Interestingly I have always accessed social media on a desktop computer, and I always have to type my password to do so (I don't save it in the browser). I then always make a conscious step to logout when I'm finished. It seems that this is the equivalent of my physical ritual: it's a faff to go the relevant site and then enter a password. I find myself checking social media only every few days.
Very interesting. Many years ago Gmail used to have this feature called 'drunk filter', which - if activated - would require you to answer a couple mental arithmetic problems before an email would send. The idea was that placing a barrier there would prevent a drunk person from sending emails they'd later regret. It actually was a great way to slow down digital interaction and make it more mindful, but then it was discontinued
Hi Brett, it was very courageous of you to share your very raw story...and so many writers are addressing the dopamine issue, including addiction in children. One of my favorite writers is Laura Matsue Guenther: At Keepers of the Inner Flame "What Screen Addiction Is Costing Us" (and how to reverse course) What we lose when we fill every pause with screens. Shannon Rowan has a new book: The Red Shoes: Escaping Our Digital Spell | Keith Cutter & Shannon Rowan - interview on youtube
People are already labelling things like "Chat GPT Psychosis" in the midst of the new AI product shitstorm, but one could safely argue the case(s) that the telecommunications age combined with late stage krapitalism has been creating alot of psychological imbalances and alot of stupid behaviors. ( See: The Society of Spectacle. 1967 ... or Dreams Rewired by Manu Luksch, 2015) Early on our "XLterrestrials" project perceived the 'new digital age' as a very predatory species. Back when we had our first desktop machines, we had some odd practices to not be devoured by the 'overconnectedness' of it all. Some of our colleagues at the time had a practice of not going online until we had gone out of our homes, and engaged with humans first. That might entail grabbing a coffee at one of the local 'kiez' cafes ( Starbucks + other corporate chains were/are strictly boycotted ), which always included seeing at least a neighbor or two. Plus, we were working with a couple collectives at the time, so also it was an easy practice to go to our "shop/lab" first, and start any online work there. Luckily these were not commutes, they were a bike ride away. The rituals ( and yes we also thought of them as rituals ) stuck pretty good ( b/c it felt good ), and getting online first thing of the day tended to put us in a bad mood, like we were wasting good realworld - and/or embodied social - time !
Coincidentally, in a characteristic internet rabbit hole I stumbled upon this article about edges, and the virtue of form that physical media brought us -- it had bookends, edges. Seems closely related to your idea here -- imposing bookends on the edgeless digital space of which the business model depend on sucking us into portals with no boundaries other than the ones we intentionally create ourselves. Here's that article:
This is a fantastic idea. On my best days, I use a stopwatch as a way to enter my internet portal and only on my desktop or laptop, not on my phone. I was very consistent with it for about six weeks, but then found myself out of town and using my phone for the internet. Next thing you know, I let all my old habits creep back in.
I'm going to try your approach and use my stopwatch as my physical object to enter my internet portal.
Limits are essential to appreciate everything, without limits you loose everything, you could loose love, game's taste, food's taste, etc etc.. until loosing the meaning of life itself...(economically as well a mutual credit system it's much healtier than an endless debt system)
First of all, welcome back! i missed your newsletter and I'm happy to know you are back and hopefully doing ok. Second, thanks for another powerful food for thought and practical help. Me, I have not used any of the physical hacks you suggest I guess because I was never into digital life, not because I am "specially clever" (the opposite) but because time ago I had no money to just even buy a laptop and then a smartphone, and when I finally could afford both I had moved to London and felt so disconnected from the new culture over there and a language I couldn't speak properly that I simply was not able to get into the hype for everything digital - real disconnection. More recently, I just stopped scrolling intentionally and understood that I am not interested in any "who will have the last word" online debates. But I got all your points, coming from humanities and social science everything you wrote makes sense on soooo many levels and resonates with all the mental and spiritual work I've done so far. Thanks a lot for your work
Brave of you to share Brett. You are so smart and compassionate- you deserve the best. Once I stopped “working for a salary” I slowly removed myself from social media for the same reason. I hated how it made me feel. I am now proudly on nothing except the rare Substack articles - you. :) So much more fun to connect with people (and myself) the old fashioned way. I also learned (and am still learning) a lot about myself in the process. All answers are within us, not somewhere out there in the universe and especially not out in social media space.
THIS IS F BRILLIANT. Thank you Brett. As an actor, I feel the very same experience of a portal opening when I take on new characters and this ritual just works so well in all facets. I LOVE the exertion of energy part as that too is key! THANK YOU for this delicious piece of very important writing - I will share on!
Thank you for sharing such a personal story, Brett. I wish I had some great insight but my journey has been to simply migrate from one social “portal” to the next. Facebook to Twitter to Bluesky and now Reddit. What I like about Reddit is that it’s less user based rather community based and the feeing that you get to choose which community to engage with and what responses to expect. Feels like I have much more agency wrt what type of people I want to engage with. I still go on facebook on the weekend now just to wave and say hi, though. 😊
Welcome back Brett, thanks for the digital hygiene ideas. I used to use an alarm clock to set a time limit, which worked well. Pulls you out of the time slippage
Interestingly I have always accessed social media on a desktop computer, and I always have to type my password to do so (I don't save it in the browser). I then always make a conscious step to logout when I'm finished. It seems that this is the equivalent of my physical ritual: it's a faff to go the relevant site and then enter a password. I find myself checking social media only every few days.
