internet socialization
May 16, 2024
the dissassociation machine
or: the purpose of a machine is what it does
recently I’ve stopped using twitter. this is new for me – I’ve used the app since 2015, met many interesting people, went on dates, traveled the country, and scrolled for an amount of time that I find frankly sickening. for all but the last item, it has generally been a good time. and yet I need to stop.
the problem with the app is that it is a black hole. I get home from work (exhausted), heat up rice and beans in the microwave (approximately a 1:2 beans to rice blend, one cup, covered with a damp paper towel, at high power for two minutes and thirty seconds), drenching the radioactive mixture in chile de arbol before collapsing on my couch and opening the app. suddenly, it is 8 p.m. and I usually sleep at 9:30. alternately I have something to do which requires some amount of friction – run club (social and physical friction) or going to a bar (just social) – which I have chosen not to do because the people in my phone are more interesting and accessible; I do not have to deal with the pain and awkwardness of being a human. this is bad for the reason that the people down the street at my rock-climbing gym or bar are far more real than the ghosts inside my phone. this is not denying their existence – I have met 20-30 people from the internet and can confirm that they’re all real – but rather, physical proximity ought to play a role. if I were to live in the same area as the phone people (inshallah I will), I would feel differently.
the app, aside from presenting a frictionless social alternative, also runs on time. I have a preoccupation with time; I can feel it draining over and over such that the falling of each grain tears at my skin. every action costs something and twitter (and other social media) charges in temporal change. I’ve been on twitter for eight years (1/3 of my life)! it’s been a good eight years, but most of that is not due to the app. at the end of the day I hope that the experiences I reflect on in life will not be ones mediated through the broken piece of glass and metal in my pocket but rather physical interaction. the opportunity cost of twitter is the chance for more meaningful interactions in time.
there’s also an anesthetic and psychoactive component to this. Houston is unbearable in almost all qualities; the worst is the humidity and heat such that I wake up at 5:30 a.m. to run, avoiding the brunt of it. for the past couple years, I’ve primarily been running with headphones in, blasting rural internet, 100 gecs, underscores, etc. to cancel out the ambient noise of traffic. recently, I’ve stopped doing this. first, the music is uncomfortably hypnotizing; by this, I mean that the shape of my thoughts drastically differs between when I listen to music and when I do not. in a way, the music keeps me from thinking about more difficult thoughts, my plans for the week, etc., instead luring me into a more dreamlike trance. without music I am alone with my thoughts. the noise of tires on the pavement, the slap of my shoes across the ground, birdsong as the sun burns off the morning haze, my heavy breathing accompanies me. initially, I think, settle my thoughts, then find a clear-headedness as one mile becomes eight. twitter (and anything with an infinite scroll) operates in the same way, my attention continually diverted from that which matters to me. the ability for it to shape my thoughts may be clear in my other writing where I mentioned taking my phone into the shower to prevent anxiety attacks (not phone-related, but rather the phone acted as a security blanket). despite smoking a non-zero amount, cigarettes have never become a fixture for me, but the flash of craving for scrolling likely hits on something similar. furthermore, my thoughts are not quite my own when I use twitter – they are shaped by the minds of the people I’m reading. many of those who post frequently are severely mentally ill. it may not be healthy to be exposed to these thoughts at such a high frequency.
finally, the mechanics of the current internet are such that alternate realities are formed with contain social truth far removed from consensus reality. this is ok in that many consensus beliefs are suboptimal and need changed; alongside is the disappointing fact that many of these alternate views are equally bad. a large example in this space would be the normalization and drive toward atrocious tech salaries; a more controversial one would be the capitalistic and ultimately harmful reification of mental health, therapy, and self-care culture. the reality is that most cannot exist within these bubbles in the real world; outside of (nyc/sf) one must interact with those who exist in consensus reality and the more that one allows these alternate views to take hold of their psyche, the more difficulty they have interacting with the majority of people. not everyone views frameworks as that which to fleet between for sake of convenience. in the sense that homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, any distancing from what I view as an essential concept to humanity is terrible. I’d like to be able to interact with everyone.
forever is a long time and I feel a self-annihilating urge for more and more of my time to be consumed in place of my self. I’ll inevitably rejoin twitter and will need to find a way to do this healthily. inshallah I find myself in the northeast and in doing so will be in physical proximity to the dorks I enjoy interacting with online. but for now, my time is better spent elsewhere. if you are one of these charismatic nerds, I still have discord (@hjelfman) and signal (+14698342539). see y’all there for now.