I woke up yesterday, the same way as any other day. Bleary-eyed, I reached over to grab my phone from its charging pad and studied this morning's lay of the land. OK, Mail (3). WhatsApp (7). Messages (1). Two ads in Mail, one important update. Some memes shared by friends in WhatsApp, and a TikTok link inbound in Messages. This was the last sight of finite numbers that morning. I pulled up Apple News to see what fresh hell awaited the world, and by extension, me, today. Angered, frustrated and with a creeping sense of anxiety after consuming this content, I headed over to Reddit to find out what to think next. A discussion in /r/WorldNews had broken out between two strangers about the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Very eloquent and thought-out, fear-inducing and, for all I know, completely unfounded. Anxiety peaking, I tapped that TikTok link from Messages and quickly washed down the building bile with short hits of dopamine from slapstick, pranks and weird dances.
Now I was ready for the day ahead - my family's real needs finally overriding the scrolling and forcing me out of bed.
An Unbounded Internet
This typical session on the unbounded internet had delivered me intrigue, entertainment and some measure of knowledge, yet it had also served up anxiety, despair and goodness knows what other emotions imprinted on my subconscious. An unbounded internet is like having a faucet that pours infinite soda, an endless oven serving donuts on demand. Of course, we all know that attention is the currency of choice for the modern web. As a media platform, eyeballs on your content translates directly to money in your bank account. So it totally makes sense therefore, that an infinite supply of the most outrageous, shocking, emotional content is the logical conclusion.
But it gets worse.
As ordinary citizens of the web, not only are we manipulated; pulled in a hundred different directions by this spigot of dopamine, but we become less human. I mentioned above, wryly, that I find out what to think on Reddit, but I really do mean that literally. I find myself barely paying attention to the articles themselves and heading straight to the comments, where the most popular opinion invariably lands at the top and is bolstered by hundreds of upvotes and concurring replies. Years of this conditioning shapes not just our worldview but our entire concept of truth and lived experience. "I don't ever want to visit Detroit because I'll get shot at". How many times have you made a decision not because you've come to your own conclusions but because you consumed someone else's opinion and made it your own? How many hobbies have we, collectively, given up on because someone else is doing it better? How many times have we had our own voices stolen from us because an anonymous stranger has said it already and more eloquently?
Turning off the spigot
The problem for most of us, of course, is that this spigot is somewhat comforting, reassuring, familiar. It's with us wherever we go, always a few taps away. It's like a fluffy pillow that makes us dehydrated at the same time. And like any addiction, quitting is no easy task, not least because a huge void is left when you turn the spigot off; when you gain back 4+ hours each day. You can't exactly sit down and read a novel, because the dopamine isn't there any more. It's like your tastebuds are numb from fast food and sugar.
The fast food analogy is a really great one, I think. The reason the internet has been unbounded and 'let loose' in our lives is because there's very little discourse about its harmful effects. Yes, there's studies about Facebook, Twitter or TikTok specifically damaging mental health (especially in teenagers), but these seem to miss the point. If Twitter went away (and it's well on its way as of writing this), three more platforms will pop up instead, like a Hydra. It's not the platforms but instead the design and desire to maximize attention above everything else. It almost feels like the whole web is this way now. Advertising dominates, and thus so does its mechanism to lure people online. And while I have focused on the mental health and reality-altering effects of the web in this article, I have so far completely neglected to talk about surveillance capitalism. I'm not going to go into detail here because I am by no means an expert in this field.
So, how does one turn off this spigot? Well - have you ever tried to swim against the current in a river? Turning off this spigot is more than just changing personal habits. It's about systemic change and a rethinking of the entire web.
