Applying the 12 Permaculture Principles to Regenerate Our Digital Ecosystems
Social Media is the ideal model of the monoculture: just as the industrial agriculture exploits and exhausts the soil, social media exploits and exhausts our attention. The crop that it grows is the monoculture of interaction which is optimized for engagement as yield rather than meaningful connection as eco-systemic emergence and wealth. So how we approach social media in a regenerative way that fulfills rather than depletes our inner and social ecosystems? By applying the 12 Principles, of course!
- Observe and interact. Look at social media as an ever evolving garden. Observe your interactions and get self-aware, not addicted: observe your patterns of scrolling, reacting, and posting. Notice when your attention is harvested rather than cultivated. Identify click-bait and the deserts of noise. Look for the tone of voice in each post that catches your attention: is it neutral or it tries to convince you of something? Is the post asking you, openly or not, to do something? Is the content original, real or copied and AI generated? Identify and sustain by your social media action “the ecological niches” i.e. groups, pages, or conversations, that genuinely nourish you and your curiosity.
- Catch and store energy, not just data. Social media exchanges your energy (attention, emotion, time) for data/information that in its turn elicits from you an emotional/energy reaction. The energy is what you understand, make and use of this information/data. The process of conversions is yours. In normal, scrolling mode, the conversion is subconscious, high-energy and very addictive. It takes the form of a dopamine micro-burst. To change this vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle, be aware of the emotional reaction/energy that each posts elicits from you. Based on this change your scrolling behavior and use social media to find and to store knowledge. To make social media useful we have to treat it like a compost heap, where information decomposes into insight, not waste. The best practice is to aggregate and curate information and data that is useful for you (i.e. information about other permaculture projects, plants, etc) and create local knowledge networks and groups inside social media.
- Always obtain a yield. What is that your are looking for in this session of social media? Answer this question before every session. Ask yourself if you found what you were looking for after each session. Instead of likes and followers, define your yield in real-world connections, shared learning, or community projects. You can be part of groups for seed exchanges, repair cafés, or local food initiatives. Yield means meaning, not metrics. The best yield is the one that is reciprocal, giving is as good as receiving.
- Apply self-regulation and accept feedback. Social media rewards impulsivity; permaculture practice rewards balance and feedback loops.
To navigate social media in a permacultural way you need to learn to build internal feedback systems. Ask yourself: “Does this post serve regeneration or reaction?”, “Does this post makes me feel better or worse?” Ask yourself how you feel after each 5 minute on social media. This will allow you to notice emotional depletion after time online. Once you’ll learn your emotional/energy optimum on social media it will be much easier to set your own time limits, conscious pauses, slow replies. Create content that allows for feedback, prepare yourself that feedback could be negative and have the elegance to deal with it politely.
Attention is our inner fertile soil, to keep it fertile, nourish it right!
- Use and value renewable resources and services. Each platform holds the collective intelligence of million of peoples. Social media gives you access across the globe to the most powerful renewable resource and service: human knowledge. See this as a constant self actualizing resource for learning, not only intelectual but affective and spiritual as well. Find evolving projects that interest and inspire your and interact with like-minded people to learn from them and get inspired by them.
- Produce no waste. Don’t waste your time, energy, or emotion. Social media is very time, energy and emotional consuming. Less is more, in this case. Don’t waste time scrolling, arguments, fighting, conflictual threads. Use social media as a starting point for social life rather than the place for it. The best action is local action. Get informed in social media, and act local. Find like-minded people online and connect with them in local projects in communities. Practice “slow media”: share less often, with more depth.
- Design from patterns to details. Although it may sound extreme a good social media diet plan is your best bet. Write down what you like and don’t like on social media, what makes you feel good but also has purpose for you as well. What you want from it. Create a plan based on these. Write down a small and big number of hours that you want to spend on social media daily. Once you know where you want to get, it is much easier to work out the details. And get there. With a plan!
- Integrate rather than segregate. Social media is a very powerful and useful tool when designed into your systems consciously. Integrate it into your broader permaculture or personal communication plan. Use it to amplify hobbies, activities, projects that you already have offline. Integrate social media into your life. But do-it consciously, purposefully, as a part of your other communication and media tools, rather than as a place you can get a quick hit of dopamine when you’re tired or bored.
- Use small and slow solutions. Social media works with very big numbers and quantities. Even a big influencer occupies a small niche in the larger social media ecosystem. So it is ok to resist algorithmic acceleration and embrace digital minimalism. We are meant to be in very small niches. What matter is real interaction and create a real following. So it is ok to miss out. Create weekly updates instead of daily posts. Focus on deep roots of connection, not fast growth. It’s better to cultivate one thriving page or group that grows organically, like a small garden, than spend time and money and than lose everything when the algorithm changes.
Regain control of your own timeline so you can live-it purposefully!
- Use and value diversity of voices and platforms. If you are on social media, go all in. Don’t let Facebook or Insta or Tik-Tok become the monoculture of your social life. Diversify your online ecosystem and get involved in smaller, open-source, or topic-specific communities and projects. Behind every digital profile is, or should be, a human person. Always keep in mind that your interact with other human beings, so be polite and purposeful in your interaction. Every human being is different, especially when expressing him of herself, so accept and embrace his/her diversity.
- Use edges and value the marginal. Treat your digital presence as an edge: very fertile but not central to your life. Get inspired or charged by a few meaningful interactions or pieces of content on social media. And then interact in real world based on this good vibe. Discover new people, new ideas, new things that inspire you in social media. Make it your go to happy place, when everything else is in harmony, rather than your daily lair. Make sure your attention flows both inward and outward. Allow plenty of time for introspection and family and friends time.
- Creatively use and respond to change. Platforms evolve and we evolve with them. Our attention is limited its ecology is fragile. Our creative response is to become aware of this. So we can train our attention to synch and be inspired from social media rather than get addicted to dopamine micro-bursts. Change is constant in social media, exactly as a digital compost pile: something decays, something new emerges. The real resilience for social media change is getting involved in real communities and activities that were inspired or started in social media.
To rewild your feed, value digital restoration by native local species. Restore your attention by following those that teach, inspire, and reconnect you with living systems. Connect with them in real life. Create “wild zones” of silence, days without Facebook. Unfollow noise! Rewild your digital mind!