My friend Justis wrote a post this week on what his non-rationalist (“normal”) friends are like. He said:

Digital minimalism is well and good, and being intentional about devices is fine, but most normal people I know are perfectly fine with their level of YouTube, Instagram, etc. consumption. The idea of fretting about it intensely is just like… weird. Extra. Trying too hard. Because most people aren’t ultra-ambitious, and the opportunity cost of a few hours a day of mindless TV or video games or whatever just doesn’t really sting.

This seems 1) factually incorrect and 2) missing the point of everything.

First off, in my experience, worry about screen addiction doesn’t cleave along lines of ambition at all. Lots of people who aren’t particularly ambitious care about it, and lots of ambitious people unreflectively lose many hours a day to their devices.

Second, digital intentionality is about so much more than productivity. It's about living your life on purpose. It touches every part of life, because our devices touch every part of our lives. To say that people only care about their device use because it gets in the way of their ambitions is to misunderstand the value [...]

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Outline:

(01:31) 'Normal' people do care about screen addiction

(02:44) Digital intentionality is value-neutral / not about productivity

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First published:
January 11th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HhoegdC8vxhGKsXEN/digital-intentionality-is-not-about-productivity

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Digital intentionality is not about productivity” by mingyuan

LessWrong (30+ Karma)