Week 5 of 2026 - Digital calm

Over the past few weeks I've tried to take more of a digital detox than I can recall.

And I recall a long time back. I recall being a pre-teen discovering IRC channels with fellow like-minded hax0rs. I recall the early days of blogging on various platforms through the years. I recall the early days of Twitter, when the users invented features like hashtags. I recall when these digital experiences were (mostly) positive and aped real-world social experiences. Assholes were ostracised.

And a lot of these digital experiences became real world ones. We met up. We did photowalks. Monthly pints. I know multiple people who met online, conversed IRL and later got married and had families. Not because of dating apps. But because of mutual friendship discovered online through hashtags or IRC channels.

Today, that's mostly dead. There are fleeting glimpses of it. Specific Slack communities. Niche forums. Even more niche Discords. Mastodon. Sometimes Bluesky. But it's rare to crossover to the real world. And it's rarely held together with much more than tape and bubble-gum. They're not strong communities forged together by people's connective tissues. At any moment, they feel nebulously tied to a future algorithm that'll mine our interests to serve us ads for shitty products we didn't need or want.

I want a massive discount at Lidl. Not a well-branded microfibre cloth to clean the car.

The last few years on 'maintstream' social media, particularly post-covid and in the Trump 2.0 era has been horrific. It's bad news non-stop. I realise the world is full of bad news. Like, it is grim out there. But I can't pump this shit nonstop into my brain all day. I need to maintain a veneer of positivity. For my own mental health. Heck, for my kids' mental health.

When Muskrat bought Twitter, I immediately ditched the platform. And I joined the thing in 2008! I replaced it somewhat with Mastodon, and still use that. But I really replaced it with Reddit in terms of scrolling without contributing. I've an old Reddit account that's contributed sweet F-A to any community, but has logged in and doomscrolled a lot. It's where, of late, I've gotten an enormous amount of poorly placed adverts and swathes of bad news.

Once I deleted Reddit, my shoulders got a bit looser. My mind free'd. I actually went back and used Mastodon for fun posts and random interactions with folks in Ireland. I leaned back into some Slack communities ostensibly not focused on politics.

I've not gone cold turkey or anything, but I've turned the dials down on global affairs and it's working great for me.

It won't work for everyone. But I definitely recommend it.