If something reached every person on earth, we would want to understand it.
Smartphones and social media have reached practically every place in the world — including communities that, until recently, were close-knit, isolated and had little contact with the outside world. Few changes in human history have spread this widely, this fast. The attention paid to what they change has not kept pace.
Notes on Connection collects and shares people's own accounts of how phones and social media are changing their lives and communities, for better and for worse. Anyone can contribute.
Why the focus on less-studied places
Most research on phones and wellbeing comes from North America and Europe. The experiences of people in rural Africa, the Andes, the Pacific or Central Asia are rarely heard, even though change there can be faster and deeper. The archive welcomes contributions from anywhere, but actively seeks out these voices.
What the archive is for
One story is an anecdote. Many stories from different places can reveal patterns: changes in who holds authority in a family, in how news and rumours travel, in what happens to shared rituals. The archive is built to find what repeats, not to collect individual cases.
The tone is neither for nor against phones. The aim is awareness that supports people's own decisions.
What else is here
- Research — plain-language summaries of studies by others, including ones that found benefits.
- Stories — longer pieces about single experiences or recurring patterns.
- Method — how contributions are collected, edited and stored.
Who is behind it
The project is run by Antti Laakso as an independent, personal project. It is also a way to learn how communities form around a shared question. It may later support academic research on how phones affect remote communities.
Contact
Researchers, journalists and organisations working with communities are welcome to get in touch — for collaboration, to share research, or to help collect experiences: hello@notesonconnection.org.