I want us both to get off the internet

In which I talk about time, attention and ignoring what really matters

This essays contains an audio recorded version. It’s something new I’m trying. And I’ve recorded it myself—couple little trip ups and all—because using some text-to-speech app seems antithetical to what I’m writing about.

The author; Penobscot Bay, Searsport, Maine

Bit of a weird statement for someone on the internet, isn’t it? And yet, that is where I find myself.

I want you and I both to get off the internet. Get off the computer and our screens.

The weird thing is though, you’re reading this on a screen. There’s no other way for anybody to access this essay. And, while I may have made some notes in a notebook before writing this, I did the work to write the thing you’re reading on a screen on a screen. I hunched over my little iPad, eyes glazed in milky blue light, for several hours, across several days, too many tabs open the whole time.¹ Even as I was writing this, I was nervous about extending the time you and I are holding our slim bits of metal and magic that give us access to more information than our hearts can really hold. Am I helping us both? I wondered. Or hurting?

The internet is not the whole world

At least three times a week (increasingly, it seems) I find myself thinking, Maybe the internet is a net negative for humanity. Which is not to say I believe that is true. But the fact that this thought barges into my brain so often says something. I think maybe it’s fairest to say: the internet has not wholly been a positive for humanity. Right? And we’re at a really sticky point right now. We might yet find our way but—gosh—it’s looking grim.

There’s a line being tossed around a bunch about how we aren’t made to handle the concerns of the whole world, just our own family and village. What the internet has brought into our pockets, constantly, is access to the concerns and suffering of the whole world. (And things to numb out with when that’s been too much.) I haven’t been able to trace a source for this information, be it a quote or a study, though it fits with my personal experience.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

wrote about it back in 2021 though:

“I just do not think our psyches were developed to hold, feel and respond to everything coming at them right now; every tragedy, injustice, sorrow and natural disaster happening to every human across the entire planet, in real time every minute of every day. The human heart and spirit were developed to be able to hold, feel and respond to any tragedy, injustice, sorrow or natural disaster that was happening IN OUR VILLAGE.

So my emotional circuit breaker keeps overloading because the hardware was built for an older time.

And yet, when I check social media it feels like there are voices saying “if you aren’t talking about, doing something about, performatively posting about ___(fill in the blank)___then you are an irredeemably callous, priviledged, bigot who IS PART OF THE PROBLEM” and when I am someone who does actually care about human suffering and injustice (someone who feels every picture I see, and story I read) it leaves me feeling like absolute shit.”

I don’t want to add to what’s on your plate already, but if that strikes a chord I do recommend reading her essay in full. It’s called “If you can't take in anymore, there's a reason.”

It seems to me that ultimately the internet is a resource. Right now though, I don’t think we’re treating this resource well (but that does seem to be the name of the game presently, misusing resources). To me, it appears we’re treating it like it is the whole world and it isn’t. Because of this, and maybe because we’ve never had a resource like this one, the internet provides pretty insidious methods for control, disruption, power acquisition and grifts in a time of extreme exploitation.

The internet and me

So naturally when I think about this, I think about my participation in the internet. It’s pretty limited at this point, since I no longer have any social media.²

I’m constantly assessing my internet usage and encounters, bemoaning the present reality, and failing the aspirations I have to change them. The things my Screen Time app tells me worry me. It causes me stress that I have a collective 3,806 unopened emails between several different inboxes. Notifications have been designed to affect us and I’m not immune. Like the way McDonald’s food is engineered to make you want it, that’s the modern internet. I wish my interactions with screens could be strictly utilitarian, but that’s not how the attention economy works. Even self-aware I am susceptible.

What is the oft quoted Mary Oliver line? “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”³ I’m very aware how much of my attention is on the internet rather than other matters and I’m concerned about what this imbalance means regarding my devotion.

Am I devoted to an empty inbox or am I devoted to learning the names of all the trees?

Yet parts of the internet are quite good, helpful and connective. Like Substack. On the balance, I enjoy this place more than any other internet haunt I’ve frequented. It helps me know what I believe because I know better what I’m thinking when I write it (this is why I can never outline my essays). It gives me motivation to write, which I’ve long known helps my mental health. It’s connected me with talented, thoughtful writers who have changed how I think, and kind readers who restore my faith in humanity. And I believe in what I’m writing. It feels like a way I can contribute to change, to hope. Some of you have kindly said that my work matters to you. For that I’m very grateful and it’s why I continue.

