⏳️ The Destimulate Manifesto

By all definitions, we live in a society of addicts. Overstimulated, distracted, lonely, attention-deficient screen addicts. It’s infected all of us, poisoning how we think, connect, and live.

You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. But very few actually do anything about it.

How come?

Because everyone around you is also screen-addicted, so it’s easy to excuse it because “well, everyone else is scrolling, too.”

But just because it’s socially acceptable, doesn’t mean you should deem it acceptable. If you follow the herd, you’ll get herd results.

And given what society’s screen addiction has caused, you probably don’t want those results. I mean, just look at the data:

• At an average of 8 hours and 41 minutes, adults now spend more of their waking life on screens than in the real world.

• Since 2010 (when social media and screen use exploded):

  • Teenage suicide has jumped 91% for boys and 167% for girls.

  • Anxiety prevalence has increased:

    • 139% for ages 18-25

    • 103% for ages 26-34

    • 52% for ages 35-49

  • Human attention spans have now become shorter than a goldfish’s.

  • College students experienced a 106% increase in depression and 72% increase in ADHD.

  • Adults are spending 30% less time with friends in real life.

It’s a sad world out there, man.

I believe decades from now, we’ll look back in disgust at this initial era of smartphone addiction the same way we look back at smoking addiction in the 20th century. The numbers speak for themselves:

Gen Z is on track to spend 28.7 years of an 85 year life looking at screens.

“How did we let that happen?” we’ll ask ourselves.

Deep down, we all know mindless scrolling is toxic — it’s why the internet playfully jokes about our collective ‘brainrot.’

But its not until you read these dark statistics that you grasp the true magnitude of the issue — and realize ‘brainrot’ isn’t such a lighthearted meme after all.

It’s ruining lives at massive scale.

The Attention War

But it’s not your fault, because its nowhere near a fair fight.

Silicon Valley’s business model relies on extracting as much attention as possible from your life. The more time you spend scrolling Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, the more ads you see, the more money they make.

When you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Where the attention goes, the money flows. That’s the reality of the attention economy we live in today.

With these economic dynamics in place, Big Tech invests over $10 billion every year to carefully engineer their apps in a manner which psychologically manipulates and addicts you to them.

It’s not evil, it’s just business (ironically, our tech overlords suffer from screen addiction more than most). But clearly, the incentives are stacked against you and your wellbeing.

Without intentional effort, this attention war is a hilariously one-sided battle. Utterly overwhelming.

But it’s the most worthwhile one you can fight.

Because your life is what you pay attention to. It’s your life force. By far your most precious resource. This makes the war for your attention a literal fight for your life.

Scrolling kills.

Technology Amplifies

Most people view the Attention War with a black-and-white “phone bad, Silicon Valley evil” attitude. But that’s because most people can’t entertain nuance.

The truth is, technology itself is neutral — it’s how you use it that determines whether it’s a force for traction or a source of distraction in your life.

Use it well, and it’ll accelerate your knowledge, skills, and network to unimaginable heights. Use it poorly, and it’ll forever keep you from realizing your potential and the endlessly wonderful opportunities modern technology offers.

Ironically, the exact devices that enslave your attention can also set you free.

With the internet, you’ve been freely gifted all of humanity’s knowledge at your fingertips. And with the advent of AI, you now have infinite intelligence available to you 24/7, too.

It’s never been easier to learn any topic, master any skill, create any business, build leverage, connect with anyone, and earn from wherever, whenever, with whoever.

We’re unironically living through the greatest golden age in human history — a digital renaissance, if you will. Our ancestors would view us as literal gods.

But to unlock this incredible freedom the internet offers, you first must overcome the infinite distractions it tempts you with.

That’s the modern struggle — to maximize technology’s benefits while minimizing its downsides. To make your devices work for you instead of against you.

Modern Problems Have Ancient Solutions

To solve this problem of the 21st century, let’s look back to the 8th century BC.

In ancient Greece, Odysseus had to outsmart the Sirens — creatures whose irresistible songs lured sailors to their doom.

