Digital Departure: Consciously Uncoupling From The Algorithm To Find a Better Rhythm
Artist and Digital Wellbeing Advocate Tim Arnold Explores The Road Less Travelled
At the close of 2025, Tim Arnold completed his final “Digital Departure” after living smartphone free for two years. His body of work up to this point remains accessible online, but no new work or updates will be shared by him through digital channels.
A final album, completed in 2025, will be available in 2026, with a closing message about the digital departure, through his last newsletter.
No promotion or live appearances are planned to support the release.
Tim’s remaining online profiles have been handed over to a small group of fans. The accounts are not managed by Tim, do not reflect his personal views, and may occasionally share posts connected to his catalogue of work. The only remaining connection to Tim online is through his website mailing list.
Gratitude is extended to all who supported and shared in Tim’s three decades of work, to everyone who listens to the albums, and those who will discover them. His thirty-third album stands as a beautiful closing chapter — we hope it finds you.
For those wishing to stay connected:
Subscribe to Tim’s mailing list to receive his closing message and final album here
Learn more about Digital Departures here
For enquiries regarding Super Connected, please visit the the official website here
From here on, this Substack will be curated by supporters who’ll share pieces from Tim’s many years of unpublished written work as well as some guest writers. There’s a rich archive still to unfold, and this space will remain a home for Tim’s words.
Below is Tim’s final synchronous Substack — the last written and shared by him:
Digitally Departing
As somebody who has chosen to sign up to hear about what it is I am up to — whether it’s my music, Super Connected or Digital Wellbeing — I want to say that I’m not about to make a departure from you.
But I have spent an awfully long time preparing towards a Digital Departure — since living without a smartphone. Now it’s time for me to learn how to live without the glare in my eyes of everything that’s happening in the world. Whether it’s the news, the division or the pervasive journeys that algorithms take us on without us knowing.
That’s my way of describing what it’s like to look into the internet for me — whether it’s on a device, in your pocket, or on a laptop or desktop computer. It’s unhelpful for human relationships on so many levels.
And as I said at the end of the last Super Connected show, too many of us are beginning to think that everything has to be ‘one thing’ or ‘the other’.
Some even believe that I am against technology. Which is funny given that I’m fairly well known for teaching Buddhist monks in Thailand how to programme music on iMacs. Some think I’m sticking my head in the sand. Well, I feel that being connected online 24/7 is sticking our heads in the sand. I’m taking my head out of the sand!
And of course, I have managed to avoid the worst crime of all when it comes to the digital brain - just because I want to live without a smartphone and without apps doesn’t mean I think everyone else should. That’s right - I’m not on a mission. I have no judgement of anyone who chooses to live differently to me. In fact, as long as it isn’t hurting anyone, I support everyone who chooses to live differently to me.
My departure has a lot to do with creativity.
My creativity is something of an old friend: and I am now allocating energy that has been spent on marketing and keeping up with the modern digital speed of the world — back into that old friend. With the belief that - it is the process of creating, and not the outcomes, that help us develop as humans.
Of course, that isn’t what you’re taught in digital spaces or in the entertainment industry — which is why those two spaces don’t really resonate with me anymore.
The other reason is - I have spent the last 3 years performing on stage in a show based on a true story of a 16 year old girl who suffered with serious digital dependency. A story about parents on one side of the screen, children on the other and Big Tech right in the middle, getting between them. I saw the pantomime when I started writing Super Connected in 2015:
Parents: But they’re our kids
Big Tech: Oh no they’re not
Parents: Oh yes they are
But this isn’t a joke. We’ve met parents up and down the country who feel they have lost their kids to the addictive apps that are developed by those companies.
Super Connected has changed me from the inside out, from meeting doctors and teachers campaigning, to students coming to our shows and telling us how they do not want to live online as much as they feel they are being forced to - at school or at home. It’s incredibly stirring to sing and act this on stage. As an arts collective, we have seen the changes in the real world finally catching up with Super Connected.
That’s why I started a UK Government petition in May about protecting everyone’s right to choose. To give parents a legal right to choose how digitally their children are educated. To suggest a system that supports both digital and non-digital.
Six months later and government is talking of mandatory Digital ID as well as a consultation on digital IDs for 13-year olds. I’m powerless to do anything more. But I can use myself as an experiment to find out just how far a human can go without digital dependency. Even if I cannot make it work, I will learn more about why.
As I’ve said to friends: my digital departure is somewhat of a sketch. An experiment if you will. I don’t know where it will end up. I don’t know what the rules are or if there are any. What I do know is that I won’t be available in digital spaces to communicate with, I won’t be attaching my work to big tech platforms, and I won’t be trying to communicate with anyone else on digital spaces, apart from through my newsletter, and here - via the kind supporters who will now run this Substack.
I think attention is one of the most valuable things we can offer each other these days, and for those of you who have given your attention to my writing, I feel deep gratitude. Luckily, I don’t have to actually be here in this space, but my writing - past, present and future will be curated here. So, I myself will be stepping away from engaging with online platforms, but my writing won’t be stepping away from you.
There aren’t many around who’ve lived without a smartphone and apps for the last two years, so I’m making myself a resource for those who are curious. Please do send an email to info@timarnold.co.uk if you’re interested. It will get to me, perhaps not instantly, but it will reach me - and perhaps we can move to a phone call after that! Other than that, please keep listening to the songs. Music has a power of its own that none of us understand, but all of us can feel.
And if you are going anywhere by foot, I recommend leaving the internet out of your pocket before you take your first step. It makes space for wonderful surprises.
Thanks for your support over the last couple of years. This is my last ‘synchronous’ Substack. I won’t be here anymore, but you can bet some of my words will be!
I’m hopeful that digital systems will develop beyond their current paralysed infancy. But I’m not paralysing myself inside it while I’m waiting. I have to put my human first. And put Silicon Valley’s Groundhog Day...at bay.
Much love, light and blessings this Samhain. Tim x
Tim Arnold, Friday 31st October 2025
