A Moderner Website
←
in an IndieWeb Webring 🕸💍
→
From my digital minimalist perspective, where the goal is to avoid becoming an addict to digital consumerism.
There’s a spectrum of (low friction to use, low creative productivity): Apple hardware: MacBook>iPad>iPhone | software: VoiceMemos>Podcasts>TikTok.
Things furthest along are the things FirstWeek is a time to break from to be more discerning about usage during “on-times”: hardware & software which make it low-friction to watch algo-placed, ad-funded entertainment. Today that means socials on iPhones. I choose to forego my AirPods Pro with the iPhone, as usage leans consumerist.
Wearables advocates claim they will break the trade-off with the next wave as they’ll be low-friction, but will enhance IRL creative productivity via AR. Apple advocates are especially excited about the potentials of Glass in ‘22, and I can see watches & AirPods to come which integrate both with that, and your body more.
But will Apple stay dominant in the West? Will it stay relatively humane? Recent evidence suggests not.
In my workshopped musical Snowflakes in SoCal! I imagine a Western world where the tech is more Chinese: the AR is manipulative & invasive, people seek refuge in a VR so addictive that even environmentalists aware of its heinous carbon footprint can’t stop from daily usage (cf. today’s crypto-utopians).
If you think THAT mid-2020s is at all plausible, I’d suggest living in 2022 so that it won’t be too difficult to shift gears if you do want to forego wearables then.
Time to dig the Casio watch ⌚︎ and old cans out 🎵 next month
