Soft Networks - Weekly Community Meetups
Do you feel like you have lost control over your digital life? You want to make changes, but is it all too overwhelming? What if your library could help you understand the invisible systems shaping your digital life and help you reclaim time and agency over your personal data?
Bring your phone, your questions, expertise, and frustrations and join our soft network of weekly gatherings where learning happens collectively and reciprocally; a format where participants share experiences and knowledge with one another alongside hired experts in phone security and textile artists experimenting with phone sleeping bags.
Together, we’ll look at privacy settings, app permissions, and the hidden layers of your digital identity—like inferred interests, behavioral categories, and how platforms interpret you. We will help you adjust what you use, share, see, and control. We will also sew customized phone sleeping bags to help us choose when to connect and when to let our phones rest so we can do other precious things. So, bring a fabric you have good memories with for the visible outer layer of your phone sleeping bag; we will provide the signal-blocking Faraday fabric that lines the inside of the sleeping bag! No prior sewing experience is needed.
Every Wednesday from 21st October to 9th December at 16:00-18:00, in the Reykjavik City Library Grófin - 5th floor. Free and open to all. No need to sign up, just show up!
More about the project:
The weekly gatherings are part of the library media literacy project Soft networks – digesting information together where we explore and deepen understanding of our relationships with technology, media, and the digital future, with an emphasis on caring, critical thinking, and democratic aspects. The project aims to create a slower, more conscious, and more human approach to digital everyday life and the ecosystem that shapes communication, information, and social participation. Libraries have always been places of empowerment—helping people navigate information, ask better questions, and think critically. In today’s digital age, that mission extends beyond bookshelves. Media literacy is no longer just about reading texts; it’s about understanding algorithms, platforms, and the forces shaping our online lives.
The project received a grant from The Icelandic Library Fund (Bókasafnasjóður).
More information:
Martyna Karolina Daniel
Project Manager - Equity and Community Engagement
martyna.karolina.daniel@reykjavik.is