The internet, but with corners
Imagine a room with a limited amount of stuff in it. There's a single newspaper on the table and a few books on the bookshelf. One beautiful view outside the windows. A single show on TV, good food and the loving company of family and friends. This is a wonderful room. Yet it has corners - edges. There's not 5000 newspapers (and more if you keep walking). You don't have to interact with of thousands of people smarter, more talented, kinder and better looking than you. There's no CCTV drone flying overhead. You can spend a half hour in here and leave - yes, there's a way out - feeling more knowledgeable, happier and connected with the world around you. You feel like you have agency again - a way to make things even 1% better.
That's what the internet, but with corners, would look like. Just like the room above, there are edges - defined ending points where there is no more content to consume. Or, maybe there IS more to consume but we are able to make a decision to stop and walk out the door. How do we bring about this reality? Here's two approaches.
Personal habits
There are many, many ways to reign in content consumption and endless scrolling - but with an important caveat. Almost everything about the web is designed to persuade you to believe the following:
It's not harmful to keep scrolling - everyone does it!
<Insert Latest Global Development> is LIFE CHANGING and I had better pay attention!
I have self control - I don't need to put external barriers in the way - I'm a grown adult!
It's rude to ignore links to Twitter, TikTok and other platforms sent by friends and family members
Real life is boring - this video is much more interesting.
So, just know that you're fighting against what feels like forces of nature here and you'll require an enormous amount of willpower to resist in the long haul. But that's what it is - resistance. Don't let the above rationalizations suck you back in. They have for me, many times.
With that caveat out of the way, here's some things to try:
The Center for Humane Technology has a fantastic outline of behavioral and habit changes you can make in your own life to "Take Control": https://www.humanetech.com/take-control. It focuses on a combination of device configuration and attitude changes to reduce your dependence on the web as it stands.
In addition to the tips in the link above, consider how you might treat the web as more transactional and utilitarian in your life. Make it query-based - reach out to search engines for information when you need it. Let it serve your requests on your terms rather than being a place to 'hang out'. In the same vein, I see instant messaging as a less harmful tool because you're an active participant in the conversation (concerns over bullying notwithstanding).
Let the web be a conduit for your own hobbies and, just how you might rearrange a room in your home to be soothing, beautiful and energizing, surround yourself with content and tools that are supportive of your goals in life rather than extractive.
Buddy up. Find someone who is likeminded and wants to regain control of their internet life and lean on them for mutual support.
Make use of Google and Apple's begrudging support for screen time controls. You may have varying success with this one (I certainly do) because it somehow feels like self-flagellation and can be hard to swallow after a while. The inflexibility of having, say, 10 minutes a day on Reuters is that on those occasions where current events are directly relevant to your life, you may find yourself being hamstrung by your own restrictions. You may have more success outright banning outbound connections to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and so on via DNS - as if the companies had gone offline overnight.
Fill the void. Possibly the hardest thing to do here, but gaining potentially hours back each day can make the day feel boring, empty or like you're missing out on some big event. The easiest place to start is to sink into hobbies that you may have neglected - which is a great way to use the internet transactionally. Use a search engine to find guitar tabs for that classic rock song. Find a meetup near you. Engage with the knowledge you gain but put the phone down. Regain your sense of self.
Systemic Change
What would the world look like if we paid more attention to our surroundings? This is where The Internet With Corners becomes more than personal habit change but a sociopolitical, lifestyle movement. And it doesn't matter how tech savvy you are. Can we build a campaign to Quit Scrolling - in a way to educate people on its harmful effects just like the anti-smoking movements of decades past? Will we see the famous red-circle-with-strikethrough but the cigarette replaced with a phone?
And for the tech-savvy among us, the world is our oyster. As we work and contribute towards the web services of the future, we have a golden opportunity to engineer the systemic changes needed to make the internet work for us, not the other way around. Because this issue clearly goes beyond screen time and turning off notifications. How and where do we architect the 'corners' needed to prevent the web from being another exercise in pathology? What positive design patterns can we dream up which consciously redirect attention? And how can we make this vision of the web profitable and sustainable from an economic standpoint?
Together, we can turn off the spigot.
- Loading comments...