What we choose to share
One thing that often gets missed in debates around the internet, particularly now that governments are locking everything away behind an age-verification wall is how our relationship to the internet has changed.
In the early days, our computers were relatively benign. They didn’t know anything about us besides what we chose to share. Even though most people were running some form of Windows back in the mid-90s, Microsoft had yet to turn its flagship product into an ad-delivery platform that occasionally launched programs of your choosing.
That wouldn’t start in earnest until much later. Fast forward to today and Windows 11 could by most metrics be considered malware.
The amount of information being collected by our devices is genuinely frightening. Now the websites we visit or the apps we use on our phones collect enough data from us to know how we like our toast buttered in the mornings.
The worst part is, we’re often not choosing to share this information. It is collected routinely by closed-source applications we are all but forced to engage with, because services are now locked behind them.
Even our ‘smart’ TVs collect enough personal information from us to know what toothpaste we used that morning.
We are so far down the path of having no privacy whatsoever, you have to go out of your way to reclaim it.
It has recently started to dawn on me that most of the problems I’ve had with my mental health over the past 25 years may have been in some part due to the internet and the monster it has become. I’m well aware that preying on discontent is part of the business model of some of the biggest online platforms these days.
Various attempts to simplify my life over the years have certainly helped, but anything short of an isolated cabin in the woods is unlikely to satisfy that desire for clarity.
In real life I’d consider myself to be a relatively open book. I’m not reluctant to share how I feel to the people closest to me, but it wasn’t until I started on antidepressants nearly a decade ago that I realised just how noisy the inside of my head was.
Whilst I can hear myself think again I need to make the most of the silence to figure out what I must do to keep the noise down, ready for when the medication inevitably stops.
Ideas
I’ve started to settle on a few ideas for how to proceed. The first thing that needs to go is the short-form video content. I’m not talking about Youtube Shorts or TikTok because I already ignore those like the plague they are. I’m talking about content less than an hour long. It is too convenient and too lacking in genuine information to take seriously, yet it makes too much precious time disappear. I would be better off using that time to watch a movie or put another album on.
Secondly, I have too many computers. I need to pick a platform and stick to it. I genuinely have trouble choosing between MacOS and Linux. As hardware is so expensive these days, I will wait to see which one breaks first, before settling on the other.
Thirdly, I need to speed up my decluttering. I want to be able to move with only a couple of bags of essentials. This brings me onto gaming.
After seeing the bullshit going on in the world of gaming, with £100 games, paywalled content and the devices to play them getting more expensive with age, it’s a hobby I can no longer justify spending any more money on. So, that’s it, I think I’m out. I will milk the devices I have for all they are worth, before walking away from the hobby I embraced 40 years ago.
Finally, taking inspiration from Sarah Davis Baker’s excellent video on Nebula which talked about how the internet ‘used to be a place’ I’d like to try to go back to that.
As much as I love my chums on Mastodon, I have developed an unhealthy relationship with the platform and it consumes far more time than it should. I’m going to remove the apps from my phone for a while, whilst also deleting my Google (Youtube) account again. I will try to check in once a day on a desktop to catch up on things, but I need to see where the boredom takes me.
Who knows, maybe then I’ll have the headspace to write more.
