I think I need to get off the internet. Not the internet, obviously. I'm writing this on it. But I need to get off that part of the internet. The bit where everyone has an opinion, everyone has a hot take, everyone is angry about something, and apparently everyone needs to tell everyone else about it immediately.
So I've taken a break from social media... More specifically, I've stepped away from microblogging. For the first time in about 15 years, I don't have a microblogging social media account. No Facebook. No Twitter/X. No Mastodon. No GoToSocial. Nothing.
And, somewhat embarrassingly, it has been hard. It's only been a few days and I already have the peculiar sensation that I've misplaced something. I keep reaching for my phone without thinking, looking for the familiar little apps and the endless stream of stuff waiting to be consumed.
There's an itch and I'm discovering just how much of my brain had been trained to scratch it.
I didn't leave because I suddenly decided that social media was evil. I left because it wasn't particularly good for me anymore.
There was simply too much. Too many opinions. Too much rapid-fire commentary. Too much outrage delivered at the speed of a thumb scrolling upwards. Misinformation mixed with good information. Ragebait. Polarisation. People perpetually playing the victim. People looking for someone to hate. People confidently explaining things they clearly hadn't bothered to understand.
And then, of course, everyone arguing about it. All. The. Time.
I was doomscrolling, and I was beginning to realise just how unhealthy that was for me. My world was becoming increasingly noisy with the opinions of people I'd never met and would almost certainly never meet.
Even the places I expected to be different weren't necessarily different. Mastodon, for example, is generally much more progressive than X. But being on a different side of the political spectrum doesn't magically make polarisation disappear. Some corners of the Fediverse can be every bit as angry, tribal and reactive. Different politics. Same internet brain.
And eventually I realised that my phone had become a kind of slot machine. Pull it out. Refresh. Scroll. React. Refresh again. Another little addictive hit.
I don't particularly like admitting that, but there it is.
So, do I have any social media accounts?
Well... yes. Sort of. I have this blog.
And perhaps that's the point.
I've been wanting to get back into writing for a while. Real writing. Not necessarily good writing. Not necessarily profound writing. Just writing.
Journaling. Thinking. Processing. Putting words around things that are rattling around in my head.
Writing is good for my soul. It gives me somewhere to put things. Sometimes it helps me understand what I'm actually thinking. Sometimes it helps me deal with something I've been avoiding. Sometimes it is simply a way of noticing my own life.
I'd like to do more of that. And I like what this space represents.
There are no comments to keep up with. No follower count I need to grow. No algorithm deciding whether something I've written is worthy of being seen. No pressure to constantly produce little morsels of content so that the machine doesn't forget I exist.
Just a quiet place to write. That sounds rather lovely right now.
I also still have Vernissage, where I post my photographs.
Photography does something similar for me. It makes me pay attention. There's something wonderfully grounding about walking somewhere with a camera—or just my phone—and noticing the light, the mountains, a funny little moment, an interesting building, my kids doing something ridiculous, or some otherwise completely ordinary thing that suddenly catches my eye.
It reminds me that there is a world outside the glowing rectangle.
I've deliberately kept the number of people I follow there fairly small, too. I don't particularly want to recreate the endless scrolling problem, only with prettier pictures.
And for actually talking to people, I've got Signal and email.
That's it. If you want to talk to me, that's where you'll find me. No longer does every application on my phone need to chirp at me like an electronic toddler demanding attention.
Am I going to miss what's happening?
Probably. But I've been thinking about what I actually want from information.
I don't want more information. I want better information.
So I've gone a little old school and returned to RSS feeds for blogs and newsletters.
I use Unread on my iPhone to bring together the things I actually want to read. I've become quite selective about what goes into the feed and how much of it I consume.
There are theologians whose writing I appreciate. OSINT professionals who know their craft. Investigators who take the work of finding and presenting the truth seriously, without the corporate shilling or ideological spin. And then there are people who simply write interesting things about interesting subjects.
That's about it.
The feed is manageable. More importantly, it's intentional. I'm choosing what enters my head instead of allowing an algorithm to choose it for me.
And there's something different about longer-form writing. It isn't automatically better or more accurate, of course. Bloggers can be spectacularly wrong too. But generally speaking, writing a considered article requires more effort than firing off an angry sentence because someone on the internet annoyed you thirty seconds ago.
I find that I can actually think about what I'm reading. Imagine that.
I've also kept a small news section in Unread. It contains RSS feeds for three short daily news podcasts from legacy media organisations. They're all around twenty minutes or less, which means I can listen to them while I'm cooking dinner or out walking the dog.
One is local Calgary news. One is Canadian national news. And one is international news.
I deliberately chose an international source that isn't particularly US-centric. That's been surprisingly refreshing.
I don't automatically assume everything I hear is correct. If something catches my attention, I'll go and look into it myself. I'll find other sources. I'll look for primary material where I can.
The difference is that I decide what deserves my attention.
I'm not being dragged into the latest American political drama because it happens to be dominating my feed. I'm not spending half an hour reading arguments about something I didn't even know existed ten minutes earlier. I'm not carrying the emotional residue of 400 strangers into my evening.
That's been nice.
I don't think social media is inherently bad. There are good people there. Good communities. Good conversations. I've learned plenty from them over the years. But something can be good in itself and still not be good for you in a particular season. And right now, I need less noise.
I want to write. I want to take photographs. I want to read things that make me think. I want to pay attention to my family. I want to notice ordinary things.
I want to be present in the actual world rather than perpetually checking in on the digital one.
That said, I'm still getting used to it. It is going to be a long slog. I still reach for my phone. I still occasionally wonder what everyone is talking about. I still have that little itch.
But perhaps that's the interesting part.
Maybe I don't actually need to scratch it. Maybe I just need to let it pass. The world is noisy enough already. I'm beginning to think I don't need to add my own little corner of noise to it.
For now, I'd rather light a small lamp and write.