How you can help

You have hopefully read about the principles, the vibe, the badge and the context. As for the examples, we are certain you can come up with plenty more. And we’d love for you to do just that. Both theoretically and practically, the Slow Internet concept is built to be built upon. Fringe movements can be lovely. For one, it’s at the fringes one tends to find the more ideologically consistent versions of what turns diluted once in the more main stream. Furthermore, just like how the right pace remains better than a high pace, the right size of a movement depends on its objective. For something like Slow Internet, which is about changing collective norms and taking collective action, bigger is, however, better. So, although we’re starting small and slow, the goal is for the Slow Internet philosophy to proliferate and inform how a lot of people go about shaping enterprises and interfaces they can influence. For such a movement to be actualised, you’re very much invited to help plant and spread some crucial seeds. Depending on who and where you are, what those seeds consist of, and where you ought to plant them varies – again, your own ideas are likely to be more well-informed than ours. Even so, here’s a compilation of the kinds of actions that will help the slow to grow.

Platform Slow Internet

The lion’s share of what hustle culture, growth hackers, and grindset folks go on about comes down to repeatedly execute one simple action: send some emails. So, if you want to instil Slow Internet norms, indeed, do send some emails. They can be addressed to editors and journalists who cover tech-, design- and culture-related ventures. They can also be sent to people who curate related conferences and talk fests. In essence, and at least at the point in time when this text is written, platforming the Slow Internet movement is what will help it the most.

Why not ping your favourite caster, be it of the broad or pod variant, and recommend they invite us? Corin is the suitable speaker/guest if it’s a platform or stage covering the intersection of tech and society. Markus is the go-to when the themes tangent the engineering side of the Slow Internet approach.

Platforming can also be geared towards educators. For example, you could alert a design professor about this book and suggest that it be used in a course curriculum.

As for the pitching emails themselves, ask your preferred generative AI to draft them, or write them independently – whatever suits your liking. And, of course, if you yourself have a platform of some kind and size, send the email directly to us instead, requesting our participation.

Reach out to companies

Contact organisations that offer hellsites and ask them, explicitly, for a Slow Internet version of their service. If true, state that you’d gladly pay for such an option. Similar to dark and energy-saving modes, technically, it’s fully conceivable to make a slow mode for any platform today. So request it. Sure, sometimes getting hold of the people behind a web-based organisation is hard to impossible. If so, ping them on whatever social channels they might be on, or make the request through a third party, like an online magazine or a clout-heavy creator.

Build browser extensions

Fun fact: We, the authors, met when Corin had conceived of a plugin that would redesign Twitter (this was in 2010) and Markus volunteered to build it. That same possibility remains for any website. Browsers are incredible things through which you can override code on every website you visit, whether to block ads and trackers or do a slow remake of the entire thing. How much of the original site’s functionality remains usable when you do this depends on how the site is built, but there’s generally more flexibility to tap here than most people are aware of.

Get personal about palm trees

The algorithms of today tend to favour and promote selfies and personal stories. In that lane, if you’re comfortable, share your personal journey with the Internet, the ups and downs, moments of fatigue and fed-upness, reignited hope – whatever it may be. End your story on a palm tree-esque, Slow Internet dreamy note. Since the Stressed Internet steals plenty of lifetime and well-being, many of us certainly have stories to share, and as the big platforms’ algorithms love toothless #positivity there is something delicious in feeding the feed all it’s asking for, but with that positivity bit being all about leaving those kinds of demands and algorithms in the dust and far behind us.

Host

Be it a meet-up, book circle or dinner party with a Slow Internet theme. If you need questions to start or guide the conversation, send us an email, and we’ll provide you with some suitable starters for the chosen format of your event. We will also publish some related starter packs on this website as the movement starts unfolding.

Amplify on socials

We are starting this movement without a presence on the big social media sites. That doesn’t mean we aren’t more than happy to have advocates for the movement and its related norm shifts active on even the most vile platforms. Although, if you’re on them, we hope you protect yourself accordingly.

