My relationship with technology is something that evolved through the years, but I never really thought about it. I was born in a time where one's relationship with information, news, content, and even one's own freedom was fundamentally different. I could be out and about in the neighborhood, and as long as I adhered to the rules of when to return, did not think of being truly alone or with my small circle of friends. I knew mostly my local happenings, perusing the small global newspaper section, before focusing on cinema schedules and tidbits of news on the island. I read and reread my small collection of books, until I could quote long passages from heart, and would listen to the radio, watch MTV, or play from my collection of CDs. Sometimes I wasn't happy. My first bout of depression happened when I was 16. But life was at a pace where the possibility of healing was not wholly out out of reach.
By the time I was in my 20s, I was living in the US, and technology become a more prominent part of my life. I moved here to study fashion design, but ultimately became a web designer. I remember making drawings in Illustrator, doing Photoshop tutorials to create MySpace friendly graphics, and often would spend part of my evening chatting with friends using Trillian or play DS games.. I played MP3s on Winamp, and was in awe that I could listen to my favorite songs whenever I want, anywhere. I think I was still happy then. I had freedom to log off.
Logging off is not really a thing anymore.
I am not as happy with my days as I used to. I dislike the idea of my phone making me perpetually available. I dislike feeling like the entirety of the world's news is nudging at the periphery of my attention. I dislike that the news is ever more outrageous. The world feels neon bright, bombastic, insistent.
But technology is a part of our lives now. And I wanted to think, in a concrete and mindful way, how I can reset my own relationship to it. My job is to design enterprise software. I am deeply entrenched in architecting the functionality of technological tools. But I feel that I need to unravel my current reality of a designer of digital offering to how I function as a human. I don't know how much I need to do before I feel the exhilarating freedom of not being plugged in to Silicon Valley.
The first step has been to detach myself from Alphabet. I migrated my email last year from Gmail (I've had gmail since 2005 so it was a PAIN and still ongoing). I removed Youtube from my phone, and decided to remove my email app as well. In 2019 I deleted my accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Last month, I deleted my WhatsApp account, and all IM platforms. I am migrating my personal data collections (knitting notes, recipes, etc) from Notion to Obsidian. I am debating deleting my Goodreads account, but want to keep Ravelry (the former being Amazon owned, and the latter never sold out). I think my goal is to make my data mine as much as I can find how to allow it. I would like at some point to leave the cloud for storage and setup something local, but that's definitely long term. I am debating on a dumb phone. Not because I'm a luddite! I just dislike my relationship with it. And I feel that the only way to break the script is to change what I have.
I am one person. I know I can't move the needle in what I feel is a technological era where quality is eroding people's trust. And my solutions are far from perfect. I don't think I will be able to make all my decisions based on my code of ethics and values. But I am so tired of doing nothing. By doing nothing, I feel helpless and shackled. By changing what I use, and when, and how I feel like I have a small bit of agency. And in 2026, I feel that that freedom is priceless.
Information is anything but a calm centre of life. It is not possible to linger on information. It is relevant only fleetingly. It lives off its capacity to surprise. Information's fleetingness alone can account for the fact that information destabilizes life. It constantly attracts our attention.
– Byung-Chul Han (Non-Things)