Speed Kills and going Amish at Heavy Chef

I finally attended a Heavy Chef event this evening and listed to Don Packett talk about similar themes to Joe Kraus’ talk recently. One of the comments I made after Don finished his talk was that our approach should probably be more about better choices when it comes to our technology rather than becoming Amish.

Not a huge fan of going Amish. #heavychefs

— Kym Edwardes-Evans (@thetinybasher) July 18, 2012

At the time “going Amish” seemed like the antithesis of where I thought we should be going (that is, mindfully incorporating technology into our lives in a way that better enhances our lives rather than abandoning modern technology altogether. This evening I was chatting to Kym (the young lady who tweeted the tweet above) and I realised that, perhaps, the Amish (and similar groups) are onto something. They seem to have developed deeper and more meaningful connections with each other and their environments.

Perhaps, in this modern age, we should emulate aspects of those cultures by shifting our focus to more meaningful connections to each other, our communities and environment and use modern, social technologies to help us achieve that rather than simply getting caught up in the buzz and frenzy of the social Web without any sort of anchor in some semblance of mindfulness and considered choices?