Hobbyist Academia #48

I still write handwritten cards. I like to buy them from small, independent gift shops that carry the less commercialized-looking ones. A simple design on the outside, blank on the inside. Something beautiful or something funny or something cute but always closer to art than advertising. I give them to people in person, or send them via snail mail. Birthdays, congratulations, just because.

I love receiving them too, and I save the ones I receive. There’s something so delightfully analog about them. A pen that someone held to a page and physically created the words. A human touch. No digital layer to the experience. We don’t have much left that isn’t touched in some way by the digital.

I think of a handwritten card as a type of touchpoint in my close relationships. It’s at the opposite end of the spectrum from the touchpoints that make up the beginnings of a friendship- the running into a familiar face, the hello at a community event. It’s also at the opposite end of the spectrum of something quick and small, like a check-in text.

To send a card is to extend a gesture. It requires planning and thought and execution to buy a card, write in it, bring it with you to give to someone, buy stamps and mail it. That human care is what gives it meaning.

Read

This piece was brilliant and gives me so much genuine hope for the future of our society. This is how we will repair the fabric of community that is being pulled apart by social media algorithms. Technology has enabled us to find more specific communities than ever before, but the real magic is in bringing them off our screens and into the real world.

Applied behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert’s thoughts on AI and automation really resonated with me, particularly his point that the biggest strength of AI is that we each “can choose what we don’t want to automate, what we want to only enhance or even do completely on our own.” One person might want to automate what someone else loves to do themselves, and vice versa.

I was intrigued to learn about seven39, a new social media experiment that is only available for three hours each evening. All users can use the site together for that short window of time, the scroll is not endless, and no one misses anything when they’re away because the site itself is closed. (I found this via New_ Public.)

Susan Cain recently shared fascinating research about the benefits of keeping a handwritten diary or journal. These benefits span the physical, emotional, social, and professional. Interestingly, the research was more focused on the benefits of processing life events through writing and did not specifically investigate whether writing thoughts by hand was better than a typed journal, but all the examples from the research were about physically putting pen to paper.

Renee Frojo’s recent newsletter is a great exploration of how to shift our mindset away from consumption and framing our activities for social media posts, and toward experiencing things fully in all their glorious details and creating original work.

I found Jocelyn K. Glei’s philosophical musings about the disappearance of the home button on the iPhone to be a thought provoking way to reflect on our relationship with technology.

On a related note, Rachel Ray Kay’s recent newsletter talks about the endless scroll loops that are built into our technology to keep us feeling like we’re never quite done. She concludes with actionable tips to reclaim our brains and our time from the loop.

Engage and Interact

SuprOrdinary is a documentary-format creative project by designer Devin Mathews sharing experiments and ideas as he ruthlessly pursues the goal of bringing more creativity into his life. I loved learning a bit more about him and the project from this interview. (I found this via Today in Design.)

Save This for Later

I am surprised to discover that I actually have not added any new books to the To Read list in the past two weeks. That being said, I would have to read a book a week for more than 12 years to make my way through my entire list, so maybe not the worst thing.

[I will receive a small commission should you purchase a book using the Bookshop links included in the newsletter or through my Bookshop collection, where you can find almost all the books I’ve included in the newsletter so far. Bookshop is an Amazon-alternative online bookseller that supports independent bookstores in your local community.]