I saw woman die tonight. Only 19 years of age. I tried to believe it was fake, but her screams and frantic actions were too real. CBC would attest to the veracity of her death. I don't know what it is that draws me into the internet, despite my disdain for the things it has shown me. There's a passage in Patricia Lockheart's No One is Talking About This, that has stuck with me since I read it. She asserts that television is so alluring because we get to watch people, while forgetting what it's like to be people. How good it would feel to dance without my hair getting in my eyes, to never feel itchy, to kiss without my mind racing with anxious thoughts. The internet offers me this. It directs my attention away from my itchy skin and sore back, and quells my anxieties. It can do this because every corner of the internet has spent three bajillion dollars in hired web design and psychoanalysis for the sole purpose of keeping our attention. This issue has only been compounded with the advent of algorithms and ai. Now, content is catered directly to me, Eric Folino. Meta and Google now know more about me than my own mother. They know my fears, my desires, my thoughts and my feelings. They use this information to show me content which does one of two things: Firstly; content might reinforce my anxieties, causing me to feel worse about myself or my current situation. Second; content will relieve me, improving my mood but teaching my brain to associate anxiety relief with (typically short-form) content. In the end, a negative feedback loop is formed, in which 9/10 videos induce anxiety and unpleasant feelings within me, and 1/10 videos relieves those unpleasant feelings. My time is spent frantically searching for that 1/10 video.
For better or for worse, sometimes something will fall through the cracks. The algorithm will take a gamble and show me something out of the ordinary. Today, that something was a video of the brutal death of a 19 year old child. I don't know what kind of fucked up account would post something so tragic, and with no respect for the deceased (my guess: an A.I. content farm). What I do know is that something in my life needs to change.
For a while now, I've been using web browser extentions and phone apps which block certain websites and apps. I've almost exclusively blocked social media sites. Sometimes, I'll unblock a site to post something. Sometimes I'll unblock a site because I'm stressed/lonely/sad. Either way, I might end up scrolling for an hour before the dread becomes too great for me to bear, and I close the app and sulk, feeling disgusted with myself for wasting so much time (also: I still feel stressed/lonely/sad).
There are a few points which ust be addressed if I am to break this cycle.