Very interesting. Many years ago Gmail used to have this feature called 'drunk filter', which - if activated - would require you to answer a couple mental arithmetic problems before an email would send. The idea was that placing a barrier there would prevent a drunk person from sending emails they'd later regret. It actually was a great way to slow down digital interaction and make it more mindful, but then it was discontinued
Hi Brett, it was very courageous of you to share your very raw story...and so many writers are addressing the dopamine issue, including addiction in children. One of my favorite writers is Laura Matsue Guenther: At Keepers of the Inner Flame "What Screen Addiction Is Costing Us" (and how to reverse course) What we lose when we fill every pause with screens. Shannon Rowan has a new book: The Red Shoes: Escaping Our Digital Spell | Keith Cutter & Shannon Rowan - interview on youtube
People are already labelling things like "Chat GPT Psychosis" in the midst of the new AI product shitstorm, but one could safely argue the case(s) that the telecommunications age combined with late stage krapitalism has been creating alot of psychological imbalances and alot of stupid behaviors. ( See: The Society of Spectacle. 1967 ... or Dreams Rewired by Manu Luksch, 2015) Early on our "XLterrestrials" project perceived the 'new digital age' as a very predatory species. Back when we had our first desktop machines, we had some odd practices to not be devoured by the 'overconnectedness' of it all. Some of our colleagues at the time had a practice of not going online until we had gone out of our homes, and engaged with humans first. That might entail grabbing a coffee at one of the local 'kiez' cafes ( Starbucks + other corporate chains were/are strictly boycotted ), which always included seeing at least a neighbor or two. Plus, we were working with a couple collectives at the time, so also it was an easy practice to go to our "shop/lab" first, and start any online work there. Luckily these were not commutes, they were a bike ride away. The rituals ( and yes we also thought of them as rituals ) stuck pretty good ( b/c it felt good ), and getting online first thing of the day tended to put us in a bad mood, like we were wasting good realworld - and/or embodied social - time !
great ideas, thank you!
Coincidentally, in a characteristic internet rabbit hole I stumbled upon this article about edges, and the virtue of form that physical media brought us -- it had bookends, edges. Seems closely related to your idea here -- imposing bookends on the edgeless digital space of which the business model depend on sucking us into portals with no boundaries other than the ones we intentionally create ourselves. Here's that article:
https://craigmod.com/essays/unbinding/
I like the ritual you describe for accessing and closing the portal! Great advice on managing these distractions.
This is a fantastic idea. On my best days, I use a stopwatch as a way to enter my internet portal and only on my desktop or laptop, not on my phone. I was very consistent with it for about six weeks, but then found myself out of town and using my phone for the internet. Next thing you know, I let all my old habits creep back in.
I'm going to try your approach and use my stopwatch as my physical object to enter my internet portal.
Keep fighting the good fight!
Limits are essential to appreciate everything, without limits you loose everything, you could loose love, game's taste, food's taste, etc etc.. until loosing the meaning of life itself...(economically as well a mutual credit system it's much healtier than an endless debt system)
All right i'will get off the bench now
First of all, welcome back! i missed your newsletter and I'm happy to know you are back and hopefully doing ok. Second, thanks for another powerful food for thought and practical help. Me, I have not used any of the physical hacks you suggest I guess because I was never into digital life, not because I am "specially clever" (the opposite) but because time ago I had no money to just even buy a laptop and then a smartphone, and when I finally could afford both I had moved to London and felt so disconnected from the new culture over there and a language I couldn't speak properly that I simply was not able to get into the hype for everything digital - real disconnection. More recently, I just stopped scrolling intentionally and understood that I am not interested in any "who will have the last word" online debates. But I got all your points, coming from humanities and social science everything you wrote makes sense on soooo many levels and resonates with all the mental and spiritual work I've done so far. Thanks a lot for your work
bro finally! :D
Brave of you to share Brett. You are so smart and compassionate- you deserve the best. Once I stopped “working for a salary” I slowly removed myself from social media for the same reason. I hated how it made me feel. I am now proudly on nothing except the rare Substack articles - you. :) So much more fun to connect with people (and myself) the old fashioned way. I also learned (and am still learning) a lot about myself in the process. All answers are within us, not somewhere out there in the universe and especially not out in social media space.
THIS IS F BRILLIANT. Thank you Brett. As an actor, I feel the very same experience of a portal opening when I take on new characters and this ritual just works so well in all facets. I LOVE the exertion of energy part as that too is key! THANK YOU for this delicious piece of very important writing - I will share on!
Thank you for sharing such a personal story, Brett. I wish I had some great insight but my journey has been to simply migrate from one social “portal” to the next. Facebook to Twitter to Bluesky and now Reddit. What I like about Reddit is that it’s less user based rather community based and the feeing that you get to choose which community to engage with and what responses to expect. Feels like I have much more agency wrt what type of people I want to engage with. I still go on facebook on the weekend now just to wave and say hi, though. 😊
Thanks so much for this. These are really helpful ideas.
Wow what a fantastic approach to dealing with all the new ways digital products are able to leech into our neural pathways.
Your story gives me a lot to think about today. Thank you Brett!
Interestingly, I, too, am working on an article about the digital realm although from a vastly different perspective.
And also, thanks for getting personal about why you left for a while. It helps and is inspiring to hear your story. 🙏
Welcome back Brett, thanks for the digital hygiene ideas. I used to use an alarm clock to set a time limit, which worked well. Pulls you out of the time slippage