Pippa Hillebrand

The internet has connected the world in a way that no one could have anticipated. International news is readily available to anyone who wants it. Sometimes the flood of it is too much, and it can be difficult to slow down and regroup with what is happening at home. People who don’t fit in in their local community can find like minded individuals scattered around the world, forming a niche community of people they feel understand them. Yet at the same time, anyone can spew vitriol and hate into the communities others are attempting to foster. Breaking people down just to make themselves feel better. Not seeing that the person reading that post is even human.

I don’t like this connected world.

It isn’t the connections which are a problem. It isn’t even the ability to communicate seamlessly and easily from the comfort of my own home. Instead, it is the scale of the systems in which we are supposed to operate. Many people see the internet as the solution to the introvert lifestyle. Working from home and interacting with people via the impersonality of text is seen as a saving grace for a certain flavour of neurodivergence. To me, it is the false duality of screaming into the void, and interrupting people with trivialities. It is an exposing of one’s self to the world at large. Over sharing for the shock factor, so that people will feel sorry for us. Complaining to anyone who will listen that the world is not the right shape.

I am, by nature, a shy introvert. To me, the public forum of social media is the equivalent of standing up on a stage, uninvited, and ranting about something. Trying to navigate feeds, and ensure that they fit the things I want to see is almost impossible. I am curious about science, but I find my feeds swamped by American politics (yes, I’m aware they are related somewhat, but I want to read about cool discoveries not funding). I am interested in software and technology, but I no more believe that Generative AI is the only cool thing people are working on right now than I believed Neural Networks and Machine Learning were the only cool things to work on ten years ago. The emotional energy one must put into curating a feed which actually contains the people and objective aspects one is interested in is too high a cost for me. What happened to having friends? What happened to reading the news slowly, and on our own terms? Instead we are doused with a fire hose or relevant and irrelevant information. A deluge of rubbish, ravings, ravages, and relentless reckless ramblings.

The platforms on which we connect are not trustworthy, or so the populace would have us believe. X, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, each with the potential to have been something great, and yet as soon as humans get hold of them they become a cesspool of nothingness. Brief snippets of dopamine for the addicted brains of people stuck in a cycle of doom scrolling. I thought perhaps I could find a better variation of X in BlueSky, I was wrong. All the things which others saw as wrong with X were never in my feeds. Instead, the ability for science to be overtaken by politics continues. Finding the things which interest me continues to require more energy than they are worth. And to top it all off, by posting exactly twice to the platform my account could be marked as spam (I don’t know what that algorithm was thinking).

What do we do?

My gut response has usually been to turn away from the nonsense. To leave the world to burn, and enjoy my peaceful corner of life. Perhaps my languishing social media pages will serve as a warning to the truly zero people who will even notice that I have stopped posing to them. This isn’t all that helpful really, but it certainly means I do not start the day infuriated by the denizens of the web. I have been musing on other options though. Slower communication. Longer form writing. These are things I feel are lacking in the way we interact. We don’t want to absorb more than 160 characters (or however long a tweet is now). Perhaps we should, though? I saw a post suggesting that it might be time to slow down. To reclaim RSS feeds. To go back in time, and use the internet in other ways.

I have tried writing letters to friends. Unfortunately that didn’t work out as the South African Postal Service is one of the less happy State Owned Enterprises, and snail mail is not trustworthy (it might even be eaten by snails). Blogging works for me (yes, I am almost consistent here) because I can think through things all the way. I can take the thoughts I have, and format them into something for others to consume, or not, as they wish to.

Is this the answer for everyone? Of course not! For many people, social media works. Clearly. For others, communities in Discord or other messaging apps serve a purpose. For this introvert, who would far rather have coffee with one person for a couple of hours than go to a party, those places are awful. Deep thinkers, slow processors, readers, writers, we find ourselves deluged with what we should be doing.

You’re a “thought leader”? You should be on a podcast!
You’re a “gamer” (video, board, tabletop, pick your flavour of game)? You should be streaming on Twitch/YouTube/Platform!
You’re an “influencer”? No. Not going there. That isn’t a real thing. It is just a bunch of hopped up extroverts pretending to know what they’re talking about.

I am reclaiming a space to be cynical about social media. I consume video content, but usually whilst doing something else. If I have to do a lot of sanding, or priming, or am working through a painting backlog, then having something on “in the background” is great. If I want to engage with the content, I want it to be in a format that I can enjoy. Let me read at a pace I am comfortable with, and come back to it when I need to. Let me find a syndicated listing software for blog posts which allows me to read what I want to, when I want to.

I should have a call to action

But I don’t. And I won’t. I’m not the person who leads a revolution. I simply work towards it in the background. If you really care about it, you will know where to find me. If you don’t, then neither do I. Because this is my space on the internet, and I don’t have to fit into the extroverted, pushy, quick fire world of social media. I can live my life without knowing immediately if my posts have been read (and I think some haven’t). I’m not looking for a viral post, or a wild success.

Community is not about the number of connections, but rather the quality. So, I don’t like the world of social media and brain rot. I do not foresee myself writing posts with AI. I don’t foresee my attempt at having a Bluesky account really lasting very long. And that is OK with me.