💾 Archived View for skylarhill.me › posts › digital-hygiene.gmi captured on 2022-06-11 at 20:40:47. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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Digital Hygiene

Lately I've grown concerned with how social media affects me. In particular, modern social media, where the content you see is determined algorithmically, has become worrisome to me. I've come to believe it's a drag on my mental, emotional, and intellectual health, for the following reasons:

Anger, fear, and outrage spread best, meaning that doomscrolling on any kind of algorithmic feed is a surefire way to get pissed off and scared.
Algorithms respond to our preferences, and people prefer content they already agree with. This creates an echo chamber, which: 1) Keeps me from being exposed to counterarguments to my positions, which might turn out to be useful and informative. 2) Creates a false sense that everyone already agrees with me, leading to shock and even hostility (see: angry and terrified) when I enter the real world and learn that someone disagrees with me.
Algorithms are designed to keep you scrolling, keep the dopamine coming, keep you needing them, so that Corporation.com can show you as many ads as possible. In other words, it's a born time sink.
It creates so much noise in my mind. Everything's way quieter, way more focused, way less generally awful since I stepped away from social media.

The problem then, was how to limit my exposure to algorithmic feeds, while also remaining connected to the world. The opposite danger from being overstimulated is being underinformed. Being a trans leftist, I have good reasons to be politically motivated, and that means staying informed on what's going on in the world. I also really do enjoy a lot of the content I consume, from the comedy and the memes to the long-form video essays. So the solution can't be to completely unplug. Here is the middle path I'm currently trying out:

Uninstalled TikTok -- it has been my major doomscroller app. Also uninstalled Twitter and Facebook, though I kept the Instagram app since I have a few friends who only really use Instagram, as well as the Tumblr app because I generally find it to be decent content. If I catch myself doomscrolling on them, though, they're gone.
Switched to Hex Launcher on my phone. The major advantage to Hex Launcher for this is that you can't just absentmindedly scroll through a list of apps looking for something to do -- you have to search for an app to open, through an actual search menu. You can also set a small collection of important apps This makes it easier to avoid falling into the doomscroll funnel, because I probably have a particular goal in mind when I open a particular app.
Went through my phone's notification settings and disabled every source of notifications that I didn't find useful.
Installed News Feed Eradicator in my browser. It removes the algorithmic feed from websites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram. In other words, it converts those sites into hosting platforms for particular pieces of content I might want to specifically go look for, rather than an infinite-scrolling page that I can passively consume.
Downloaded and configured RSS readers. On desktop, I'm using newsboat, and on mobile I'm using Feeder.

The RSS reader is my solution to the infinite algorithmic feed problem. Using an RSS reader allows me to create a finite feed, populated only by the newest content from sources I have specifically chosen to receive updates from. In other words, it gives me control over what I see, rather than an algorithm. If I find a particular source to be overly sensationalist, untrustworthy, or needlessly anxiety-inducing, I can remove it from the list. If it's useful or entertaining, I can add it. And once I reach the end of the list of new content, the feed is empty. It doesn't immediately populate with similar content "I might like." I'm just done. I'm all caught up for the day.

I hope and expect that this new paradigm will help me stay both informed and unburdened by excessive noise. I also hope that I'll stick with it -- I've tried similar things in the past and always turned back to social media as an escape from my life. But with my mental health in a better place now, hopefully that won't be necessary.

Update from 05-10: dear god am I really this pretentious