The World Wide Web as a Place, Not a Thing

If you know me personally, you know that a few months ago I got over my like 6-year long free software phase and started using an iPhone again. Obviously I still dabble, but I started using a MacBook, got an Apple Watch, and got into other things generally considered taboo by the free software “community”.

Nevertheless, a lot of the habits/principles/fears I have from being a free software “advocate” have, for better or worse, been ingrained in my DNA. I guess you could say this puts me into the digital minimalism camp, but I’m not a huge fan of labels. I spent some time talking about this before when I brought up what rubs me the wrong way about Instagram and Spotify.

I’m an ‘02 baby, so I’m not that old. But, my parents basically raised us like it was still the ’90s. We didn’t have cable (or even a proper TV for that matter), so we rented VHS tapes from the library and played them on a little CRT with a built-in player about the size of a milk crate. When we wanted to search something up, we had to boot up a painfully slow Windows XP desktop and our internet was slow even for the early-mid 2000s.

So, I think it’s really important that our devices are use specific. For example, I have Safari and the App Store disabled in my phone through a screentime setting. When I need to look something up (like when when I’m lost and my GPS is confused), I can just enable it for the 5 minutes I need it. Outside of the BofA (lol) app which I need to scan checks — seriously, why do I need the app for this? —, Whatsapp, and some other banking apps I don’t have anything else installed. Social media is really so dangerous to keep on your phone and it really bothers me that society demands we carry around so many distractions with us. Living in suburban New England basically makes smart phone use mandatory.

Now of course I like the phone: it takes good photos and iMessage is great. But, I’ve been trying to keep things as analog as feasibly can. For example, I write everything down in a Moleskin notebook I got for maybe $10. I don’t think nostalgia is what’s driving a lot of people to limit their screentime and general internet use, though this is certainly part of it. There is definitely an aesthetic to using less technology, but this is going to be true of all minimalist tropes. I think people genuinely can tell that it’s all just too much and I think we can learn a lot about how to operate from how our parents chose to integrate technology into their lives. Computers were new and something really revolutionary in the 90s and early 2000s — they got their own space and were used for accessing information. Phones lived somewhere central, but usually just on the first floor. Nowadays, I think you’d be hard pressed to find somebody whose laptop and cell phone aren’t in their bedroom.

Doom scrolling is so easy to fall into because our brains want the dopamine. Normally we’d get it from doing chores and finishing up a project, but it’s just too easy now to fall into the social media trap or, even if you don’t have any, just mindlessly perusing YouTube. I think getting our devices into use-specific locations (i.e., out of the bedroom) or introducing an intermediary (like a notebook or a dedicated alarm clock) can help keep the “fall” from happening. I know this helps me a lot.

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled for long enough. I’m doing my best to limit my screentime and I think you should too. If I think of some other strategies, I’ll write about them here.