Neal Stephenson: Why I Am a Sociomediapath (2015)
Abstaining from &quot;social media&quot; is for <i>amateurs</i>!!! ;-)<p>Many years ago, I threw my TV out and it was one of the best decisions I&#x27;ve ever made.<p>Internet is the new TV.<p>I see the irony of writing this on HN but I really try to find the internet analogue for throwing out the TV.<p>The problem is that you need services like maps, online banking and tickets, mobile payments, etc.<p>What I want to get rid of though, completely, is news and noise. I tried and tried but self-regulation is too hard; I still waste so much time and poison my brain with all this crap; I think the time has come to try self-<i>binding</i>.<p>My current setup is to not have internet at home (where I work) except for a mobile connection, and to pull the SIM card out by default. I only put it back in when I need to do something specific (or when I am on the go, for maps).<p>Obviously, this is not a perfect solution yet (as I somehow found my way back to HN, grrr…) but I&#x27;m working on it.<p>I should probably get a dumbphone for emergencies, and I also want to habituate myself to a weekly rhythm where I bunch all the stuff (like emails, software updates, articles to be downloaded, references to be checked, etc) to one day a week (say Sat) and do all my &quot;internet errands&quot; in one go.<p>The rest of the time, I rely on my books and articles and downloaded documentations and offline Wikipedia. If I want to watch something, I can make a note and download the movie or entire season along with the other &quot;internet groceries&quot;. To keep in touch with current events, I can read weekly news magazines. That also dials down the noise. Something like that. Interestingly, since I got a big tablet, I read news magazines like The Economist or Die Zeit in PDF format and it seems to also affect me somehow. There is no outside clicking and endless linkbait anymore, and I feel less monitored and stressed (even though I already have all these adblockers and Little Snitch and whatnot). It also gives me back a feeling of a natural end to my reading session when I reach the final pages of the PDF. On the web or online, the next article or curiosity is always right behind.