Slow Communication: A Manifesto
By Douglase Jones
Need I say anything more? This article by John Freedman at the Wall Street Journal sums up many of my Little Luddite feelings perfectly! Here is a pithy excerpt, but please read the full article here.
The ultimate form of progress, however, is learning to decide what is working and what is not; and working at this pace, emailing at this frantic rate, is pleasing very few of us. It is encroaching on parts of our lives that should be separate or sacred, altering our minds and our ability to know our world, encouraging a further distancing from our bodies and our natures and our communities. We can change this; we have to change it. Of course email is good for many things; that has never been in dispute. But we need to learn to use it far more sparingly, with far less dependency, if we are to gain control of our lives.
Now go sit down to write a letter by hand or have a cup of coffee with a dear friend. Let us pledge to slow down and appreciate community, the beauty of our world, and all that makes us who and what we are! Let us add Slow Communication to Slow Food as yet another means of appreciating our social nature.
