An Old Frontier

I’m increasingly dissatisfied with my internet addiction, in no small part because of how it has changed. It’s probably never good to be addicted to anything, but this … it’s stealing my life from me in hours-long chunks.

When I graduated college, the Internet had just begun exploding. Sites popped up for everything. If you had an interest, someone made a website for that, and that thing specifically. And then companies began building websites for their businesses. And then people tried to figure out how they were going to make money off the deal.

That was a good decade before social media really blew up. Before Facebook. Before Facebook became the internet.

Now, my entire internet experience is … Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit. That’s almost literally it. I don’t go hunt down blogs from authors I love, or websites for games I like. If I do seek out a website, it’s usually one selling something, like Grafton pens at Everyman.

I never pull up Medium. I don’t have a blogroll I follow. I somehow lost the habit of pulling up Penny Arcade every day to see what Tycho and Gabe had cooked up.

Instead, it’s hours wasted on posts chosen for me by algorithm. Posts I don’t remember not 30 seconds after seeing them. Shit I don’t really care about. Things made to manipulate me. Invasive advertising. Inflammatory political rhetoric. Thirst traps.

I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. – Tyler Durden, Fight Club (film)

What’s the point?

I used to start these kinds of posts with a “social media is the worst thing that has ever happened to mankind” type of hyperbolic statement. And I think I still agree with that in general, but these days, there’s this feeling with it. This feeling of irresponsibility on my part. Of passiveness. Gullibility.

I let this happen.

The internet used to be fun. Exciting. Finding a new site that expounded upon a new interest was, not thrilling, but at least felt kinda good. It bolstered your enthusiasm for a thing. I remember digging into cyberpunk and Shadowrun and the early days of fantasy football. Into gaming. Art.

I let social media steal my interests from me and replace them with bullshit. I did a journal entry yesterday and made a list of things I’d still be into. I should be into. I’m into them in my mind.

I hate going to one app (well, three) and scrolling. I do it.

But more and more, I’m resentful as hell about it. Things are about to give. The question i have for myself is … can I go back to the old ways of surfing? Can I be my own algorithm? Will I have FOMO not visiting social media?

There’s only one way to find out.