Meet Christina Crook: Founder and Chief Joy Officer at JOMO

It was her 30-day disconnection from the online world that got award-winning author Christina Crook to start writing about the intersection of technology and well-being. However, it wasn’t until the response to her book The Joy of Missing Out that she truly realized how important it was that there exist voices questioning the nature of our relationship to the digital world. She has written for dozens of magazines and online journals on the subjects of spirituality, mindfulness, and digital well-being, but the most exciting part of her journey, for now, is: “building and nurturing a community of intelligent, ethical, positive people that want things to be better than they are today.”

My first job ever was… a paper route.

If I had to give myself a professional title I would call myself… an artist.

My proudest accomplishment is… interviewing ethical tech advocate Anil Dash on the JOMO(cast.)

My boldest move to date was… holding tight to the reigns of JOMO, knowing deep in my gut that the wave of digital well-being was coming.  

I surprise people when I tell them… I am an introvert. I recharge alone.

The biggest lesson I learned from disconnecting from the digital world was… the amount of peace, quiet and margin that is there waiting for us.

My best advice to people seeking digital disconnection is… reconnect to life’s true joys – find what makes you come alive and lean into that.

My best advice from a mentor was… keep saying ‘Yes.’


I would tell my 21-year old self… beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.

“How can we be fully human in a wired world? How shall we live? How do we build a future worth wanting? ”

My biggest setback was… two years spinning my wheels not being sure if I really wanted to build a business. 


I overcame it by… getting real about what I really want. I have always had unbridled ambition but, as a woman, believed there was something tainted, something wrong with wanting so much.

The best thing about what I do is…  connecting with academics, makers, technologists, philosophers wrestling with similar questions as me: How can we be fully human in a wired world? How shall we live? How do we build a future worth wanting? 


If you googled me, you still wouldn’t know… I’m pretty quirky. I just sent some weird corrupted Polaroids — the last of my original 30-year-old Polaroid film – to friends by mail with no explanation. One, a professor in Copenhagen. Another, a typographer in Hamilton. Ha. Joy.

I stay inspired by… Reading. Quiet. Writing.

My next step is… publishing my next book. I’m at work on “Experience JOMO”, a book for readers of 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, a compact, affirming and actionable guide to taking real steps toward joy.