The “slow internet” movement is an attempt to oppose the modern fast-paced world
photo: CC0 Public Domain)
Letters come every day. A small woman with a handcart walks along the sidewalk, stops in front of each entrance, gets up on her toes and drops the letters in the cracks in the mailboxes. Advertisements and brochures, household bills and rarely any other messages arrive. If we want to say something to an acquaintance, we open the phone or computer to write an email or message in a messenger.
The old-fashioned mail – it is a role model for the new personal communication application called Pony Messenger . It’s still a kind of email, but it “travels” like a letter in the mail. A person composes the message and puts it in an outbox. Once a day, Pony “comes and takes” the letters and delivers them to the recipients. The user can determine at what time of the day the delivery will take place. That’s right. That’s right – slow email.
Dmitry Minkovski is the author of this application. He has been working on Pony for the last three years in order to restore some of the magic that online life has erased.
He is not the only one. In 2007, the Laboratory for the Near Future developed Slow Messenger, a messaging device that only reveals messages if you hold it in your hand. Last year, the artist Ben Grosser created the social network Minus, in which one can publish only 100 times.
Other initiatives to slow the use of technology include Dialup (phone call app), Slowly (Written Friendship Service) and Mail Goggles – a Gmail add-on that “prevents regret in emails.”
All of this falls into a wide range of inventions that have emerged recently in response to the “suppressive instantaneity” of the global network. The “slow internet” movement is a kind of continuation of the already unfolding movements for slow eating and slow living ”- an attempt to oppose the modern dynamic, fast-paced world, which presses us with shorter and shorter deadlines and more and more instantaneous interactions in all spheres of everyday life. For participants in these movements, this is a return to normalcy.
Even those who are not supporters of the concept of slower living accept that the Internet needs some type of braking mechanisms to reduce their harmful effects. Proof of this are the laws passed in some countries for banning correspondence between bosses and their employees outside working hours: tasks can wait until the next working day (except in cases of force majeure).
In an even broader sense, these movements are linked and with growing resistance to pointless consumerism. This is a challenge to the principles on which the so-called social networks are built – “everything now, here and now”.
For many young people, this slow “normalcy” can to be unknown and incomprehensible. “It’s not just about being first, fast and superficial,” wrote film critic Jim Emerson, quoted by The Athlantic. . “This is an opportunity to look at a range of arguments and evidence.”
If we try to correspond today through a “slow e-mail”, it will probably be difficult for many to form their letters. Guided by the thought that the messages will not be read until the next day, some are stunned and find it difficult to formulate their text. Over the years, the Internet has made us act as if every letter or message is a small piece of the constant flow of information and events that flows independently of each of us.
When we try to slow down, it makes us think about the way we express ourselves, what we say and how. The message will be read tomorrow – this means that many more may have happened by then things. We must speak carefully, we must express ourselves clearly and intelligibly. We need to say something complete and complete that will have value for our interlocutor tomorrow, and after at least some time.
And we need to learn to appreciate every little thing , which builds our knowledge, skills and wisdom of life.
Maria Maltseva
Writes on IT topics since the end of 1999 with a focus on business software and information society issues. Since 2009 he also writes about green technologies All publications from Maria Maltseva »
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