My interest in this topic sparked with Obsidian, which i’ve been using over the past two years. It addressed an issue i’ve always had, indecisiveness. Specifically when it came to organising my files, I would get stressed trying to find the ‘perfect location’. Obsidian’s modular approach to organisation intrigued me because it combines: tags, yaml properties and contextual linking letting you form your own system.
When I started brainstorming research topics, I was quite terrified of the freedom. That’s when I came across Appleton’s essay on the ethos behind digital gardening, it stood out as a space to publish one’s work in public. It felt calmer, more personal in comparison to platforms like substack or twitter. Learning in public has always been a great fear of mine, mainly because I’ve never put in much effort to improve my writing in the first place. Gardening allows for a more ‘whimsical’ approach, it feels less formal, while still encouraging long term growth and knowledge.
Research question: Can the multi-linear nature of digital gardening offer a meaningful alternative to algorithmic feeds, and reinstate agency in an era of passive consumption?
My deliverable is a digital garden about digital gardening as a concept. It was written in markdown using Obsidian and published using Quartz 4, a static site generator specifically made for digital gardens. Unlike an essay a garden acts more like a ‘text adventure’, instead of a continuous scroll the reader navigates through contextual hyperlinks. I deliberately presented my findings in this form because an essay wouldn’t let the reader experience it first hand!
Throughout my project I only used secondary research. My core sources were Appleton’s essay, Mike Caulfield’s thinkpiece and Cailean Finn’s keynote: digital gardening in the age of platforms. Additionally an attention economy paper and excerpts from Kyle Chayka’s website, who released a book recently on the topic of algorithms. There was one source I wasn’t confident about at all: the SEO blog referring to the web as a ‘digital landfill’. I really liked the metaphor and it heavily influenced the direction of my research, but it wasn’t a credible source so I placed it in my appendix instead.
Gardening intrigued me with how it maps the mental journey of your thinking, but in this case it meant being more restrictive with what I branched out due to the word count. In retrospect it feels more like a blessing in disguise as without it, my notetaking would’ve been more disorganised. I do feel the need to acknowledge that I went above the word count, yet still tried to cut down without damaging the contextual linking. The first half of the nodes were purposefully linear, even though im trying to argue that digital gardens are worthwhile, I didn’t want to overwhelm readers immediately with several path options right off the start.
I found this assignment rewarding, the project has genuinely been the most engaging assignment of my first year! I enjoyed the topic, the freedom of presenting my research in a new form and what it made me realise about my content consumption. I intentionally left the ending slightly hanging, although I wish I could’ve finalised it; it fits the ethos of digital gardening. Finalised conclusions don’t really work in a space that’s meant continuously grow overtime. In Appleton’s writing, she spoke a lot about nurturing ideas overtime, similar to Finn, who described the garden as a place to “experiment, fail and learn”. I realised my research didn’t necessarily need a fixed answer, my goal was to gain an understanding, leave enough room there to grow and branch outwards.
Working on this project with a hands-on approach helped me create a personal framework I can use as an outlet for my work. A framework that can help me overcome my own struggles with passive consumption and fear of learning in public. This experience motivated me to be more proactive rather than passive, a nudge in the right direction I’ve needed for quite a while. Working on this garden won’t improve my writing overnight, but I think I’ve set myself up on the right path to accepting the slow, gradual growth instead of focusing on how ‘bad’ my writing may be. I’m learning to focus on the points im actually trying to convey.
Ultimately, this project wasn’t an attempt at trying to discredit the good of the stream. In my case I’ve discovered countless interesting topics through timelines over the years, it was more of an attempt to get myself away from passive consumption, see the wrongs, and accept that weakness to become more engaged as a consumer.
references
[1]: Appleton, M. (2025) A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden. Available at: https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history.
[2]: Finn, C. (2024) Digital Gardening in the Age of the Platform: Digital Art in Ireland Presentation by Cailean Finn. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbCCFcR6VCM.
[3]: Caulfield, M. (2015) ‘The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral’, Hapgood, 17 October. Available at: https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/.
[4]: 2025 Word of the Year: Slop (2025). Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year.
[5]: Chayka, K. (2023) ‘Filterworld: Algorithmic pathways’, Kyle Chayka Industries, 11 January. Available at: https://kylechayka.substack.com/p/filterworld-algorithmic-pathways.
[6]: Chayka, K. (no date) Filterworld, Kyle Chayka. Available at: https://www.kylechayka.com/filterworld.
[7]: Chujyo, M. et al. (2026) ‘An attention economy model of co-evolution between content quality and audience selectivity’. arXiv. Available at: https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2602.06437.
[8]: Mark, S. (2026) Slopification of SEO: When “Content” Turns Into Industrial Waste, SubmitInMe. Available at: https://www.submitinme.com/news/slopification-of-seo-when-content-turns-into-industrial-wast.aspx.