Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Newport argues that solitude—defined as time spent free from input from other minds—is essential for human flourishing and that modern smartphone culture threatens this crucial mental state. Drawing on historical examples, Newport illustrates solitude’s vital role in decision-making and emotional regulation. Abraham Lincoln regularly escaped the chaos of the White House by staying at a remote cottage, where the quiet enabled him to process the traumas of the Civil War and draft the Emancipation Proclamation. Similarly, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. found moral courage during a solitary moment at his kitchen table in 1956, which biographer David Garrow later called “the most important night of King’s life” (95).

Newport introduces the concept of “solitude deprivation”—a state in which individuals spend virtually no time alone with their thoughts. This condition has become widespread since smartphones enabled constant connectivity in the 2010s. Research by psychologist Jean Twenge reveals that teenagers born after 1995, the first generation raised with smartphones, experienced dramatic spikes in anxiety and depression beginning around 2012, precisely when smartphone ownership became ubiquitous. The average smartphone user now spends three hours daily looking at their screen and picks up their device 39 times per day, effectively eliminating the pockets of solitude that were once unavoidable in daily life.