Digital Resilience

Post-Growth in Practice (Part 1)

This is Part 1 in an ongoing series on building everyday resilience in the face of ecological, systemic, and cultural collapse – what I sometimes call “soft-prepping.”

• Part 1 (this piece) explores digital resilience – how to stay grounded and discerning in an accelerating information landscape.

• Part 2 looks at nervous system literacy – learning to recognise and regulate our internal states as a form of resistance and repair. Read it here.

• Part 3 turns toward resilient imagination – how to think about the future without collapsing, and why vision is a vital part of staying steady in times of contraction. Read it here.

• Part 4 explores the middle path – how to navigate the space between fantasy and fatalism, and how to stay aligned without retreating or giving in. Read it here.

  

  Fly agarics in our yard before we had to pull them out to protect the baby.

One night last week, late, when everyone else in my house was asleep, I found myself completely and inexplicably possessed. I became a frenzied woman, half-mad in the blue light, tearing digital tentacles out of the internet ether. One tab became five, then twenty. I was unsubscribing from lists I didn’t remember joining, exporting files I hadn’t looked at in years, deleting things, changing passwords, backing up photos. Muttering to myself like I was performing some kind of late-night exorcism.

Earlier that week, I’d listened to a conversation between Carmen Spagnola and Sophie Strand. One line landed like a punch in the guts. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of: it’s no longer time to keep talking about collapse. It’s time to act. Not more yearning, no more eco-poetry about symbiosis and mythic rewilding. Not more endless emotional processing. Just real life action.

It had lodged itself somewhere in me and I suppose it worked its way loose that night. I didn’t think I was ready to begin, but apparently my body disagreed.

When I came up for air, I realised this was the first step. Not the most urgent or the most impressive, but the one that was right in front of me. And that, I think, is the only real place to begin from.

Most of you will know by now that my PhD is on psychological resilience in the face of ecological and societal breakdown. I call it post-growth psychology. It’s about how we psychologically adapt when the story of endless progress stops making sense, and how we stay steady, useful, and sane as things unravel. That means regeneration instead of extraction, long-term thinking instead of short-term gain, and a return to older, slower ways of knowing. It also means re-learning basic skills, eating seasonally, solving problems without tech, sitting with discomfort, and recognising that convenience is not the same as safety.

I’ve been thinking and writing about these things for years, but I haven’t always lived them fully. We’ve made thoughtful, grounded choices. We moved to Tasmania (somewhat of a ‘climate haven’ if such a thing exists) we live close to my in-laws, we rent from family friends, we know our neighbours, we have a veggie garden and we try to shop local when we can. These are all important, relational decisions that make us stronger. But I also spent years holding onto the vision that real resilience would begin later, once we had land, a homestead, or off-grid systems. I thought we’d reach that point before things became more unstable. We didn’t.

We’re still renting. We live week to week. We’re raising two small children on a very limited income. Time, energy, and money are always thin. And for a long time, that sense of constant stretch made the idea of preparing feel impossible. Like something that had to wait until we were in a different phase of life (haha! If only collapse occurred on our timeline).

And yet, we’re also vulnerable in ways that feel increasingly relevant. I rely on a cochlear implant to hear. Our children depend on us completely. If something shifts suddenly – politically, economically, or environmentally – we won’t have much margin. I can’t afford to wait for perfect conditions anymore.

So I’ve begun. Not with a master plan, but with what I can manage. Each week, or whenever capacity allows, I’m taking one small action that moves us toward more integrity, more adaptability, and more resilience. Some steps will be practical, like creating a shelf-stable pantry or downloading offline resources. Others will be about habits and nervous system resilience, like logging out of social media, slowing my consumption, or resisting the urge to reach for stimulation every time I feel uncomfortable.

This series will document that process, as an offer but also to keep me accountable to this thing I've wanted to do for so long. Everything I write here will be free to read. I will also create companion guides as I go – checklists, planning tools, templates, and reflection prompts. These will be available to paying subscribers. If it feels helpful to you, your support allows me to keep doing this work. It also helps support my family while I do it.

So, here it is. The first step.
Digital resilience.

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What I’ve done

• Set up a ProtonMail account.
  I haven’t deleted Gmail yet, but I’ve started forwarding important messages and unsubscribing from lists as they come in. ProtonMail is encrypted and based in Switzerland, which has better data protection laws.

• Started using other Proton tools.
  I’m on the lowest paid tier, which includes email, calendar, VPN, and Proton Drive. I’ve imported my Google calendar and backed up the current contents of my phone, both extremely easy and took minutes. I’ll upgrade to Proton Pro when I can, both for storage and to support a company that’s not built on surveillance.

• Moved to Bitwarden for password storage.
  I chose it over Proton Pass because Bitwarden allows local storage. That felt important. If I lose internet or need to access a device or encrypted file offline, I still have what I need.

