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Digital minimalism

For a long time I have been a fan of minimalism in my physical life: have few physical possessions, and try to do more with less. Four years ago, I wrote this blog post describing what I had in the 40-liter backpack that I travel around with.

长期以来，我一直是现实生活中极简主义的拥护者：尽量少拥有实物，并尝试以更少的东西做更多的事。四年前，我写过一篇博客文章，描述了我随身携带的 40 升背包里装了些什么。

Physical minimalism, however, was an idea that came of age in the 2000s and 2010s and was responding to the challenges and the opportunities of the 2000s and 2010s. I continue to believe that it is valuable - though I recognize some arguments in the other direction, notably that having the right kinds of physical things can make more practical to have more self-sovereignty over your life. But I also think that in the modern era, we need a new kind of minimalism: digital minimalism.

然而，物质极简主义是在 21 世纪头两个十年兴起的一种理念，它旨在应对当时所面临的挑战与机遇。我依然认为它很有价值——尽管我也承认存在一些反面观点，特别是拥有合适的实物确实能让人们在生活中获得更多的自主权。但我同时也认为，在现代社会，我们需要一种新型的极简主义：数字极简主义。

Digital minimalism is about being intentional about ways that you access digital technology, making each use a conscious choice rather than something that you get sucked into by default. In this post, I will describe some experiments that I’ve done in this direction.

数字极简主义是指在接触数字技术的方式上保持主观意图，让每一次使用都成为一种自觉的选择，而不是默认被动地陷入其中。在这篇文章中，我将描述我在这一方向上所做的一些实验。

Twitter (aka X) has always had a strain of toxicity to it, that has been increasing in recent years. The platform is definitely engaging, but it’s often far from informative, and the ways in which it engages often do not make you feel good. But this all seemed to hit a particular crescendo for me around the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. Many things were happening at that moment, but if you spent a lot of time on X you will likely remember a particular one: everyone seemed to be suddenly becoming fans of Adolf Hitler.

Twitter（又名 X）一直带有一种毒性，且近年来愈演愈烈。该平台确实引人入胜，但往往缺乏信息量，而且其吸引用户的方式通常让人感觉不适。对我而言，这种感觉在 2024 年底到 2025 年初达到了顶峰。当时发生了许多事情，但如果你在 X 上花费了大量时间，你很可能会记得其中一件：每个人似乎突然都成了阿道夫·希特勒的粉丝。

This is not even mentioning the time that Grok itself briefly turned into “MechaHitler”.

这还没提到 Grok 本身曾短暂变成“机械希特勒”（MechaHitler）的那段时间。

Around the same time, “Crypto Twitter” was spiraling into a mood that I saw described as “financial nihilism”: roughly, that the natural end state of blockchains is gambling, this is good, and if you dislike this and wish for something better then you are a stuck-up elitist prick.

大约在同一时期，“加密货币推特”（Crypto Twitter）陷入了一种我称之为“金融虚无主义”的情绪：大意是说，区块链的自然终极状态就是赌博，这很好；如果你不喜欢这一点并希望有更好的东西，那你就是一个自命不凡的精英主义混蛋。

Naturally, I had (and continue to have) my intellectual disagreements with both of these trends. But on top of that, I also started to more seriously pay attention to the fact that while the style of discourse on the platform was engaging, it was not enlightening and not making me feel good. And so for much of this year, I have been doing an experiment in distancing myself somewhat from this chaos. I did not leave X the platform, but I did leave X the interface. Instead, I have been doing most of my tweeting through Firefly:

自然，我对这两种趋势都有（且一直有）我的学术分歧。但除此之外，我也开始更认真地关注到一个事实：虽然该平台的讨论风格很吸引人，但它并不具有启发性，也让我感觉不好。因此，在今年大部分时间里，我一直在做一个实验，试图让自己与这种混乱保持一定距离。我没有离开 X 这个平台，但我离开了 X 的界面。相反，我大部分的推文都是通过 Firefly 发送的：

Firefly is a multi-client that combines together X, BlueSky as well as Farcaster and Lens (both partially-Ethereum-based decentralized social media platforms). You can see tweets from all four platforms, and you can make a tweet that gets auto-posted to all four platforms.

Firefly 是一个多客户端应用，整合了 X、BlueSky 以及 Farcaster 和 Lens（两者均为部分基于以太坊的去中心化社交媒体平台）。你可以看到来自这四个平台的所有推文，并且可以发布一条自动同步到这四个平台的推文。

My primary goal in doing this was to support decentralized social media, and to continue to engage with X but in a way that distributes network effect rather than locking it in. But in my months of using Firefly, I found that it also has a different effect: I feel much better using it.

我这样做的主要目的是支持去中心化社交媒体，并继续参与 X，但以一种分散网络效应而非将其锁定的方式进行。但在使用 Firefly 的几个月里，我发现它还有另一个效果：使用它时，我的感觉好多了。

I suspect the primary reason is that while Firefly allows you to tweet, and see other people’s tweets, it is missing one central part of the X interface: The Algorithm™.

