We need a new ethics of digital care. We need to adopt and enact a philosophy of slow computing – of stepping back and uncoupling the digital leash to reestablish control over our time and our digital footprints and shadows. We stand to experience the joys of computing, while minimizing some of the more pernicious aspects of the emerging digital society and economy if we pursue individual and collective, practical and political, actions. In this chapter, we extend our overall argument by developing the philosophical underpinnings of, and for, slow computing. The target is a rationale and imperative for adopting slow computing; for its practice not just by individuals but also by wider society, including companies. While we could practise slow computing without embracing slow philosophy or becoming members of a slow computing movement – simply adopting some actions as they suit – our practices gain meaning and maximize their impact if they are rooted in a coherent set of ideas and ideals that justify and promote them.

At issue here is understanding the key normative arguments for slow computing. By ‘normative’ we mean a type of thinking concerned with how things should be, not how they presently are.