J20 minus 64 — try a digital sabbath

Technology has no doubt played an important role in organizing. From driving the Arab Spring^[1] to viral fundraising efforts for medical research^[2] to direct aid for people in need^[3], social media and the internet allow people to spread their message much wider than they normally would be able. Nevertheless, the dependency on digital communication and messaging carries with it a few risks.

It will be a recurring theme of Left✊ to Our Own Devices that preparedness and survival under authoritarianism will require one to be able to live without constant access to an internet-connected smartphone. Our official stance is that while phones and social media are at times extremely useful tools, they are also at all times also a cop. Your phone allows you to be tracked, both digitally and in physical space. It allows you to be spied on. It is a carrier of nonstop evidence that can be used against you. It is a vector through which your organizing networks can be compromised. We are not intendying to vilify anyone who uses their phone for community, for organizing, for revenue, or for fun. However, we should prepare for a time when it becomes entirely infeasible to use a phone or social media for these purposes without exposing ourselves to immense state violence. In other words, it is necessary to build non-digital/non-connected channels for community/organizing/revenue/fun to reduce our reliance on a mechanism that can be swiftly turned against us.

It's hard to do that and nobody is suggesting quitting technology cold turkey. Even the Luddites^[4] among us recognize that technology has irreplaceable utility. The goal is instead to develop some "muscle memory" for how to live from time to time without technology. This will serve you well not just in a time of crisis, but in your every day life as well. One such approach that we suggest you explore is the idea of a Digital or Technology Sabbath. The term "technology sabbath" (or "technology shabbat") was created by Tiffany Shlain, an artist, filmmaker and writer. Far from being anti-technology, Shlain had early foresight into the web as a global communications tool. She helped co-found the Webby Awards and founded The International Academy of Digital Arts & Science. You can read all this on her Wikipedia—point is, she's not someone I would describe as inherently anti-technology.

In 2010, Shlain came up with the idea of unplugging from technology for 24 hours as a way to reflect more on the time and connectedness we have with the people around us. Citing the Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel and his work The Sabbath^[5], Shlain reflects that the sabbath is about slowing down time and protecting ourselves from the constant pressures and expectations of work and society. She also remarks that by disconnecting for one day a week, she began to better appreciate what technology and connectedness brought to her life.

There is one simple fact: the twenty-first century authoritarian will rely on technology as a weapon of control, and therefore the twenty-first century dissident will need to be able to break reliance on technology to reduce that weapon's potency. In this post, I'll cover some reasons why you should consider unplugging for at least one day a week as well as some tips for how to get started on it.

Why you should consider a regular digital sabbath

If the above text didn't inspire you, here are a couple more concrete, evidence-based reasons to consider going offline periodically.

Reason #1: Your phone, the cop

Digital surveillance is unquantifiable. Your cell phone leaves a glaring digital footprint in physical space,^[6] for example by making searchable people who visited an abortion clinic^[7] on any given day or by allowing the government to draw geofences^[8]. The government doesn't think it needs a warrant^[9] to use this data.

Investigators are consistently asking for data from big tech companies,^[10] and big tech companies are consistently giving it to them.^[11] And while encypted messaging tools like Signal can help you stay safe, we also know state actors are pouring vast resources into compromising these devices^[12] to enhance their spying abilities.

Moreover, we know that state actors have special tools, either homegrown or provided by social networks,^[13] to archive, monitor and search social media feeds.^[14] Police widely use StingRay IMSI-catcher^[15] devices at protests or other events. Essentially, your phone is always being spied on regardless of whether anyone is trying to spy on you, specifically.

For this reason alone, it's worthwhile to leave our pocket police behind, sometimes. We don't really need the cops to know about our Taco Bell habits or whose houses we visit. A digital sabbath will help us reflect on and resist our default behaviors of bringing our phones with us at all times, and in doing so, will help us build intentional habits of resisting constant surveillance.

Reason #2: Doomscrolling is bad for you

The internet is awash in bad news and rage bait. Community drama is hard to resist. Social media hyper-targets our dopamine centers for engagement. It's easy to get lost in the toxic, perpetual negativity of our feeds.

