I attended our local camera club a couple of times and encountered a big bias toward the latest and greatest equipment, including expensive tripods, which I have not personally found useful in the type of photography I like to shoot. And I happen to be in good company, as I learned that renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (whose favorite Leica is pictured above) never used them either.

Coupled with a recent podcast I heard dealing with what the host called “the philosophy of technology,” it got me thinking again about how and why I utilize the technology I allow into my life. As it is the topic I have written about here more than any other, it is an integral issue not only to our minimalist lifestyle but also to modern life in general. And I agree with technologist Kevin Kelly, who states, “I continue to keep the cornucopia of technology at arm’s length, so that I can more easily remember who I am.”

So, I am once more in the process of paring down our electronic gadgetry, including parting with an unused Roku system and several outdated Apple products. For Linda and I, less is most definitely more when it comes to how much technology we prefer to update and upgrade in our personal lives. For example, I even endeavor to limit the number of gadgets in our household that use batteries in need of periodic replacing.

It may sound overstated but as editor Leon Wieseltier suggests, “Aside from issues of life and death, there is no more urgent task for American intellectuals and writers than to think critically about the salience, even the tyranny, of technology in individual and collective life.” Ultimately, how we interact with our devices is a reflection of what we most value in our hearts and lives. In other words, a state of the heart philosophy is better than state of the art technology.

For more practical considerations, Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World opines, “To allow an optional technology back into your life at the end of a digital declutter, it must: 1) Serve something you deeply value (some benefit is not enough), 2) Be the best way to use technology to serve this value (if it’s not, replace it with something better), and 3) Have a role in your life that is constrained with a standard operating procedure that specifies when and how you use it.”