Maybe I hate technology
Opening up about my screen addiction on Manual in May drew a strong response. Among the many comments and emails I received, one message from a reader, R., stood out. A software developer, she related to my story. She said what saves her is “sort of hating technology.”
I’ve been thinking about it ever since I read that email, months ago.
I asked R. to elaborate on that contradictory relationship, working in technology while hating it. She replied:
I see my job as… a job. […] But beyond that, when I say I hate technology, it’s really my hatred of “tech bro” culture.
By “tech bro,” I assume she means a more or less defined set of cultural traits running through the tech industry (the chips-and-bits kind) that trace back to the Californian Ideology: the startup scene promising to “save the world,” the metamorphosis of some of those startups into Big Tech, the technological determinism around tools like generative AI, the staggering venture capital investments, commercial software/SaaS…
I took the liberty of broadening the targets of R.’s hatred because, after some reflection, I concluded that I hate all of it too.
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So it wouldn’t be fair to say I hate technology “writ large.” My contempt is aimed at a well-defined slice of it.
The problem is that, for some time now, “tech bro” culture has become nearly synonymous with what people imagine technology to be. That’s reductive and mistaken, sure, but it is what it is. I doubt that, when I tell someone I write about technology, they picture anything other than, say, phones, ChatGPT and Instagram.
The distaste I share with R. has been showing on this blog since late 2022, a moment that marked a turning point for me. After years of riling up both myself and my readers with Big Tech’s absurdities, the invasions of privacy — first isolated, then normalized — and the financialization of life, the tone got too heavy. I couldn’t stand myself anymore. Not coincidentally, I had only recently left behind the most severe depressive episode I can remember.
From then on, I wanted to talk about other things, good things. Cool initiatives. Free software, my own concerns. Sharing finds that lead us to a less-bad relationship with unavoidable technologies. Showing that there are alternatives that are more useful and/or simply cooler, ones we can use by choice, not because we’re forced to. Reporting on experiences that at first glance strike me as personal, even eccentric, but that I realize, once I share them, are common. Or that really are eccentric, and that’s fine.
I started wanting to publish a blog, not a one-person newspaper. More personal and less bitter, more like who I want to be.
There are some really good people covering and fighting against Big Tech’s abuses, legislative backsliding and everything in between. You probably know these outlets and people, if only because I mention them here from time to time — and I’ll keep doing so.
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For this Manual, though, I’m taking the occasion of its 13th anniversary (last Thursday, 15th) to, shall we say… make the current phase official, the one that began in late 2022, with a new tagline:
Healthy digital living.
It fits the editorial direction, the small community we cultivate, and what I consider the best possible “impact” that this project and I can have on the people who follow us. A healthier digital life, with better choices or, when that’s not possible, at least well-informed ones.
I don’t claim to be an authority on the subject, a guru, an influencer (god forbid!) or anything of the sort. I don’t like that role and don’t know how to play it, not to mention that I’m far from handling technology in the best way. I don’t think I ever have been, going back to my first contact with a computer ~30 years ago. I’m always learning in conversations with people.
To that end, may Manual do Usuário be a go-to place for us to learn together, from complex things like building your own home server to everyday ones, sometimes more impactful, like discovering a cool site that does something useful or fun. All of this without losing the playfulness and lightness, because life is far too dry otherwise.
Healthy digital living. It sounds almost utopian at this point. Still, shall we give it a try?