Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet's Margins

How the Amish have adopted certain digital tools in ways that allow them to work and live according to their own value system.

The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But, as Lindsay Ems shows in Virtually Amish, Old Order Amish today are selectively engaging with digital technology. The Amish need digital tools to participate in the economy—websites for ecommerce, for example, and cell phones for communication on the road—but they have develop...