this strategy works. So, should we search more than we browse? Yes, based on the simple fact that I hope my advice highlighted an undervalued tactic of a digital minimalist: the power of searching for information or entertainment instead of being distracted by it.