Your Internet Shouldn't Be My Internet
I deleted my Instagram a few weeks ago. It felt like the most difficult platform to give up in my quest to redefine my relationship to the internet and reduce the time I spent doomscrolling. There was no other social media that had a hold on me quite like Instagram - especially once their infinite scrolling Reels feature became a key part of the app. I made my first account on the app at age 11, meaning I have spent more than half of the days in my life so far logging into the platform.
I've definitely always had an addictive personality when it came to the internet (see: my extremely well-curated Webkinz profile from ages 4-10, or my now deleted 8-year-old reddit account with a ridiculous amount of karma), and Iām willing to admit only now that Iāve wasted, hours, weeks, probably years, of my life scrolling through other peopleās content using algorithms that donāt care about me but rather do care about profit, advertising reach and misinformation. I always knew that big social media was bad for me, but it took me intentionally stepping away from it to see how much it had taken over my brainpower. Before my ultimate deletion though, a few final straws:
- Every other image on Pinterest being a terrible advertisement
- Seeing trolls post hate comments on every image of a woman ever
- Youtube ads. Canāt even leave a video playing in the background anymore without SO MANY ads that you HAVE to click to end.
All of these built up, and after so many years of maintaining a presence on mainstream social media, I couldn't take it anymore.
And then: This past September, I was catching up with some dear āsummer campā friends of mine in a pub in the financial district of downtown Toronto. The sort of place where itās a bit dark and dingy and you hope their drinks are on special so you donāt have to pay full price at this place. I spent the entire evening quietly distracted by a large, unmovable screen sticking out of the centre of the table, playing looping videos of commercials and movie trailers. What sort of late-stage capitalism are we in where I canāt have a real-life conversation with friends without being subjected to in-my-face advertising?
So, after wrapping up an otherwise delightful evening with my friends, I found myself overthinking about all the media I saw everyday, whether I wanted to or not. I sensed that the dumb screen on a table was essentially doing the same thing to my brain as the modern big social media platforms I used every day. While all I wanted was to engage with my friends' posts and comments, I was being inundated by total rot - from bots to edgelords to eager self-improvement bros to beauty gurus. I got stuck on the question:
who am I when Iām not on big social media?
Processing that question lead to me deleting my big social media accounts. Now that I'm weeks removed from my original deletions - Iām never going back. I have no urge to see what kept me so entranced for years. I had tried so many times before to reduce my social media usage, but I had never truly succeeded at staying away. The FOMO always got back to me. Or āoh, I have to look at that recipe I savedā. Or āoh, I need to check in with that person I met one timeā. What helped the most was re-framing my perception of what the internet was for, and what I wanted from it.
Luckily enough, this time in my life coincided with my discovery of the broader communities of people online participating in the āslow webā.
Iāve been excited about this since I first read about it. I believe the internet is inherently meant to be a community-building tool for creative weirdos. Look at old YouTube, look at old forums and youāll see what I mean. When the internet went corporate and became about monetization - I lost the big picture of how the internet is meant for discussion, education, organizing, and just pure (mindful) fun. There are millions of people online once again actively looking to mindfully use the internet to detach from the money-hungry overlords that control the popular web. So many people are embracing the slow web, where they create personalized pages that they control, providing increased personal expression, connection free from bots and bad faith randos, AND data protection and privacy!!! Now this - is truly exciting to me.
I found a lot of this cool stuff indirectly through Tessa, who introduced me to are.na recently, a social platform that could be compared to Pinterest but without ads (thank god) and used primarily by artists, curators and curious people. On there, I've slowly been finding blogs and websites that are a part of this slow movement of intentional and mindful net practices. Eventually, Iāll highlight some of my favourites on this blog. There are lots of good things to read and many people making even better arguments than I can about why the move to the slow web is such a great part of the counterculture right now, so I'll be sure to share those soon.
Fundamentally, intentional internet usage that exists off of big platforms means that we should all have different internets. The communities that you are a part of will benefit from their smallness, from their reciprocal relationships between users. You should be (reasonably) free to engage in productive, fun, strange, discussions with people who arenāt trying to ragebait you so hard so they can post you on a #owningthelibs page or subject you to some other form of public humiliation.
If reading this does anything for you today, I hope it encourages a more mindful approach to online community. Blink twice and quit the doom scrolling. Big social media makes all its money off your time and attention. I encourage you to fight back.
Cheers to a free internet! One you own, love and respect!
As part of my little corner of the world, thanks for being here. I would love to read your comment. I write mainly personal updates for my friends and the occasional broader essay so you can sign up for email updates if you'd like! (or you can sign my guestbook <3)
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acknowledgements for this blog entry: special thanks to tessa for being on the cutting edge of cool things all the time. xx
Some of my previous visitors to this domain may have noticed that my blog looks a little bit different now. Iāve specifically chosen to use the Bear Blog platform because it is so minimalistic and text-focused. I feel calm when I use it. I feel less like Iām using a platform and more like Iām just updating my journal. No ads, no animations, and it takes barely any energy to load because of how small it is (take that, AI!). Sometimes I just need to make things in my life easier for myself. There was something about Squarespaceās design (my previous website host) that made it so I had to get on a computer and be annoyed at how uncustomizable (is that a word?) it was and then send an email to my subscription list and then and then and then. It was too many layers. So now Iāll be here, creating my own space while I learn to code a more personal website. I hope youāll stick around.