I'm thinking a lot lately about life online, especially with regards to concepts like enshittification, the rot economy, and recent political developments in my country. I'm not happy with any of this. I'm not happy with a politically disaffected populace. I'm not happy with the elimination of thirdspaces, event virtual ones. I'm not happy with the endless surveillance, nickel and dime-ing, political interference, and overall neglect of digital spaces. I'm not happy with the era of the tech broligarch. I'm also not happy with how dependent we are on several wildly unregulated tech companies. I'm not happy with the lack of digital literacy and basic computer skills instruction. I'm not happy with the skill gap that leaves so many of us at the mercy of this broligarchy.
Around the same time I was thinking about this, I came across the term “digital autonomy” and this paper from Mayer and Lu from CASSIS at the University of Bonn. The authors are discussing digital autonomy for entire countries, focusing on the EU, noting that “Decades of neoliberal deregulation, trade, and technology-driven globalization created far-reaching dependencies that cannot be reversed overnight” (1). I'm not thinking at that scale, just the individual level. But maybe I can borrow some of the term to express myself. I'm thinking about what I'm going to call personal digital autonomy. Systemic, cultural, and certainly legal changes are necessary for the continued health of any internet-using population. But until that can happen, something has to start somewhere.
Why is there not more focus on encouraging personal digital autonomy by sharing the rudiments of device use and maintenance as well as encouraging “non techy” people to learn bits of code and make things? Why are we not encouraged to curate and maintain our own data? Why are we physically separated from not only the inner workings of our own devices but also the ways in which we make, store, and retrieve the data we generate? Why do so many of us learn things about our computers, phones, apps, and platforms by random instead of organized, concerted effort?
These questions are are rhetorical. I know why.
It's pretty profitable to make devices and processes seem like magic. Instead of fixing an issue, people feel they have no option but to buy another. Planned obsolescence also works like gangbusters here, keeping us buying. It's also amazingly profitable to have tons and tons and tons of data attached to each user. Everything we make online as private users is not private at all: it is scanned, sold, traded, scattered to the far reaches of companies' boardrooms. It's far easier to keep us throwing more and more of our lives and time into that well.
Basic knowledge
While personal computing (what a throwback term!) really took off towards the end of the 20th century, culturally (in the US at least), “we” never closed the skill gap between the nerds and the normies. We unleashed cheap machines and cheap access on a population that was unevenly educated in tech to put it very mildly. Fast forward to today where we are still dealing with the depth charge that is the smartphone and almost ubiquitous internet access.
In my various lines of work, I see people on the daily who are entirely dependent on tech as we know it. At the same time they do not know how to operate the machines and programs they need to use for daily life. This is wrong. Something is very very wrong with this. In this day and age, I should not see 20 year olds who are unable to keyboard (throwback term #2!) and grown adults who are so ignorant of the concept of opening and closing apps they leave everything open all at once.
“We” used to educate people on basic, almost primitive tech use from typing to saving and renaming documents. This should not have stopped, but it did. And goodness knows when it's coming back. At roughly the same time, tech interests gradually grafted themselves to politics and here we are now. Everything feels out of control and many of us – myself as well – feel utterly helpless.
However, I must acknowledge that formal opportunities for learning about computers are still alive and well. We still have computer training classes, public libraries are still offering assistance, we still publish “For Dummies” books. This is out there for anyone who wants it.
So why are we still having problems that make it seem that the PC just came out last year? I don't have the time or space in this post really find out but I have many hypotheses. In any event, casual, non-tech trained users (myself included!) have got to get a handle on how we use our machines and our software, especially regarding cloud storage and social media.
I'm not a tech person, I am not trained or educated in any of this. But I feel compelled to do something, and to encourage anyone listening to also do something. As a response to what I was talking about in the previous post, I've changed how I live online. I've had to re-imagine my digital life and how I use these tools to safeguard my sanity and whatever passes for privacy.
This can be understood as the difference between diet culture and changing your relationship with food – the former is wildly popular but will hurt you in the long run but the former requires a lot of thought, conscious effort, and the grace to forgive yourself if you screw up. Let's run with this concept now.