The internet and us

So how do I do this well? For me and for you? That’s my constant question. How do I not add to the noise when, by the nature of what I do and believe, I must make some kind of clatter?

I believe deeply in what I’m writing, and I believe that we are putting too much stock in the internet world.

I recently got the Merlin Bird ID app from The Cornell Lab. It identifies bird calls and I’ve been using it frequently.⁴ It is delightful. And it’s also uncomfortable to realize how bird songs have just been noise to me. I didn’t know them at all even though I’ve heard them my whole life. But I know internet icons, and logos, and taglines, and who bought the platform now known as X, and what Meghan Markle wore when, and who Taylor Swift is dating.⁵ Not because I sought out that knowledge but because of how much I exist in the internet space. If my familiarity is any indication, at thirty-one, I’ve lived more of my life on a screen than I have among birds and plants.

This concerns me.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”⁶

The living world is all we have. We’ve lived without the internet before; we could do it again. We don’t need this place. But we have never existed without the more-than-human-world. Without the trees, mushrooms, and birds. Without our kin. That needs to be at the top of our priority list, not below checking our email, getting on Instagram, or reading a Substack.

Still, we have the internet right now. It’s not going away. It is a resource. May we learn how to use it well.

To that end, I keep writing here. I’m grateful for how it can be helpful to me. It’s a way that I can make a few dimes in a town where there are limited employment options that work with my skill set and that will allow me to maintain my quality of life in a body that has been chronically ill for twelve years. It’s a way I can connect with likeminded people who aren’t in the same geographic area as me.

But I feel I have a responsibility to not misuse your attention or my time and the internet does not make this easy.

I’m trying to figure out how to make encouragements to put down our screens a through line of the work I make…on a screen. It’s tough. But more than anything, I want you and I to go outside, sit down for tea with people, take a meal to someone who needs it, call a friend, look someone in the eye, stretch, pet a cat, sit in stillness, have the bandwidth to take action against injustice and brutality in a meaningful and constructive way, or have the bandwidth to take care of ourselves and those we love. Or whatever it is that feels pressing and right for you.

I’m keenly aware that this place—the internet—is a mess. And perhaps we can do some good work here.

So. In full transparency…

There’s going to be some changes but what’s new?

1. Yes, I’m doing it. There will be more essays and comment sections which are for paid subscribers only. I’m not trying to cajole you. I’ll do my best to give you previews of the content without ending it at a cliffhanger that seems designed to pressure you into giving me money. I’m doing this to respect my time, attention and family. I need to make sure the time I am way from them, writing, is worthwhile for us all.

2. So I promise to be respectful of your time and attention too. I’m endeavoring to keep essays short without sacrificing on content and message. That’s tough—it can take more time to write a short essay than a long one. See point one. I also will keep the buttons, headers and footers, etc to a minimum. No cajoling, as I said.

3. I’m trying out audio recordings. Not sure how it’s gonna go. But I figure that way you can listen whilst you go about other things, maybe take a walk. We’ll see how it goes but these may end up being behind a paywall some times. Your feedback is appreciated.

4. Comments will generally be behind paywalls. Every month there will be one essay where the comments will be turned on. Maybe always the first one? I’ll try to keep it consistent.

5. If you cannot afford a paid subscription and you feel it would benefit you, I want you to send me an email. Please.

UPDATE: As of the new moon in December 2023, I decided to forgo participating in the paid subscriber model. You can read more about that here and in my about page. In short: paid and free subscribers will get the same content. If you choose to pay me for my work I will be hugely grateful but I will not withhold my work.

I’ll end with a question. You can share your answer in the comments if you want, or keep it close to your own heart. Just please remember whatever it is.

What has made you feel alive—not necessarily good but alive—outside of internet-land recently?

1. For the curious, I write on a very old (in computer time) crummy iPad with a broken keyboard which I have over laid with another keyboard that does work sometimes. It is all ganky as crap. I am content with it.

2. I left all social media in 2021. I recommend it, and also it didn’t necessarily solve all my issues.

3. This quote comes from her book of essays: Upstream.

4. My husband informs me that technically it uses AI and I would have preferred to stay oblivious to this.

5. Honestly, I can’t remember his name but I know he has a pretty bold mustache.

6. From her book Braiding Sweetgrass.