Escape is one word that romanticizes this feeling of reclaiming your mind and spirit from cyberspace. I say cyberspace and not internet because, as Mark Fisher said, "I think we need to talk about cyberspace rather than just the internet. Technology such as smart phones mean that, increasingly, we are not "using the internet" so much as we are inside the total environment of cyberspace." Escape is sort of declarative and instant, however - like you can just leave the internet. The moderator in Mark Fisher's cybertime crisis mentioned this - why dont you just turn off the internet, if it is like any other vice? The problem with this analogy however is that the internet doesn't stay put - it's chasing after you. Its more of an attempt to outrun cyberspace. I don't doubt the feelings of other addiction being similar to this - however someone who has not experienced this could easily shrug off the idea ("A bottle cant move, just throw it away") instead of recognizing the parasitic power of the drug, the sort of consciousness that addiction forms and takes residency inside of your brain.
Say you set down the phone: the internet can wait. You decide you're going to read a book. Your eyes get about halfway down the page before a familiar itch starts to form, a mental block, a boredom or inability to recognize the words on the page anymore. Your mind wants you to be done with this task, its taking too long, you're not getting your fix of information quick enough. But you're smart, you've decided to set aside an entire hour to do this, and you've set your phone somewhere far away from where you are, so you decide to attempt to trudge on. 10 minutes pass and youve finished a page, but it feels like an hour has passed. So you get up, decide to work on something else. But wait, you catch yourself, you cant let your focus slip so easily. Maybe its not your fault, maybe the book is just hard to read. Pick up something easier and more entertaining instead. But another page down, you hit a dull passage, and the feeling creeps back up. Didn't you just post something to facebook recently, maybe you should check your responses? Wasn't there a youtube video about this book you could watch? You forgot to message back a friend and you should really do that soon. The book can wait
Maybe this is a feeling of ADD? I dont doubt that I'm worse for wear as a result of my diagnosis. However, I remember a time when I could flip through 70 pages in a sitting easily. When I could attempt a single task for hours without a feeling of guilt. I've always been a little behind, sure, and it's easier to work at multiple tasks at once than devote all my attention to a single one. But this is just embarassing. What is wrong with my brain? It feels like a wall, like a block, a huge stone I'm trying to move off of the information right in front of my reach. My bookshelf piles up with titles that are engaging and exciting. Snippets of information that seem like important further reading. However, the only information I know how to engage with it the titles themselves.
The diagnoses is pretty simple, I can almost hear the boomer colluqualism, "youre brain is gonna turn to mush," echoing from the past. But is it too late? It almost feels like it is. If it's too late for anything, at least, it's too late to simply just turn it off. Too late to just delete facebook, delete twitter,
....
I left from writing this for a moment, to check all other tabs in chrome: sentence hanging; incomplete.
I have so many thoughts on the subject to get out and it feels like just writing on a single topic is the act of doing an injustice to all the others. I'd like to list a few, hopefully I can find the willpower to write my thoughts on each at length
- Microwork, facebook and the media economy of free labor
- They only want to sell you things - harmful engineering and dark UI
- The internet we lost: information, creativity, and autodidacticism
- Information vs knowledge: Youtube, Video Essays, and How to videos. Hot and Cold media.
- Community, new communities, and social guilt. Will I be forgotten?
- The long escape, the faults with the cabin analogy, and a healthy relationship with the internet
- Addiction or something else?
- Should things be finished? Are we avoiding the future? Art, hauntology, and cyberspace
- Whats happening to my brain exactly?
Here is an are.na super channel I've been keeping of reading and references on the subject:
https://www.are.na/lynn-avery/escape-k6a8x0oxyfi
