Notes on Slow Computing
I have been thinking about the idea of slow computing for a few years now, though I only recently settled on that particular phrase to describe it. The concept is straightforward: use your computer deliberately, maintain what you have, resist the constant pull toward newer and faster, and try to be present with whatever task is actually in front of you. It is not a radical idea. It is, if anything, the way most people used computers for the first few decades of personal computing. But somewhere along the way, the culture shifted, and now the default mode of engagement with technology is one of perpetual acquisition, perpetual notification, and perpetual dissatisfaction with whatever you already own.
My main laptop is a ThinkPad I bought several years ago. I do not remember the exact year offhand, but it was not new when I got it. It was a refurbished unit from one of the resellers I have used over the years. The specs are modest by any current standard. The processor is adequate. The RAM is sufficient for what I do. The screen is not high-resolution, but it is perfectly readable, and I have never once felt limited by it while working on documents or browsing reference material. The keyboard, which is the part of a laptop I care about most, is excellent. ThinkPads have always been good in this regard, and this one is no exception. I replaced the battery once, about two years after I got it, and that is the only maintenance it has required beyond the occasional compressed air cleaning.
People sometimes ask me why I do not upgrade. The honest answer is that I have never encountered a situation where the machine could not do what I needed. I write documents. I manage files. I do research online. I occasionally process images or convert file formats. I maintain a few spreadsheets. None of this requires a modern processor or a dedicated graphics card. The laptop boots in a reasonable amount of time, applications open without complaint, and files save as quickly as they ever did. If there is a bottleneck in my workflow, it is almost always me thinking through a problem, not the hardware struggling to keep up.
There is a philosophical dimension to this as well, though I hesitate to overstate it. When you stop chasing specifications and release cycles, you develop a different relationship with your tools. The laptop becomes familiar in a way that a constantly-replaced device never can. I know its quirks. I know that the trackpad is slightly less responsive in the lower-left corner. I know that the fan spins up when I have more than a certain number of browser tabs open. I know that the power adapter makes a faint clicking sound for the first few seconds after I plug it in. These are not problems. They are characteristics. The machine has a personality, in the way that a well-used hand tool has a personality, and there is something grounding about that.
Notifications are another area where I have made deliberate choices. I turned off almost all notifications on my devices several years ago and have never regretted it. Email notifications were the first to go. Then social media, though I use very little social media to begin with. Then news alerts. Then app update reminders. What remains is essentially nothing. My phone can ring if someone calls, and text messages come through, and that is about it. Everything else waits until I decide to check it. The result is not that I miss important things. The result is that I check things on my own schedule, process them with full attention, and respond thoughtfully rather than reactively.
I think there is a widespread assumption that being constantly connected and constantly notified makes a person more productive or more informed. In my experience, the opposite is true. The interruptions fragment attention. Each notification, even if you dismiss it immediately, costs a small amount of mental energy. Over the course of a day, those small costs add up. I find that I get more done, and do better work, when I am not being pinged every few minutes. The work itself is not glamorous. Cataloging files, cross-referencing sources, formatting documents. But it requires sustained attention, and sustained attention requires an environment that supports it.
The urge to upgrade is, I think, driven partly by marketing and partly by a genuine anxiety about falling behind. There is always a new operating system, a new version of some software, a new device with a slightly better display or a slightly faster chip. The marketing around these things is designed to make your current setup feel inadequate, even when it is perfectly functional. I have learned to be skeptical of that feeling. When I catch myself thinking that I need something newer, I try to identify the specific task I cannot accomplish with what I have. Almost always, there is no such task. The desire for the new thing is abstract, not practical.
I should note that I am not opposed to new technology in principle. I am not a Luddite. I use the internet extensively for research. I appreciate well-designed software. I have, on occasion, upgraded things when a genuine need arose. A few years ago, I bought a larger external hard drive because I was running out of space for archived files, and that was a straightforward, practical decision. The point is not to reject all change but to be intentional about it. To ask whether a change serves an actual need or whether it is just motion for its own sake.
There is also an environmental dimension, though I will not belabor it. Electronics manufacturing has a significant environmental footprint. Extending the life of a device by even a few years has a real, measurable impact. I am not suggesting that my personal choice to keep an old laptop is going to save the planet. But it is consistent with a set of values I try to apply in other areas of my life as well. Use what you have. Maintain it. Repair it if possible. Replace it only when repair is no longer feasible.
I have been keeping notes on this subject, in a plain text file naturally, and I sometimes think about organizing them into something more formal. For now, though, this is enough. The practice of slow computing, like most worthwhile practices, does not require extensive theorizing. It just requires a willingness to step off the treadmill and be satisfied with enough. My laptop is enough. My workflow is enough. The quiet, uninterrupted hours at my desk are enough. I do not need a faster machine to do this work. I just need the patience to do it well.
— Kevin Vadala