How to control the Internet & not let the Internet control you — A call for strong boundaries
This year I attended the virtual OFFF design conference. I had a customised character that could walk, run and dance in a 3D space. I could interact with other participants from around the world and attend all the lectures from the comfort of my home. It was interesting to be part of a large audience in a new and exciting way during the pandemic.
It does not substitute for the real thing but it would be foolish to ignore the future of the internet and where we are heading. You probably have an online avatar that resembles you. Those are soon to be replaced by walking talking manifestations of you. And while this sounds exciting and it most definitely is, it does raise some questions. Like— are we gonna be glued onto our chairs, living in a meta verse?
But those are adventures and problems of the near future. Let’s talk about the role we play as internet users today, shall we? Sucked into the vast pool of information and engagement, we are calling it being ‘connected’. The internet has deeply integrated itself in our lives. So much so, that being denied access to it is like being an outlaw. A person living outside the system.
Here we are in 2021, always online — at least on one device. And we’ve got an app for just about anything. We track our food habits, our sleep patterns and our ever changing moods. We have subscriptions, learn new skills and take online courses by universities halfway across the globe.
Everything is just one tap away. It’s more than just measurable progress in communication. It has evolved into something much bigger. With anything this powerful, there are bound to be some concerns.
A Questionable Ecosystem
Like most people in the world, I have the basics installed on my phone. Social apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, a wide variety of wellness apps like Headspace and fitness apps by famous apparel brands like Nike and Adidas. Maybe a few odd ball apps catered to my interests. There’s an app for every specific need and a specific audience for it.
Here’s the thing though, as of 2021 — my clients have infiltrated WhatsApp, because emails are too slow. I get work related messages post work hours and I find myself negotiating rates on a platform that was once meant to keep me in touch with friends. On Instagram, I have friends, acquaintances and people I might have once met at a seminar or while sharing a cab — and yet, I wonder why I feel uncomfortable posting pictures of my face and my life.
As for a space like Spotify, one that I consider sacred — where I can put together music for my every kind of mood, I can now see which of my friends are online and what songs they are listening to. My first thought to that is well, that’s a bit intrusive. I mean do I really need to know if my buddy’s in the mood for Johny Cash? And while they’ve been too busy to respond to a friendly text, they’re listening to a podcast? That’s disrespectful to their personal space.
Last month I received a notification from my fitness app informing me my friend started a work out. Not only is it tracking my activities and making countless recommendations but notifying me about my friends activities too? It’s one thing to interact with something a friend posted, quite another to passively observe your friend’s online activities.
We need some boundaries.
Productivity vs procrastination
An app like Instagram has a lot of good content if you find the right accounts to follow but most of it is also just noise. It’s become an app to conduct business and look at memes. The algorithm of the app itself tries to push specific content and ads. Most people spend hours mindlessly scrolling, with no real satisfaction. Just empty conversations and a whole lot of noise.
If you feel like you’re not really active since you don’t post things online that often, you’re wrong. It’s like being in a crowded room, with people constantly engaging in conversations of all sorts — and you’re just in a corner listening in. You’re taking it all in, just not reacting. In case you’re wondering how you managed to spend 3 hours on your phone today, well that’s how.
There are some high quality productivity websites/apps out there. Ones that have completely changed my workflow and made it incredibly easy to work in teams. But when it comes to entertainment apps, we’re mostly just procrastinating. Checking Instagram 15 times in 30 minutes doesn’t count as a break.
“The same way the consumer economy of the 20th century called upon us to invent the nutritional diet, I believe that the attention economy of the 21st century calls upon us to invent an attention diet.” — Mark Manson
My attention — Not up for grabs
There are lots of amazing online spaces and communities — ones catered to your different interests, skills and moods. So many opportunities where you can participate and interact with people across the planet.
Do you cherry pick what content lands on your feed? What voices you want to hear and which of these shape your perception for the better? Do you control what makes your phone buzz?
Or do you just fall into the rabbit hole and suddenly find yourself wondering how you got here?
I don’t need to know what everyone’s upto constantly and they don’t need to know how I spend my time online. Nor do I need constant reminders from apps asking me to engage with them in some miniscule way. 90% of the notifications I receive are pretty much pointless.
I took the time to turn off features I don’t want. Uninstalled apps that I can access on the browser — so my phone doesn’t go off all the time and I control what information makes it to my feed by ruthlessly muting and restricting content.
If we are heading for an immersive technological world - blurring lines of reality, we might as will build it on some good boundaries.
It’s like taking care of a garden, you don’t just let the weed grow. You cut out the toxicity and you plant the things that will give you fruit and/or enhance your garden — enrich your life. Because yeah, the internet is a vast place with everything at your disposal, but you’re the one holding the device and you set the boundaries.
