I got a message recently in my email that stopped me cold: my storage was running out. How could that be, I wondered? But things were piling up: photos, videos, and emails. Glancing at the number of emails, I was shocked to see over 50,000. I’m surprised my laptop hadn’t just flat out given up.
Browsing through these emails I saw that most, at least half, were from sites I’d subscribed to, and ultimately, emails I never read, newsletters never opened, invitations not responded to. One by one, I went in and “unsubscribed.” It was a joyous activity to see that number of emails drop, and knowing I took the first steps to eliminate the clutter that comes into my life.
When I saw Julio Vincent Gambuto’s book, Please Unsubscribe, Thanks! How to Take Back Our Time, Attention, and Purpose in a Relentless World, I picked it up to gain more insight on what has become a technological and a psychological dilemma: overloading our computers with stuff, and our desire to sign up to everything that’s offered to us. In the opening chapters, he takes us into the history of consumerism, from World War I to the present, and from having to wait for items to come in the mail, to the instant purchasing options online shopping provides. He includes the story of a Midwest supermarket owner, Sylvan Goldman, who in the 1930’s, created the shopping cart. His thinking was that rather than have customers carry a basket that would get heavier and heavier as they filled it with items, they’d buy more if the basket had wheels.
With the growth of online purchasing came the concept of “subscribing.” What Gambuto says is “the dominant paradigm of twenty-first-century consumerism,” as a way for companies to use subscriptions to “manipulate markets, trap consumers, and enrich their bottom lines.” And once we’ve agreed to subscribe (how many of us actually read the “terms of agreement”) these companies can then “measure and predict” our behavior, sell our information, and provide updates to their agreements via the infamous noreply@emailaddress.com.
I believe he’s on to something. How many of our emails are read? Once we subscribe, there’s a momentary satisfaction in knowing we’ll get alerted about upcoming sales, or learn more about a topic, or be a member of a certain club. Over time, what we thought would be fun emails may turn into offers for low interest credit cards, or ads from companies they partner with, sending messages that read, “If you like, this, you’ll love this.”
Gambuto provides the steps he took in his own “great unsubscribe” activity. He writes, “I unsubscribed from every subscription – every commitment, contract, promise, or tether — that didn’t truly make me happy.” He went on a digital detox, he calls it. As he saw the companies and people he unsubscribed from, it was clear he’d filled his life with distractions and noise and “halfhearted commitments.”
Here are just a few of his suggestions if you’re consider a digital detox:
- Stop subscribing and don’t feel bad for not subscribing in the future. You’re not going to miss out on anything.
- Review what you have subscribed to. Decide what you can part with, and what you can’t. If you don’t shop there at all, for instance, unsubscribe.
- Consider getting a new email, if possible, for a fresh start.
Gambuto has also added in a lot of techy ideas for “forwarding” emails or creating “autoresponders” so emails don’t need to be answered each time. With humor and an “I’ve been there” compassion, he proves his case and is inspiring in his mission.
As we turn over the calendar and move into the new year, we may have our own overloaded email account. Now’s the best time to let go.
Julio Vincent Gambuto is a weekly contributor to Medium where he writes about happiness, society and modern living. A moviemaker, he has written, directed and produced film and television content for the New Yorker, Nickelodeon, PBS and others. www.juliovincent.com
Please Unsubscribe
Julio Vincent Gambit
Top photo: Shutterstock
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