我怀疑主要原因是，虽然 Firefly 允许你发推文和查看他人的推文，但它缺少了 X 界面中一个核心部分：算法（The Algorithm™）。

In particular, I suspect that in my time using the X interface, I fell into the following trap:

特别地，我怀疑在我使用 X 界面的那段时间里，我陷入了以下陷阱：

Now, in fairness to X and Elon and its hard-working employees, the Adolf Hitler fandom does seem to have greatly wound down in the one and a half years since then. I suspect part of this is because such movements inevitably burn out once people realize how immoral and stupid they are. But another part is undoubtedly genuine improvements in how The Algorithm™ works.

平心而论，对于 X、埃隆及其辛勤工作的员工来说，自那以后的的一年半里，对阿道夫·希特勒的崇拜似乎已经大大减少了。我怀疑部分原因是，一旦人们意识到这些运动是多么不道德和愚蠢，它们必然会消亡。但另一部分无疑是“算法”运作方式的真正改进。

But even still, in those moments when I go back into the X interface, I find myself logging back out and going back to Firefly. I also find that my mind has changed. I find myself less interested in the various battles that the intellectual titans on the platform seem to be sucking every day of their lives into. Recently, I logged back in, and I learned that the culture war issue du jour was that people were stridently arguing about whether or not Mao was evil. When I saw this, I had an emotional response that was sort of similar to what I think is the common experience of being an adult, seeing some food or TV show or game that you used to love as a kid, and realizing that you now find no interest in it at all. I smiled, and immediately went back to enjoying my day.

即便如此，每当我回到 X 界面时，我还是会选择登出并回到 Firefly。我也发现自己的心态变了。我发现自己对平台上那些“知识巨人”每天沉迷其中的各种争斗不再感兴趣。最近，我重新登录后发现，当天的文化战争议题是人们在激烈争论毛泽东是否邪恶。看到这一幕时，我的情绪反应类似于成年人的一种普遍经历：看到小时候曾经喜欢过的食物、电视节目或游戏，却发现自己现在对它们毫无兴趣。我笑了笑，随即继续享受我的一天。

My verdict: I recommend more people try this. Explore ways of greatly decreasing or scoping your social media use: use something like Firefly, access X only on Tuesdays, whatever works for you. Get the information benefits of the platform without getting sucked in to the vortex, which does operate on you in powerful subconscious ways that you may not realize.

我的结论是：我建议更多人尝试这样做。探索大幅减少或限制社交媒体使用的方法：使用像 Firefly 这样的工具，或者只在周二访问 X，任何适合你的方式都可以。在获取平台信息价值的同时，避免被卷入漩涡，因为它正以你可能未曾察觉的强大潜意识方式影响着你。

For a period of 100 days, I embarked upon a second experiment: I lived my life with my phone always on airplane mode. I still used wifi, but not my cell connection.

在 100 天的时间里，我开始了第二个实验：我让手机始终处于飞行模式。我依然使用 Wi-Fi，但不使用蜂窝网络连接。

I had two goals in doing this:

我这样做有两个目标：

On the whole, I consider the experiment to have been a success. During those 100 days, I violated the “no cell data” rule once literally but not spiritually - I turned it on briefly to receive a confirmation code that I needed in order to maintain that phone plan itself, and once spiritually but not literally - when going on a remote and slightly dangerous hike, friends insisted that I bring along a few communication devices that they had for emergency comms and use them to check in once every few hours.

总的来说，我认为这次实验是成功的。在那 100 天里，我曾有一次在字面上违反了“不使用蜂窝数据”的规则，但在精神上没有——我短暂开启它以接收维护手机套餐所需的验证码；还有一次在精神上违反了，但在字面上没有——在进行一次偏远且略带危险的徒步旅行时，朋友们坚持让我带上他们准备的几台应急通讯设备，并每隔几小时使用它们报平安。

My largest inconvenience was a stretch of time I was in Singapore, when my inability to receive SMS confirmation codes meant that I could not log into Grab (the regional Uber equivalent). As a result, my food options were more limited, and I had to take the subway instead of a car even in situations where that was much more inconvenient.

我遇到的最大不便是在新加坡的一段时间，当时我无法接收短信验证码，这意味着我无法登录 Grab（当地相当于 Uber 的打车软件）。结果，我的饮食选择受到了限制，即使在非常不便的情况下，我也必须乘坐地铁而不是打车。

Since those 100 days, I have opened the cell connection occasionally, but so far I have broadly continued an “airplane mode by default” lifestyle.

在那 100 天之后，我偶尔会开启蜂窝连接，但到目前为止，我基本上延续了“默认飞行模式”的生活方式。

For navigation, I used Co

在导航方面，我使用了 Co