Published: March 18, 2025
It is March 17th as I write this, and I forgot to wear green today. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I do sometimes like being festive. This blog has a readership of essentially zero, but I at least wanted to have a record for posterity of how my journey to have a healthier relationship with technology is going. Since this is the first one I've really written, I suppose I should start with some background.
I've expressed the sentiment that I believe today's version of the internet is bad for society and bad for America for many years. For me at least, it hasn't been very difficult to see the fundamental changes in discourse caused by the incentive structure of algorithmic social media. With increased engagement, the companies running the platforms make more money, and so the underlying recommendation algorithm feeds everyone stuff they're more likely to engage with. For most humans, something that makes you angry does the trick. It's like a gigantic psyop.
It wasn't until December 2024 that I came to the realization (with some help) that what I was seeing online was actively dragging me down. I did not like the person I was becoming, so I started taking steps to stop that feedback loop.
TikTok was the first to go. I've written here before about how the algorithm amplifies every trait of your personality - good or bad. I stopped watching in mid-December and opened the app one last time about a week before the ban took effect to upload a video directing my approximately 50,000 followers to the YouTube channel where I primarily post broadcasting-related videos these days. I then exported my data from both my accounts and deleted the app.
More recently, I've stopped wearing my Apple Watch. This is probably temporary, because the health and fitness tracking features are very useful to me, but I need to get a handle on what applications are on my phone first. In the interim, I've been wearing a Casio Wave Ceptor WV-58A I bought several years ago because I thought it was cool to have a watch that could receive time signals from WWV and set itself. The only thing I really miss from my Apple Watch other than being able to track my sleep and movement is having current weather conditions on my watch face.
I've also been deleting a lot of apps from my phone. My new philosophy toward smartphone apps is “if the same functionality is available from a web site, I don't need the app”. This has caused me to use my laptop more, which provides a much better experience and a larger screen, as well as provide a logical boundary between times when I'm present and when I'm not. Responsiveness of these web sites varies, but if I'm accessing something from my phone, it's because that thing can't wait until I'm at a computer and I'll deal with the difficulty. Once I finish pruning the apps on my phone, I'll probably just disable notifications entirely on my Apple Watch and start wearing it again.
I have also deleted all my Instagram and Facebook accounts. It had been a really long time since I posted anything, and I also wasn't looking at my news feed all that much (I deleted the apps from my phone several months ago). However, with our BFF Mark's shenanigans, it makes more sense for me to just not have a presence there. I also don't want to be tempted.
I will admit, the first week or so without that security blanket was difficult. Learning how to be bored again is challenging, but you eventually find a way around it. Consuming internet content on my own terms again is so refreshing, and I am almost ashamed that I let myself get sucked into the distraction vortex that defines modern social media. Now that my brain is unwiring itself from the need to scroll all the time, I don't even find myself turning to Bluesky or Mastodon for stimulation (although I do maintain presences in both places). I'm finding and subscribing to RSS feeds again. I'm communicating via email again. I'm well on my way to cultivating real human connection again.
Let's check in sometime in mid-April.