Casey Johnston is a weight-lifting memoirist and former editor at Vice, Ars Technica & the New York Times’ Wirecutter.

She’s been reporting on social media and smart phones for over a decade, and in that time, she built her career on Twitter then left it behind in favorite of a paid newsletter and a phone with fewer than ten apps on it.

In this conversation, we dig into the the major shifts that Casey’s witnessed in digital media since 2010, as well as how she created a “DIY Dumb Phone” to help her kick her phone addiction last year.

Specifically, we explore:

• How Twitter helped Casey start her writing career
• Why Casey launched a newsletter & how it’s become her primary income stream
• Virality, memes & how they push us to always be online
• The difference between a Beat, a Brand, and a Business
• The successes & failures of journalists on Substack
• Casey’s “DIY Dumb Phone” method
• How algorithms convince us we have problems
• Why Casey quit being a defender of social media

 
RESOURCES + LINKS
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🌸 Peep the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

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