YOU CAN BE ONLINE WITHOUT BEING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

I love the internet. I love Zoom calls, message boards, and checking my bank accounts without visiting a branch.

I read blogs, news sites, keep up with sports, and music, and current events with intention, rather than sitting back and letting these things be curated for me by computers that are programmed to increase shareholder value and help pay for executive yachts.

Social media is a walled garden, similar to AOL back in the early 2000s. The platforms do everything they can to keep you on their service. Not on-line, but on-their-service.

“You’ll see what we show you,” they say.

Posts with outbound links don’t get seen, and sometimes links aren’t allowed at all (like Instagram).

Fresh new content is wired to your eyeballs with every swipe and scroll and refresh, giving you very little time to even click off and actually do anything “online.”