The Internet Kinda Sucks
On Social Media and Opting Out and Living Life
The world is feeling mighty strange these days
Seems like every person I talk to has something negative to expresses about social media, A.I., crypto, algorithms, or the internet in general. Whether it’s anxiety, a sense of hopelessness, frustration, or even that they are losing their memory. An overwhelming sentiment is that all this just kinda sucks.
I read this article, we had this guest speaker at our church, I was talking to a friend…
How TikTok rots our brains, how Instagram is causing teenage suicide. How AI is killing the planet.
I wasn’t even going to write about this this month, I was going to write about something happy. But enough people have brought this topic up in one way or another over the past few weeks that it just seems right.
And, also, maybe it’s the music I was listening to the other day.
And, also, maybe it’s because I keep seeing more and more of those tesla cyber trucks on my commutes. Harbingers of a future I don’t want to participate in.
It feels like we are at a tipping point
Lauren and I talk about it on a near daily basis. People we know seem burnt out. I’m mostly talking about Millenials but it’s true of some of our Gen X friends. Everyone wants to make their phones simpler, to limit screen time, to be more PRESENT.
There’s also the whole election-gun-violence-climate-change-Gaza-Isreal-conflict-THING going on…
Honestly, I’m burnt out talking about how burnt out we all are.
I usually use this space to talk about art and meditation and ways that we can be better people to each other. I think how we use our technology is important and relates to these topics.
A little about me: I keep my phone in a closet when I get home. Some times I’ll turn it off and put it in Tupperware and then put the Tupperware in the bathtub. It’s true, ask Lauren.
A little about me: the other day I deleted my instagram and reddit account. The whole thing feels like a cigarette addiction. My nicotine patch is a New Yorker magazine subscription and online chess.
I basically came to realize I was unhappy using these apps and immediately after using them. Doom scrolling, dopamine hits from likes/shares, and rage commenting were subtly but fundamentally changing my mood and my brain.
Instagram wasn’t actually showing me anything my friends were doing. My feed was artists I didn’t actually know, fast fashion stores, Harry Potter Lego, really bad cooking videos, climate change statistics, commentary about the radical right, and usually something funny.
I felt like I’d reached the end of the internet when a man named Xandiloquence Bizarre the Ab3rd was selling me a book about how to make a hat out of dried cucumbers. It felt like it was time to leave.
Here’s something good for your brain: a kindness meditation.
Oh Kevin, you’re so dramatic
I have friends who work in tech, who code, who are social media managers. My conversations with them about these things are usually how AI is misunderstood, isn’t as bad as people say; that social media keeps us connected, is how we know the going’s on.
And thats fine. I guess.
I think fundamentally I am a luddite. And that’s fine.
I told a friend I was thinking about deleting instagram and they said, “but how will you promote your art?!”
There’s a free art library uptown, I think I’ll put some stuff in there. And just leave little paintings around town.
I’m thinking of starting a zine again. I could mail you one.
I’m looking for a part time job for the winter. I’m looking to volunteer more in my community.
I just might start talking to people in real life, more.
I’ll still have this newsletter.
Shifting away from online life is a challenge for me to engage more in real life. It means I have to Go. Do. Stuff.
Or else I’ll feel lonely. Or else I’ll feel bored.
And you do too if you decide that this is a change you’d like to make in your life (and I do encourage you to).
We can do it together. We can go do stuff together.
