#oneaday Day 102: Breaking the Curse of the Modern Internet

"Do you remember when the Internet wasn't made up of six websites, each of which were made up of screenshots from the other five?"

That's a comment I saw someone leave a little while back — ironically on Twitter, which is the main prompt for this discussion today — and it kind of struck a chord with me. What happened?

Internet use has definitely changed over the years, and not just because of technology. When I was a teen, "using the Internet" was a special treat that you got to do when no-one needed to make a phone call, and when no-one else in the family needed to use the computer. I'd have half an hour or an hour to spend on CompuServe (and later, the Web) before being unceremoniously booted off to go and do something else. I made the most of that 30-60 minutes; I had some enjoyable interactions with people, downloaded some interesting files and even, on one memorable occasion, made $200 for some Wolfenstein 3-D levels.

When I was at university, it was still the tail-end of the dial-up days, and so my use of the Internet was pretty similar; it was something you had to make an effort to go and use when you wanted or needed to, not this constant, looming presence that pervaded everything else you did. Yes, some of that use was pretty asinine — fond memories of dumb old Flash animations and sites like Hamsterdance — but it was a form of entertainment like any other. Spend some time with it as your main activity, then turn it off, put it away and do something else. (Perhaps involving the things you had downloaded during your Internet session!)

Even the early "always on" broadband days still kind of worked like this; it was just a bit more convenient. Despite now having access to the Internet at the click of a button, it was still just a tool to be used as and when necessary or desired, not the be-all and end-all of existence. There were sites I would read when I felt like it, things I'd stumble across that people had told me about, interesting hyperlinks I'd follow. But it still wasn't the compulsion it is now; during idle moments, I wouldn't just "have a look" to see if anyone had sent me an email in the last five minutes.

I was resistant to social media for quite some time. I recall all my friends getting very excited about Facebook, but I didn't join until a good year or two after it had started to get fashionable. I was away in the States visiting my brother, and setting up a Facebook account seemed like a good way to share the photographs I'd been taking while I was over there. I was just getting to grips with a new camera, so it was nice to be able to show everyone the cool things I'd been taking pictures of and the photography techniques I'd been experimenting with.

I was likewise resistant to Twitter; I couldn't see the point. I didn't jump on Twitter until 1up.com, a place where I'd previously found a number of like-minded gamers, pretty much collapsed in on itself and our "squad" was left without a home. At the time, Twitter seemed like as good a place as any.

What I didn't notice until it was too late was how much Twitter in particular comes to monopolise your Internet time, with many people now seemingly seeing it as the whole Internet. (I don't use Facebook any more, but from what I understand, this is a widespread feeling there, too, particularly among the older generation.) People would spend all day on Twitter waiting to jump on things they disagreed with, and the art of "public shaming" began. I was immediately uncomfortable with this and had a number of disagreements with friends over it, but I was seemingly in the minority.

Now I feel like we're at a point where Twitter isn't even especially useful for one of the main things that people claim you "need" to use it for. In terms of my own work, a relative minority of views come from Twitter, because my attempts to promote it get so lost in the other noise that, more often than not, other people simply don't notice it — or don't want to click away from the latest Internet slapfight they're involved with. Instead, I've seen a number of people I know, like and respect resorting to posting images and memes simply because those inevitably generate more "engagement" such as likes and retweets — but what's the point? It's the digital equivalent of holding up a picture of a girl in a swimsuit and everyone applauding.

I want to break this habit; it's unhealthy. I hate myself a little bit every time my hands are idle and they immediately grab my phone as an unconscious, automatic response. I know there's a lot of interesting stuff out there on the Internet still, and getting bogged down in the depressing, infuriating mire that is social media prevents you from enjoying all that fascinating stuff. So aside from my usual scheduled shares of MoeGamer and Atari A to Z content, I'm taking another step back from Twitter for a bit. I feel good every time I do this, and I feel like I should try and stick with it. Perhaps then I can rediscover the things that are cool about the Internet rather than despairing for the state of humanity every time I log on.

Or maybe things really are that bad and Twitter is just the perfect microcosm of Internet culture at large. In which case the temptation to just pull the plug is enormous!