Crashing the Boy’s Club: Women on Digital Wellbeing
It’s Women’s History Month and I have been thinking a lot about, you know, sexism.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a load of books come out by men on the dangers of digital devices. These guys have contributed a lot to the conversation, but I’ve noticed that often their endgame is an obsession with productivity, efficiency and profit. Deep work, time blocking: you know the drill. There’s even one guy who wrote a book on creating addictive technology only to turn around and write another book on our personal responsibility to break tech addiction with his simple 4-step plan. Um, thanks?
Guess what? As is so often the case, a lot of women said it first and said it better. And rather than individual productivity, they have focused on joy, heart, soul, spirit, relationships, community, equity and justice. Encouraging us to find balance with our tech so we can embrace all aspects of our life, not just feeding the machine of capitalism.
So, in honor of Women’s History Month, I want to introduce you to the incredible books by women who inspired me to do this work.
Here are some inspiring, brilliant must-read books to add to your reading list:
In her seminal works Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Our Technology and Less from Each Other (2011) and Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (2016), MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle established herself as one of the first and best voices about technology’s impact on our lives. These books were brilliant and prescient, yet she gets very little acknowledgment and credit in the above-mentioned boys club.
In Deviced: Balancing Life and Technology in a Digital World, psychologist Doreen Dodgen-Magee offers a research-based but joyful read on the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual impact of excessive screen-use with solutions that are so sensory, joyful and fun you won’t even miss looking at your phone.
In Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities.
In How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy artist and writer Jenny Odell provides an action plan for thinking outside of the narratives of efficiency and tech-determinism.
In Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In a World Designed By Men writer and feminist activist Caroline Criado Perez breaks down the consequences of systemically ignoring half the population when using data to make policy, medical and technology decisions.
In The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World, author Christina Crook reminds us how to rediscover quietness of mind and a sense of peace amidst the cacophony of modern life.
Let’s support women’s voices. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have.
Much Love,
Christina
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