This post was last updated on August 7th, 2023 at 08:55 am
When we talk about minimalism, conversations often focus on living with less stuff. Minimalists seek to remove the clutter from their lives. It’s a worthy endeavor, but what if our prized possessions are not physical but digital in nature? How do we practice minimalism in a world increasingly lived online? To explore some possible answers, I chatted with Stephanie Seferian, host of the Sustainable Minimalists podcast and creator of the Mama Minimalist website.
In her field of work, Stephanie spends a lot of time on a computer, making it easy to spend too much time online. “For me, applying minimalism has meant putting boundaries on my tech use, even though it’s hard,” she said during a recent interview.
Several years ago, Stephanie realized she was struggling with smartphone dependency. It developed after she had her first child in 2014. “I was looking to my phone to fill my loneliness in those new days and months and years as a mom at home by herself with just a baby,” she explained. “It became a proxy for the human connection that I was lacking.”
Stephanie had an “aha moment” one day while running errands and noticed she had left her smartphone at home. “The anxiety I felt over leaving my phone at home was so strong, not because I was worried I was going to have an emergency and needed to call someone,” Stephanie told me. “But because I couldn’t check whatever it was I was going to check.”
“That was a moment where I was like, ‘I think I’m addicted to this thing. I think there’s a problem here.’ From 2017 on, I’ve been trying my darndest to limit my use and get this addiction under control. My kids are now old enough to see me on it. What am I teaching them when I can’t get off of it? It’s been a struggle, to be frank,” she said.
When Stephanie spends less time on her phone, she notices a difference. “When I turn it off and put it in another room, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit of my freedom back.”
Meanwhile, she’s in no rush to give her two daughters, both in elementary school, their own devices. As it is, her daughters spend time online at school, where screens play a role in delivering and teaching curriculum. “One thing I’ve gotten right is that I have delayed giving them screens until they can read independently. My 9-year-old is absolutely obsessed with a physical book,” Stephanie said. “She prefers it to screens and reads when she has a down moment. For me, that’s a gigantic win because she’s not looking to a screen to entertain her. She’s looking to a book.”
Read more excerpts from the interview with Stephanie Seferian below. Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Frugalmatic: What does it mean to be a minimalist in our increasingly digital world?
Stephanie Seferian: It means first asking ourselves some hard questions about our tech use. How much are we on our tech? Is our tech actually serving us or are we serving Big Tech? Are there more fulfilling things we can do with our time than scrolling through social media? These are hard questions to ask ourselves, but they’re important to ask. Minimalism is about living with intention. It’s about changing things up. It’s about action. It can be about going against the grain and not doing what everybody else is doing just because everybody else is doing it.
F: One of your best Sustainable Minimalists podcast episodes is your interview with Dr. Susan Linn about the commercialization of kids. With so many kids fixated on devices, how can a parent begin to take steps to protect their kids from the aggressive marketing tactics of Big Tech companies?
SS: For me, it’s about coming back to what I can control and not to make screens the default when they’re bored, when they’re cranky, or when they’re acting up.
I mentioned in that episode that my husband and I around dinnertime used to put on the TV for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes turned into 60 minutes. One show turned into two shows. We didn’t know we were doing this. It just kind of happened. It became routine.
We no longer do the 30 to 60 minutes of TV before dinner. My husband and I didn’t announce it to our kids. It was as simple as one day they asked for TV around dinnertime, and we redirected them and said, “Why don’t you do this instead?” The second day they asked, and we redirected them. The third day, they sort of asked. They knew what we were going to say. From the fourth day on, they didn’t ask.
And so we broke that habit. It was really that simple. I often redirect them to help me in the kitchen as I cook, set the table, work on the puzzle that we always have on our dining room table, read, color, and perhaps even tidy up.
F: As a mother of two kids, how are you handling the issue of when to get your kids a smartphone?
SS: I’m fairly well versed in the negative mental and emotional effects of smartphones on developing brains, particularly girls. My strategy is to wait until at least eighth grade. I find that movement is practical and smart. And then even after eighth, I’m not just going to hand a smartphone over to my daughter and say, “Have fun. Go to town.”
There are minimalist phones, or dumb phones. What’s wrong with that? That seems to me a great middle ground between handing over this powerful piece of tech with infinite consequences, potentially, versus giving them a little bit freedom to be able to talk to their friends without having to use mom’s cell phone. The dumb phone solves all those problems. That’s what I’m thinking about. That might change as the years go on. My plan is to delay and give as little as possible.
Check out your dumb phone options
F: How is your Mama Minimalist website doing and where are you hoping to take it in the future?
SS: My podcast is my main endeavor, Sustainable Minimalists. It can be found everywhere. My hope is for it to continue to grow. We talk about tech use and its implications. We also just talk about intentional living and minimalism in all its forms, not just in stuff but in our calendars. It’s about using minimalism as a tool to live a more purposeful and intentional life.