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till kingdom come
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Apr 8th 2022
It has been over two years since I deleted my twitter account, along with google, linked in, instagram, and whatever mainstream web platform you can think of. Facebook came last, and was deleted a little over a year ago. For the 3 months before I deleted that account, I would share why, and explain how people who cared to could connect with me. During that time, I manually went though and deleted all of my previous posts dating back to 2007 before deleting the account. I wanted to leave nothing behind.
I wont bore you with the reasons for leaving the mainstream web. Some corporate, some philosophical, some personal. Most reading this will already understand. But what did fascinate me about the experience was how it affected me psychologically. I found that my perceptions became clearer. I noticed a low level anxiety, that I had not even known was there, disappear. Im less and less inclined to join in the hyper-polarization that dominates so much of online dialog. I underestimated the psycological effects of social media on how I think. This is something that is very clearly revealed when you leave the mainstream web.
As I have gone through the process of building up my own cluster of self hosted services, Ive noticed that my approach to digital connection has changed. Intead of primarily looking to be seen, I am looking for others whom I find interesting or compelling, in order to interact with them. This seems like a much healthier paradigm. Ive even taken to emailing (you remember email?) people out of the blue to tell them what I appreciate about them.
I also started to notice something that initially felt like loneliness. But not quite. As I have waited, this feeling has revealed itself to be a form of addiction. A craving for a certain kind of input. In the same way that an uncomfortable detoxification can occur when cutting certain unhealthy foods out of our diet, when you cut off the continual stream of mainstream status posts, advertising, opinions, emotional outbursts, and manipulations, you start to find yourself again. You can hear your own voice. You can hear Gods voice. You can sit at peace in silence.
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