“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~ Lao Tzu
One of my favorite things about the early Internet was that it felt like it was full of possibility. When I was a kid I would build websites on Angelfire and Geocities. I loved how they provided platforms to express yourself. Email was slow, and chatrooms were chaotic. Having a website felt like planting a flag on solid ground.
When social network platforms rose to prominence, their allure lie in the ease of connectivity that they promised. I liked Facebook's clean interface. Interacting with my friends was simple. And I liked the fact that Twitter made it easy to connect with people on the other side of the planet in real-time. It felt like waking up.
The Internet is whatever we make of it, and it has certainly been different things to me at different stages of my life. But however intoxicating and destablizing current fads may be, I am not a victim. I have spent an inordinate amount of time this year working to break, or at least moderate, my addiction to social media by either trying to quit cold turkey or at least take a haitus. But as I emerge from my fog and work to build something new for myself, I'm finding that I can't quit these networks completely. And so instead I have sought out apps and extensions that will limit my time per day on these sites, such as the Chrome 'WasteNoTime' extension, and AppBlock and Block on Android.
As a species, we are masters of our environment. The more time we spend online, the more necessary mastering our digital environments becomes. Instead of being captive to the 'elements,' we can use tools to help us build structure and order in the way we use the Internet. If I am having a terrible experience on the Internet, as an adult, it is up to me to change my experience.
Basically what I am saying is that I need to get over myself and just be.
Thank you for reading,
- Josh
Image Credit: Giphy/Chelsea Quinlan