Category: TechnologyCategory: Technology

From August Lamm, author of “You Don’t Need a Smartphone (affiliate link).”

Digital media stimulates us at a level that most routine analog activities cannot match. Once we adjust to this level it becomes difficult to appreciate the subtlety of offline moments.

This is why it’s so hard for me to pick up a book, or play a CD, because of the slowness. From the time I digitized my CDs and was able to switch between songs and albums and genres as fast as I could click, yeah, of course the idea of a five disc CD changer sound terrible, but that’s what we did back in the day!

Why watch one movie when you could scroll through 100 short form videos of just the best scenes?

Watching a movie, listening to a record, playing a video game – those used to be offline pursuits, where we “mono-tasked,” and now it just feels “hard” to sit still long enough to listen to a full CD and read a chapter in a book.

This was inspired from today’s “WHAT IS RSS?” Escape Pod Zoom call (we have another call on Thursday, Oct 8th), talking about how everyone is busy, and receiving so much information every day.

Then, if we start using RSS to read our favorite blogs, newsletters, YouTube channels, etc., well, that’s like a magazine. Remember back in the day you could just pick up the magazine and read it?

That’s different than newsletters that come into your inbox, because face it – our inbox is different. It’s not like a magazine, it’s business. It’s family. It’s bills. It’s notices. It’s receipts. It’s everything.

So with RSS, we control what comes in. There are no surprises. The only things that show up are what we add, whereas anyone can email us, and as we all know – it never stops!

And picking up the magazine today or two weeks from now is usually fine, but we usually can’t take a two week break from our email inbox.

RSS can remove weight from your email inbox.

Love this from musician Phoebe Dubar, who makes music as IKSRE, talking about getting away from social media as best they can:

Hiking, gardening, yoga – all these things are the ultimate antidote to any digital interference. Backyard campfires, playing card games with my husband and daughter, and spending time in our caravan. And physical media music. My CD, cassette and vinyl collection is such a treasured possession.

Again, it’s the act of escaping social media, it’s where do we go? How we we fill the time that we once spent staring at a screen?

“I’ve had to be on a bit more recently with the new album coming out and I can feel it zapping me. It’s wild. But taking my dog for a walk along the beach near where I live, solves that instantly. It’s all a balance, right?

I also stress this with Social Media Escape Club; it’s not all or nothing. Do what feels right, trust your gut. If you’re spending six hours a day on Instagram, and making Reels leaves you exhausted, examine that. Get outside, go for a walk, play some records.

We didn’t just wake up one day and look at our phones for several hours. That took time, and heading in the other direction will take some time, too.

Read the full interview with Phoebe over at Zen Sounds.

Finding your people can happen anywhere. On Monday’s very spontaneous Substack Live, people were chatting with each another, learning what they do, and subscribing to each other.

Somehow in the chaos of a live chat room, people connected. Some people found their people.

So please don’t leave that to the machines, desperately pleading “oh algorithm, please deliver me my audience!”

You’ve got taste and style. You can find people in the chat, in the comments, in line at the coffee shop. See what your favorite authors like on Substack Notes. Who are the 11 people Austin Kleon subscribes to? Have you looked up some of the artists that people mention on your favorite podcasts?

Here’s some of the things I attempted to answer during the Live:

• Should I make my Substack free and build community somewhere else?
• Was there a time you felt you were writing into a void?
• How often do you do lives, and why do them?
• How do you feel about Substack Notes?
• How do I find my people without sounding like a coach, and what do I talk about besides “come to this”?
• What’s Metal Bandcamp Gift Club?
• Should I be on YouTube?

What’s interesting from today’s Tool Time Show and Tell call was how it eventually got to paper. Like notebooks, planners, wall calendars. We talked about how the brain reacts different to writing with a pencil, in a different way than just typing.

It’s not just a pencil, it’s a tool. For centuries we wrote, physically, and there were tools involved, that we used with our hands.

You can have music playing all day on your computer, but with vinyl and CDs you need to physically interact with them.

There is no infinite scroll with physical objects. No endless playlist.

I can add 100 things to my todo app, but there’s only so many things I can write on a legal pad.