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Digital minimalism, intentional tech and finding alternatives 

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Alyson Tyler
By
Alyson Tyler

A growing number of people are not only shifting away from big tech, but also re-thinking their relationship with tech itself. 

In this article Alyson Tyler explores how to cut down and be more intentional in the use of tech.

As the enshittification of tech platforms continues apace, people are beginning to explore the idea that celebrating degrowth, slowing down, and analogue lifestyles could not only be good for mental health but also help protect nature, the climate, and biodiversity.

Shifting away from the big tech monopolies can give you more control over how you get your information, how and where you communicate and do business, where you get your entertainment, and who knows about what you’re doing online.

Finding alternatives to the insidious behemoths of Big Tech is possible and can be approached in different ways:

  • switch to more ethical providers and change settings
  • cut down and be more intentional in the use of tech 
  • go analogue

Switching from Big Tech

Our shopping guides highlight the least ethical monopolies to avoid, and recommend more ethical companies to choose. Check out our guides to:

  • web browsers (forthcoming)
  • search engines (forthcoming)
  • social media (forthcoming)
  • AI large language model tools (chatbots) (forthcoming)
  • email providers

Some of the guides also have suggestions about changing your usage and settings e.g. to turn off automated AI search results for example. 

Cutting down and being more intentional about tech

Increasingly people are concerned about the impact of using some tech on their health and wellbeing, leading to a surge of interest in "intentional" use of tech.

This is about questioning how we use technology, and being more in control of our attention, time, and our data.

Some people are installing social media blockers on their mobile phones to limit their time on these platforms, or turning off notifications. Others are exploring ideas of using tech less by, for example, only using the phone when travelling and turning it off in the evening.

Digital minimalism can also mean using less tech. For example, when a phone needs replacing opting for one that is less intrusive and more about communication rather than doomscrolling. So-called “dumb phones” are an option for people who want a mobile phone but without all the additional connectivity and apps. We talk about practical choices for dumb phones in our mobile phones guide.

Reducing our dependency on technology can apparently help not only the brain and body, but also taps into ideas around degrowth and shifting away from massive global tech inequalities.

Retro computing is on the rise

Fans of the Commodore 64 (launched in 1982) will be pleased to hear that it is being brought back to life. The vision for the revived Commodore is focused on digital minimalism, with a retro design, updated hardware, and compatibility with modern peripherals. It will also intentionally promote a “digital detox” philosophy to “reconnect users with the simplicity and creativity of retro computing”.

Cutting out tech and going analogue

Cutting out tech products completely is also a growing phenomenon: either on an ad hoc basis, or permanently.

Generation Alpha (born roughly 2010-2024), Gen Z (1997-2010), and millennials (1981-1996) are apparently embracing digital minimalism with a growing interest in vinyl records, CDs and DVDs, retro gaming, and offline music players. For example, some people take a digital detox for a day, weekend, or on holiday, where they turn their mobile phone off and use no other tech like social media.

Analogue entertainment comes in many formats. It can involve replacing an evening of scrolling on YouTube and Facebook’s addictive short video reels with reading a book, magazine, playing a game, connecting with friends in person, or learning a skill like crafts or a language.

Our recent survey on Ethical Consumer readers’ views of social media found that many people had left some or all platforms, and that others had never joined. They also spoke about offline alternatives to social media, such as finding local groups to connect with people (see the Logging Off Club), and about using traditional news sources such as newspapers and magazines.

Three people playing dominoes on table outside in sunshine
Photo of people playing dominoes outside. Image by Kampus Production from Pexels.

Joining support groups and campaigns

Joining support groups and campaigns can help you navigate the world of alternative tech, and alternatives to big tech. We list a few examples here.

Digital Independence Day – held monthly. “Digital switch recipes” are provided with lots of resources and guidance for that specific activity. The resources show you how to make a switch, e.g. from Windows to Linux, or Microsoft to LibreOffice.

In the book, How to do nothing: resisting the attention economy (2019) by Jenny Odell she describes “doing nothing as an act of political resistance”. She writes about how “it is this financially incentivised proliferation of chatter, and the utter speed at which waves of hysteria now happen online, that has so deeply horrified me ...”

