‘In Formation’ Will Make You Want to (Gleefully) Drown Your Phone

In 2025, I find myself regularly uttering the same four words: “I miss the ’90s.”

There are multiple reasons, of course. But the one that comes up the most has to do with technology. In the ’90s, we had enough tech to feel futuristic, but so little of it that we could still feel optimistic about what might be on the horizon. We gathered together in person, unencumbered by pockets full of internet, and discussed the new millennium like it might be packed with things to propel humankind forward, into a better version of itself. We were naive. We were hopeful. We were almost always offline.

As the world is now acutely aware — with self-driving cars, job-stealing AI, around-the-clock Orwellian surveillance and a plethora of other nightmares that sci-fi novels warned us about — the fruits of tech’s progress have not been 100% positive. We know that legitimately terrifying developments are already in full swing, even though our brains — and our lawmakers — can scarcely keep up with the speed of it all.

Enter In Formation, a magazine with a stark and wonderful tagline: “Every day, computers are making people easier to use.”

The last time an issue of In Formation came out, the year was 2000. Though internet use was growing, we still lived free from the influence of social media and smartphones. Back then, In Formation was a magazine written by tech professionals who had some reservations about the brave new world they were helping to build. It was smart, it was informative, and then — like most other magazines from 2000 — it was gone.

Twenty-five years on, the third issue of In Formation is also a physical, paper magazine, but for more deliberate reasons: nostalgia, rebellion and a desire to take a break from The Machines. Why? The magazine does not mince words:

We’re at another inflection point. It’s not about ‘the internet’ this time. That ship has sailed. This tsunami is shaping up to be more radical, deeper, yet served up in a familiar way: bland promises of even more tech awesomeness, promoted with the same old self-congratulatory Silicon Valley patter, while insidiously threatening to alter the most fundamental elements of human life.

If you’re not already concerned about humanity’s collective future — physical, social, economic, philosophical — the articles in these pages will force you from your quiet pit of nonchalance, never to return. In one article, Miju Han compares Mark Zuckerberg’s 2024 denial of a link between social media use and mental health with the scientific consultant who swore there was no link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s and ’60s. (“Social Media Is An Addictive Substance. Treat it Like One.”)

Founder and editor-in-chief David Temkin (a software engineer who’s worked at Apple and Google) is back in his role for this issue, as are most of the original key players, including journalist Alex Lash, longterm tech (and funny) guy Brian Maggi, techology writer Paulina Borsook and data nerd Oren Tversky. There’s also a large batch of new talent.

In Formation wants you to know who is keeping tabs on you, where that information is being sold, and why. You might think you know already — we all know how to click our cookie permissions, right? But have you considered that some of your appliances are keeping a record of how and when you use them? (“Surveil at Scale.”) Or that your car might be reporting your driving habits to insurance companies? (“My Toyota Ratted Me Out”) Have you considered the ways in which tech companies follow the playbooks of cults? (“The Varieties of Silicon Valley Religious Experience.”) In Formation has. And it wants you to know the best and latest safeguards for your personal data and privacy.

Thankfully, the magazine’s 160 pages also offer satire (keep your eyes on the ad pages in particular), because a little bit of comic relief is important in times of almost-apocalypse. For the same reason, there’s also art, including a 17-page graphic novella (“Shop Talk”) by Kingshuk Das. Photos from Eric Pickersgill’s “Removed” series — depressing photos of humans ignoring each other in favor of their empty, cupped hands — are also featured powerfully in “The Missing Mirror.”

Stylistically, the aesthetics of In Formation remind me of the coolest, most immersive magazines of the late 1990s, like The Face or I-D. That doesn’t feel like an accident. In Formation has made a conscious effort on every level to bring us, the readers, back to Earth, back to real life and back to tangible things. There’s even a two-track “flexidisc for your meatspace earholes” at the back of the magazine by a band called The Layoffs. (Admittedly, I did not successfully get this to play on my turntable, but it was fun to see one again.)

A few moments of In Formation even succeeded in transporting me back to the tech optimism of the 1990s. Julie Anderson’s “Teenagers and the Electronic Brain” argues that online connectivity has the potential to turn Gen Z into a hyper-constructive hive mind, the likes of which humanity has not witnessed since the literary age first emerged and pushed people towards individualism. Her ideas aren’t just fascinating — they gave me the first hope for Gen Z’s future I’ve felt in years.

You may be wondering if, after devouring the essays in In Formation, I’m still missing the ’90s. Sure. Possibly more than ever. But In Formation is the thought-provoking, nostalgia-soaked salve that I didn’t know I needed. It also gave me the rare sense that all might not be lost just yet.

And in the case that it is? Well, at least now I know how to encrypt my own messages.

‘In Formation’ is available now at Barnes & Noble and booksellers nationwide.