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It’s easy to cast social media as the villain these days – a constant drip of anxiety, division and distraction. We’re inundated with advice to go off-grid, downgrade to a flip phone, install time-trackers, and so on. But in his essay, Unplugging Is Not The Solution You Want, Matt Klein argues that the trend to disconnect might be less solution, more privilege.
“Unplugging is a short-term, unsustainable, selfish and frankly, privileged approach.” He is urging us to lean into responsible tech use, especially since digital access is now embedded into every essential service.
Klein makes the case that simply opting out isn’t fixing anything, pointing to the irony of tech’s loudest critics still broadcasting their thoughts on the very platforms they once demonised. For all our e-ink phone experiments and ‘digital Sabbath on Sunday’, the problems persist.
“This past year I ate at a restaurant which placed cute, chest-like boxes on each table. It was a gentle, decorative nudge to place your phones in there while dining. I loved it. Past tense. After the third time eating there, I thought: ‘How fucking grim.’ That we’re reliant upon a restaurant to remind us it’s rude to text in front of family, friends or a date is a grave signal of our moment. We’ve relinquished any sense of responsibility. We have more agency here than we think. This is on us. Not restaurant decor.”
When our ‘tech issues’ spill into the streets, classrooms, and even our relationships, turning away feels less like a solution and more like a form of denial. Klein’s point: if we can’t change the tech, perhaps we should change how we adapt to it.
“The opportunity (and challenge) is to embrace tech’s negative externalities as opportunities for change. Only once we can understand their biases and accept them, may we design remedies and honor headspaces to coexist with, not against this reality.
Unplugging leaves the mess behind and denies responsibility.”
While I think there are holes in Klein’s argument – calling for more individual responsibility is often a way to sidestep systemic issues – there is value in being reminded of our agency: we’re neither tech’s helpless victims nor its inevitable consumers. Quoting media theorist Douglas Rushkoff: “The question should not be about how humanely our technologies program human beings, but about how well human beings can program technology.”
The takeaway, perhaps, is that real tech literacy is more about awareness than abstinence. At the very least, Klein prompts us to reconsider what ‘healthy’ looks like in a tech-drenched world. If a digital detox brings relief, great. But what we need is to learn not just how to switch off but how to use these tools in ways that serve, rather than dominate, our lives.
– Kai
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Apps & Sites
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If you and your team are using Gmail, Keeping is the most elegant way of integrating a help desk into your inbox. Keeping creates a new shared inbox in a separate section of your existing Gmail interface and offers many of the same powerful collaborative features of other help desk tools like Helpscout or Zendesk – just inside Gmail. Friends of DD enjoy a 10% discount.
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When I mentioned Raycast in DD311, several readers pointed me to Alfred as a great indie alternative. Similar to Raycast (but not VC-funded), Alfred offers a super handy launcher interface (macOS) to do many things – from converting currencies to inserting snippets to launching customisable workflows. One of my favourites is a Reminder workflow for using natural language input. (I forgot about Alfred and actually dug up an old license I bought several years back! Just renewed it.)
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With a full range of Apple apps, Sequel is a bookmarking tool for movies, shows, games, books and audiobooks. You can create a library of media you have consumed or want to consume in the future. A neat feature I like: be notified of new releases, such as when a new season of your favourite show launches.
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My partner and I have long used Splitwise to keep track of shared expenses. Although, we don’t use it regularly enough to warrant a paid version, so SplitPro could be a great alternative: a free, open-source, web-based (and mobile-optimised) app to keep track of shared expenses. Love the simplicity!
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Favourite Books: Kevin Maguire
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Six book recommendations by father-in-chief at weekly dad newsletter The New Fatherhood, Kevin Maguire
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by Chris Ware
You probably recognise Ware’s work from one of his 25+ New Yorker covers. This graphic novel from 2000 pushed the boundaries of the format, exploring the effects of emotional loss and intergenerational trauma across a lineage of fathers and sons.
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
I’ve lived in Barcelona for the last five years, and the city I call home was brought to life in vivid colour by this story. It’s a book that explores our obsession with books and how they act like mirrors, enabling us to see in them what we already have inside us.
by Kevin Wilson
Unlike anything you’ve ever read. A strange tale about dysfunctional family dynamics and the oddest of jobs: caring for a pair of ten-year-old twins who burst into flames whenever they become stressed.
by E.L. Gombrich
A riveting recap of humanity, from the Stone Age to the atomic bomb. A history book like no other: evocative stories, not a list of names and dates to remember. A delight for curious adults and kids alike.
by Eleanor Catton
A climate fiction thriller that explores Big Tech’s ongoing attempts to greenwash their profit-seeking enterprises. How important are our values, if we’re ready to step on them for a big paycheck? And how do we relate to those around us when it seems like the end of the world is approaching?
by Andrew O‘Hagan
A perfect example of the Bildungsroman, taking us from the streets of Scotland through the heyday of Manchester’s music scene. A beautiful, poetic book on the importance of the bonds we make during our teens and twenties, and how those friendships shape the arcs of our lives.
