Reconsidering Our Tech

I think there are some interesting debates to be had around tech withdrawal. Recently, at a conference, I heard some people speak about their semi-movement to abandon smart phones completely as a reclamation of some idea of agency or intent. It wasn't an idea I thought much of to be honest, making the phones themselves the focus point for reconsidering tech engagement seemed a little gimmicky, especially given how much of modern life (and work especially) relies on having them. Certainly part of their argument was that the world should allow you to function without a smart phone and that's an admirable thought, it absolutely should. But still - as an immediate front for resistance it's hard to imagine most people going for it without suitable contexts and privilege to allow them to actually transition away from them.

I've also heard people speak about increasing de-centralisation and self-hosting as options for building new digital spaces which are better suited to actual needs and ethical desires. I think that kind of DIY mentality is a pretty clear good, both to withdraw from extractive platform monopolists but also to breed healthier technologies that are less fixated on negative exploitation. But it's also not that realistic on a large scale. Most people do not have and cannot or will not master the technical skills necessary for those more intense forms of alternative building - and to be honest they really shouldn't have to. So that one gets filed under 'great idea, hope someone does it'.

Looking to more immediate moves though, ones which are more accessible and may limit exposure to the worst of platform capitalisms' extractivism (and increasingly AI fixated feedbacks) there is a broad potential for either quitting or reconsidering what digital landscapes we inhabit. We can find 'better' alternatives, show some ethical consideration for our choices or even just show self interest in who we allow access to our data.

I should stress I don't view things like this as particularly overt acts of resistance. There's always a tendency towards consumer choice in the tech shifting self cleanse process and that really isn't a catalyst for real structural change. It may nudge things a little but only within the remit of potential profitability (for the most part). Still, I'm really not down on it at all - I think the individual sense of regained agency in taking what control you can over your online engagements and privacy management is definitely worth something. As is the challenge of re-interrogating your own, real, desires and needs for technological engagement. If you start looking for alternatives which do work for you it can pretty quickly become evident that what really matters is what you never needed or wanted at all. A lot can (rightly) fall by the wayside when we actually consider our own desired presence within the digital. Again, this isn't really a step in major structural change, but it is at least a thought along the path to it.

Anyway, looking around for a real guide to making the sort of switch overs I'm talking about I think this, by Paris Marx, is one of the better options to look to. He frames it around getting away from US tech, which is good in itself, but at the same time he digs out some tools which are considerably less extractive and (currently) harmful than the obvious, US tech, standards. He also keeps it fairly accessible, suggesting options which don't require a huge amount of technical knowledge.

I've been undertaking this reflective process of re/de-teching myself for around a year now with mixed successes. I might write a bit about my personal choices another time but just as a quick summary here are some of the choices I've made...

Culture/Social Media

Spotify + YouTube ---------> Personal collection stored on phone SD and external hard drive.
Instagram ---------> Nothing, really (tried alternatives but no great luck, which is fine really)
Twitter ---------> BlueSky (barely, not big on social media these days)

Work

Windows ---------> Ubuntu
Google Docs ---------> CryptPad (slowly by surely)
Gmail ---------> Proton Mail (very slowly but surely, I have about 20 email addresses...)
Substack ---------> Pagecord + WordPress
Chrome + Firefox ---------> Vivaldi
Google Search ---------> Duck Duck Go + Qwant
Android Phone ---------> De-Googled Android Phone (Murena)

My choices have mostly been driven by a disdain for dataveillance and extractivist practices, as well as the quiet and constant guiding by algo recommendations. A lot of them haven't led to anything perfect - CryptPad is a bit janky, search engines are questionable - but it has also led to some major positives. With music especially, which is a pretty much constant presence for me, the absence of a data extracting/taste guiding machine in my life has pushed me to do a lot more random exploring and sonic squirreling which in turn has brought about some great new discoveries. It's also a lot nicer to find music from artists and shared by artists rather than distributed by a giant harm machine like Spotify. I've actually spent more since dropping the platforms, not because my music buying has massively surged but because I've started to buy digital copies or donate just for the love of the work. The assumption that the platform is somehow profiting creators has been nicely dismissed (little as I ever thought it to be true).

Anyway, there are a lot of reasons and ways to reconsider how we use technology but it's a thing worth giving thought to. Reclaiming a desire to at least consider things may not be a huge amount but it does help re-frame expectations and even culture in a positive way.

- Dylan