The privilege of logging off

While email's continued evolution is significant, what it has retained from the old web sets it apart from the other pretty, convenient apps. Email is an open, interoperable protocol. Someone can use Google's service, spin up a server of her own, or send messages through Microsoft's enterprise software. And yet all of these people can communicate s... See more

“The villain here is not necessarily the internet, or even the idea of social media,” she writes. “It is the invasive logic of  commercial  social media, and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction.” The business model of platforms like this — which rely on advertising and clicks and “en

... See more

Is it possible to solve the problem of attention theft? As we transition into an increasingly digital existence, we are torn between existing in the real-world and the metaverse. Logging off for sanity, connectedness, peace of mind, seems almost irresponsible because of the personal and professional obligation to be reachable; because technology en... See more

In a setting where activity provides a proxy for productivity, the introduction of tools like email (and, later, Slack) that make it possible to visibly signal your busyness with minimal effort inevitably led to more and more of the average knowledge worker’s day being dedicated to talking about work, as fast and frantically as possible, through in

... See more

Escape: the perks of being unavailable

Email is actually a tremendous, decentralized, open platform on which new, innovative things can and have been built. In that way, email represents a different model from the closed ecosystems we see proliferating across our computers and devices.

A thoughtful essay about how our online identities—even when our default mode is misdirection or obfuscation—are visible to the platforms we use, and by extension to capitalism and its prerogatives.