A humble suggestion, would you want to promote Slow norms on Stressed sites, is making shorts where you move in slow motion, sure to make a scroller wonder what’s wrong and stop for a moment – a moment where you can tune them into what Slow Internet is and what it represents to you. This is one idea, and you’re likely to have plenty that are better. The beauty of every platform with user-generated content remains the creative prowess of human beings – whether algorithmically aided or when acting more on their own. However, using oppressive tech tools to advertise their liberation dittos is likely to be algorithmically disfavoured. Still, just as a whole lingo (from “unaliving” to “corn”) has developed to circumvent platform restrictions, creativity finds a way. Where there is a 20-meter wall, there tends to form a 21-meter tall ladder. So, if you’re on and know a certain platform well, find a way to make it work for your cause. Advertising the exit sign to people who are stuck inside the room – from inside the room – is as noble a cause as they come.

Remix this book

All text and images here are created under a so-called Creative Commons licence. These licences enable remix culture and the like, as they legally indicate that – unlike the case with traditional copyright – people are free and even encouraged to repurpose works according to the creators’ specific wishes. There are several kinds of Creative Commons licences, all with their respective guidelines. The one we’ve chosen for Slow Internet is the Attribution-NonCommercial variant, which allows you to use the text and images as long as you attribute them to the original authors and don’t use what we’ve created to turn a profit. Go ahead and make memes, use quotes, cover your vehicles in palm trees, and in whatever other way you want find ways to comment, expand and add your twists, languages and aesthetics to what we’re hereby placing on the proverbial table.

Legislate

Redesigning the markets that incentivised forth the Stressed Internet can and must be achieved through many kinds of legislative actions. From easing the way for certain technical solutions (such as Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid) to creating restrictions around predictive algorithms and addictive interfaces. Depending on what aspect of the Internet you, as a legislator, are interested in, different organisations will be suitable to provide detailed guidance. We keep close tabs on organisations in privacy, AI risk and tech governance, and are happy to direct you to knowledgeable people in the fields Slow Internet tangents. Would you want our assistance, reach out to [email protected], and we’ll make sure to support, explain and make introductions.

Build and organise

Where other kinds of world improvement are often physically limited, the ephemeral terrain that is our online reality lends itself to the most direct form of action. You can go out, or even just sit down at home, and code the worlds you want. Yes, the tech giants tend to eat small ventures for both lunch and breakfast, and indeed, antitrust laws are seldom enforced. But the easiest way to make sure whatever version of an oppressor will continue their oppression is to stop yourself in the tracks before even attempting resistance. To be small starts and ends with feeling and acting small. If you are an engineer, designer or someone who knows how to learn things, you can claim agency to create what you want and resist what you don’t. Moreover, as we are by now an algorithmically aided species, you can do all of that as if you had a whole team working for you, be it to do research or write code. As long as you can envision how you would want something – an interface, a city, a society – you have a chance at organising the people and machinery you’d need to bring that vision about. That’s always the case, but even more so with our virtual realities.

Create a hackathon

(Photo of Ms. Ahmed by Per Ringqvist.)

We like this particular idea enough to have a fantastic person ready in the trenches to support all hackathon-related efforts. Internet Futures Facilitator Najla Ahmed helps provide themes and challenges around which you can invite developers, designers, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and the like to build Slow Internet ventures.

Najla also gathers outcomes from successful hackathons to support cross-pollination between past and future events. This is done to avoid the often wasteful culture around hackathons, where the value created during the intense hacking sessions tends to be disregarded when the attendees return to their daily lives.

If you’re interested in running a hackathon, or just want to know more, reach out to [email protected].

Encourage us

Like all eutopians, people who suggest affable approaches tend to get a lot of pushback, hence why it’s common to run out of faith, even before running out of funds. So help us remain hopeful enough to keep swinging, pushing and creating. We have plenty of ideas and are always most excited to get in contact with people with complementary resources, be it skill sets, economic means, or both. Simple words of pure encouragement are golden too.