so i've kinda started to hate the internet

i think we're just in. like. the worst time to use the web right now. ai is everywhere and when it's not strangling actual art and writing to death it's being shoved down your throat by companies adding it to fucking EVERYTHING like it's siri and cortana all over again, most modern social media is a different flavor of vitriolic shithole, and EVERYTHING is dependent on the internet or your phone or some random fucking app you're gonna delete as soon as you're done just to do whatever you need to do

at this point the only two places on the wider 'net i'm active on are tumblr, which is notoriously poorly run (so a lot of stuff that'd get censored/shot down on other platforms gets to stay up) and has a robust filtering system, so i'm able to curate my experience and just block/filter out whatever shit i don't want to see easily. the other one is youtube, which i mostly use to listen to video essays or some shit. other than that, i tend to stick to the indie web like maintaining my site here or my page on spacehey.

i don't use tiktok or instagram anymore. i had no reason to use instagram for anything other than communication because the algorithm is kinda shit to small artists if you're not posting every day, and tiktok's algorithm has become noticeably geared towards trying to piss you off to retain attention (which is enough for my mother, who spends a ton of time on tiktok, to have noticed and mentioned to me)

spotify's also gone! i hated using spotify with such intensity that this is not the first lengthy rant i have gone on it, and it's the entire reason i even BOUGHT the damn ipod. a music streaming service made by two guys with backgrounds in advertising, not music, that at this point amounts to nothing more than a glorified infomercial radio channel that spends more time playing ads than it does music (like 4 or 5 ads after every 1 or 2 songs) is just. if the thing that's supposed to make listening to music better and more convenient is doing a better job at making me want to throw my phone out a window, then it SERIOUSLY needs to recheck what it is.

on the note of streaming, it's just worse cable without the equipment. or sometimes WITH, it's just a hell of a lot smaller than an entire box that needs to be wired into your tv and wall. you pay for ads, what you want to watch probably isn't on that service so you're either gonna have to sail the high seas or shell out for another service just to watch whatever you wanted. the only difference is that you don't have to schedule around your show, but arguably that's WORSE because at least waiting for your thing to come on developed a sense of patience. on top of that, your show or movie or wtv could just be removed off whatever service you're paying for, and potentially become legally unwatchable entirely (cough cough INFINITY TRAIN). to add even more, you don't own what you stream. you're dependent on a service and a wifi connection in order to watch whatever you're trying to watch, but you don't own any of it.

the finicky nature of streaming, the occasional shit quality or audio issue (late S1 of supernatural had this issue), and some stuff just being removed arbitrarily is the reason why i started collecting DVDs and adding to my parents' collection. having stuff like over the garden wall or special versions of the del toro hellboys with 4+ hours of special content on the production feels worth the investment, not to mention that i can watch them whenever independent of the internet or even stream them to friends with no buffering or quality issues tied to the service. i even started doing it with CDs so i can rip one and use those files for other CDs later, while still being able to listen whenever with a stereo or in the car or something. i own it, i can do whatever i want to the discs, i can use it whenever.

most major social media and chat platforms are either geared towards an audience that i'm not a part of, or it had issues that made me want to limit my usage or stop using it entirely. there's rare exception to this like discord (which i use to talk to just about everyone, and is still pretty good for gaming-related stuff)

instagram is a major one, most of the people i know are primarily on instagram, and i still have an account in case i need to contact someone and they stop using discord, but i just. don't use it. its algorithm only got more and more unforgiving to artists, the "hide posts" thing didn't work at ALL, and eventually reels just became liveleak lite, so i deleted it off my phone and don't think about it or use it anymore. it's there as a backup for communication, but otherwise it's been abandoned.

tiktok's just addicting, on top of the algorithm being more geared towards trying to piss you off for engagement since the "ban" in january. i have ADHD and as of right now, it's been untreated for a really long time, so one of my methods of working around it is having to think WAY more than the average person about what is and isn't a massive time sink so i can get the most out of my shitty attention span. when i'm spending an unknown amount of time scrolling and can't even remember what i watched that entire time, it's an issue. i also didn't even use it the way it was intended to, i only watched users i already followed or lurked tags, so sometimes the algorithm would give me something i didn't even want to see because i spent so little time on the fyp. i deleted it after i'd already started cutting down my screen time, just because i didn't use the app anymore (sometimes i'll use it on desktop, but i think at least half of why tiktok is so addicting is the scrolling motion so it gets boring a lot faster).