(Did you know? Friends of DD can respond to and engage with guest contributors like Kevin Maguire in one click.)
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Books & Accessories
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Creating sense in a world of nonsense
A book for our time: practical strategies for navigating complex and overwhelming information. Drawing on insights from a physicist, a philosopher and a psychologist, the book introduces scientific tools for better decision-making, fostering clear thinking and improving collaboration across differing viewpoints. “Using provocative thought exercises, jargon-free language, and vivid illustrations drawn from history, daily life and scientists’ insider stories, Third Millennium Thinking offers a novel approach for readers to make sense of the nonsense.”
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Conversations to make you feel human
My internet buddy Sari Azout and her friends have just published their first volume of a new printed zine that’s full of long-form interviews with smart, creative people. The conversations (and the tangible form of the product) will remind you that the real world still matters. (Non-US folks order here.) Friends of DD enjoy a 10% discount.
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Overheard on Mastodon
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I made a graph to review all of my past relationships...
It has an ex axis and a why axis.
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Food for Thought
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Unplugging from technology isn’t the best solution to our digital struggles; instead, we should aim to accept and live with its consequences – argues Matt Klein. By fostering mindfulness and compassion, we can better navigate our tech-driven lives rather than trying to escape them. “What if unplugging is the running away? I struggle to accept the fact that our minds are too weak. That’s defeat. How may we learn to live with? How may we learn to live in light of? And how may we learn to live despite?” (via)
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I’ve long been a fan of Erin Kissane’s work. (Fun fact: I’ve tried to interview her for Offscreen, but the timing never quite worked out.) Her talk about the importance of building better online networks that foster trust and collaboration sheds some light on the amazing contributions she’s made over the years – to the web but also, surprisingly, to public health in the US. The talk also goes really well with Matt Klein’s piece above. “Retreating into private spaces is obviously wise and protective. But my fundamental discomfort with that conclusion is that when those of us who have found our friends [online] and gotten even semi-stable all retreat into private spaces, we’re slamming the doors on everyone who hasn’t gotten there yet. In dark forest terms, we’re just leaving them out there to get eaten.”
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We all love a good dystopian sci-fi flick, and there are lots of them! But do they just end up contributing to our sense of hopelessness? Filmmaker and writer Taryn O’Neill makes a case for more ‘Protopian’ stories, which envision a better, more hopeful future. Protopia focuses on gradual improvements and collective action, showcasing resilience and innovation in society. “To craft compelling Protopian narratives, we need to understand the forces shaping our world. Emerging technologies and the climate crisis are transforming our reality. As Margaret Atwood said, ‘It’s not Climate Change, it’s Everything Change.’ Writers have the unique opportunity to help society make sense of these shifts by bringing insight – and heart – to these pressing issues, and even spark change.”
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Aesthetically Pleasing
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I love the entire portfolio of Bristol-based illustrator Owen Gent.
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Nayan and Venus Bird are Indian miniature paper artists, creating detail-rich, adorable mini animal sculptures from paper.
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Designer Senhor Paulinho with a lovely case study of a new brand identity for Cossoul, a cultural institution with a long public benefit tradition in the centre of Lisbon. “The starting point for Cossoul's new visual identity consisted in the conceptual and abstract interpretation of an audience. What is an audience, and how is it formed? This materialization resulted in the filling of empty spaces by textures of different shapes and colors, symbolizing different groups of people with different personalities, who comes together in a space to watch a cultural event.”
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Taking its name from the Arabic word for ‘king’, Malik is a flared sans serif typeface family that emerges gradually from the stem of the letter, ending in a sharp angle.
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Notable Numbers
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Electric car sales in Norway took a 94% share of the market in August this year – a new world record. EV sales in the rest of Europe are stagnating.
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Germany’s flat-rate ticket for all public transport helped push people to switch from using cars to taking the train, reducing car emissions by 6.7 million tonnes of CO2 between its introduction in May 2023 and April 2024. This represents almost 5 percent of current annual transport sector emissions in the country.
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OnlyFans has paid out $20 billion to creators since its inception eight years ago, according to CEO Keily Blair – much of which stems from p*rn.
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Classifieds
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The Week in a GIF
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Reply with your favourite GIF and it might get featured here in a future issue.
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