It is only in two-way mediums, where we must contend with the reality of another person, that real relationship forms and grows. Passive one-way consumption of someone’s life only creates the illusion of relationship, without any of the real effort it requires. As if we can have all of the closeness with none of the cost.

This urge to be less online. To be less performative, less see-through, less concerned with what others think of how we live, and more deeply involved and intimate with our own real local lives.

But the real reason is because the flood of information on the internet made me feel anxious and incapable and directionless and overwhelmed.

Maybe boredom feels like a kind of broken promise, one you thought you’d never have to face.

It’s like some sort of Orwellian nightmare, but worse, since we are being watched, but we have also employed ourselves as the watchers, as big brother, looking in at a projected image of everyone’s life, which isn’t that real but we, for some reason, pretend it is.

Social media isn’t even social anymore5.

“At a certain point we’re gonna have to build up some machinery, inside our guts, to help us deal with this. Because the technology is just gonna get better and better and better and better. And it’s gonna get easier and easier and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by by people

... See more