why and how i’m on the computer, yet off the grid

this post doesn’t discuss the political events themselves in detail, but they do have to be mentioned by necessity when discussing mental health and online habits: the last time Donald Trump was elected president of our neighbour the USA in 2016, i stopped reading all the social media i was using (which was only Twitter) very shortly afterwards. this time, in 2024, i dropped my Mastodon timeline (recently my only social media — RIP cohost) right before the election started and haven’t picked it up since. like last time, i don’t think i’ll pick up reading it again until the situation is “resolved” (possibly excepting “livetweeting” specific events).

the day after the 2024 USA federal election results came in, you could tell what the result was, even in Canada just going about your regular day, from how the people around you were acting. nobody explicitly said they were having a good day when asked “how are you” or “how’s it going”, just deflecting with vague statements like “yeah, it’s going” or specific observations like “well, i had a nice breakfast this morning”. i was among a few who i noticed started using the same greeting for everybody that we normally reserve for e.g. the bereaved: “it’s nice to see you.” conversations were kept curt (though not unfriendly), because nobody could focus too long on any social interaction with how much was weighing on their minds, and so everywhere felt quieter. and absolutely nobody was directly discussing the election itself or even mentioning it (unless they were your Trump‐supporting neighbours who were excited for him to “finally fix that place”).

i’ve lived every day since then in much the same way, in terms of not discussing USA‐specific politics with literally anybody. i simply don’t have the mental capacity for international politics right now. frankly, i’m not sure any good person has the mental fortitude to keep up with it all, even if they think they do; i simply can’t fathom how that would be the case instead of being out of touch with your own needs. but we’ve got our own elections coming up over here with poor outlooks, and that’s quite enough for me to worry about, especially with the negative influence the USA election results will have on them (the spike in local hate crimes last time was bad enough).

i don’t allow myself to be bogged down by the irrational notion that choosing not to engage with the politics of another country means i don’t care about the people there. my sphere of influence just doesn’t include the USA and probably never really will. i am friends with and followed by several USA denizens, but they all have the same moral compass on this stuff that i do, so it’s no use for me to preach to the choir. plus i’m definitely not affluent enough to make any substantial international donations. so it’s a natural conclusion for me that when my mental bandwidth gets too congested, i have to reduce my sphere of concern to match. i’m still participating in Canadian politics (which will inevitably make me aware of whatever the USA is up to when it affects us anyway, like how we’re all motivated to only buy Canadian groceries right now because of Donald Trump threatening tariffs that would most likely put some of my loved ones out of work) and engaging with my local community and loved ones, but outside of that i’ve just been focusing on myself.

but, that’s not really where i wanted to be right now. after cohost went read‐only, i wanted to give things a while to settle before trying to reach out and continue engaging with a bunch of the folks from there. unfortunately, these plans were impacted by the collatoral of removing the USA from my sphere of concern, with how dominant the USA is in the relevant areas of the internet and all. i had to quietly mute the Discord servers i’d joined for my own sake, and i’m not gonna be able to engage with what all the friends of eggbug i followed through Mastodon are doing on the fediverse either. i won’t lie, i’m kind of glad i didn’t have to see cohost suffer under a Trump presidency (as it was, plenty of people on there were already unpleasantly curmudgeonly or gloomy about other goings‐on, be those political or otherwise, so i don’t want to imagine how much worse it’d be in this political climate), but that doesn’t mean this alternative situation of cutting myself off from the surviving parts of that community out of necessity is any good either.

fortunately, cohost also broadly renewed interest in personal blogs, within its community and even beyond to an extent. i mean, that’s why i made this page! so after taking a few months to just focus on myself, i’m finally loading up those RSS feeds on my phone and reading through them. (if you’re curious, the RSS app i settled on for Android is Read You.) the nice thing about blogs is it’s way easier to get a sense of what someone’s gonna be talking about on them. there are fewer entries to review on blogs than posts on social media by necessity of how much more effort they take to make, and… how to say, people will post about almost anything on social media, but tend to be more focused when it comes to what they want to do long‐form writing about. and for most people — or most of the sorts of people i follow, anyway — that doesn’t include politics, or at least certainly not as a main focal point. so hey, if i follow(ed) you, tell me about your blog! (if you weren’t already posting about it on cohost before the shutdown that is, otherwise i already know about it.)

i am also continuing to read Mastodon in a limited capacity (which followers may have noticed from my occasional boosts in the past couple months). having lists as a top‐level feature is extremely useful here: i created a “trimmed timeline” list with very few of the accounts i was following — things like software i use and bots i like — so i’m still getting some helpful updates and inoccuous posts. but even after only adding accounts which i figured for sure wouldn’t be posting about USA current events, i’ve already had to remove a couple accounts from the list for still managing to do just that… it’s rough out here. i might slowly go through the rest of my following list and see which accounts aren’t posting about international political news without fully‐consistent CWs, because i’m pretty sure there will be a few, but that depends on my capacity to willingly wander betwixt mental landmines for a while. (if i follow you and this describes your account, feel free to tell me as such.)

the other big thing i’ve cut out during this information diet is any news consumption — which was mostly Ars Technica, if i’m being honest (though i’ve also told everyone i talk to on a regular basis that i do not want to discuss current events). although i can’t bring myself to cancel that subscription even if i’m not reading it… i might try to figure out some way to only track sections of the site i can stomach if there are any, or programmatically filter out articles that i don’t want to see. but i also very well might not. but i’d rather not miss important information security headlines… in any case, please keep in mind that if i ever appear to not be reading the room properly with regards to current events, it’s because i’m just not in the room in the first place anymore.

tuning out the news also means no more John Oliver for me, but i’m still watching all my other entertainment on YouTube. channels there are even more focused than blogs (in part due to how algorithmic promotion on YouTube tends to work these days), so i don’t really see any risk there. not all idle parts of my day can be conveniently filled with audiovisual content though. social media and news articles used to give me much more interesting reading material than i had time for, but personal blogs are not going to come anywhere close to that volume. maybe this is when i’ll finally get to reading some books. unfortunately, most of my reading list i only happen to possess physically, which is not nearly as convenient as taking up a tiny bit of space on my smartphone… (i don’t really have any attachment to physical media, if you couldn’t tell.)

or maybe i’ll fill those hours by coming up with more stuff i want to write about on this blog? just not the actual writing and formatting process, given that most of my idle time is spent away from my desk, and compared to using my heavily‐customized Ergodox EZ keyboard there, typing on my phone (or handwriting in a notebook or something, god forbid) is a pretty miserable experience. but i do want to keep using this blog and writing new posts — maybe i’ll even get to write some that aren’t just about how i have this blog now! and i’d love to engage with folks who have something to say in response to what i write; that’s why i picked a blog platform that has comments, after all. i’m hoping that with this and by striking up conversations with others about their blog posts myself, i can continue to restrict my information intake for my mental health without feeling too socially isolated.