Getting back on the horse
Nov 12, 2022
Over this summer, I spent a lot of time reflecting on digital life and the larger question of what I wanted to do with my time. At that point, I had already felt for several months that I was wasting my life away, and not in a dramatic way. It was just slipping by, mundane moment to mundane moment, as I absent-mindedly watched YouTube videos. So I made a directed effort to cut YouTube, trying to be purposeful with the time it freed up. I might even have said that I was doing well. I stopped compulsively going to YouTube's homepage, instead using an RSS reader to only gather new videos from a pre-curated list of channels. I spent time walking around, trying to be present rather than listening to a podcast episode for the fifth time just to avoid the silence. I wrote and edited essays. Maybe I was even more focused with work.
The new arrangement was tenuous, however. I was still trying to break a bad habit, which always takes many repetitions of the new behaviour before it replaces the habit. Before anything could solidify, though, I slid back into my old patterns. At the time, I told myself that I was just taking a brief detour, since some (unrelated) circumstances in my life had changed, but that I'd quickly revert to my new intentional living after things went back to normal. Well, things did go back to normal, but my behaviour didn't change readjust. Established habits are sticky, unfortunately. It's now been months since, and I am still opening YouTube and scrolling with my brain off.
I've recently started to believe that, of all internet addictions, watching competitive Pokemon videos may be one of the best I could have chosen. Especially with the recent news of Twitter prompting many to reexamine their usage of the service and face the fact that it might be too difficult for them to leave, I feel that I have escaped relatively unharmed. I don't doomscroll or feel drawn to the rage-bait designed just for engagement. I'm not addicted to Instagram, with its veneers of edited perfection, nor to TikTok, which users blame for shorter and shorter attention spans. Not to mention, I have happily avoided gacha games and other addictions masquerading as mobile games. For having sidestepped all these worse problems (through likely through no great virtue of my own!), I am thankful.
Still, I want to rededicate myself to being intentional with my time, which I only feel is becoming more and more precious in its scarcity. So I'm getting back on the horse: no more scrolling YouTube's homepage aimlessly, if I can help it. Thankfully, I've developed some ambitions to occupy my leisure time otherwise: essay writing, reading books, creating TTRPG campaigns, yoga, and running. Maybe I'm just feeling optimistic today because I finished a good chunk of work this past week. If that's the case, I want to strike while the iron is hot. Ultimately I hope I can unlearn my digital habits that aren't serving me, to the point where I can experiment with more concerted digital minimalism efforts.