Quietly Tending My Digital Life
My private digital life is mine. I am allowed to take quiet, careful steps to protect it.
How much of your inner life now lives inside a phone — conversations, locations, calendars, notes, photographs, money — and how much of that becomes a quiet vulnerability when someone might be watching? You are allowed to take careful care of that part of your life.
The gentle pieces: strong, unique passwords on the accounts that matter most. Two-step sign-in on email and the things connected to it. A separate, private email address for the most sensitive correspondence. Location sharing turned off in the places it was turned on by default. Privacy settings on social accounts revisited. Old shared logins quietly changed — one account at a time.
⚠️ A critical word about suspected monitoring: If you ever come to believe that a device of yours is being monitored, please do not scan, factory-reset, remove an app, or revoke permissions on your own. Many monitoring tools quietly report back to the person who installed them when they are discovered, and that report can trigger dangerous escalation. The safer path is to seek specialized help first. The Safety Net project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (techsafety.org) maintains current, survivor-vetted guidance. Many local advocates are trained specifically in technology-related abuse and can walk you through it gently. While you wait for that guidance, a separate device that has never been in the other person's hands — a borrowed tablet, a prepaid phone, a library computer — is often the safest place for sensitive conversations.
The reason for all of this is not to live in fear of your own life. The reason is the opposite. You are allowed to have a private inner life again. You are allowed to have conversations no one is reading. You are allowed to make plans no one is tracking.
Once: the strong password. Now: the quiet change. Soon: the soft return of the small spaces of your day to yourself.