quieter tech
I don't usually write about technology, but I thought it would be worth sharing a few changes in my digital life. Some were made more recently than others, but most have taken place over the last year or so.
The most impactful change has been to give up social media. I've had social media accounts in one form or another for probably a couple of decades. The platforms were sometimes a lot of fun, and a convenient way to stay in touch with old friends, but I eventually decided they were causing more harm than good. There is something especially pernicious about the phenomenon of the social feed.
I gradually abandoned each platform and deleted my accounts. Instagram was the last to go, and the most difficult, because almost all of my friends and family use it so much. I still have my account to check messages every few weeks, but that's it. Instead of social media, if I want to read something online then I read blogs. I use an RSS feed reader and subscribe to a handful of feeds. I'll probably read four or five blog posts a week. It's a very different experience to the social feed. Otherwise, since I stopped reading the news, I just read books.
A related change is that I don't watch videos online anymore. I stopped watching YouTube a few years ago. It wasn't a deliberate decision. YouTube, just like MySpace, used to be a great place to discover new things, but visiting the site these days is a very different experience. It has been overrun by advertising and bizarre, sensationalist content, designed in much the same way as the social feed. I still have a TV where I watch series or films with my partner in the evenings, but I don't scroll videos on my phone or on my laptop.
Last but not least. I've written about my attempts to switch to a dumb phone. I spent about a year trying to do that, with some success, but I just couldn't get it to stick. So, I tried a different approach. I flashed my Pixel 9 with GrapheneOS, which is basically Android without Google. It turns out that removing Google from my phone has been one of the most effective ways of keeping the worst elements of the smartphone at bay.
Then, it was just a matter of finding free, open source, or alternative applications. I use Ente instead of Google Photos. I switched to Uruky instead of Google Search. I use Thunderbird instead of Gmail or Outlook. I use an open-source password manager instead of backing up in Google's cloud. I use a text-based app launcher called Mako. And, instead of Google Wallet, I keep a couple of bank cards in a PopWallet on the back of my phone case.
Also, crucially, I stopped using my phone for work. No Microsoft Teams, no email, no anything else. If someone needs to get hold of me, they have my number...
Taken together, these changes have drastically changed my day-to-day. Life is always busy. But now, there are moments where I can take a pause without my devices shouting at me.
And that's really all I wanted. Moments of enduring quiet.