Cal Newport wrote Digital Minimalism after he received many comments from readers of his previous book, Deep Work, sharing that they struggled with the role of new technologies in their lives. Newport’s goals for Digital Minimalism are to provide a case for minimising tech’s role in our daily lives, and to teach how to adopt his philosophy of digital minimalism.

The book is divided in two parts (twos feature predominantly throughout the book): part one focuses on how technology captures our attention, introduces digital minimalism, and proposes a 30-day “digital declutter,” a detox-but-not-quite-a-detox program. The intent of the 30-day digital declutter is to effect a rapid transformation in digital technological consumption. I’m not convinced that this is any more effective than a 30-day crash diet.

The second part of the book ostensibly demonstrates four themes of practices to help grow a digitally minimal lifestyle: spending time alone, engaging with people, focusing on “high-quality” leisure, and joining an “attention resistance.” The ideas in each section are good for living a rich and meaningful life. However, Newport’s desire to convince you that digital tools can be harmful seeps into these chapters, leaving the book disorganized. Newport may have been more effective laying out his argument for digital minimalism, then discussing practices for a healthy inner life, followed by ideas to develop healthier digital habits.

I felt that Newport hurt his own argument a few times. For instance, he mentions that folks start using a service in its infancy, but new features are often added to keep people’s attention within the service. But he never deals with that challenge later in the book. Another example, Newport mentions Arnold Bennett’s How to Live on 24 Hours a Day as inspiration for active leisure while pointing out that Bennett ignored that leisure time may be affected by domestic chores, and therefore writing a primer for men. However, Newport himself doesn’t account for or confront this possibility either, offering many suggestions that, frankly, are focused primarily on things folks could exchange for monetary value. Newport essentially denies that domestic chores have value.

Finally, I feel that Newport’s computer science background place him at a disadvantage for meeting these goals, and may prevent him from providing proven and helpful advice for changing personal habits. I think that Newport would have done better to write with a co-writer to help cover the psychological aspect and ensure that advice for changing habits is sound.

I don’t recommend this book for moving to a digital minimalistic lifestyle. I feel that the tactics may not be lasting or could be harmful. I feel that several of Newport’s ideas presented as ways to grow a digitally minimal lifestyle are good, in the sense that they’re ideas we should be striving for, but also focus on non-domestic or hyper-productive means of leisure. In a way it’s exchanging hyper-focus from electronics to particular types of leisure that I’m not convinced is healthful.