Do you "go online" any more?

[wris]

Back when my family first got hooked up to the 'net in the early 00s, going online was an event. We had a dial up connection with a limited number of hours, so we each got an hour a day and had to track it on a piece of paper. Sometimes I'd save up for a big binge, but there was a clear delineation between being online and not. I don't wanna romanticise that too much 'cause at the time I didn't exactly love it when my hour was up, but there was a pressure to make the most of the time, and an internet that wasn't yet designed to hold your attention for as long as possible. Even if I was just killing time browsing random websites or chatting to people on MSN messenger, it was something I did actively.

More recently it feels like the internet is something that's being done to us. People don't go online so much as online is the default state and people "unplug" or go on "digital detoxes." I've been gently pushing back against this in my own life with modest success.

Have you felt this shift in your own life? Do you view it as a good or bad thing?

[tenkai_no_perusona]

I felt such a shift slower than people around me, and I've also been partially (and unwillingly, though gladly) pulled back to something more akin to the old days recently.

When I started using the Internet around 2008/2009, Brazil was transitioning from dial-up ubiquity to "wow, I can download files at 150 KBps!" broadband connections. Dial-up time wasn't that limited, and I could use it for a few hours; still, it forced patience upon me, something that remained useful as my house transitioned to still fairly low-speed and unstable broadbands. Even as I stayed hours in front of the screen—school was always easy for me, as I was a curious kid with a nerd father and Internet access since 7; I never had to spend too much time studying—those were hours used actively, exactly as you've described.

My school classmates started getting sucked into the smartphone craze around 2012, and it fully normalized for them around 2013. I got one by 2014 and only got used to it by the end of 2015, as my girlfriend at that time used it a lot and got me into it. Here in Brazil, Whatsapp is unfortunately almost as quintessential to all daily activities as breathing is; everywhere and for everything, one is forced to use it. This became worse when I entered college in 2017, and as much as I've always hated phones and preferred desktops and laptops over them, I couldn't escape normalizing their usage.

As you've said:

More recently it feels like the internet is something that's being done to us.

I started enjoying it after a while. What brought me out of it was COVID-19—as my college suspended all in-person activities from 2020 to 2021, I was suddenly brought back to my days of 10-hour desktop usage. I was slowly but surely confronted with boredom and the feeling that even the good old drug of notifications wasn't enough to escape from it. Quite ironically, it was devising a healthier, more active, and old-school way of spending my time in front of the screen that saved me from rotting away waiting for Twitter notifications. I started using Linux (inb4 "I use Arch btw"), got into ricing, was seduced by the digital gardening movement (and more recently by Web Revival), returned to retro gaming, started reviving many old hobbies... In short, I did a lot.

When in-person internships returned by late 2021 (and in-person classes and research activities earlier this year), I had gotten used to active computer and Internet usage again. Even if I wanted to use my phone more, I wouldn't be able to—the software I use, the workflow for my studies and research, my hobbies, they're all not amenable in the slightest to the shape and capabilities of phones anymore. While I still use regular social media, my time there is far more limited, and my usage more purposeful.

More importantly, my routine regained a clear division between offline and online as I spend most of my time writing, reading, and studying. Most of the tools I use today are offline or hybrid. I've integrated digital and analog in my workflow, handwritten notes becoming OCRed or re-typed and vice-versa. My phone is at most a boom box/Walkman or a tool to show memes to the friends I'm talking to in-person nowadays. I started using slower forms of communication (such as email) more regularly. Reading longform content more than tweet-shaped thingies has also been helping a lot. I also (almost) stopped using Spotify and went back to torrenting/soulseeking (I was never into movie streaming thankfully).

In short, life became ritualistic once again. They're small things, but they surprisingly brought back some sense of individual historicity that I had utterly lost.

