December 2011
6 posts
Slow/No Internet Movement
I started my own “slow internet movement” years before NPR reported on it.
When I moved back to Nigeria two years ago, I had to suffer and yes, suffer the indignities of sluggish internet, further crippled by an epileptic power supply. Each bit and byte I downloaded proved a chore and I suddenly became more conscious of how I was spending my time online.
Do you have any idea how much data you use?
Check out this data calculator from ATT for an estimate.
I currently probably use about 10G of data a month, conservatively. Back in Nigeria, I was getting by on probably 1G. So I had to learn quickly how to conserve my data use. The result of that time was that I became very adept at downloading torrents, encoding/recoding mp3s/videos etc. into tiny, manageable files.
When you’re forced to be selective in your media consumption, your choices can be revealing.
I found myself downloading less music and more software, ebooks, audiobooks and games. It was an awesome and fulfilling time, as I discovered new genres like science fiction and short stories, learned more about photoshop and audio editing and became enamored by indie video games.
I’m thinking about undertaking a voluntary data fast and cutting my data usage down to 1.5-2G/month.
That works out to about:
10 mins of video per day/3 songs/30 emails (plus attachments), 10 - 20 webpages, 10 text messages/day.
It’s not much of a sacrifice. But in comparison to the 10 - 15G I am currently swallowing every month, it pretty much makes me a data ascetic.
Excited to see where this takes me…and to see how long it takes before I fall into a beauty spiral on Vimeo from which I only emerge from 12 hours later.
MayowaTomori.com
This is where I’ve been these last few weeks.
I decided to use WP to build my website platform. I miss the social of Tumblr, but the choice of themes/support/forums/what you can do with WP is still unmatched in my opinion.
What’s your call, Tumblr or WordPress?
Check out my website here:
