I have something of a love/hate relationship with being online.
I love the possibilities the Internet provides, the inter-connectivity, the access to the riches of the World Wide Web.
I hate the capacity of mankind to fill the World Wide Web with unmitigated bobbins.
Just lately the balance is getting increasingly out of whack. Example: I used to think Twitter was great - the social media it was okay to love. Concise, pithy, and interactive, if you had something of value to say it could be picked up and shared, your message was out there. And it was a door-opener, allowing you to communicate with people that you'd never otherwise be able to. But now? It's a bot-ridden, fake news propagating, cesspool of hate, where a thread can go from innocuous comment to outraged splenetic insults in four tweets or less. It is the demesne of the professionally angry, provocative, hateful and the first recourse of the competitively correct. Trolls, attention-seekers, hate-mongers, virtue-signallers, bots, propaganda, lies, fakery, extremism, inanity, ridicule, scorn, derision, loathing, self-loathing... pretty sure this is not what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind.
It wears me out, it really does. And it's not just Twitter. It's anything and anywhere online that requires you to have a username.
What makes it worse is that we've got to this point incrementally, and by stealth. The idea now of renouncing all online activity, deleting every account, cancelling email addresses... well, it's hard to imagine. But if the whole shebang was invented today, complete and in its current form rather than developing over many years, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Would you?
All of which doesn't really even scratch the surface of why I am trying to disentangle myself from the Web somewhat, though it gives you a flavour. And I am aware of the irony of making these points in a blog post (attention-seeking, inane, loathing, self-loathing). Whatever. I shall be having a purge, reapplying the pub test to my Facebook friends list (as in, would I enjoy having a pint in the pub with you? If not, unfollowed), the reciprocity test to Twitter (is our interaction mutually beneficial or are you getting more out of it than I am? If the latter, unfollowed), maybe just binning LinkedIn completely, and even pruning my blogroll (I currently subscribe to 39 RSS feeds). And I'll be sending Do Not Track requests from my browser, not-accepting third-party cookies and browsing incognito as much as possible. Stick that in your algorithm and smoke it.
I will not be entirely successful - it's impossible now, we're all too entangled. But I shall be trying to get back towards, oh, let's say... 1989. When the Internet existed but life in general was a bit more like this:
Good on you. I'm with you, I suspect many others are too, if they're honest with themselves. You're so right about the stealth thing (perfect illustration). I think that also applies to a lot of things I find troubling about modern life (e.g. the normalisation of cosmetic surgery and obsession with appearance is one I feel particularly strongly about, and although that's a whole other subject, there's definitely a correlation between it and online connectivity). What's the compulsion to share every thought, every movement, every opinion, every mundane experience, with everyone? WE DON'T CARE!
ReplyDeleteI kept away from Facebook, Twitter, etc. - mainly because of that, and because I can't be arsed, and have no regrets. I realise I might not understand all that's going on but I don't think I want to - it's all too much, too fast, no quality control, etc.
However I could probably talk and rant at great length about all this in person, over a pint :-)
Meanwhile, good luck with the disentangling. I'll drink to that!
Don't worry, C - if you were on social media, I think you'd pass the pub test.
DeleteI find myself caught between two stools - I've been trying to push my novel, but a bit part of that seems to involve whoring myself around Facebook and Twitter. There has to be a better way, I just haven't thought of it yet...
Yes, we have become far too reliant on it. And those younger than us even more so. I lost interest in twitter ages ago and binned linkedin (though despite closing my account, I still get emails from them). Facebook I can handle in limited doses because I've pruned it to the people I consider to have something interesting to say. And this tiny corner of the blogosphere still feels friendly. Considering that I don't have the time or energy for much face-to-face interaction with old friends these days, at least it gives me some semblance of a social circle. Ironically, my 4 best friends in "real life" don't frequent the internet at all: I've lost touch with 2 of them almost completely because of this, and the other two are a struggle.
ReplyDelete