Read Positive Psychology’s How To’s on doing a digital detox and how to have a hopeful digital environment (including a better media diet).

Join Media Liberation Day on 5th November: freedom from the billionaires’ control of media.

We also make suggestions for other organisations to support in our alternatives to Trump article which includes groups in the United States of America.

The Rebel Tech Alliance have lots of useful resources on tips for switching products/services, changing settings on phones, and ‘tech walkout’ programmes, as well as links to a large list of organisations working in this area in the UK, Europe, the USA, and globally. 

There are other technical switches you might want to make, such as cloud storage, which we haven't covered in our guides. The Digital Exodus Guidebook has lots of switching tips and suggestions.

You might also want to look at the No To Big Tech Movement for their occasional De-Google webinars.

Examples from Ethical Consumer staff of moving away from Big Tech 

Yalda uses the BePresent app on her phone to block apps and set timers "so I can disengage from my phone throughout the day". She prints out longer articles to read which allows her to “digest more slowly, actually finish what I'm reading and not see it purely as content.” She has also enjoyed a week’s digital detox on a writing retreat. Yalda said, “just a few days without a phone made a much bigger difference than I would've ever expected – in terms of mood, mental clarity, confidence, pace, empathy – everything.”  She has also been following a practice called #offline48 where you take the weekend off from the phone and social media (see Venetia La Manna).

Alyson has switched her default search engine to the NoAI version of DuckDuckGo and uses several ad blockers and privacy blockers on her web browser (Firefox). She shifted from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice about six years ago, and more recently switched (with assistance) her laptop operating system from Microsoft Windows to Linux Mint, which is free and open source.

Nadine has started to de-Google here life. She has moved from Google mail to a Proton account and stopped using a Google integrated phone. She has stopped using streaming music service Spotify and has returned to using her original library of mp3 music tracks and buying music from Bandcamp and storing it on her phone. “It feels nice to be mindful about how I consume music.”

Katrina also uses a setting on her phone which blocks social media between certain hours. She also borrows books from the library and boycotts Amazon.

Degrowth and Big Tech

Perhaps unsurprisingly, proponents of degrowth have also been reflecting on the emergence of AI and Big Tech in not very flattering terms. Here are just two examples:

AI + Planetary Justice Alliance

A collective of researchers, activists, and artists exploring the planetary justice impacts of AI across its supply chain. The AI + Planetary Justice Alliance has written about how “At its root, AI reflects and reinforces the ideological, technical, and material logics of a worldview centered on endless growth, control, and standardization.”

Digital Degrowth

Degrowth: Technology in the Age of Survival by Michael Kwet is a book which addresses new challenges emerging from the digitalisation of every sector of our lives and provides solutions that directly impact the climate change debate.

Switching from Windows to Linux

The process of changing your computer's operating system (OS) may initially scare you, but it's one way to save money and avoid Microsoft. Linux is free and open source. 

The general steps are as follows:

  • Do a backup of your data onto an external hard drive or large USB pen. (You do a regular backup, don’t you?)
  • Put a Linux iso (file) on a USB pen. Mint Cinnamon is a good one to try first.
  • Start your computer and boot from the USB.
  • If all seems fine when you use it to do a few test things, you can install Linux on the drive and wipe Windows.
  • Enjoy your freedom, and the new lease of life on your hardware.

Find out more e.g. from https://endof10.org/

You may also wish to buy or borrow a guidebook to Linux, or use online resources, as the operating system is different from Windows so some tasks will need re-learning. Linux online support communities are very good.

If you're not comfortable changing your OS, ask for recommendations locally for someone who can help you.

Pro-human not anti-tech

Becoming more intentional in our use of tech, reducing it, and/or switching from Big Tech to smaller, independent companies, doesn't mean we are anti-tech. 

It's means we're choosing to be pro-human and pro-society. 

“The Big Tech giants have more accumulated wealth than the annual gross domestic product of most countries”, says writer and academic Michael Kwet. 

Kwet sees this as a form of digital colonialism, with tech monopolies dominating, and controlling, the world’s “social media networks, search engines, semiconductors, cloud computing systems, operating systems, business networking, office productivity software and more.”

It's time to take back control.

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