Slow Computing Why We Need Balanced Digital Lives, reviewed

Review of Slow Computing, Why We Need Balanced Digital Lives, by Rob Kitchin and Alistair Fraser available from Bristol University Press here.

Digital technologies should be making life easier. And to a large degree they are, transforming everyday tasks of work, consumption, communication, travel and play. But they are also accelerating and fragmenting our lives affecting our well-being and exposing us to extensive data extraction and profiling that helps determine our life chances.

Initially, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown seemed to create new opportunities for people to practice ‘slow computing’, but it quickly became clear that it was as difficult, if not more so, than during normal times.

Is it then possible to experience the joy and benefits of computing, but to do so in a way that asserts individual and collective autonomy over our time and data?

Drawing on the ideas of the ‘slow movement’, Slow Computing sets out numerous practical and political means to take back control and counter the more pernicious effects of living digital lives.

Slow Computing Why We Need Balanced Digital Lives, reviewed

There have been an increasing number of books on this topic, trying to work out the best ways to navigate our lives against a digital onslaught that would like us to be always on, always online, always connected, notified and updated. It makes a lot of sense to turn off the data on your phone sometimes, not have the GPS perpetually on, nor all the other apps that allow the world to constantly know where you are and what you are doing.

Kitchen and Fraser engage with this topic well, though perhaps for our taste it took a little long to describe what the issues were, perhaps the first third of the book. Whereas some might feel that the issue is pretty clear, as only yesterday the latest revelation about how much data Cambridge Analytica had, in collaboration with Facebook and the 2016 Trump election campaign to dissuade black votes from voting.

The authors clearly identify the issues though, and then also get their teeth into solutions, ideas, and concepts in terms of how we need to be more sentient around these issues. They are clearly inspired by Carl Honore and his slow food movement, as can be seen from the title itself. It is something we all need to be conscious of, why not use Duck Duck Go for your search engine, rather than allow Google to track your every moment?

There are lots of good suggestions to follow in this book and we strongly recommend you engage with the author’s suggestions.

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