Output 25—Ways in which I will minimize my digimize
OK, I am making and executing a plan. It’s still in its early stages, but so far, I have:
**Started this here outlet for my “creative” output, which sometimes will consist only of whining with pictures;
**Shared this thing on Facebook;
**Eliminated every “friend” who I didn’t actually know or barely know, which included almost all Mexican strangers, musical groups, and art galleries, and a whole fuckload of people I went to high school with. What remain (all 700 of them????? WTF????) are just the people I won’t freak out about having my personal contact info (And no, I don’t f’ing care if “Zuck” sees. He has a lot of other shit to worry about. And it’s not like “he” personally gives a second thought to individual users… at this point “he” isn’t a he at all. “He” is a “He”– an omnipotent overlord who already has ALL our “personal information” but does nothing with it because we are mere ants to his lofty eye (cue The Kinks “Big Sky” now…);
**Announced what I’m doing on Facebook with a target date of 9/10 (2 days after returning from Camp John Waters, the FB Group for which is the only reason I haven’t already deleted my account—it’s ALLLLL in the FB Group), and gave out my contact info and the URL of this thing;
**Downloaded the DuckDuckGo browser on all my devices. Will use that for everything that is not a Google product (I do use Google’s free office-clone apps and there’s just too much history there to quit. Also, again, I don’t give a shit if Google has my “data,” since I froze my credit reports). I already love DuckDuckGo—don’t pay for YouTube premium cuz if you watch YouTube on DuckDuckGo it ELIMINATES THE ADS!!!
**Deleted the social media apps I never use or hate entirely from my phone after deleting my unused accounts—TikTok, basically, which I’ve never posted on and since I hate it when my phone makes noise, I hate looking at it. I always hated Twitter/X and BlueSky is the exact same deal. I am grateful I never fell for that shit. I also deleted Reddit because it’s the place where I am most likely to insult random strangers. Insulting random strangers will no longer be a part of my life. Really looking forward to that;
**Instagram—I plan to continue to use Instagram, but not on my phone. I’ll only use it on my iPad. And I will un-follow most of the accounts I am now following, but who knows. I get a lot of ideas from Instagram. I also get a lot of feelings of shame for not meeting my potential as a “menopause influencer” or some shit. I will re-evaluate regularly;
Other apps deleted from my phone:
**YouTube (see above about hating when my phone makes noise); all shopping apps except the ones with discount QRs I use in the store;
**All of those “MyChart” type health apps. I never look at them on my phone;
I also hid the following in folders so I will use them less:
**Camera—I think using phones for this has cheapened all our memories. I have a digital SLR camera and soon I’ll have a dedicated video camera with no bells and whistles (I’ll write about it when I get it) and plan to be waaaaaaay more intentional with the images I capture and post;
**Weather—Why do I compulsively look at that? I can see it in a browser;
**Online banking and credit card apps—I should only look at these in a secure browser situation.
These will be deleted at the same time as my Facebook account:
**Facebook!
**Travel apps
**Cards stored in Apple Pay
**Google and all Google offlice clone apps (I’ll keep Gmail. It’s how my housemate communicates with me)
When I’m finished with this process, I will hopefully only use the following, on the following devices:
***iPhone—phone, text, WhatsApp, Gmail, weather, GPS, music streaming (I can’t quit it and my car is my singing studio);
***iPad—Instagram, Pinterest, Procreate for drawing, DuckDuckGo (no Google products because I can’t type on the damn thing anyway); Kindle;
***MacBook—Google for the Google office clone services; Gmail; high-power-requiring apps like video editing, music recording, etc; DuckDuckGo for EVERYTHING else, including things I might use an app for on another device, including banking, weather, streaming, etc etc etc. I will also create a new browser-only Facebook account that I will only use to see events, marketplace, and certain groups or pages; and I will only send friend requests to the people necessary to give me access to them. I will no longer use Facebook to “keep in touch” with my friends.
All of this is in an effort to use these devices and apps as TOOLS, not as a fucking Second Life fantasy realm. I can only speak for myself, but social media has become some kind of augmented existence, some kind of glossy, slimy sheen that has covered the real world to the point that I barely live in it anymore.
If I’m being honest, my problem with “screens” started waaaaaaay before computers even existed. As a child my own life made me feel so fucking shattered, I basically lived inside the TV. The people on tv were better friends to me than the humans in my life and I could just shut off my overwhelming sense of dread and crushing responsibility. I know plenty of people who have a more or less normal relationship with screens and even with social media. While I am ranting against this stuff like someone who FAFO’d, I set myself up for this when I hoarded TV Guides and Rolling Stones and established my own little fantasy world. I never stood a chance against this current state of affairs.
But I’ve recently realized, awfully late, that the constant projecting of my personality into tv shows (I had a long-term fantasy at one point that I was the girlfriend of Renko on Hill Street Blues, which sounds cute, but I also had a long-term fantasy relationship with Locke from Lost when I was waaaaay old enough to know better; and while I’m not actively fantasizing about Jim Rockford, if AI advances to the point that I could have a 3D Jim Rockford avatar, I wouldn’t kick “him” out of the driver’s seat—or out of the futon—of my van) and now into social media means I don’t actually ever create anything. I’m trying to correct that by running away screaming for dear life, because let’s face it, at 57, time is getting tight.
The conundrum I still have to face is the fear of invisibility and the fact that while I am stomping around writing manifestos about a screen-free creative lifestyle… how the fuck will anyone know I exist if I do not make my creative work available via screens?
Has anyone found me a cave yet?