Letting Go of the Internet

Introspection is an interesting word - so much of the cues this biosphere provides us leads us in the direction of looking outward into the world, to remain alert, aware, perceptive - for our own safety, historically (and I suppose still now). On the contrary, these days there is more and more room for self-assessment, looking at the things going on in your brain. I think there's very much pros and cons to this, and I feel that a lot of what people do now, the introspection that's encouraged, is counter-productive. I'm going to drop the rhetoric now though, because this blog isn't about other people - it's about lil' old me.

I've spent the past few months trying to wrench myself away from my phone, as I spied more and more the toxic traits I'd written about in sixth form were sticking their claws into me. I was doomscrolling upwards of 3 hours a day, spiralling into more political and aggressive content within minutes. I'm grateful for the ability to spot the patterns, and for the environment I'm in of current, allowing me to take actions such as maintaining my own private media library, and disconnecting from social media - the most recent major action being the deletion of my Instagram account. I'm not done yet though, I don't think.

Let's take stock of what I currently use, and why. There's some things that I truly can't part with given both my job, and my hobbies. I don't think that'll be all though..

• YouTube - I would say I probably spend the most time on YouTube compared to anything else. It's one of the platforms I have a healthier relationship with, as my watch history is disabled, so recommendations are inhibited, and I have a small circle of creators whose input into my life I trust and appreciate. With that said, I also see more and more politics and hate speech in the sidebar, and more and more adverts on every video. There's a couple options here:
• Buy YouTube Premium, and turn on watch history - this would solve the ads and likely the recommendations problem, however the latter is not a given, plus this would incentivise me to watch YouTube more to "get my money's worth" - plus, it's easier for YouTube to keep me on platform, with my data. An option I've tried before, not one I'd like to try again.
• Use Patreon - basically every creator I support in the modern ecosystem has a Patreon - I could subscribe to these, and use these as a dedicated feed for the ones I care about (often ad-free, too!) - however, Patreon has recently made app changes that result in "featured creators" appearing everywhere - so it's just as ad-heavy as YouTube is these days, just in different ways. Plus, Patreon isn't particularly built for non-committal viewing, something I do still value. Not completely throwing this one out.
• Download my media - using scraping tools, I could upload YouTube videos to my server, and maintain a library on there. This is the best option for privacy and ad-free.. ness, but it means I'm effectively stealing from Google (who I don't care about), and the creators I watch (who I do care about). Plus, it requires physical storage, power usage, and a stable internet connection. Thankfully, I am blessed enough to be able to provide these, but that's not always a guarantee.

        It's also worth considering the elephant in the room when it comes to YouTube - I create on their tool. This blog's namesake is my online series, the likes of which ran through 2021 up to 2024. Broaching this subject is tricky, so I think we'll come to my online creations another time.

• Facebook - Facebook probably holds my most toxic internet usage patterns, now that Instagram's gone. I doomscroll on Facebook just the same as I did Instagram, though my self-discipline is improving. I take effort to sign out after using it, making it less easy to just start scrolling. Often however, I'll only go there for one thing (check a local post, search Marketplace, etc.) and I'll find myself scrolling for an hour. This is the one I want to get rid of the most, but there's one big problem - advertising.

          This time round, the conversation isn't of me being advertised to, it's me doing advertising - while a fair portion of my self-employed ventures have now shutdown, Nichol Systems (and it's new brand, MemoryMovies), treks onwards. Meta Ads is one of my main advertising directions, and thus I need to maintain a Facebook page. So I have to have an account.

But do I really??

Let's deep-dive on this. I have used two major methods of marketing for my businesses - social media marketing, and print marketing - my most successful campaign in terms of leads and sales has actually been print marketing, distributing flyers to a large portion of my local service area. This has led to infrequent but still occuring calls and messages, asking for support. Word-of-mouth has also been effective to me, but in terms of paid advertising, I have not been able to identify a single lead for my business, from online.

That's not to say that it won't happen, though. Of recent I re-built the operations of Nichol Systems to make it nationally viable, and now offer online ordering, across the UK. Since digitisation is a market that is only getting smaller, I saw fit to ensure that I had the widest customer base possible - plus, given my superior quality of digitisations compared to similar markets, I'm uniquely positioned to succeed here. I recently hired someone to create a marketing plan for me, and they strongly encouraged the use of online advertising to reach the target market. 

So I'm stuck - do I dig my feet in, decide that social media marketing is not the way I want to take my business, and risk starving it of customers altogether? Or do I crawl back to Meta, and simply try my hardest to practice safe internet-ing, while giving their platform money all the while?

This one is still undecided for me, but I'd like to open the floor to you. If you are aware of alternate clients for Facebook, that would let me maintain a Facebook business page, and access the Ads centre, without any access to the Feed or similar segments, please let me know. Comments should be a thing on here, use those!

Anyway, where were we?

• Discord - Discord is my primary social messaging platform. As well as a couple private servers with friends, I'm also a member in a number of public servers, for communities around video games, content creators etc. I'd actually consider this one a pretty open-and-shut case, as I already dealt with this. A few weeks ago, I went through all the servers I was in, took backups of anything I cared about, and left over 3/4 of the servers I was in. I'm now in only 9 Discord servers, down from over 30, and it feels good to have a manageable amount of content I'm supporting. I still only actively view about half of these servers, but I hold responsibilities to the other, so they'll have to stay. There's a good chance that you, dear reader, have come from one of those servers. No notes on this one, it's alright. Well, for now.

• LinkedIn - I regret to inform you that I am, in fact, employed. I maintain a Linkedin page predominantly to keep an active eye on the job market, and make myself available for head-hunters to reach out to. However, LinkedIn is also home to one of the most deranged feeds that I've ever seen, and it's aggrevating just to look at. The good thing here though, is that it's aggravating to look at! I actually used LinkedIn intentionally a lot in early 2025, as my Instagram replacement - when I wanted to scroll, instead of opening Instagram, I'd open LinkedIn - and within about 10 posts, I didn't want to scroll anymore! With all this considered then, I think I should put effort in to start signing out of it when I'm not actively scrolling through the market, but otherwise, it's earned it's place at the table.

• Floatplane (& Other Streaming Services) - it feels like every day, a different subscription service takes money from my account. More and more I feel less morally incorrect to download media to my server and watch it in my own time, on my own terms - so of recent I've been expanding this mindset to other services in my life, like dear old Spotify. I'm working on setting up a private music library, buying some CDs (or digital downloads on Bandcamp if I can), and pushing them up to Jellyfin, my media server. It's a long, and winding story (that I hope I'll talk more about), but it's one that will be well worth it in the end, I'm sure.

So why do I do all of this? Why go through such intensive self-reflection when it's just as easy, heck- easier! To just keep scrolling. Well, I have two jobs. I have a girlfriend who I love with all my heart. I have friends that I wish to talk to, joke with, smile with, live with. I have a large house that needs cleaning every now and then, and an office that could do with the same. I have so many blessings in my life, that deserve cherishing to the utmost, and I feel like I pass them by on my quest for more happiness, which - and we all know this - can't be found in a brick of lithium and copper. At least I don't think so.

Until next time, friend.

- Oliver