[morrysillusion]

its certainly true to me that i feel like being online has become the default more than anything, and when covid started it really made me feel worse and worse as i was sucked into doing nothing but head over to my PC for entertainment while also feeling increasingly bored because it was always the same. creative burn outs didnt help and the format and pressure of social media was making it worse and worse. i wanted to feel that sort of old way, in the sense that going online was a choice and an option to spice up my day, rather than the "well, here we go again" like im unable to pull myself away from this default state of being online.

bigger problem was after high school and dropping college, i had basically nothing else to interrupt the path to my computer desk and that was definitely creating an issue in trying to fight off the default state of online. but in the last few years of pandemic its allowed me to think way harder about it and try to figure out what to do in order to find that old way of thinking. it will never be exactly the way it was, with how technology and internet has changed so much.

with how much time i spend on my PC it felt impossible to fix this problem, when the internet was just There and i had little other options being isolated at home with no ability to go out easily. but ive slowly been trying to find ways to restructure my daily activities and above all, find things to do on my PC that arent just loading up the browsers and refreshing social media or youtube all day. like coding, looking into the retro tech i want to collect and mess with old PCs, more mindfully indulging in digital media/video games/etc (avoid the 'repetition and numbers make my brain stimulated' due to it creating the mindless online drive of refreshing social media. its not bad, but i like to be aware of when i fall into that).

i realized personally that i love computers, i love being in online spaces. but the "default"-ness of it made me bored. and finding other interests 'around' my computer and online space has reminded me what i love about all of it while giving my a much needed freshness to the online environments. i can make 'going online' fun again by reminding myself i can break the repetition. it will never be what it was, but being mindful of how i take it all in has helped me enjoy it unlike the months and years leading up to now where i started to question why i was even here.

[wris]

Really interesting thoughts from both of you.

They're small things, but they surprisingly brought back some sense of individual historicity that I had utterly lost.

I've never really put a lot of thought into the historicity angle. I think you're right that these rituals help with a sense of time and place, rather than just being in a sort of endless now. Am I understanding that right?

(P.S. I also used to use Arch.)

it will never be exactly the way it was, with how technology and internet has changed so much.

Probably not, but I think with deliberation we can take the best bits of everything and move forward with them. Gotta move forward as well as moving back.

[MrsMoe]

I'd say being online is my default mode of existence, so absolutely not. Like I said in another thread, I live in a very small area in the woods, where there's next to nothing for anyone to do and most of the people around here are trailer park trash. But even before we moved here, I barely had a life outside of the internet. It honestly feels at this point that my internet self is the real me (and the only place I can truly be myself) and my irl self is a fake persona I have to perform for other people. I tried to break out of that and make an effort to find friends...but that's exactly when COVID-19 hit and my family had to move as a result.

[Melooon]

I enjoy reading this topic, thanks for starting it

About 3 years ago I got supper pissed off at my phone company for some reason and decided to NEVER top up again.. And for the most part Iv topped up very little. The result is that my phone basically does not work when I'm not on wifi.. Whenever I leave the house I'm offline!

Sitting on the bus.. getting to a friends house.. not being able to call to tell my friend I'm outside.. shouting at my friends window.. having the neighbours lean out and start shouting at my friend too.. sitting there for 20 minutes and discovering my friend was not at home :omg:k: That's offline life and I have lived it!

It does create a novelty feeling to finally getting back on wifi and excitedly checking your email! No one ever emails me But I check anyway! Its nice to create moments of disconnection, it makes you appreciate being online more.

[Swiftpaw]

I've been trying to go offline more so that being online isn't the default. Recently I've been trying to do more journaling or offline writing projects, but I'm still trying to figure out a way to write that works with my dysgraphia. Though I've been going out and biking more and that has helped me go more offline and I'm trying to find more places to go.

My parents limited my internet and electronic usage as a kid but I started to get addicted to the internet when I was a teenager in order to cope with abuse and other trauma I was facing at the time. Back then I didn't have many options to get away, but I do now as an adult and I'm trying to take advantage of that.

