I spend a lot of time thinking about all of the ways the Internet COULD have been.

It could have been a tool to reduce the paper waste of mailed correspondence. To assist with financial and time management to make our lives more seamless and enjoyable. It could have been durable, both in terms of the software and hardware required to participate in its network.

Somehow, the idea of being “hands-free” and “wireless” took over all of its potential. Instead of serving as a point of connection, it has become a place where we can tear away all the tethers to the real world, isolate ruthlessly, and suck up toxic sludge of opinions and marketing designed to keep us weak, disconnected, and feeling utterly powerless. We’re powerless to step away from it, powerless to form a rational opinion with a strong basis in theory and experience, and powerless to find other people (and plants, and animals, and natural spaces) to connect with that aren’t also tainted by the 5G (or, Dog forbid, Star-linked) connection to all the world’s information.

We’ve begun to identify our internal battery more with that of our devices and not of our somatics. It’s sometimes hard to even understand how we feel, even though our access to social media “produced” content and the nefarious algorithms that drive our internal landscape have those feelings ratcheted up to 11 from mere moments after we wake up.

I personally have struggled with the drive to be online, to consume media in its various forms, even when it was haltingly slow or, for long stretches of time, intentionally throttled. I lived in the “sticks” of the Santa Cruz Mountains, specifically in Lobitos, with a scratchy landline phone and no cell service for me or the other fourteen households across the ridgeline. There was no Starlink then, but the farm ran off of HughesNet satellite service. We were lucky that the house was high enough up that we could watch the fog creep across the valley floor, and only when the weather really socked us in did our service slow from a trickle to more resemble the drippy fog between the dish atop our barn and the satellite in the sky. There was a strict limit for the amount of data each customer could use per day (around 500MB, if I remember correctly) in order to “ration” the bandwidth across all customers’ demand, and one visit to Facebook by our unsuspecting WWOOFing^[1] interns could render our email applications useless until the next day.

Overnight, the plan had several hours that were exempt from these restrictions, starting around 2 AM. It was intended to make downloading larger files and computer updates possible. However, I would often go to bed early only to wake up and watch Netflix or other streaming services. Still with long periods paused to cache a couple of scenes at the lowest available resolution at a time, unless the skies were totally clear. It was detrimental to my sleep, to my busy 90-hour-weeks working on the farm and in the local schools through AmeriCorps, and was absolutely one of the earliest signs that I had inhibition control and executive functioning issues that would later be consistent with a pretty severe case of ADHD.

What I also learned from my days on this farm, and later others, was that community and working together towards meaningful goals with my neighbors and friends felt even better than the methadone version provided by social media platforms. Having game nights with the WWOOFers and cooking dinners with my “farm mama” while we listened to CDs and she told me stories about her wild life and wacky friends… these were the memories I held onto, and wanted to make more of.

My goal for how I want to use the internet and digital devices in general has become “to make being IRL better.” I enjoy participating in forums and comment threads, but moreso when I’m contributing meaningfully and not just “shitposting” with my Duck Hunt-esque combo of sass and fast typing (SORRY ABOUT ALL THE BACKCHAT IN CLASS, I STG I’m trying to apply this theory Every Dang Day.)

I know I read contracts for a living. Still, I do really want to be^[2] one of those nerds that actively engages with the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines, and then meaningfully rank both HOW they are written and WHAT they actually say mean a community is one I might feel is even safe to participate in (“x” = 0, 0).

From there, I do try to check in and decide how I want to show up for others online. I am nice, generally collaborative, and try to speak only on things I have background and experience in. (Now, if only journalism were still practiced by those same rules!) I am typically very mindful about anonymizing myself online and consistently focused on building others up rather than tearing people down for their own ways of interacting. How to lure us all outside and put the brakes on our doomscrolling, though… that part I am starting to wonder if I’ll ever figure out.