Digital Diets Vs. Intuitive Posting
Colleen Christiansen is a registered dietitian who promotes intuitive eating and “no food rules” as an alternative to diet culture. Her posts came across my tiktok ages ago and I've followed her since. I like her cheerful persona and skits, but I really like her commitment to non-judgement about food choices. She does not support carte blanche eating or gorging, but instead encourages people to pay attention to their bodies' cues which I struggle with myself. So I made her part of my regular rotation and I continued to follow her on other platforms when I left TikTok.
In her blog and the rest of the content she creates, she shares principles of intuitive eating that can be helpful in maintaining health and resisting a diet-fixated, damaging culture around food and eating.
She's pretty big on “no food rules” to help people recognize and actually change unhealthy attitudes about eating. There are no “good” or “bad” foods, there is recognition that everyone is going through health and emotional concerns that are not always apparent to others, and there are no tabulation systems to keep people constantly aware of their intake and second guessing themselves. With “no food rules”, she encourages people to not just listen to their bodies and emotions, but learn basics of how nutrients function in the body so they can make informed decisions about food rather than reactions.
In thinking about how I use tech and specifically social media, I keep thinking about Christiansen's approach and I think it's a spectacular way to help us consider the place of this technology in our lives. “No food rules” makes the “user” gently conscious and encourages agency around food. Maybe we should start treating social media in the same way and making more active choices rather than constantly convenience-consuming.
Don't get me wrong, I read the news, I know what's happening at a wildly alarming rate. Part of me literally wants to burn it all down and go back to Windows 3.1 and make everyone build their own webpages if they want to participate. But that's not realistic any more than stereotypical New Years' diet resolutions are realistic.
Again, I'm neither educated nor trained in this, I am a schmuck with an internet connection, but given the recent political hellscape, I sat down and had a talk with myself about how I use social media. I'm sharing what I do here in case anyone who is in a similar position is having the same thoughts. You don't have to be a techy person to start to take control of how you use technology. One of the best places to start is taking inventory of habits and modifying them. These are things I do, they may or may not work for you, too. In no particular order:
--I log off. Physically hit “log out” buttons as often as possible. No more 24/7 connectivity.
-- I'm on multiple places and let friends know where else to find me, so I don't become dependent on one platform.
-- Delete the apps. You can use social media through the browser. Yes, this is more inconvenient. That's the point. I don't want this to be something I open just because. The more steps I put into accessing these sites, the more I have to think about the time I spend on them.
--Back up media. The photos, videos, posts, etc. (except for small things like Bluesky) have to live elsewhere. My life should not only be stored on a Meta product. I extended this to Google Drive. I still like it and I use it for work, but I had to go cold turkey for personal stuff. It's a great service, but if Google takes a wild hair, I loose all my writing, photos, etc? No way!
-- I don't fill out all info and I'm often coy with what I do fill in. I don't put my workplace on personal socials, I don't use my real name, I also try not to discuss plans in advance as much as possible. This is not out of paranoia but to make sure I don't start “reporting in” out of habit.
--I've slowed down posting photos and I never tag people. It was great fun at one point, but it's so hard to manage your own photos and modify tags if needed it's not worth doing any more.
--I block early and often. I don't care. If I get a new follower I don't know in meatspace, I'm checking for signs of life, a varied post history, evidence of hobbies, and interests, and an erratic normal-people post schedule. This goes double if they're talking about politics. Too many troll farms, bots, and #resist@nce grifters are too slick these days. If someone doesn't pass the smell test, block.For that matter, I asterisk or mess with the spelling of certain terms like what I did with “resist@nce” in number 6. Say I do want to vent about something, I don't want bad actors who are searching on these terms to harass me or anyone I'm talking with. It sounds nuts but people definitely do this.
--I rarely post into hashtags and I think several times before popping off on anything I am heated about, because it's all too easy for jackasses to start harassing people and I don't feel like dealing. I ask myself “do I need to post this?” all the time. I think extra hard about how and where I should express myself. Does a thought or observation need to be on social media? Who's my audience on what platform? Can I substitute using something that is not a giant corporation?
What this boils down to is that I've made sustained efforts to change how I exist on social media. I've expanded my palette of where I am online, I've tried to change my habits to make doomscrolling and 24/7 connection harder to fall into. I'm trying to literally be more mindful and make choices with regards to social media instead of just bellying up to the bar. Very wealthy people have invested a lot into convincing us this is the only place social activity can happen and you know what, I decline. I don't have all the answers and I don't even necessarily have the best practices, but what I have here is a start and that's good enough for me.