about

A research project that investigates social and participatory technologies that are trying to resist big tech.

What does a social media that valued community instead of capital look like? How do these values manifest through bodies interfaces, data flows and architectures?

Low Tech, Slow Tech, No Tech is led by Dr Joanne Armitage who is a 2022–23 visiting scholar at the Institute for Rebooting Social Media, Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society.

‘The machines do all the work’ a still image from workshop series Automation and Me. Photo by Anya Stewart Maggs

This project is a multidisciplinary investigation of the possibilities of social and participatory technologies that look outside of the unsustainable, market-driven logics of hegemonic social media platforms. It will focus on how social technologies are (or can be) re-imagined though existing use-cases, critical interventions, engagement with activist groups and wider publics. Ultimately, it will consider how low tech, slow tech and no tech communication technologies can address the real-world problems that social media presents to democracy, issues of equality and the environment

Low Tech Slow Tech No Tech draws from and build on existing projects Sus_NET and Equally Digital Digitally Equal.