He ordered his crew to block their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast, allowing them to safely sail past and reach their destination.

Our screens are the modern-day Sirens.

Like Odysseus, we must employ similar tactics to block out technology’s irresistible distractions and reach our goals.

The Destimulate Commandments

I call such tactical efforts the art of “digital destimulation.” People who undergo this journey of digital destimulation:

1. Understand attention is the most precious resource we have.

2. Ruthlessly curate their content diet to ensure their inputs are of exquisite quality.

3. Don’t experience FOMO of missing out on the timeline, but rather FOMO of missing out on their potential.

4. Set up their devices in a strict way that guides them towards more productive, intentional use (on autopilot, without needing to rely on willpower).

5. Constantly audit their screen time, removing apps and habits that no longer serve them.

6. Practice tech-free rituals to create space for boredom, reflection, and deep thinking.

7. Realize mastering their attention is the skill of the 21st century — the ultimate competitive advantage in a distracted world.

At least, these are the commandments I’ve created for myself in my efforts to destimulate from technology.

And I can’t think of a single pursuit that’s improved my life more. It seems to be the one “domino habit” which naturally elevates every other aspect of your life. 

Since embarking on this endeavor, I’ve rediscovered my love for reading and aimless walking. I’ve picked up 35mm film photography as a new side hobby. Kindled new friendships and rekindled old ones. Taught myself how to play chess. Trained for and completed my first 2 marathons. Cultivated consistent meditation and “morning pages” habits. Realized I wanted to move from the US to Europe (so I did).

I almost 3x’d my income from last year due to my enhanced ability to get shit done. And I’ve found time I “thought I didn’t have” to build Destimulate — the newsletter you’re reading right now. Funny how that works.

It’s remarkable how much time you can rediscover. You’re not “too busy”, you just need to look up from your phone.

The Skill of the 21st Century

I’m now convinced 99% of modern self-improvement is just kicking the screen addiction.

Because besides heroin, almost anything will be better for you. Even if the activity isn’t “productive.”

Even if you just stare at a wall for 20 minutes — you’re at least giving your mind space to wander and think its own thoughts, not someone else’s.

You’re escaping the 24/7 toxic, subconscious comparison game of scrolling social media. You’re finally giving your brain the opportunity to decompress from information overload.

500 years ago, a highly educated person consumed 74GB of information over their entire lifetime. Today, the average person consumes 74GB of information daily.

Read that statistic again. We consume more information in ONE day than our smartest ancestors did over their entire existence.

The implications of this have been disastrous for humanity’s psychological wellbeing and productivity.

Your brain didn’t evolve to process such immense volume of information so frequently, and it’s devastating our mental health — elevating our baseline levels of stress to unhealthy and unnatural extremes.

Such intense overstimulation has not only wreaked havoc on our attention spans — it’s also diminishing our intelligence. The kids are literally getting dumber because of it:

Therefore, the skill of the 21st century is the ability to successfully destimulate from this digital overstimulation. 

Those who leverage the power of the internet with indistractable focus will reach levels of success unattainable to those trapped by its endless distractions. These people will live the most productive, peaceful, and meaningful lives.

That’s my end goal with Destimulate — to actionably educate you on how to escape the negatives of technology while taking full advantage of its powerful positives.

And while the depressing statistics I’ve shared above might paint a bleak picture, I actually remain optimistic for the future.

Because for every trend, there’s an equal and opposite anti-trend.

In the mid-20th century, processed junk foods and fast food exploded. People eventually became aware of its harms, and the organic whole foods movement exploded in response.

In the same way, over the past 15 years, social media and screen-time have exploded. Now, people are waking up to its harms, and the digital minimalism movement is set to explode.

It’s my hope this movement accelerates, and I’ve committed myself to contributing to its acceleration. I hope you’ll embrace it, too.

You’ll start regularly receiving my letters from this point forward. As for whether you’ll adopt my destimulation protocols — well, that choice is entirely yours.

But hopefully now you know what’s at stake.