Calm Tech
Principle that technology should require the smallest possible amount of attention. Technology can communicate, but doesn't need to speak.
Calm Tech
andrea and
We don't necessarily need to constantly interact with people “around” us on the web. The sensation of being in the quiet companionship of someone else, like reading next to them in a cafe, is what we're missing. The sense of ambiently sharing space – of being co-present – while engaged in other activities is a staple of shared public spaces that we're still figuring out how to design in the digital realm.
Our current “multiplayer” experiences draw too much attention to the multiplayer-ness. The other people around you demand attention. They move. They flash. They point to exactly what they're focused on, drawing you away from your own focal point. We are missing out on a fuzzier, softer sense of the shared web.
Technology increasingly robs us of the mystical in our lives. Not everything needs to be fast and available and convenient. I love ideas and products that reveal themselves slowly - more whisper than scream.
-Dennis Paphitis
minimalist phone - reduce your screen time
minimalistphone.com
What does it tell us about progress if the most influential technological innovation of the century is clearly destroying lives on a massive scale?
Ted Gioia • I Ask Seven Heretical Questions About Progress
Seven thoughts on ritual:
Rituals are the feedback loops we construct to construct ourselves.
Rituals shape the medium of time.
Rituals orient us.
Rituals are protocols.
Ritual is a form of play.
Rituals take place in a world set apart.
Rituals make meaning.
We need ritual technology. Technology designed for ritual use. Why? Most of the software we use daily is designed to engagement-max. Social media feeds, loot boxes, compulsion loops, gang gang yes yes yes ice cream so good. You’re caught in a feedback loop with the algorithm, and you are the squishiest part of that loop. Ritual technology operates on a different timescale. Underneath the fast twitch of compulsion loops is the slow thrum of ritual. Elder feedback systems. An antidote to algorithmic engagement addiction?
We don't necessarily need to constantly interact with people “around” us on the web. The sensation of being in the quiet companionship of someone else, like reading next to them in a cafe, is what we're missing. The sense of ambiently sharing space – of being co-present – while engaged in other activities is a staple of shared public spaces that we
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