Guess I’m An Old Lady Now
I know it’s not just me feeling tired and overwhelmed by the internet these days. Proof is in the small rise of people going analog. I think a lot of people are realizing how much mental bandwidth being constantly online is making us.
I’m not any different. I managed to lessen my Instagram and Facebook usage last year but what I failed to realize is, I just substituted it with more Reddit and Youtube. I’m tired of it. The algorithm doesn’t give you anymore random suggestions so it made me stuck in the same loop and ideas over and over again. It’s absolutely maddening. Same clickbait titles, same trends, same few opinions. Ugh.
So I thought I’d start listening to podcasts instead. Not the Youtube ones but actual podcasts you can listen to on any app you choose. That became exhausting too. Now I’m subbed to hundreds of them, in different topics, but I’m overwhelmed picking what to listen to. Why did I follow tons of them, you ask? Because it drove me crazy listening to one singular podcast from beginning to end. On its own, it kind of becomes the circularity of youtube/social media all over again where you’re only exposed to one opinion (the hosts). So I look for others. But then their ideas mostly stay similar too, maybe affected by trends in other social medias. So I add more and more and more until it becomes just a huge list that I now have to manage.
This is probably on me too, maybe I’m just approaching it all wrong. But I think overall I’m just burnt out from the information overload and having to filter out the bullshit from the real. So starting last week, I’ve made it a point to listen to my local radio stations in the morning. I get all the good and bad news happening in my city and surrounding areas, and surprisingly most of them are uplifting stories! New non-profit programs, people winning local contests, small businesses advertising their products. It’s been very very nice. Then when I’m ready to go I just turn it off and that’s it.
I miss the transient nature of media. Not having access to the information anymore makes me engage with it more actively. I found myself journaling about the news I heard on the radio and this makes it stick to my brain more. Guess I’m an old lady now. I finally understand why my grandparents loved the radio over even the TV, but especially in the mornings. Because I don’t need to know all the news in the world immediately. It’ll get to me when it gets to me.