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thinking about (internet) habits
Sep. 3rd, 2023 03:43 pmThis got slightly far afield for a Done This Week post, so I popped it out into its own.
I’m going through one of my phases where I want to rewrite my internet usage and free time habits. (I suspect this happens every fall, though I can’t say for sure. I know I want to clean every November at this point, so it seems like this would track as well.) I feel like I’m missing out on things I like that are more nourishing (and less doom scroll-ish):
Various writers who blog regularly. The assorted Patreons I support but never actually look at the patron-exclusive content for. Books of various stripes. Fanfic longer than a few thousand words that I burn through while getting ready for work in the morning and in the car before I walk in, trying to fortify myself with something sweet. Shows, old or new, because I’m at the point where I can’t even bring myself to rewatch safe favorites.
Those are also things that require a little more brain power from me, though. Or will engage my emotions (other than existential dread) in ways that feel big and threatening. The sort of thing that I tell myself I need to be “in the mood” for. Or that feel like I need to consume them “properly,” rather than in bits and pieces, catch as catch can, and somehow the proper moment never materializes.
If I were avoiding all those things because I was deeply embedded in a project of my own, that would be fine. Can’t read on my work breaks because I’m trying to get something written for the day’s Whumptober prompt? Phenomenal! This ain’t that. I’m just...picking the low-hanging media fruit. Whatever anodyne thing distracts my brain in the quiet in-between moments. Just noise.
Why is the default always to choose numbness? It’s not even indulging in comfort--current event podcasts are not comforting--but the security of only listening to the bad news I already know. Is it any surprise, then, that each night I need to (re)read the most indulgent fic I can to unwind? Which is no bad thing, as far as I’m concerned, in its own right. But maybe I should find a way of living that doesn’t involve the psychological equivalent of shocking myself into a stupor with tasers and then whimpering in a corner until I can bear to do it again. That doesn’t seem...beneficial. To me.
Sometimes, I get kind of panicky about the latest cycle of death knells about tumblr. It is, after all, my main social media, my main fandom platform, and my main access point to queer community. But then I also sometimes think--am I having a good time right now? Or am I mostly watching intracommunity drama play out and calling it connection, interspersed with cat photos, out-of-context quotes, and artwork of staggering beauty? What impulse am I actually satisfying right now?
Sometimes, I want to disappear back into lurkerdom and not engage with anything, just silently consume. Sometimes, I want to run off into the wilds and never touch the internet again. Sometimes, I want to get so involved that all my free time is spent responding to messages and writing to prompts.
There’s probably some healthy set of habits that actually lets me enjoy the benefits of all those options, albeit in sequence, rather than simultaneously. I guess I’m still just chasing after whatever that looks like.
I’m going through one of my phases where I want to rewrite my internet usage and free time habits. (I suspect this happens every fall, though I can’t say for sure. I know I want to clean every November at this point, so it seems like this would track as well.) I feel like I’m missing out on things I like that are more nourishing (and less doom scroll-ish):
Various writers who blog regularly. The assorted Patreons I support but never actually look at the patron-exclusive content for. Books of various stripes. Fanfic longer than a few thousand words that I burn through while getting ready for work in the morning and in the car before I walk in, trying to fortify myself with something sweet. Shows, old or new, because I’m at the point where I can’t even bring myself to rewatch safe favorites.
Those are also things that require a little more brain power from me, though. Or will engage my emotions (other than existential dread) in ways that feel big and threatening. The sort of thing that I tell myself I need to be “in the mood” for. Or that feel like I need to consume them “properly,” rather than in bits and pieces, catch as catch can, and somehow the proper moment never materializes.
If I were avoiding all those things because I was deeply embedded in a project of my own, that would be fine. Can’t read on my work breaks because I’m trying to get something written for the day’s Whumptober prompt? Phenomenal! This ain’t that. I’m just...picking the low-hanging media fruit. Whatever anodyne thing distracts my brain in the quiet in-between moments. Just noise.
Why is the default always to choose numbness? It’s not even indulging in comfort--current event podcasts are not comforting--but the security of only listening to the bad news I already know. Is it any surprise, then, that each night I need to (re)read the most indulgent fic I can to unwind? Which is no bad thing, as far as I’m concerned, in its own right. But maybe I should find a way of living that doesn’t involve the psychological equivalent of shocking myself into a stupor with tasers and then whimpering in a corner until I can bear to do it again. That doesn’t seem...beneficial. To me.
Sometimes, I get kind of panicky about the latest cycle of death knells about tumblr. It is, after all, my main social media, my main fandom platform, and my main access point to queer community. But then I also sometimes think--am I having a good time right now? Or am I mostly watching intracommunity drama play out and calling it connection, interspersed with cat photos, out-of-context quotes, and artwork of staggering beauty? What impulse am I actually satisfying right now?
Sometimes, I want to disappear back into lurkerdom and not engage with anything, just silently consume. Sometimes, I want to run off into the wilds and never touch the internet again. Sometimes, I want to get so involved that all my free time is spent responding to messages and writing to prompts.
There’s probably some healthy set of habits that actually lets me enjoy the benefits of all those options, albeit in sequence, rather than simultaneously. I guess I’m still just chasing after whatever that looks like.
