Welcome to Issue 57 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about how to tell a better story to build better brands. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.) (Miss past issues? Read those here.)

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Hello Reader,

I didn’t take any of my own advice this week.

I chained myself to my computer, leaving the house only to shuttle kids to and from school and buy groceries. I answered every passing “How are you?” question with the response I loathe most: “Busy, but good!”

And, determined to check everything off my list ahead of Thanksgiving break, I spent every second of idle time—including bathroom breaks and while microwaving my leftover lunch—"catching up" on my phone.

That is, if I even got up to eat, hydrate, or pee.

Come Friday, I was so deprived of vitamin D and sleep that I think I made myself sick. (Or maybe I picked up my daughter’s cold.)

But it's not just a stuffy nose. I feel like I've been nursing a productivity-and-information-induced hangover—the kind of headache that comes from endlessly scrolling and leaves you utterly confused about what matters or is even worth paying attention to anymore.

So when it came time to finally stop procrastinating (and by that I mean checking my LinkedIn or email) to sit down and write this newsletter, I came up blank.

In addition to feeling anxious, I realized my week of nonstop digital exposure also left me feeling directionless, uninspired, and at a loss for any good stories to tell.

I wasn't just that I couldn't think of a single experience worth sharing—there are plenty of relevant, important things on the internet this week to unpack—it’s that I didn’t give myself any time to step back, quiet my mind, or make sense of it, either through intentional reflection or conversations with other living, thinking, feeling humans.

So, I decided to forgo my arbitrary, self-imposed Friday publishing deadline. I closed my laptop, put down my phone, and went on a walk around the neighborhood with a friend. I cleaned my house, played with the cats, and sat on my porch for an extended period, feeling the late afternoon sun on my face and the crisp fall breeze on my cheeks.

Then I got cold and came back to my desk. But this time, a little more inspired and recharged to write you this.

A Good Reframe

One thing I do appreciate about being online this time of year is the wave of trend roundups delivered through expert takes on what those signals might mean for our future.

Since I’m in the business of brand building, keeping up with cultural trends is part of my job. And currently, the most buzzworthy and fascinating observation is what some are calling the “anti-digital renaissance"—a movement encouraging and facilitating a return to our bodies.

The evidence for this push back into the real world is showing up, ironically, on the very platforms that pulled us out of it in the first place—and not just in the posts encouraging us to go touch grass.

For instance, in case you missed it, the "world's first" AI dating café is opening in New York next month. With single-seat candlelit tables and phone stands to prop up your digital partner, this restaurant is designed to facilitate a romantic experience in the physical world where you aren’t expected to talk to (or, perhaps more to the point, be shamed by) other real humans.

In other words, it’s a chance for those who are all in on their ChatGPT girlfriends to crawl out of their lurkums and get out for a minute.

Meanwhile, TikTok launched a digital detox feature that helps you unwind with journal prompts, a soothing sound generator, and breathing exercises meant to calm your body and reset your mind after all its app-induced overstimulation.

But for those who need more than guided breathwork to break the spell, there’s the option to take a vow of “digital chastity,” and ritualize printing out your feed so you can read it like an actual book. The idea is that you can stay plugged in, but take your time to engage with your social content. Most importantly, the practice forces you to end your scroll as soon as you’re fully caught up. (Which, by the way, is how Instagram used to work.)

Oh, and according to the New Yorker, status on the internet is now measured by how much you don’t participate in it. The upshot from this article is that not having lots of followers is the new flex because it signals you’re too busy living an actual life to be on social media.

Wherever you look, the trend suggests we’re all (tech companies included) becoming aware of the limitations of the conceptual version of reality piped into our phones and craving more of the physical, lived, felt, breathed-in kind.

While we're still very much in it, the first step to solving a problem—as any recovering addict will tell you—is admitting you have one.

A Good Takeaway

Here, I'll go first:

Hello, my name is Renee, and I have a screentime problem. Sometimes I think I don't have a problem, but then I have weeks like this and realize I very much do.

As we're all entering the most "busy, but good!" time of the year, it's worth remembering that not peeling ourselves away from our devices and engaging in the real world not only disconnects us from each other, it also disconnects us from ourselves. It robs us of the time we need to make sense of our lives so that we can have ideas worth sharing to build brands worth paying attention to.

Without slow, unstructured time to think, notice, and metabolize our experiences, there’s no space for meaning-making or room for a narrative to form. And without conversations with other people, we stay stuck inside that jar trying to read the damn label.

I think what we're all grappling with most right now is how to participate in these platforms without losing ourselves to them. Because if making meaning of our lives is a fundamental human desire, so is sharing that meaning with other people.

It's worth asking who we are becoming when our attention belongs to our devices, and who we could become if it didn’t?

Things to get off our screen (sorry for keeping you) to think about.

A Few Good Resources

1. Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired Magazine, is a modern-day patron saint who seems to have life all figured out. I found his thoughts on living an impactful life enlightening.
2. If the time is right, I hope you'll consider unplugging and exploring these questions together by the coast and in the woods of California next April.

Hope you have a good one,
Renee