HELLO SUBSTACK!

Dispatches from a Digital Life becomes SMARTPHONE (IN)SANITY

Photo by Pineapple Supply Co.

Hello! And thank you for (unwittingly) joining me for the next chapter of this newsletter, which is now called SMARTPHONE (in)SANITY and is housed at Substack. I made the switch the Substack because all the cool people are doing it! But also because it’s a vibrant community of writers, it’s aesthetically pleasing to have a “front page” for this newsletter (where my entire archive is available for your reading pleasure!), and they have a podcast function.

Yes! I am launching a podcast! “There’s An App For That!” will build on the thoughts and ideas that I have explored in this newsletter ever since I started writing “Dispatches from a Digital Life” back in April 2019. The podcast will be weekly interviews with different people about their relationship to smartphones, social media, and the digital world. So much of our lives take place on the glowing screens where we spend hours poking, scrolling, doom-scrolling, swiping, typing (or emoji-ing), and staring. The question we will delve into in this podcast is this one: How do we live fulfilling lives while also being creatures of this digital age?

To give you a bit of background about this podcast idea – it’s not a new one. Back in 2017, when I was taking a yearlong sabbatical from social medial, I dreamt of starting a podcast where I recorded my journey of detaching from all the platforms. But I didn’t know much about podcasting, and the learning curve seemed high. In 2018, I attended a podcasting conference in NYC (where one of my best friends won the WNYC award!) and applied to Transom, one of the best training programs in the country for audio. I didn’t get in. I kept having conversations with everyone about social media, and I wanted to bring these questions and ideas into the podcasting space. I listened to podcasts about social media and the internet, and while I found them fascinating, I knew I wanted to do something different.

A few months ago, I started working on a writing project for the Amherst alumni magazine. My project: to speak to alumni about their relationship with social media. I spoke to current students who had sworn off social media, boomers whose careers had been transformed by social media, creators who had millions of people tuning into their content, and many people in between. And I had this thought: I want to keep having these conversations.

“There’s An App For That!” will be those conversations, curated for your listening pleasure. I plan on speaking to literally anyone who is interested in exploring their relationship to digital communities, online personas, and the devices that consume our attention like hungry caterpillars. If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please fill out this form and I will be in touch about being a guest on this podcast!

[ Sorry for all the exclamation points. Can you tell that I’m excited?!]

And if you know any companies or organizations that would be interested in becoming sponsors of “There’s An App For That!”, please write to me at yes@guiol.us

Thanks again for being with me on this journey. I’m excited about all the good things that have yet to come!