it's kinda to the point where if tumblr dies, youtube gets worse, and discord goes to shit, i'm seriously considering downgrading almost everything. replace my smartphone with a flip phone, only use the computer for schoolwork, video games, and the news, and if someone wants to get ahold of me they're either doing it through email or fucking pesterchum. if the one thing i use to talk to people goes to hell i'm going to switch to a recreation of a chat client from homestuck that was meant to parody the already-esoteric AOL instant messenger.

i let it ruminate for a little and i realize this is so fucking cynical jfc

the main takeaway from this is that it's the fault of companies. the internet as it exists today has just become a tool for corporations to sell us more shit and exercise a greater degree of control over our lives with the services we use online. an algorithm gives you what it thinks you should watch, what it thinks you should like, what it thinks you should buy. nasty shit. annoying as fuck.

so! in order to offset my own unbreakable and distinctly dersite cynicism about the state of the internet and technology, i am going to offer some solutions or ideas i have found and used in order to just. make me feel less bad about how many things are tied to my phone or how it's fucking over my attention span and whatnot, or just. not having a bad time on the interwebs

phone-specific ones

1. decentralize decentralize decentralize

WAY easier said than done, but INCREDIBLY helpful once you actually figure out how in a way that works for you. in my case, i happened to actually get extremely lucky by having older parents, so i was able to inherit a bunch of cool shit and stick with older, sometimes more reliable tech for longer.

some ways i've decentralized my life out of my phone include:

• buying a physical planner because you're likelier to remember something if you write it down physically
• camcorder + digicam for photos and videos (the digicam actually being my parents' camera when i was really little. the camcorder was found on facebook marketplace, i got super lucky and found one in-box with all its accessories)
• ipod to replace spotify
• hello kitty calendar for a similar purpose as the planner but my mom can also see it. hello kitty because i have impeccable taste obviously
• deeming my phone as a communications/alarms-only device. it tells me when to medicate my cat and i use it to talk to people on the go, and that's it.

single-purpose stuff tends to add more to your bag or pockets, but it REALLY helps in saving battery life and phone storage, which is really good if you need it for something like navigation or communication

2. set limits to screen time, especially on phones

two reasons: one is that developing patience is very important, the other being that excessive screen time is just flat out bad for your eyes.

for apple users, time limits is like a gentle suggestion, but i found having screen time on at all was actually great at showing me just how often i used my phone. i brought it down from 6 hours a day to roughly 40 minutes per day as of recent after realizing "hey, i spend so much time on my phone but can't remember a damn thing i do on it" and resolving to stop.

honestly my only two suggestions are turn on screen time and make an active effort to not touch it when you're busy so you're not instinctively taking it out. the biggest drawback of a magical slab that can do everything you need it to is the possibility of addiction, like instinctively taking it out and getting lost in the sauce after waiting for more than 30 seconds (something i have personally witnessed many, many times). it can do everything you need it to, at the cost of that "everything" including the distractions.

i usually do this by making it hard to access when i need to focus (hiding it when i sleep, putting it in a drawer when i'm at my pc, that type of thing) and i set a personal goal to not let my screentime go over an hour and a half per day because there is no good excuse for me spending a fourth of my day doing fuckall on my phone, and i could be doing better shit like spending time with my family

3. do stuff on your computer (if you have one) instead of your phone

turns out about half the engagement on stuff like reels or tiktok is the scrolling motion, and they get way more boring REALLY fast when you eliminate that factor.

it also helps make the internet into more of a thing you visit instead of being omnipresent, and that degree of separation is a HUGE benefit.

you'll find yourself growing bored, but honestly it's not that bad to deal with after a bit. boredom is kinda necessary and it'll feel weird not being stimulated constantly but trust me bro. the silence is great after spending so much time with constant background noise.