[Guest]

i grew up right around that time where the internet started becoming the place you could be on basically whenever you wanted, iphones were just introduced and since my parents didn't use the computer much, it was all to myself for most of the day, and they did very little to regulate it because of the hours they worked. i couldn't fathom spending time off of the internet because that was all i spent my time doing since i wasn't ever at the top of any friend lists and there wasnt much to do for a kid my age where i lived. nowadays so much of the internet is baked into our daily lives as you said, so its hard to really go offline. especially if you've found yourself developing a presence online one way or another. with a phone you carry almost all the time basically out of necessity for phone calls and such, you also subject yourself to being bothered 24/7 with new posts on social media and things like that. i've gotten better at going outside and doing other things with friends or by myself with crafts and such, but i also have work that very much requires me to be at the computer often, 3d modeling, programming, and art. and i feel thats the more common lifestyle nowadays. even if you try not to use it much, theres still so many jobs that require you to be at a computer, even if you don't think about it at first. i'm kind of neutral with the "going online" deal. its not really where "surfin' the net!" is an experience in itself, but i also wouldnt go to say its a "rare" occasion to see me not at a desk, even with what i do.

so begins my collection of "i ramble about things i can't explain very well" posts

[tarocchilla]

Hi ! i am very much enjoying this thread and i will leave something about my personal experience!

Before the quarantene, i wasn't really a big social media/internet user, i mostly lurked around and only engaged in groupchats, but i'd say that it's defenetly true that online was my "default" (especially after dating a girl who talked more on whatsapp then irl ).
During the quarantene my internet usage became defenetly more unhealthy (like most people honestly).
I never did it acritically - but i was too much in a bad place mentally to really "get off".
Also a contributing factor is that i have ADHD, and algorythmic social media is basically made to trap ADHDers in entless scrolling loops of hours.
Also i felt like that if i stopped using social media, i would miss out on alot of "cool stuff" and groups of people that share my interests.
Luckily it's not true!!
I am still keepig my social media account, mostly to go show appreciations to very cool artists i follow there, but i want to start to make internet a more positive experience for my self and actually enjoy the cool people in my computer instead of scrolling past them and leaving a like.

[manpaint]

Have you felt this shift in your own life? Do you view it as a good or bad thing?

Since I was young, I pretty much spend every waking hours on the internet, but growing up I noticed adults spending more time on the computer as time went on.

I think that spending most of your time on a computer is not inherently bad in a vacuum as it is pretty much just a tool you can use to educate and entertain yourself.

That being said, most people are constantly on social media - this has undoubtebly negative effects on society, so yeah I'd argue that in most case it's a bad thing. People should definitely take their eyes off the screen more often.

[Version]

Have you felt this shift in your own life? Do you view it as a good or bad thing?

Since I was young, I pretty much spend every waking hours on the internet, but growing up I noticed adults spending more time on the computer as time went on.

I think that spending most of your time on a computer is not inherently bad in a vacuum as it is pretty much just a tool you can use to educate and entertain yourself.

That being said, most people are constantly on social media - this has undoubtebly negative effects on society, so yeah I'd argue that in most case it's a bad thing. People should definitely take their eyes off the screen more often.

I share pretty much the same experience and agree 100%. During my teens I pretty much spent all of my free time either on a PC or on a game console. I moved on now (sorta) and am trying to make an effort to do other things too, but I can't bring myself to say that I wasted all that time. My time online is part of my identity, and will continue be part of my identity.

[manpaint]

I share pretty much the same experience and agree 100%. During my teens I pretty much spent all of my free time either on a PC or on a game console. I moved on now (sorta) and am trying to make an effort to do other things too, but I can't bring myself to say that I wasted all that time. My time online is part of my identity, and will continue be part of my identity.

The saving grace in my case is that I pretty much spent my youth and teenage years creating stuff and educate myself on various topics.

At first it was Scratch projects, then it was YT videos, then it as was website creation, after that it was datamining and wiki-editing, and now I am the admin of a preservation project and I do some RPG Maker games.

Some of the skills I learnt definitively translate into real experience. For example, web designing and general computers skill helped me greatly during my studies to become a professional graphic designer.

When you understand that knowledge is power and that you are in the greatest library of mankind, it can give you a huge advantage in life. That being said, I don't want to imagine what would happened if I had spent all that time on social media instead...

