“It’s less about iterative learning and more about public learning,” says Maggie Appleton, a designer. Appleton’s digital garden, for example, includes thoughts on plant-based meat, book reviews, and digressions on Javascript and magical capitalism. It is “an open collection of notes, resources, sketches, and explorations I’m currently cultivating,” its introduction declares.
— Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet by Tanya Basu
Much of the internet, and particularly social media, functions as a stream.1 Content moves by at a rapid pace constantly moving. Streams, like the never-ending feeds of news sites, tik-tok, instagram, or twitter are places where skimming is the preferred form of reading. Often, I discover new texts and information, but the information doesn’t always stick.
In contrast, a garden is stationary if not static. Pages (like this one) are organized into concepts. They grow over time and use hyper links as metaphorical paths between objects. This garden was planted during class on 5/16. It started as one page and is growing outwards. I will continue to update and edit the pages until this assignment is turned in. This form of networked thought is what makes digital gardens a unique form of text.
I also desire the tech stack of this garden to embody my values.