Off the grid

I Quit The Internet

I remember getting an early invite to Gmail, I joined Twitter, facebook and Instagram as soon as I could. I've never deactivated my Instagram account and have often been an early adopter of these overhyped services.

The way that these services got us to sign up was with the overt promise of keeping in touch with our friends and with the covert insinuation that by gaining popularity on their platforms we could become rich and famous - just like Tila Tequila (who?), Jeffrey Starr, or a billion other people who had their 15 minutes of fame before sizzling out without anybody ever noticing.

While some people did in fact build fortunes and media empires on these platforms, many more never became anything. Instead, hundreds of thousands of human lifetimes are consumed annually in mindless scrolling and shopping activities. Worse, many have lost their friends, family members, and jobs.

Our friends no longer post to anything but stories, giving the world a peephole into their life which disappears in 24 hours. Hardly anyone responds, or interacts, we just trade windows into our lives and pass by each other by without so much as as a waive.

In real life, it takes two people to keep a friendship going. Online we can be friends for life and never speak, never hang out, and never learn anything about each other except what is posted. It's a phony way to have a friendship, and I'm over it.

Social media provides us with nothing. It is built to keep us scrolling, and for brands go have terrifyingly
accurate insights into who we are, which allows them the opportunity to nudge us down the path. People who use these apps are stuck using a drug that never gets them high and never satisfies them, and which never kills them. Many people I check with are pushing 7 or 8 hours of screen time a day, and never do much of anything productive on their phones.

So while I'll miss my peephole into your world and may peek in once in a while, I'm opting out, and invite you to reach out and say hey, even though I know many of you never will.

Until we meet again,

​Spicer