[DJoftheCoven]

When I was little in the early 2000s, "going online" was still considered to be a separate thing to real life, and tbh I still see why. I spent most of my time running around the desert, wrestling goats and taking turns rolling down hills in empty horse feed barrels, so when I came inside to Use the Computer, it was like... a thing. Of course I also religiously played my DS and family Wii system, but like, the computer was this magical place where I could play dress up games, pokemon TCG, animal jam, and other kid's chatrooms like petpet park or pixie hollow. All that stuff was my jam during the time I was allowed to use my godmother's gigantic, boxy desktop to browse for a few hours.

Nowadays I'm online more often than I'm offline, and I think that's true for just about everybody. I open up tumblr like the morning newspaper as soon as I wake up. Youtube is almost always in the background of my day, either playing a video essay while I'm cooking or blasting music in my ears during the few spots on my train commute that I have wifi. Aside from that, I also do a lot of writing with microsoft word, so I happen to still be using my computer even when I'm not "online", so to speak.

But ever since joining the web revival community, I've been making room in my life for "going online" again, in which I browse for the sheer purpose of it being a hobby than looking at social media or the like (and I don't even have it as bad as other people, given that I only use tumblr and youtube). What I consider to be my "online time" is when I'm...

-coding or generally adding to my personal website with art, music, gifs, etc.
-checking Melonland forum
-browsing Neocities or other web hosting platforms (I took a small dip into brutalist websites once)

So, yeah, I do still "go online". I just happen to also be online when I'm not doing it lol. Though I do still try to make time for offline stuff as much as possible.

[Frost Sheridan]

this has been a pretty enlightening thread! i haven't consciously noticed until recently that using the computer and going online has shifted from being An Event to just being the default state of my life.

back when i used dialup (and later cell modems) to get online, i definitely used the internet in a more deliberate way, because connecting to the internet was a deliberate event. unlike nowadays, there wasn't an always-on high-speed connection just waiting to be used 24/7. it was something that was off by default that i had to manually turn on whenever i wanted to do something online, then turn back off when i was done. going online was kinda like going to the mall - you could go there to hang out, meet up with people, see what's new, go shopping, etc., but you always had a reason to put in the effort to go there (even if the reason was just that you're bored and don't have anything else to do). you only stayed as long as you needed or wanted to, then left to go do other things when you were done (you probably didn't live here).

i could definitely use a more deliberate, healthy relationship like that with the internet today. it's so easy for me to get sucked into mindless browsing and waste an entire day by just like watching random recommended stuff on youtube or whatever. i'm not enjoying using the internet anymore like i used to - i'm just using it because it's there and it's an easy way to stimulate my brain when i'm bored.

i'd like to try to set up something that emulates the requirement of connecting to the internet before being able to use it, but i haven't figured out something that i like yet. i was going to try just plugging my cable modem into a smart plug, but i don't want to cut internet access to my self-hosted servers, just my computers and other devices that have web-browsing capabilities. my router has the ability to restrict internet access to a specified group of devices, but there's no way to control it via an API or anything, just its terrible configuration app, so that won't work either unfortunately. maybe that'll be an option whenever i decide to get myself a better router that sucks less.

[Absentmind]

Recently one of my housemates suffered from Psychosis and it made me re-evaluate what I did with my time. I started doing more real life stuff like hiking, doing 5 mile walks around places I never been in my own city and swimming. Doing these activities took me away from my phone and disconnected me for a few hours a day. Theres something really nice about just not having your brain clogged with information all the time , I wouldn't even listen to music. Just me and my thoughts and honestly it feels very liberating and I would reccomend to anyone who wants a way to detox. If you think about it, we live in a time where we consume an insane amount of information, think about how much information you consume in a day vs someone in the 80s? its really not good for your brain.

I am in my final year of university and growing ever more jaded with web-design, I was intially going to do my dissertation on brutalist web design. But then I found communities like yesterweb and grunge net and even melonland that take this concept of "anti-design" further that I absolutely love. These places are a great alternative to actually connect with people instead of social media which just seems to be neo-nazis and boomers just attacking people all the time and its where i've been spending a lot of my online time. I used to love random forums and websites ran by actual people and not just ad filled bloat that all the internet seems to be now.