Slow Computing Week on Culture File by Soundsdoable / Culture File

There's bind that many of us find ourselves in 2018. We are increasingly struck by the compulsive effects of our phones, our laptops, our apps, our social platforms; and increasingly worried about what's happening to the data all these technologies harvest from us. But we are quite fond of them, still find them useful and enjoyable despite the anxiety.

In this special series of episodes of RTE lyric fm's Culture File, we're looking at one idea that is offering a degree of resistance, and even just pause for thought: Slow Computing.

Photos (above right) are by Lindsay Ems, who has studied Amish communities in the US, and discovered a nuanced attitude to technological change. She found that within the various communities there was a wide divergence of attitudes to tools and technologies, with many weighing up whether various possible technologies might, overall, improve or impair their lives, before deciding what might or might not be used. In the pictures, for example, you can see an "off grid phone charger" found at one Amish bedside, and "phone box" a cross between a landline and a mobile, improvised to conform with Amish beliefs.

Contains tracks

• Culture File's Slow Computing Week by Soundsdoable / Culture File
• Culture File: Slow Computing Week - What is Slow Computing? by Soundsdoable / Culture File
• Culture File: Slow Computing Week - Robert Lustig by Soundsdoable / Culture File
• Culture File Xtra: Prof Robert Lustig Xtended Interview by Soundsdoable / Culture File
• Culture File: Slow Computing Week - Stefania Milan, Adi Kuntsman & Esperanza Miyake by Soundsdoable / Culture File