other stuff i have done

1. know when to quit. if something online leaves you feeling like shit, hit the bricks or limit how often you're on it

exactly what it says on the tin. set limits and adhere to them, ESPECIALLY if you always come away from social media feeling worse. a major part of it is having good discipline and just knowing when to set something down and leave it alone. this goes for other things like online games and chat clients (ESP discord. good lord) as well, if the impact is only negative then you gotta do the kind thing to yourself and just dip if it's really bad.

this especially goes for twitter (i'm not calling it X) in its heavily musk-influenced uh. state. twitter's community at this point can be summed up into people trying to either be the most offensive or the most offended, and it's just. not great. using something and you feel like shit? hit the bricks! close it out, don't touch it for a while, do something else to cool down.

IT IS ALSO VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE: you also have to use your brain on whether or not what you're seeing is actually toxic/morally reprehensible or if it's just something that makes you uncomfortable. this is especially important to the younger folks on here to internalize, just because something makes you uncomfortable doesn't mean the content about it is inherently bad. this doesn't mean you have to tolerate EVERYTHING. sometimes you just have to think a little more on whether or not something like an episode of a show about sexual assault is actually doing the subject a disservice or if it's just making you uncomfortable enough to trigger a strong emotional response. critical thinking skills guys, you need it

2. actually trying to curate your experience more

this includes liberal use of the block button. side note, i LOATHE people that insist so intensely upon morally justifying every single block or who refuse to block anyone and just take everything as it comes, like. it's right there. if you don't wanna see something by someone, you block them. don't engage with their shit, just tell the algorithm "nah i don't wanna see this" or block the user. it's there to make your experience better why are you being so WEIRD and MILITANT ABOUT IT-

anyways. block people, curate your feed, NEVER INTERACT WITH POSTS YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU'LL JUST SEE MORE OF THEM. the block and report buttons exist for a reason. curate your shit, it makes things so much nicer.

3. ublock origin, non-chrome browsers, and other anti-tracking extensions

EXACTLY what it says on the tin. stop using google chrome, it sucks. brave, opera, and firefox are all great alternatives to chrome (i especially recommend firefox, it lets you import over all your favorites and extensions when you install it if you're switching over from a different browser)

also get ublock origin. it's the best adblock out there and has a ton of features, including shit like a content zapper and the ability to add lists of things to block.

some other extensions i recommend are:

• decentraleyes (cuts out the middleman with third-party content delivery on websites to improve privacy)
• cookie autodelete (deletes unwanted cookies from closed tabs, keeps the ones you want)
• privacy badger (sends out signals that opt you out of data sharing and tracking, and learns to block trackers that ignore it)
• deep fake detector (created by firefox! lets you highlight text and analyze it to see if it was written by a human or an AI)
• violentmonkey (userscript manager. honestly just good if you like customizing websites or want to restore old layouts but can't find an extension to do that. wouldn't recommend it for the less tech-savvy folks out there though)
• malwarebytes browser guard (another adblock. yes i have two running concurrently. this one also blocks malware and scams. sometimes websites that force me to turn off adblock don't detect it so i have it to basically skirt around that)
• youtube redux, youtube search fixer, return youtube dislike, and enhancer for youtube (all quality-of-life for youtube specifically. redux adds the old layout back with a lot of customizability, search fixer declutters the search function and makes it less shitty, return dislike does exactly what its name says, and the enhancer adds a bunch of extra controls to make the watching experience better)
• shinigami eyes (highlights trans-friendly and transphobic/anti-queer users with different colors. the main issue with this is that lots of user votes as one thing can incorrectly mark someone, so sometimes you have to manually check anyways and re-label them. it's still pretty good regardless)
• don't track me google (removes google's link conversion tracking thing to speed up loading times for search results and let you copy links normally)
• hide google ai overviews (what it says on the tin. fuck that noise)

tldr: we're really in the shits now lads. it's bad. but it will not be bad forever, and until then there are many ways to have a better time while we're here