The Digital Minimalism Toolkit

Released in September this year, My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open. explores the lexicon of computer-based living.

Among the scenarios included are:

• Doomscrolling – endlessly consuming doom-and-gloom news, a habit perpetuated by attention-seeking algorithms that triggers anxiety and depression;
• Comparison Culture – 52% of teens feel less confident because of feeling inadequate when comparing their social media profiles with other people’s;
• Vampire Shoppers – dead-of-night, sleepless shoppers who spend a third more than daytime shoppers, and range from nocturnal gamers to exhausted parents;
• Digital Legacies – before the end of the century there could be 4.9 billion deceased internet users, yet only 7% of us want our online profiles maintained after death;
• Cyberchondria – Dr Google is causing a wave of misdiagnoses from anxious searchers, with 35% of all US adults among this number;
• Clicktivism – also known as slacktivism, is virtue signalling through performative alignment with online causes, but can it ever amount to meaningful change?

This focus on computer-age neologisms shines a bright light onto the world we are being shunted into; the book also includes practical suggestions for anyone considering a saner path.

Meanwhile, the Stolp. This is a very unusual object. It exists as encouragement to worthwhile human interaction, whether in the boardroom or at the dinner table. It is a glamorously-designed smartphone depository that will, courtesy of its built-in Faraday cage, render a stack of e-slabs incommunicado: no Wi-Fi or mobile phone signal will get in or out (assuming it is at least 2 m from the Wi-Fi’s source). It serves as a sophisticated and convivial alternative to up to six lonely on/off buttons. It is a re-usable Pandora’s Box, ensuring that when its users ‘disconnect to reconnect’, they do so with brio and panache.

The Stolp normally retails at €49.95; more information can be found here.