pixel dirt

tell me about your favorite tree (a slow-web proposal)

#Community
#Personal

I don't want to scroll past a post full of the pictures from your vacation. I want you to call me and tell me the little details: your favorite place visited, what it smelt like, the best food you ate, the funny t-shirt you bought as a souvenir. Tell me about the funny local traditions, how they take their coffee.

I don't want to know what you've been doing, without having talked with you. I want to know the daily minutiae. Tell me about how those wildflower seeds you haphazardly threw on the ground are growing. The weird noise your cat makes after it eats. About the cool sweater you saw at the thrift store.

Tell me about your favorite tree. Tell me about the critters that live in it - the ones that call it home. How it changes throughout the seasons and how you framed a leaf that fell from it.

Nostalgia

I remember a time on the internet when you could only message someone if they were online at the same time as you. A time where a Google search wasn't riddled (read: completely saturated) with monetized content behind paywalls or items for sale. It was personal, vulnerable, slow, and connected. Back then, the internet felt like an addition to our in-person connecting - now it feels like it detracts from it, leaving us lonely and isolated.

The internet of past wasn't trying to sell you anything, or not much anyway. It was a wild frontier of personal expression, discovery, and knowledge. It was ours. We weren't at the mercy of technology conglomerates engineering how to capture our attention. We were guided by passion, curiosity, and hope for what this new technology might hold for our collective future.

Attention Monetization

There's a stark contrast in how the internet used to be and where it is today. The major services utilized either cost money or mine our data to figure out how to capture more of our precious attention - the internet's unintentional currency.

If I'm being honest, the current state of the internet weighs on me and trying to be a ethical internet citizen can feel taxing at times. My workplace uses Google and I can't avoid that; my small, rural town uses Facebook extensively to distribute information and working in marketing/outreach means I have to use it; gaps in technological literacy make products from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc easier to use for the aging generations. Algorithms choose the media we consume, and in turn what captures our attention and what we think about - positive or negative.

Sure, there was more friction. Our connectivity wasn't as streamlined as it is now. But at what cost? Are these companies streamlining services for our sake - out of the kindness of their hearts? Surely not. Streamlining - connecting multiple areas of our lives together to create ease through tech - results in potentially being locked in by an ecosystem (ahem, Apple), more data for the conglomerates to receive, and our undivided, dedicated attention. And $$$ for them. Essentially, we have turned into internet tenants and big tech are our landlords.

There are pockets of the internet that feel hopeful: slow, intentional, ethical, connected, HUMAN. The existence of these spaces give me hope and motivate me to help expand them.

Intentionality & Slow Internet

It's not easy to resist the shininess of new, big tech. But it can be done. There are many subsets of internet citizens who are paving the way back to a more personal internet.

A smaller, slower web means more personal privacy, more creativity, more connection - beyond the bounds of capitalization and the attention economy. There's no one, singular way to join the small web. Here's are the ways I'm participating:

  • This website! I have full creative freedom and can highlight anything I want without trying to appease the "algorithm gods".

  • Being conscious about where I spend money on tech - domain registrars, website hosting, etc.

  • Divesting from monetized social media - slow process, but it's on my list.

  • Investing in open technology. I use open source software and hardware whenever possible.

  • Limiting access to my online data. I use GrapheneOS on my phone and limit apps that track my online activities.

  • Engaging with small internet content - websites, newsletters, organizations.

  • Continuing to build my coding skills to help them integrate into the small web.

  • Eventually hosting my own webserver to self-host products I might otherwise be tempted to buy (and donating to the rad open-source projects I host!)

Let's take a moment together, close our eyes for a second, and imagine what the internet could be outside of the grasp of capitalism. (okay, open your eyes now) How would it add to your life? How would you use it to connect meaningfully to others? What would you interact differently with the natural world? How would you spend your time?

That world can exist, we just have to make it. I encourage you to take a small step toward a different world. Create the world you imagine for yourself. There's nothing more radical than that.