This is bad for your mental health. A small but growing body of research is finding that our constant exposure to endless stressful content is having adverse effects on our mental and physical health.^[16][17][18] A community under constant stress and despair cannot organize and cannot fight back. Moreover, many of the things we despair about are outside of our control. You cannot do anything about who Donald Trump picks for his National Security Advisor. It is not necessary for you to hold this information in your body.^[19]

A digital sabbath will help improve your mental health tremendously. Although it can be isolating to be offline and away from peers, all of our relationships will survive if we go offline for 24 hours a week. The simple act of banning my phone from my bedroom got me back to a book-reading pace that I hadn't enjoyed in at least 20 years, if ever. It's good to disconnect.

Reason #3: Everything you depend on is out of your control

Any online network or community you build that depends on a specific distribution channel is either at the whim of a billionare (e.g. Elon Musk buying Twitter) or at the mercy of the precarity of the site operators (e.g. Cohost going offline), or both. Simply put, when you do not control the technology, you are at the mercy of the owners of the technology.

This is not just true for big corporate services like Facebook or X/Twitter, it is also true for non-profit organizations and community-run services. The infrastructure for a globally-distributed communications backbone is actually a massive pain-in-the-ass to run at any layer. It's usually brutal, thankless work where the only time you hear from the users is when they are mad at you. You should assume every service you use can be shut off at any time.

This isn't just true about social media networks. It's also true about tools like Google Maps (do you know how to navigate offline?) or local newspapers (do you know how to find out what's going on around town?) or delivery services (do you have someone who can bring you food if the apps are down?) Under authoritarianism, any service you use is provided by the grace of the authoritarians and you should assume every service is compromised. This doesn't mean you need to stop using Google Maps to navigate entirely. It does mean you should have alternatives ready, know how to use them, when those alternatives also fail, to have the skills to be independent of always-connected digital tech.

These skills take practice to develop. A digital sabbath is a way to habitualize practicing those skills.

How to prepare to habitualize disconnecting

It's not easy to just up and quit technology, even just for a day. There's a lot of our life built into "online" and setting it aside takes actual preparation and discpline. But it can be made easier. Here are some tips.

Start small

I mentioned earlier about banning my phone from my bedroom. Though I have not always been 100% consistent with this, I have noticed that it makes me much happier overall. I waste less time on social media. I have harder boundaries between my work and personal time—I'm not reading emails in bed. I'm reading more (current book: Vision on Fire: Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution) and exercising more. I get out of bed earlier and have healthier, more productive days. Just disconnecting for a couple more hours a day has led to massive improvements in my life. Your experience will vary, but it's a start.

Another strategy is to change how you use social media. Challenge yourself to post nothing for a week. Refrain from quote posts. Try a week where you change what you share. Curate your following. Small changes in behavior add up to large ones over time.

Make a paper list of critical addresses and phone numbers

Do you know your friends' addresses and phone numbers? Your doctor's offices'? Keeping written records of critical information isn't just helpful for you to get through a day with no technology, it also helps in times of crisis. If you are incapacitated in some way, your loved ones need a way to know how to contact your friends, relatives, or support networks. Paper records are harder to encrypt and I wouldn't necessarily write down the address of an abortion provider, weed man, or protest co-organizer, but you probably have people in your life who aren't that. You might find that if you connect with people offline more, you'll build stronger connections with them.

Have a list of things to do that aren't work

Books to read, museums to visit, hobbies to get back to. Our time spent online takes away from these things that we love. Put together a list of things you'd like to accomplish if you weren't spending your time doomscrolling. And make this list explicitly not a list of work work, as in not things you need to do to feel more productive under capitalism. Maybe you want to learn knitting or finish that sweater, or tend to your garden or build a cabinet or learn to paint or to dance. These things are revolutionary, too. Make a list of things you'd like to do on your day without technology and, critically, start preparing these things before the technology sabbath! You'll find you're reclaiming more and more of your time.

Don't feel bad if it doesn't work at first

This is tough. Habits are hard to break. It's OK if you can't make this work right away. Preparedness is a practice. Taking a digital sabbath might not be for you. Or maybe you just want to reduce online time by a little bit. That's fine, too. Just remember that the idea behind this digital sabbath is that it is a way to practice for a time when we cannot safely rely on technology, and it is about developing an intentionality to step away from the corporate oversight of our lives. Nobody is keeping score here. There's no judgment if you succeed at this or not. It's just one strategy of many to help us prepare for life under 21st-century techno-authoritarianism, and if it works for you, great! If not, there are many other things you can do to prepare. Good luck!