• Extracted recent files from cloud storage.
  I’ve begun to download personal writing, documents, and photos from Google Drive. For now, I’m storing them temporarily in Proton Drive while I plan for longer-term local backups.

• Downloaded family photos and videos.
  I’ve saved them in two digital locations. Eventually I’ll put them on a hard drive and print a small selection. I don’t need everything, just ones that tell a meaningful story about our family.

• Installed the Tor browser.
  Not because I’m hiding anything, but because privacy should be considered normal. Tor protects people who genuinely need anonymity, and it only works if enough everyday users help keep the network strong. I will use it occasionally so it’s there for those who rely on it.

• Using Firefox with privacy settings adjusted.
  I’ve set it to clear cookies and memory when closed, and I’ve blocked cross-site tracking. It’s simple and gives me more control than Chrome ever did.

• Switched my search engine.
  I use DuckDuckGo and Ecosia instead of Google. They’re not perfect, but they’re more ethical and good enough for most things.

• Using Organic Maps.
  It’s an offline, open-source alternative to Google Maps. I’ve been testing it on short drives and it’s working well enough for now.

• Deleting old accounts.
  I’m slowly closing down services I don’t use. Each deletion feels like a psychic decluttering. Spacious and satisfying.

What I’m still working on

• Extracting myself fully from Google.
  Gmail, Drive, Docs, Maps, they’re all still embedded in my everyday life. I plan to delete my Gmail account once I’ve moved everything important and updated all logins. It’s taking time, but I’m working through it bit by bit.

• Offline knowledge storage.
  I’m looking into downloading Wikipedia, essential texts from Project Gutenberg, and other reference material I’d want access to without the internet. Not because I expect everything to disappear overnight, but because I don’t want to keep assuming it’ll always be there.

• Creating a printed household manual.
  Something simple and tangible: emergency contacts, tool instructions, childcare routines, herbal remedies, basic first aid. Things I usually rely on the internet to remember for me.

• Setting up local backup systems.
  I haven’t bought a hard drive yet. Right now, I just can’t afford one. But it’s high on the list. Once I have the budget, I’ll set up an external hard drive and a secondary USB as our offline archive.

• Unlearning digital reflexes.
  This feels especially important. I still scroll more than I want to. I still open tabs without thinking. I still reach for a search bar when I’m tired or bored. But I’m noticing it now. I’m logging out more often. I’m letting myself pause, even when it’s uncomfortable.

• Reassessing my relationship with social media.
  I’ve left Meta, though I haven’t permanently deleted my accounts. They’re usually deactivated. I occasionally log in when I need something, like recruiting for my PhD study. It’s not perfect, but it’s a compromise I’m choosing with intention, not out of habit.

Why this matters

Much of modern life is structured by systems we don’t see and have very little control over. Cloud infrastructure, login loops, device-linked identities, data permissions we’ve long forgotten we gave. These systems work until they don’t, and by the time they fail, it’s often too late to do anything about it.

This isn’t about moral purity or disappearing from the internet. I’m not trying to opt out completely. I’m trying to be a little less dependent and fractured, and a little more present and coherent. I want to rely less on infrastructure that assumes permanence and constant connectivity. I want to know that if the grid goes down, or there’s some kind of disruption, even momentarily, I won’t immediately unravel alongside it.

A friend of mine lost his phone and passport while travelling recently. Every account he had was tied to that phone through two-factor authentication. He couldn’t access his bank, his email, or even his social media to contact friends and family for help. It took weeks to recover. He relied on the generosity of strangers in a country with far fewer resources than the one he came from. And while it ended up being a deeply transformative experience for him, I don’t think that’s something most of us want to be navigating now, especially not in places like the US where where administrative systems are increasingly unstable and security protocols seem to shift week to week.

Collapse won’t always be dramatic. Sometimes it looks like a password reset that won’t go through, or a phone that breaks with no backup plan, or a service you rely on suddenly disappearing with no warning. These aren’t theoretical risks. They already happen, just not always to us.

This work may feel small: backing up, writing things down, making friction where things used to be automatic. But it’s something I can do, and something that reminds me I’m not powerless. I don’t need to be fully prepared. I just need to be a little less dependent, a little more intact, and a little more able to carry on if and when the connection drops.

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For paid subscribers

I’ve created a detailed Digital Resilience Companion Guide for anyone wanting to begin a slow, thoughtful withdrawal from digital dependency. It includes the tools I’m using, what to prioritise when time and energy are limited, and what to plan for when you’re ready to go deeper. I’m not a tech expert so this isn’t a flawless manual. It’s just what I’ve been doing to untangle myself from systems I no longer trust or want to rely on.

You can access the full guide below.

For a limited time, I’m offering 50% off subscriptions to help build momentum and reach more people who need this work. Please follow the link above, the usual subscribe button will not show this offer. And if it's still not accessible to you, just send me a direct message and I will comp you for a few months, no questions asked.