Lately between the news and the ongoing dredge of quarantine I’ve been needing to step away from the Internet. After Christmas I took a month off from social media, and as you may have noticed slacked off a little on my blog. I needed some space from the constant noise and heightened emotions of the Internet. I needed quiet.
I read an interesting book called Because Internet about the way the Internet has changed language. It was a fascinating read, I highly recommend, and it also spoke a little to Internet culture. The author speculated that in the early days of the Internet it was a safer, less toxic place. Not because there were no creeps in chatrooms but because people were just beginning to get used to the idea of finding information online and connecting with others in that space.
Now forty years later (can you believe it’s only been forty years?) people have not only become accustomed the the Internet, it’s brought out the worst in them. Now we have a 24 hour news cycle which means we’re constantly exposed to every horror in the world with very few avenues to escape it. Now we’re involved in these social media webs that are toxic for a number of reasons, from comparing yourself to impossible standards to transmitting harmful and incorrect information.
People have learned that there are fewer consequences to harassment online and so we have trolls and stalkers and lives being broken through modems and laptops.
I certainly don’t fantasize that the world was a better place before the Internet. It wasn’t. And I do think the Internet is important and crucial and often a wonderful addition to our contemporary lives. But we desperately need more time away from technology. For our own mental health and perhaps for the overall health of our society.
On a personal level I’ve been trying, and not always succeeding, to spend less time on my phone and computer. I’m tired. I’m tired of the emotional burden of the 24 hour news cycle. I’m tired of the hours that seem to be lost in a void of Netflix watching or Instagram scrolling. I’m tired of not feeling connected to myself because I’m connected to the WiFi.
So for a few hours a week, if I’m lucky a day, I stash my electronics away and try to return to the things I enjoyed before the Internet was central to our lives. I read, I take walks, I sew, I go to a yoga class. Sometimes I just sit in my apartment and think. Remember independent thinking? Sometimes I can’t remember the name of an actor from a movie and I don’t Google it.
I just live with not knowing. And it’s blissful.