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ew0k writes:
As I'm writing this post I'm thinking about something I saw on fediverse some time ago: "the trick to scaling is to not".
Many of us in geminispace want to get away from the constant distractions and notifications. Live slower and more intentionally. In that vein I'm planning to set up a feed aggregator for myself, and I'll set it to fetch feeds once every 24 hours. That way I may not feel compelled to check it several times a day for updates either, because I know there won't be any.
gemini://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/tricks-to-scaling-distributed-social-networks.gmi
cmccabe writes:
There is no easy solution to this dystopian state of affairs, but one form of resistance is for individuals to reject the pace and content set by these platforms in favor of finding their own path. This is how the Slow Movement applies to the Internet. Again, it is not so much about slowing down the pace as it is about fiercely defending ones right to set their own pace and decide how they allocate their time online.
gemini://rawtext.club/~cmccabe/slow.gmi
Imho its all about precious attention time ...
A few years back I sat with D, a then new colleage, at his desk explaining to him something in our responsibility. His PC blinged "Email for You!" a few times in a short while. He could hardly resist to pay immediate attention to his email box. I said something like "I have disabled the bling! I can show you, how to do it." He gazed in astonishment and replied like "But, äh, is this ok???". I confirmed it was and suggested: "Look, you can switch it off now, and if you miss it tomorrow, switch it back on." So he did.
Guess, what: He /never/ switched it back on.
How about myself, am I immune against pressing [Refresh]? Not quite. I am not allowed to grumpily yell at /the young folks/ to leave their smart phones alone, because back home at my small workstation, I press [Refresh] too often. Oh well. But I don't have to give up, do I?
My nephews told me, that if they meet with a bunch of friends (pre covid times) somewhere, they mute all the smartphones and pile them on top of each other. Whoever grabs their phone before leaving is going to pay the bill. And it works, they said with a hard laugh! So there is hope!
My email is collected every 5 minutes. How about once per hour or even per day? Hang on ... ok, "-d 3600". Let's see, how it goes. That is a factor 12 less. Not bad.
My gemini subscription index is currently updated only when I call gmisub manually. Currently like once per day. This is good. But of course I look at CAPCOM and callums gmisub-aggregator. And of course I have this faint feeling that I would miss out on good and interesting posts. Yepp! I do miss out all the time anyway! So why not just relax and accept the inevitable? Advertisement tries to stimulate this "But you miss out on this"-idea, too.
Well, actually this is kind of hilarious: I successfully avoided facebook et al. completely, I do not watch any television, and now I get nervous about gemini space? LOL!
I have been living behind a 384 kBit/s connection for a long time. And I did not miss a whole lot. While I do not want to go back (times of home office, you know), I should not forget that a slow connection does work, too.
Whacky idea:
A few times I came across the nice folks who take some pride in reviving teletext terminals. I could imagine to set one up in the living room --- however, even the idea was heavily frowned upon.
real communication makes noise
Still reading? Thank you for your precious time. I sincerly hope that you did not waste it.
Cheers,
~ew
With my smartphone, /slow/ works quite well: this gadget is always in airplane mode, unless I actively use it. The battery will last well over a week. Its uses are limited for me:
Maybe there are only few things anyone can do, but those are important, imho:
It is definitely acceptable to answer an email message tomorrow or next week, imho. It is acceptable to mute the cell phone, airplane-mode it or switch it off alltogether. The cell phone for me is a in-my-pocket-phone-booth. It is not my office assistant, and I'm not available online unless I choose to.
This is private stuff obviously. Day job may be different, but day job in my case never extends into my private time --- unless I choose to, maybe twice a year.
Show others that it can be done. Tell them "I do not expect an answer right away, unless I clearly state this in the message." Show them how to tweak their settings.
For some of us these things are most probably /obvious/ to the point, that we cannot even imagine how others would not see it the same way, right? :)