I used to love posting about my life on the internet. When I was in grade 8 I got Facebook and suddenly I was connected with all of my friends that until now would dissappear the moment I left school. Back then we'd write back and forth on each others' walls. I felt connected to them. One day Facebook added the "like" button, and immediately I noticed a difference.
Before, my friends used to respond to me with words. They would take the time. It felt like a conversation. But once the like button appeared, that stopped happening. People would just like my statuses. And I felt disconnected. But I would also get a lot more likes than I would get direct responses before. And it felt good to know I'd touched that many people. My online presence became more performative. I joked more, I photoshopped funny pictures. But I also simultaneously raged against this. I posted weird unrelatable stuff that was closer I felt to my true self to see if anyone would connect with that. Usually they didn't.
Facebook took my friends and turned them into little dopamine dispensers the led me like a trail of candy away from myself. It only got worse over time. But my addiction to the upvote had taken hold, rooted in my yearning for connection. Eventually, years later, I posted a Tinder profile (that I won't link to) that went viral. I hit the front page of reddit. I got so many comments. My head was buzzing with pleasure and I compulsively refreshed the page for DAYS, responding to every comment. Making jokes. "Connecting." It was like a hook in my brain pulling me into the screen.
After this, I really began to pull back. It didn't happen all at once, but I recognized this feeling. The same feeling I would get playing addictive video games until 3am. I wanted to do it again. But this was the moment that I began withdrawing from the internet, and eventually I stopped using my Facebook account. Later, Reddit was deleted. I noodled around on Trust Café for a bit. And now I'm here.
As I withdrew, I noticed that whenever I had the urge to pull up the internet, it was always a procrastination impulse. Putting off my work, my chores, my plans. That's the other side of all this. And funny enough, as I type this I am currently procrastinating. It's the nature of my relationship with the internet.
Recently I learned about "reverse procrastination" which is when you finish your task immediately and completely. Good habit right? Not always. I did this when I was in school. Get home, do my assigned work that is due in a week today, then spend the rest of my days on the internet and playing games. The thing is, you actually learn better when you spread out your learning. Sleep reinforces what you focused on during the day. So in the end, I missed out just as much as I would have if I did it the night before, just maybe with a bit less stress.
Sometimes doing the opposite of something "bad" is just a different way of missing the point. And that's something I'm really good at! So, in response to my behavior online, the addiction, the procrastination, eventually I got to the place where I was like "the internet is bad!" and began withdrawing.
But, you know, that's not the whole story. I learn enormously from the internet even today. I read a lot of reddit when I'm researching something and it comes up in search results. It's a fantastic resource for learning. And I know that the things in my mind, my struggles, the wisdom I've scraped together, could benefit someone. I've benefited enormously from niche posts or videos that turn up in my searches, people sharing their stories.
But I find myself so resistant to posting anything. I feel that hook in my brain. I worry that it will take me away, off the path of healing and growing, toward 3am bedtimes, toward this performance of me, toward disconnection. But the internet can connect us. It can help us heal. I've experienced that too.
I was on some site for kids. Something with Gaia in the name. There was this boy who wrote Every Word In All Caps. He was so kind. One day he disappeared. We used to send huge messages back and forth. I'm sad that I don't remember anything about him except for the warm feeling I had when I'd see a new message from him. I'm glad I remember that. I was very lonely as a kid, but just that little bit less lonely for having been connected to that other boy.
And those early days of Facebook. They really were amazing. It was like a collaborative scrapbook. And it managed to get everybody in all at the same time. When I was a programmer I dreamed of creating a platform that scratched the particular itch of "your local community, online" and designing it to guide people toward in-person connection. Make a trail of breadcrumbs that leads us back to ourselves. But I realized in the end that what I really wanted was local community for myself. I started playing music at local open mics and after many many months started talking to people. Turns out the thing I wanted has been here all along. I just couldn't have it as a kid because I couldn't drive and lived in the middle of nowhere. But now I'm an adult, and I can have community. I can have connection. And you can too.
Alright. Time to get back to those things I've been putting off.