my community thursday is that i founded one: promo for digitalminimalism

[milo_r]

digitalminimalism is a community for people who want to re-evaluate, to varying extents, the space technology takes up in their life. This might mean spending less time binge-watching streaming shows, decluttering their smartphone from time-sucking apps or doing more things the analog way. The reasons for doing this are as varied as the rules people set for themselves: to feel more present in the moment, to curb bad coping mechanisms, to stop creating value for predatory companies with shady privacy practices.

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I wanted to make a few more posts in the community myself before sharing it but I figured that if I kept waiting I'd be my usual self and never get around to it. There are very few rules (which can be summed up with "don't be a dick") in the profile section and a recurring monthly general chat post.

Why?

This has been one of my big fixations of late and my attempt at finding online community for it (which I realize is ironic) have gone... less than well. There was a worrying amount of alt-right-adjacent ideology, but my fault for thinking to try reddit and discord servers of youtubers, of all things. I just want to share pictures of my new flip phone with people who aren't white supremacists, man.

It might die in four months or never even taking off. But for now here it is!

Comments

[grayestofghosts]

Interesting. I've joined, even though I'm far more small web than digital minimalism.

[axolotls]

I'm kind of the same, maybe a mix of both, depends a lot on what we're talking about really. I want to run my own website and participate in some small communities online and follow others' stuff via RSS, which I suppose is in a way minimising my time online to be just what really matters to me now that I think about it! Joined the community!

[grayestofghosts]

I was thinking about this last night. It kind of seems like both digital minimalism and small web have the same fundamental complaint, but digital minimalism is social people who think it's a tech problem while small web is tech people who think it's a social problem.

I'm not sure. As social media becomes more hostile in general there might not be as much using the internet anyway for me 🤷🏻

[milo_r]

I want to run my own website and participate in some small communities online and follow others' stuff via RSS, which I suppose is in a way minimising my time online to be just what really matters to me now that I think about it

Yeah, personally that's why I also don't see them as incompatible (there's definitely a set of people who think the ultimate goal of digital minimalism is owning no screens at all and they get very annoying about it). A lot of small web participants are also just people who prefer a slower kind of internet/media consumption and are also into say, collecting analog stuff, getting old tech working for them, etc. Which are all ways people in digital minimalism spaces have used to feel less stimulated/addicted (I don't like using "addicted" casually like everybody does but it gets the point across). For me personally it's also about what I'm doing on the platforms, for example if I'm not on any social media but I find myself mindlessly scrolling through dreamwidth without interacting/reading through, that's also not good (even though obviously it's a much harder thing to do on dreamwidth than on instagram, which is designed around keeping you on the app indefinitely).

It kind of seems like both digital minimalism and small web have the same fundamental complaint, but digital minimalism is social people who think it's a tech problem while small web is tech people who think it's a social problem.

Mmh, I'm not too sure about this, I think there's still an understanding in small web circles that certain technological affordances have been damaging for communities, mainly the lack of control you have nowadays both on how your content is presented on most social network sites and what type of content is presented to you by the algorithm.

[grayestofghosts]

I mean the technology affordances have been damaging, but would they be used at all if someone did not have a nefarious purpose behind it, to keep your eyes on the screen for financial/political gain? I dunno, this argument is behind a lot of technological advancement, it seems like, if there was not a need for something, would it have been invented, or are the more nefarious uses just inevitable given human nature.

Also I guess a significant part of the small web stuff is better resource management and the sort of arms race that becomes inevitable between producers and users (producers have more resources to make resource-heavy web pages and web apps, users need better computers that use more resources to use pages and apps that are considered the new normal, do we really NEED all these resources to track, serve, etc or is it all just bloat?) which is all almost invisible to users who aren't tech savvy especially as computer services become increasingly walled gardens so one doesn't even have a choice.

I guess I do consider DW to be social media because I'm old enough for at one point in my life LJ being my social media of choice, even though, yes, it has significantly less 'addictive' potential than anything with infinite scroll/algorithm. I also think that as someone who was building a website at 10 years old there's always going to be some people who are wasting an inordinate amount of time on the internet, and that I'm probably going to be one of them, but I would rather this time be more productive and meaningful than getting mad at whatever a corporation's algorithm has decided to show me today.