Remember when Twitter was a place where people shared what they had for breakfast? Yeah, simpler times. I’ve always liked being able to write without having it to be something. The simple act of organizing thoughts into words and putting them out there like a message in a bottle was a low pressure way to maintain a writing habit.

Twitter in 2010 was interesting because it had a cocktail party vibe and, since I had so few followers at the time, it was an easy way to digitally jot down whatever came to mind. For me, it was the equivalent of a digital sketchpad. If someone found it interesting enough to interact, that was great, but I never feared that something I tweeted would make the internet fall on me.

Needless to say, the online world now is very different than it was in 2010. Going viral is a threat, not a blessing, and the repercussions can bleed into real life with devastating effects, especially for people in marginalized groups.

Tiptoeing back into the social media pool (and identifying what sucks about it for me)

I haven’t had a social media account since 2015. I’ve never gotten on with Facebook specifically because it’s designed to keep tabs on people you know (which I’d rather avoid), and none of the more image/video based platforms like Instagram and TikTok have remotely tempted me.

But I missed microblogging, and since Twitter is even crappier now than it was when I quit 8 years ago, I checked out a few alternatives, such as Spoutible and Mastodon (I didn’t even consider Post because Twitter taught me that the last place I want to be is somewhere full of journalists).

I soon realized that it wasn’t the algorithms, the ads, or even the trolls that I didn’t like — as anti-social as it sounds, it was the interaction. Or rather, the expectation of interaction. When a site is set up so interaction is easy, it feels bad when you post something and no one responds. On the flip side, when someone does respond, you feel obligated to respond back because it feels impolite not to.

In a worst case scenario, you might even feel obligated to react to the outrage of the moment even though no one asked for your opinion — on Twitter, not reacting equals not caring. How dare you not have an opinion, or worse yet, not even know about X?

All of those social expectations are just too exhausting for me. Being served up stuff I never signed up to see in my feed is exhausting too. When I peeked at Spoutible, the dynamics were similar, just on a smaller scale (and like Twitter, it’s essentially run by one person, which is a no-go for me). When I checked out a few of the larger Mastodon servers, it was the same thing.

On Mastodon, my own way

I realized that if a site is designed for easy social interaction (which most people want), then it derails my brain to the point where it’s difficult to do anything creative. This is why I don’t have comments on my blog, and it’s now why I have my own Mastodon server. People can still contact me through my website contact form, and they can follow and reply to me on Mastodon, but it takes a little effort. That’s a feature, not a bug.

I love having control over my own server, much like having control over my own website. Also, by having my own Mastodon server, I see only exactly what I want to see, which is not much. I follow three bot accounts: one that shows how much of the year has passed, one that links to Calvin and Hobbes comics, and one that links to XKCD comics. On my feed, there are no trending hashtags to pique my curiosity and no people on soapboxes. It’s the equivalent of not bringing junk food into my home.

The result? I’m writing more like I used to 20 years ago, before I knew anything about the “right” way to write and interact online. It’s fun again. I’m sure most “experts” in the writing world would recoil at the boundaries I’ve set up, but following their advice played a big role in what made me quit a few years back. I know “they” say that creative people can’t be reclusive anymore, but if I have to be reclusive to continue doing creative work at all, then it’s a choice I’ll happily make.

Airplane mode is not just a setting on your phone. It can be a whole way of life.

— Austin Kleon

I waste too much time online, which is odd because I haven’t had a social media account since 2015. That doesn’t stop me from spending tons of time searching, scrolling, lurking, and overloading my brain with information of dubious quality, though. It usually starts innocently enough, when I need to look up a specific thing. But after finding the answer I’m looking for and studying it from every opinion and angle, no matter how trivial, an hour has passed and I find myself in yet another rabbit hole.

It’s the curse of the infinite scroll combined with the brain’s desire for novelty. I’ve had this problem even before social media came along. What can I say? I love learning new things. But do I really need to spend two hours researching a $20 purchase? Do I really need to read everyone’s opinion about the outrage of the day (or the hour)? Do I need questionable advice from internet strangers about my life decisions? Of course not.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot less time online, even going as far as blocking search engines from my browser and using the internet only for necessary tasks like email at specific times of the day and checking the weather. Those are the days when I feel most like myself, which doesn’t say good things about how the internet affects me.

This year, I want to be even more intentional about staying offline. I know my online habits have stolen far too much energy from things that are more important and rewarding but, like any real-life activity, more difficult to implement. I want to cement my guitar and writing practices, for starters. I want to get outside, be more physically active, and explore my community. I want to spend more time with family and friends. These are such simple, healthy things, yet it’s so easy to be pulled away by all the forces (marketers, media, politicians, etc.) that want to impose their vision of the world on me. It’s annoying and disrespectful and I’m sick of it. Attention is even more valuable than money, and it’s about time I treated it that way.

So “unplug and play” is my theme for 2023. It’s a simple one, but it’ll have a positive domino effect on other areas of my life.

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This month’s link: When I vist the Asian grocery store, I always get a kick out of seeing the odd English on labels and gift items. Duolingo recently showcased great examples of Japanese-to-English mistranslations in The Museum of Wonky English.