Modern Muting

A Major Move to Quiet the Noise

Each Monday, Julio Vincent Gambuto presents “Modern Muting” — a weekly Medium story series dedicated to helping readers step back from all the bullshit of modern life, create quiet, re-evaluate, then go forward boldly. It’s 500 words a week of “self-help meets the system.”

Social media, digital capitalism, what I call “click-up economics” — they’re all designed for you and me to be always on. That is a business strategy of the Big Forces: Big Tech, the Big Banks, Big Media, Big Brands, and the Big Parties. If you and I are always on, getting brand messages to us is seamless, frictionless, and has fewer and fewer pain points. The system is designed to reach you everywhere always. It saves them money (fewer marketing dollars need to be spent to reach you) but makes our lives relentless. And loud. And needy.

That’s why I have taken social media off my phone. Delete. It’s a radical move. But one that has improved my life dramatically. I am now active on socials twice a week at designated and regular times, and only on my laptop. Moving socials to your computer only — whether that’s in your lap, on your desk, in the den or in the office — does two critical things that are key to winning the battle for our behavior that is raging in modern life.