January 1, 2026 – Happy New Year. It’s time for some new years resolutions.

My resolutions for 2026 are loosely based on a book my son gave me for Chrismukkah called Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport.

This book talks about what a time suck social media is and how it relies on the idea of compulsive connection to sell ads. Of course, no one on social media should be surprised at this, but sometimes you need someone to put it all together. This book does that.

Then it goes on to talk about how to implement a strategy of digital minimalism that give you what you want from social media (not what Mark Zuckerberg wants) and jettisoning the rest.

Next, it discusses the what’ll I do instead question: If I free up all sorts of time by minimizing my digital life, then what? It talks about developing other interests and cultivating human connections in real life rather than rely on the truncated digital connections that masquerade as a social life.

The other-interest part of the equation is simple for me. I have a lot of interests and I actually do spend some of my time pursuing them. I write. I bike, I swim. I play guitar. I play piano. I do some art. I’m learning Spanish, I do volunteer work. I read.

So it’s not like I need to find something new for my New Years Resolution to take the place of social media. I basically need to get back to where I once was. Remember, most of my life was lived prior to the advent of social media. And spending more time with my guitar and piano will give my thumbs (and the rest of my fingers) plenty to do.

Enhanced real-life human connections won’t be as easy for me. I don’t have much muscle memory in that realm. My social connections mostly came prepackaged. School friends and later work friends. But I started working from home six years before Covid. My work partners are scattered across the country.

And the truth is, finding friends of the real type has been hard for me. And social media has tricked me into feeling that my Facebook friends are real friends. But most of them are not. Removing this mask from social media is both distressing and an opportunity.

So today I begin.

Well, actually, I began last week. I’ve read three books. I’ve cranked up my practice time for both guitar and piano. I rebuilt the spreadsheet I used to use to spur on my biking and swimming. I’ve been listening to music more (still on Spotify—I have to work on getting my LPs and CDs back into play).

And going forward, I’ll be making some calls, rather than relying on texting, as a first step in rebuilding my social connections.

And also going forward, I’ll be posting about various things in this space. Some, no doubt, will be about politics (though that can be a trap for me), but the rest will be about life. Hope you come back.

* * *

If you like this post, please share it with your friends by clicking one of the buttons below . . . and ask your friends to do the same.