What if the Revolution is Logging Off?
- jdetreglode
- Jul 5
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 7
One of the deeper ironies of our time is that many of the voices encouraging us to reconnect with the Earth are doing so through platforms specifically designed to keep us disconnected from the present moment.
Social media platforms are not neutral tools. Their business model depends on capturing and holding human attention for as long as possible. The longer we scroll, watch, click, react, and engage, the more data is generated, the more advertisements can be served, and the more profitable the platform becomes. This creates a system that constantly rewards visibility, frequency, novelty, and performance.
Increasingly, AI is being adopted not because people necessarily want to use it, but because they feel they must keep pace with the demands of an attention economy that never stops accelerating.
For those trying to share meaningful work, this creates a difficult dilemma. The more crowded the digital landscape becomes, the more pressure there is to produce content that is polished, persuasive, emotionally charged, and optimized to compete for attention. Increasingly, AI is being adopted not because people necessarily want to use it, but because they feel they must keep pace with the demands of an attention economy that never stops accelerating. It becomes a tool for staying visible, staying relevant, and keeping up in a system that continually raises the bar for what is required to be seen.
What emerges is a self-perpetuating cycle of extraction. We rely on platforms powered by vast data center infrastructure to capture attention, and then turn to AI which are powered by even more computational infrastructure to help us compete for that attention more effectively. The result is an escalating race for visibility that is ecologically expensive, psychologically draining, and socially corrosive.
In many ways, it reflects the very colonial, capitalistic, patriarchal, and life-oppressing values that so many of us claim to be working against.
And if I am being fully honest, now that I have the language and worldview to name what I am seeing, I believe this is one of the most extractive systems of our time. It concentrates power, monetizes attention, rewards endless production and self-promotion, and keeps us tethered to definitions of success rooted in growth, visibility, competition, and individual achievement. In many ways, it reflects the very colonial, capitalist, patriarchal, and life-oppressing values that so many of us claim to be working against.
And in this sense, AI may not be the root problem at all. It may simply be the latest expression of a much larger system that has convinced us we must continually produce more content, reach more people, grow larger audiences, and compete ever more aggressively for visibility.
If we are serious about reducing the environmental impact of our digital lives, one of the most effective actions is surprisingly simple: participate less.
For me, this realization has led to a personal decision. Because of my values and my commitment to cultivating more life-affirming ways of being, I have chosen not to participate in social media at all. I recognize that stepping away carries a degree of privilege. Not everyone has the ability to do so. But it is also a sacrifice. It means letting go of certain forms of visibility, certain opportunities for growth, and the ease with which a business can scale in the digital age. It means accepting that fewer people may know my work. Yet it is a sacrifice I am willing to make because I no longer want to sacrifice my presence, my mental health, or the integrity of what I believe in and am working toward.
I believe that one of the most radical acts available to us is not simply resisting harmful systems, but building alternatives to them. The work of our time is not merely critique but rather the cultivation of life-affirming systems rooted in reciprocity, relationship, community, and care. That work requires sacrifice. It may even require a kind of ego death: a willingness to let go of self-importance, personal branding, constant visibility, and the need to be seen.
In exchange, we may rediscover something far more valuable: a sense of kinship, belonging, and participation in a living world that extends far beyond ourselves. We may rediscover collective healing.
Perhaps those with the privilege to step away, even partially, have a responsibility to experiment with different ways of living and connecting. Not because everyone should follow the exact same path, but because someone must begin imagining and embodying alternatives. If we are ever to move beyond extractive systems, someone has to be willing to take the first steps toward something else.
For those who cannot leave social media entirely there are solutions and it just involves asking different questions:
Do I need to post this, or do I simply feel pressure to remain visible?
Does this content create genuine value, or is it feeding the endless cycle of digital engagement?
Could this conversation happen in person, over the phone, or within a local community instead?
Am I building relationships, or am I building an audience?
Most importantly: Is this post worth the environmental cost that it creates?
Ironically enough, even the most environmentally conscious digital content is often the content that never needs to be created in the first place.
For those who do maintain an online presence, there are ways to lessen the impact:
Favor websites, newsletters, and long-form writing over constant video production.
Share less frequently but with greater depth.
Use local and in-person gatherings whenever possible.
Delete unused files, duplicate photos, and abandoned digital projects.
Resist the pressure to document every experience.
Focus on cultivating community rather than maximizing reach.
And whatever you do, do not generate images via AI as this is the most data expensive use of the tool
Perhaps the most radical act today is not creating better content but stepping out of the content economy altogether. This is especially worth reflecting on within environmental and earth-based communities. There is an irony in producing a constant stream of videos, reels, stories, and posts encouraging people to reconnect with nature while simultaneously feeding the very systems designed to keep people staring at screens. The medium itself often undermines the message.
Reconnection to the Earth does not happen through algorithms. It happens through direct experience: walking a trail, tending a garden, sharing tea with a friend, watching the sunset without photographing it, learning the names of local plants, sitting quietly beneath a tree.
None of these activities require a data center. And none of them, honestly, need to be performed and/or documented. There is something fundamental lost when it is. I would say presence, spirit, humanity at the very least AND the very most.
The less we depend on systems built to monetize our attention, the less we contribute to the infrastructure required to sustain them.
The solution may not be to find greener ways to participate in the attention economy. It may be to reclaim ways of living, relating, and communicating that require less of it altogether. The less we depend on systems built to monetize our attention, the less we contribute to the infrastructure required to sustain them. And perhaps, in the process, we rediscover that the deepest forms of connection were never digital to begin with.
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