I’ve decided to create a space for myself to blog like the early 2000s main character I’ve always been (a la “Awkward”). It truly is just for me – to write, post music or art, and have a virtual space all to myself. My little corner of the internet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I want to be on the internet or not, especially since deleting most of my social media apps. Not the accounts, that felt a bridge too far, but the apps have been zapped from my screen. And if I’m 100% honest, I still have Facebook (I say it’s for Marketplace, but every once in a while I find myself scrolling through cat videos – sue me).

The positive: my screen time has gone down drastically. Under 3 hours a day on average, although I still don’t know what I’m spending those ~2.5 hours on. I am not bombarded with trauma porn, images of genocide, and the generally enraging content that pervades the space. I read more, I write more, I get bored, I think of ideas, I text my friends, I watch a show, I generally just live my life. I think I’m starting to get my true personality back, not just parroting whatever TikTok sound is going viral at the moment. I laugh at “real life” things more. There was a while where I could only laugh, like really laugh, at videos on TikTok while I was super high in my garage. Fun in the moment, sad in retrospect.

The negative: I am not up to date on whatever pop culture, TikTok sound, meme culture thing is going on. I can’t contribute to the conversation when someone starts talking about “that viral video of that girl”. I am slightly less informed on the news. Not proud of that one. When I deleted my apps, I knew I needed to find another way to get my news without exposing myself to needless violence. I recognize that some violence needs to be witnessed. I do not want to turn a blind eye to injustice and real shit that happens in this world, but I also need to protect myself and my mental health. So, I found an app that I could choose which news sources I wanted to hear from, what categories I wanted to read about, and I did a good job of reading the news every day. For about 3 weeks. Since then, I’ve mainly relied on my friends and Apple News alerts to stay on top of what’s happening. Not super sustainable, but I’m working on it.

So here’s the gist. I want to be online, and I don’t want to be online. I want to be a part of the conversation, but I want to have my own thoughts, ideas, jokes. Not some regurgitation of something I heard someone else say. I want to know what’s going on in the world, but I don’t want to see insanely horrific shit while I’m winding down for bed. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know it’s not doom-scrolling. I also know it’s not burying my head in the sand. If someone has an answer, let me know. And stick around if you want to find out.