What makes SLOWLY different from other social media applications?

Social Media is bad

I am vehemently against traditional forms of social media. They're not truly "social" at all in my view, rather they're places to go to view ads and incubate their personal echo chambers. There has to be something out there that isn't toxic by it's very nature.

You're fed one viewpoint and one viewpoint only. And despite what violet extremists want you to believe, they're not pushing their own opinions onto their users, rather they're trying to determine what your opinions are and then pushing the most extreme versions of these ideologies possible in order to radicalize you for profit.

However, while I generally say social media doesn't push any particular opinion upon it's users, the groups inside of it often do. You could easily get banned from a Facebook group for a minor disagreement, or get banned from a whole slew of subreddits because you disagreed with one of the moderators that they all happen to share. Or you could be on Twitter, where the approved ideology is that of the far right grifter Elon Musk.

What is SLOWLY?

SLOWLY is an application for simulating snail mail between two users. It even requires users to wait hours or even days to read a letter that has been sent out to them. This of course is an obviously artificial wait, completely destroying and instant gratification that the app might otherwise provide.

Why SLOWLY is so great

If being forced into waiting a seemingly arbitrary amount of time just to read a message frustrates you, then this may be a deal breaker. But consider it this way:

SLOWLY locks messages behind a timer based on distance from the two users in question under the guise of a slow delivery process (thus simulating snail mail). This forces you to be patient with every correspondence, and to ensure that the message you send out is (hopefully) worth the wait. This gives communication a sort of authenticity that's impossible to get from a social media feed (Unless of course your pen-pal is using AI to generate letters, which is a pervasive problem everywhere).

All this means that you cannot become addicted to SLOWLY, as it forces you step away when you're done. Writing letters takes real effort, and each letter takes time to "reach" it's destination. Through it's fakery, it demands patience and respect for others time but it also relieves you of the pressure of constantly having to be "up to date" on the latest happening in the "feed".

Another thing I'd like to add is that besides the "house rules" which mostly exist to ensure that everyone on SLOWLY stays safe, what's considered acceptable communication is based on consensus between both pen-pals. This eliminates the possibility of group-think by simply not having groups. You don't have to communicate with or even open up your profile to anyone you're uncomfortable with. And no third party is able to make any determination unless one pen-pal reports the other to the SLOWLY team. Thus you're not subject to arbitrary nonsense from emotionally stunted man-children and their warped sensibilities, no matter what part of the political spectrum they may lie upon.

Of course, none of that is to say that disruptive hate speech should be tolerated by anyone, but SLOWLY at least allows adults to make adult decisions about these things. Though from what I've seen, the user base is overwhelmingly progressive.

SLOWLY's serious flaws

The thing about SLOWLY that grinds my gears is that it's primarily a mobile app. And I do NOT like mobile apps. I tend to avoid them when I can. But in this case, I have to use it to use half of the features it provides, many of them are vital to using SLOWLY in the first place.

There is a web client for desktop computers, but all that really allows you to do is manage existing pen-pals, manage your profile, write to existing pen-pals (You can write to new pen-pals by starting a letter on your phone, saving a blank draft, then editing it on the PC), and purchase SLOWLY Plus.

You can't even sign up to SLOWLY without an iOS or Android mobile phone. Sorry Pinephone Pro, Librem 5, Fairphone and other Linux phone users. You can't use SLOWLY. If you don't have a phone with a proprietary operating system (or some custom Android ROM), then you're out of luck. Then again, if you really care that much about FOSS purism, then you shouldn't be using social media anyway.

The absolute biggest problem with the app, even if you ignore every single technical issue it has is it's overall culture. You'll find that a lot of people don't put any effort into their letters, and even when they do they will often just ghost you.

Usually, this happens to me either shortly after the first letter or within three months. Usually, this happens to me either shortly after the first letter or within three months.

The other major problem is that when you get these letters, you often find that they can't even put in the effort to show that they actually want to interact with you. It's usually some really generic letter that they could have sent to literally anyone.

To some extent, this is understandable because SLOWLY has an auto matching feature. And from what I understand, you don't even know who your letter is going to until after it's been sent out. So in that case, your letter has to be generic to work at all. But even if you disable the flawed auto matching system, you still get generic letters that are more like self advertisements than an actual attempt at communication.

These kinds of letters and the rampant ghosting culture end of ruining the authenticity I mentioned earlier, and can even ruin the app if you experience it too often.

And all of this assumes that the letter you received was even written by a human in the first place. As I mentioned earlier, many people on the app are using AI to write their letters for them. Now, some of them are using it for language translation or proofreading and revision, but far too many simple use it in the same way one would use ChatGPT to cheat an college essay assignment.

This issue has become so prevalent that people will straight up tell people in their "about me" sections that they will not reply to AI letters.

Conclusion

Overall, the key takeaway of why I like SLOWLY despite being ideologically opposed to social media is the term "substance". SLOWLY's design incentivizes the human value of communication rather than it's monetary of numerical value. You don't find rage bait, sensationalism, or pure junk because this doesn't drive tangible engagement on SLOWLY like it does for traditional social media. Because SLOWLY is purely a method of meeting and communicating with people.

Thus, SLOWLY is a great choice for those who seek a more principled and authentic method of communication that's far removed from capitalistic profit motives.

You can find SLOWLY at www.slowly.app If you can get past the tracking risks, then it's an interesting way to meet new people.