Show notes

Slow Web

  • Inspired by the Slow Food movement of the 80s

    More than 30 years ago, the charge against fast living began in Italy with a protest led by food connoisseur Carlo Petrini over the opening of a McDonald’s in the center of Rome.

  • First noted by IDoneThis

    “iDoneThis is a part of the Slow Web Movement. After you email us, your calendar is not updated instantaneously. But rest up, and you’ll find an updated calendar when you wake.”

  • Against the “click here, share now, like and retweet this” web

    The “slow web” is all about experiences we can really savor: reading one long article rather than skimming a thousand tweets, or catching up with friends who live far away rather than thumbing through Instagram.

What it is

  • Value, not addiction or lock-in
  • Prioritization and pruning, not speed
  • Timely, not real-time
  • Behavior change, not growth
  • Moderation not excess
  • Knowledge, not Information (Information passes through you; knowledge dissolves into you.)
  • Friendship, not networking
  • Rhythm, not random
  • Privacy and attention

Fast Web companies want to be our lovers, they want to be by our sides at all times, want us to spend every moment of our waking lives with them, when sometimes that’s not what we really need. Sometimes what we really need are friends we can meet once every few months for a bowl of ramen noodles at a restaurant in the East Village. Friends with whom we can sit and talk and eat and drink and maybe learn a little about ourselves in the process. And at the end of the night get up and go our separate ways, until next time.

The Fast Web is destination based — as in “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine, . . . now go out and buy your Ovaltine” — it exists to get you to go somewhere. The Slow Web is interaction based — meaning it puts effectiveness and the experience it’s delivering to its user above the number of page views it generates.

It’s the out of control Web. The oh my god there’s so much stuff and I can’t possibly keep up Web. It’s the spend two dozen times a day checking Web. The in one end out the other Web. The Web designed to appeal to the basest of our intellectual palettes, the salt, sugar and fat of online content Web. It’s the scale hard and fast Web. The create a destination for billions of people Web. The you have two hundred twenty six new updates Web. Keep up or be lost. Click me. Like me. Tweet me. Share me. The Fast Web demands that you do things and do them now. The Fast Web is a cruel wonderland of shiny shiny things.

Sustainable tech

Low Tech Magazine powered by solar energy

Indie Web

  • Owning and controlling your data

Sources