be quiet
For individuals
There are three versions of this suggestion: strategic silence, listening, and stillness.
Strategic silence is actively making a decision not to talk about something. In the context of computer use conversations, and headlines about technology, this is a way to maintain narrative focus and attention and to disregard distractions. The technology industry uses the media as something of a public relations machine - making announcements and spreading ideas by getting journalists to report them as though they are newsworthy. Journalists like to retain access to these sources for several reasons so many tend to play along with the game. This includes repeating the words of visible leaders in the technology industry as though society should spend any time listening to them. You can refuse to participate in this noise by being quiet about it on purpose. Some of the best technology journalism is done by business reporters because they focus on the fundamentals of what the companies are doing, this is often one of the higher-value shapes of an information source about the use of computers.
The second suggestion around being quiet is recognizing how much of conversation is listening. And active listening, not listening to wait to say your point without making any connection to the previous speaker. When you have strong feelings or opinions or lived experiences of the impacts of computer use, your nervous system can make it hard to sit through listening to other people's versions of these same impacts. But it's critical. There is no rounding out and expanding of these discussions if they are little more than repeated takes that have been included in someone's campaign - catch phrases and jargon. To have conversations about computer use that move them out of the narrow domain of experts means having these conversations in our words, and listening a lot to the words of others to reflect on, include, and re-use.
Finally, the act of being quiet is critical to give some of these topics room to breathe. A lot of what is said about the future of computer use fails to materialize with the passage of time. This suggestion to be quiet pairs closely with the idea of deciding not to act on something quickly, to allow it to settle for a beat. Being quiet is part of slowing down, one of the most critical responses to urgency. Refuse urgency at every turn possible. When people scramble to respond to the urgency of the computer industry, they inadvertently end up installing its desires. Training, adoption, the creation of governance - these activities often create the conditions for the accelerated uptake of computer use. Taking time to consider what these responses are actually doing makes any response more likely to be done on our terms.
Being quiet is a critical and somewhat counterintuitive part of good conversations about computer use. By being more intentional about what you decide to put your attention on, you can stay focused with a persistence on the issues that matter and let the general noise pass you by, untouched.