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I made a Goodreads account recently and it asked me to rate some popular books I’d read before. Little did I know, every time I ranked a book, it would give me 5 more similar to that one, and then 5 more from that, and on and on until a neverending phylogenetic tree of books emerged on my screen.
I was on FaceTime with my friend as I did this, and we compared which books we’d both read, ones we loved, ones we got forced to read in school, ones we read as preteens, etc. But half an hour in and no end to the Goodreads algorithm, but stuck in The Very Hungry Caterpillar-y children’s book branch of the algorithm tree that I couldn’t escape, I started to get mad. So I command-Q’d chrome and called it a day.
This week I went back to organise my To Read list and to purge all the loose one-book memos on my notes app. My professor recently gave me her recommendations on queer literature and I wanted to properly organise them. On my profile it said I’d already read some 100+ books and I’d given them all 5 star ratings. Ok well now that’s pissing me off. Why is there digital clutter on my brand new account, and why did I give all that information to them anyways.? I love to categorise, but did I really need to log my readership of the individual 39 Clues books?
I feel similarly about when I first downloaded letterboxd and it made me go down a similar never ending algorithm of potential movies I’d watched before. I did spend an unreasonable amount of time swiping through those movies trying to remember if I really did watch Horton Hears a Who in 2008(?) or not.
Why do I feel the need to share this with the algorithm? genuinely what purpose does this serve me? Why am I volunteering memories from my 7 year old self when I learnt English by reading Geronimo Stilton books for the first time?
Anyways, I deleted all the past data from my Goodreads account. There’s only logs from my current reads, and the list of books I want to read next. There’s comfort in organising and seeing your life laid out in list/grid categories, like unlocking achievements on video games - oh did you know I read so and so and yeah I was a pretentious little bitch in high school and every YA book I read in 2013 has gotta be logged and
But there’s another type of comfort in keeping that information away from the internet where they’ll find a way to use that data against you. I can‘t think of a single occasion I’d need personalised ads for the chick-lit books I read in primary school but I know the algorithm is going to eventually find a way to sell my nostalgia back to me somehow… I‘m going to open any of my little apps and see hyper specific #ad on my screen.
I know I’ve given so much of me away online already - and look what I’m doing right now(!) , sharing my interests and recommendations to strangers online hah .. I won’t lie about the fact that it brings me joy to live online - it’s been my playground for so much of my life - Like sorry I am literally the internet explorer -But there was a time before I lived on the internet. I don’t think they need to know everything about Then.
I recommend not giving up everything about yourself to the machine
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Hear me out.
Many of us have gleefully chuckled at Timothée Chalamet’s pre-fame YouTube vids, but there’s a lesson in them. His seemingly harmless digital footprint has followed him for years and there’s much fodder in it for us to paw through!
I’ve been on a mission to reclaim and tamp down my online footprint for years and one way to measure my progress is to periodically type my name into the old search bar. I was delighted to see books I worked on, articles I’m quoted in, my website, a few obits, and little else. Given that I once had multiple blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, MySpace, and Twitter, it was a relief to feel like I have a more nuanced and controlled image / narrative of my online self.
Yeah it’s a little navelgazey, but I’m on the job market and in my 30s, so it makes sense to be on top of this stuff.
Mar 28, 2025
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in the age of endless access to information, the unknown can quickly become known - though i think we've reached a point where balance is desperately needed. our brains are sensitive and absorbing information constantly whether we like it or not. i recently deleted social media from my phone and now only log on at the computer (love how many pi.fyi recs i've seen on this) - anyways i finally joined the club and see no going back. i don't want to know everything about everyone all the time and on top of that be plagued with intrusive ads (no matter how relevant they may or may not be). being present is crucial, and watching other people's lives on our phones whenever we want can definitely take one out of the present. if i were a true conspiracy theorist, i'd say it almost seems strategically designed to interrupt our normal train of thoughts and give everybody add and make us less thoughtful or make us stray from our true path. i think there's an art to boredom and liminal zones. if you're in a doctor's office waiting room or in a coffee shop waiting for your drink, i think its cool to just be nothing for a moment, limbo is a luxury and giving your consciousness and attention to something every second strips you of that temporary feeling...
if we're homies and not seeing each other in person we can text about our lives. instagram stories have begun to creep me out, i don't like how normalized casual stalking has become. i feel like it makes everyone overly analytical and constantly thinking about social dynamics all the time, injecting way too many forms of micro-anxieties for everyone throughout the day - there's value in time spent alone with our thoughts and i feel like the status quo of social media and internet without boundaries at the moment is infringing on some timeless human functions. that said we need to connect and find out about things and discover each other and using platforms like pi.fyi and instagram allow us to do so, we just need to be mindful about how we go about it. i think it's okay to not know everything all the time, mystery creates intrigue and that's stimulating enough for me...
Jun 8, 2024
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once i got realistic about what type of content i consumed on ig and twitter, i realized so quickly it was not expanding the way i think and in fact was keeping me stuck in the same (oftentimes negative/harmful) thought loopholes. social media is addictive in part because it algorithmically reproduces the way we already think. it keeps us comfortable.
start questioning: what can help expand your life? what other creative and consumptive outlets do you find fulfilling? is there a book you want to read? something you want to draw or write about? or, in general, consider how your older self would have wanted your time to be spent. you are so right that social media makes us feel Bad-- but we don't have to! it is an act of self-care and deep love to work on stepping away from things that hurt!
as far as practical tips, the best things that helped me were:
a) like some others mentioned, deleting ALL social media apps from my phone so i can only access them on my computer. this helps because the online interfaces are a lot clunkier so it reduces some of the quick gratification that keeps you addicted. also you have to be literally sitting at a desk to use it, so the portability aspect/mindless scrolling is largely removed.
b) keeping a journal because it's a much safer space to dump thoughts than a private story
c) prioritizing in-person connection rather than mediating relationships through tech-- meet a friend for coffee! cultivate intimacy rather than superficiality, and notice how irl vs. online connection feels different
d) nervous system regulation and grounding practices to counteract how scrolling can make you anxious/stressed/disembodied!
finally i did struggle a lot with fomo and being behind on trends at first but then i realized it doesn't really matter. trends are fleeting. even without chronic online-ness i am still funny and relatable and i find it much more interesting to hear about people's lives when i haven't been informed about them in an endless information stream online!!
Oct 31, 2024
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