how to survive being chronically online
The collection of so much personalized data—around what time of day we turn to Sade or how many seconds of a NewJeans song we play—suggests a future without risk, one in which we will never be exposed to anything we may not want to hear.
Or that we may not want to see.
It’s been endlessly argued that algorithms influence too much of what we watch, listen to, read, and even think. Personal taste erodes while decision-making is outsourced to the platform.
Beware the Curators
The hyperlink, in this sense, is the building block of the modern internet.
The anxiety isn't determined by the presence or absence of code. It comes from a lack of transparency and control. You are susceptible whether or not TikTok exists, whether or not you delete it. Logging off is one tool, but it will not alone cure you.
Are.na • So You Want to Escape the Algorithm
In his latest work, Program or Be Programmed , the 15th anniversary edition, Rushkoff proposes four methods to avoid being programmed by digital technology, and to instead become the programmers of our world.
What we require is to:
What we require is to:
- Denaturalize power by revealing social constructions which are ideas we merely invented, and are not pre-existing laws
Matt Klein • Unplugging Is Not the Solution You Want
True disconnection, like true wilderness, is an empty goal. Whether we have shunned social media or not, the internet does not cease to exist as a driving force in the world, any more than ecological systems cease to shape our lives the minute we reach the end of the forest trail and hop back in the car. The concepts of the “offline world” and the... See more
Real Life • The Great Offline
Social media is no longer meant for connecting with friends; it is designed almost entirely to facilitate the following of brands and the monetizing of personalities.
Kyle Chayka - The Desperation of the Instagram Photo Dump
I have thousands of photos of my children but few that I’ve set aside to revisit. I have records of virtually every text I’ve sent since I was in college but no idea how to find the ones that meant something. I spent years blasting my thoughts to millions of people on X and Facebook even as I fell behind on correspondence with dear friends. I have... See more
Ezra Klein • Happy 20th Anniversary, Gmail. I’m Sorry I’m Leaving You.
why some friction is a good thing.
If the spaces we imagine to facilitate reconnection with the self also banish the factors that determine who we are — the wider cultural dimensions of the worlds we belong to — then we are condemned to either living falsely, or being alone. Both concepts collapse when one acknowledges that, no matter how far off-grid one travels, there is no place,... See more