Category: TechnologyCategory: Technology

Kate Ellen talked to us about using a Light Phone. It can’t stream music, and adding your own is clunky. Sometimes friction can lead to real life possibilities:

“I just have been listening to the radio in my car. And the interesting outcome to that is that I’ve gotten to know the local radio stations in my town who are super supportive of local musicians. And through that… now I’m at the point where I’m getting booked for a show, and I’m like, okay, now I have the confidence to actually call this radio station so that I can go on the radio station and promote my music. Which, if I was just listening to Spotify… I just wouldn’t even have had the context of understanding my community.”

An artist can thrive locally; I know several who’ve stepped off the social media hamster wheel and are doing just fine.

When we stop making the phone the central part of our day we begin to realize that the real life possibilities never went away, we just stopped looking for them.

Caroline in the Garden, a musician in Atlanta, recently wrote, “I’m disgusted with myself over my phone use,” saying “my phone usage during this ‘publicity cycle’ was getting to be upwards of 6-7 hours a day.”

They’ve since deleted the social media apps and wrote a new song.

That can happen when we don’t spend all our time on social media.

How grand could we be if we spent 6-7 hours a day on your craft? Or just three? One?

That’s not possible, right?

(more…)

Social media platforms make it easy, right?

Easy to sign up! Easy to find your friends! Easy to post a video! One click purchase!

People LOVE “easy” on the internet.

How are we making it easy for our readers with our newsletters? Our websites? Our booking pages?

How many clicks are required to book you?

How many clicks to pre-order your new album or book?

Two people were bewildered by my recent Break Up With Gmail video call.

“What’s wrong with email?”

“I thought you wanted people to get back to email?!”

I’ve got nothing against email, it’s Gmail I’ve got a problem with.

Google harvests too much data, has too much control over what you see (or don’t see), and if you ever get locked out your account, good luck talking to a human to get that sorted out!

Sign up for Fastmail here to save 10% off your first year (affiliate link).

About a week after hosting Break Up 💔 With Social Media Day, and deleting the YouTube and Substack apps from my phone, I reinstalled YouTube.

It was a moment of weakness, and there I was, flipping through YouTube shorts, consuming the digital cotton candy. Twenty minutes later I deleted it again. “Progress, not perfection,” as the AA saying goes.

Lately my phone is sits plugged in while I take walks or make coffee. I read a book while eating lunch instead of watching videos. I use the phone app to talk to people, but use my computer to reply to messages, or watch a movie, or write a post like this one you’re reading.

I haven’t written many (any?!) posts about my personal screen time or phone habits, but I figured this might be a good time since I don’t want to come off like I’m perfect, or beyond temptation. I’m also inspired by Manuel Moreale’s posts about reducing screen time.

We’re all just trying to figure this out, and I fully believe it’s better when we do that together.