Slow Media by Jennifer Rauch

The preface to this book had me immediately thinking about my own relationship with media and technology. Rauch describes how she spent 6 months living as if it were 1989 – no cell phone, no Internet, no MP3 player, etc. – and I was impressed. Granted, she did it in 2009, and she acknowledges that it would be much harder “today” (published 2018), but still. Her experience was a reminder to me that so many of the things we consider indispensable about modern technology are merely things we’ve gotten used to and don’t actually need.

Overall, I enjoyed taking a broader look at the topic of reducing technology use. I’ve read and thought about it plenty in the past, but Slow Media explores more than just the personal reasons for careful media choices; Rauch accounts for the environmental, ethical, and societal costs of adopting technology blindly and argues in favor of cultural changes in addition to individual ones.

Having not learned about the Slow Food movement, or other “Slow” ideas to which Rauch compares the nascent alternative media movement, I appreciated the concept. My own quest for digital minimalism has always been fueled by a desire to be intentional about my choices, to feel like I’m using the technology instead of the other way around. I understood Rauch’s capital-S Slow to be essentially the same: Slow doesn’t mean that we never do things quickly or give up on efficiency, but rather that we slow down in our decision-making and critically evaluate each “improvement” that we are offered. (And when we carefully consider our options, I’d argue that a less speedy or efficient option is the best choice in many cases.)

Rauch is a professor, and her book certainly feels very academic. I would have appreciated something a bit less verbose with more concrete examples, but I enjoyed Slow Media anyway. And to be fair, I think she was aiming to survey the state of alternative media use to encourage further research and advocacy rather than trying to directly appeal to the masses.

One final note: It was interesting (and frankly refreshing) to read about this topic with no mention of artificial intelligence. Discussing AI feels so obvious in this context, but Slow Media was published when AI still seemed like the stuff of science fiction to most people. I’m sure Rauch has some interesting, nuanced thoughts about the rate at which corporations, governments, and individuals are adopting AI – it feels alarmingly non-Slow to me – but it was nice to avoid that conversation for a while.