Hopefully this scenario sounds appealing and achievable. We think it starts to set out what a slow computing day might look like. As we pointed out in Chapter 1, slow computing is a means to address the various issues that acceleration and data extraction create. It seeks to do this in a way that prioritizes and protects your needs and interests, and creates public good for society as a whole. Practising slow computing requires individual and collective actions: people making decisions to change how they lead their digital lives by considering and changing their own situations, and pooling their actions and drawing on the diverse actions of others.

This chapter focuses on tactics you individually can use to fulfil the strategy of slow computing. It is about taking ownership of the issue and being proactive in tackling acceleration and extraction at a personal level. To that end, we set out some interventions aimed at slowing down your computing. We emphasize reconfiguring the time you spend on your digital participation, while curating and limiting the extent to which you leave data footprints and cast data shadows. Adopting these ideas can be empowering because it can give you back a degree of control.