But like, the internet used to be a place! Or at least it wa...

But like, the internet used to be a place! Or at least it was for me. I love how the internet exposes the weird and funny things about being a person alive in the world. TikTok is especially good at that. But I do think the internet used to be a lot weirder. Certainly more specific. It used to be a place you’d go for a specific interest. Now it is just the context of life and the way you communicate.

Charlie Warzel • How to Leave an Internet That’s Always in Crisis

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Still, I think something more fundamental has been lost for all of us as social media has evolved. It’s harder to find the spark of discovery, or the sense that the Web offers an alternate world of possibilities. Instead of each forging our own idiosyncratic paths online, we are caught in the grooves that a few giant companies have carved for us al... See more

Kyle Chayka • Coming of Age at the Dawn of the Social Internet | The New Yorker

As a kid, gardens and the internet both offered a place to dream, create, and play.

But that was then. Today, the internet is an omnipresent force that organizes the ways we learn, connect, and love—often in ways that are more nefarious than virtuous. The internet is a place, and that place has largely been led by those who value the accumulation of... See more

Annika Hansteen-Izora • On Digital Gardens: Tending to Our Collective Multiplicity

When I say “I don’t know where everyone went,” I know everyone’s out there surfing the web , of course, but it feels like it’s a different place now. When the algorithms are determining everything we should be seeing, it’s a much less personal internet. The “For You” pages of the world are right, I am interested in that content, but I’m not seeing ... See more

Kyle Chayka • Coming of Age at the Dawn of the Social Internet | The New Yorker

Annika Hansteen-Izora • On Digital Gardens: Tending to Our Collective Multiplicity

I miss human curation