At the end of the month, I’m saying goodbye to my life on the internet as I’ve known it. In this post, I talk about my history with the internet and what’s led up to this decision. I’ll also talk about what’s going to happen from here onwards. It’s going to be a long post, so buckle in.
The beginning
It was the mid 90s when I started using the internet. At first, it was simple curiosity and being fond of using a computer (my dad worked with them, so I was pretty familiar) Then it grew into a tool I could use to look up information about games and eventually a way I could get them (both legally and not) Finally, it became a way of life as it became my sole social outlet.
To give the short version of a very long history: I became estranged from my peers in school. Part of was due to interests I couldn’t share with anyone (I grew up in a small town where people hadn’t caught onto some things yet) and part of it was due to being bullied for being different (I was sick a lot, wore glasses, shy… practically a huge cocktail of “this kids an easy target”) Due to that estrangement, I became increasingly reliant on the internet as my social outlet
History will tell whether that was ultimately a good or bad thing (most likely neither) but I did eventually develop a life outside the internet in 2008 where I successfully made my first in real life friend. From that point onward I got to experience all the embarrassing social faux pas I missed out on in high school (It was overall a good thing, don’t worry) and generally develop as a human being.
Unfortunately things weren’t entirely happy ever after. Even though I can proudly say I developed, I still found myself relying on the internet as one might rely on addictive drugs. Anytime I didn’t know how to approach a situation, it was right back to the internet to look for ways it could help me. Anytime I felt like I couldn’t rely on the people around me, it was back to bad habits.
Of course, like drugs, the internet can be a useful tool for the right ailments. The problem was I used it for all ailments. Where I should have tried to develop new techniques and skills, I ran to the internet hoping it could do something for me (It had all the previous times when I was young, afterall, I didn’t see why it couldn’t now) Except all it ever did was push me farther away from where I was going
The now
It’s 2022 now and will be 2023 soon. I currently live at home with my folks, while I try to figure out what to do with my life. Except what that all ends up boiling down to is me being on the internet looking for solutions in all the wrong places.
Instead of being smart with my money, I let depression drive me to various online merchants where I buy myself shiny toys I probably don’t need. Now my sizeable savings has dwindled quite considerably (Hell it dwindled a lot just this month) and I’m concerned that another couple of months like this is liable to leave me broke before long.
That coupled with my lack of productivity and less time spent doing things I want to, I’ve come to a conclusion that some drastic steps need to be taken soon before it gets any worse.
Originally, the plan was to cut back out social media, online retailers, and primarily use this site as both a way to give me a social outlet and to encourage writing more. I even went through a bunch of effort changing how the site worked to cater to that idea.
The big issue though was that I still had it set up in a way that would put me at my computer a lot. It practically required I write a post for every single thing I was doing while I was doing it. For example, the previous set up had it so I could update people on games I was playing as I was playing them or books as I was reading them.
I guess I wanted to make myself feel like an e-celeb in a way. Despite this blog only being read by a handful of people, I wanted to have a site like the many figures I idolized back in the day who had tons of followers that would practically eat up everything they posted (or at least that’s how I saw it) It was a pretty unrealistic desire.
I made the sudden decision to scrap all that tonight and instead adopt a different plan of attack for the site. A plan that I’ll outline in the final section
The Future
When 2022 ends and 2023 begins there’s going to be a big shift in my online habits.
First, I’m not going to use my PC very often for the internet. If I do it’s either going to be to post an update on here or because there’s a matter that I can’t take care of via my tablet. My PC is primarily going to be used for playing games via Steam Link to play on my TV (essentially turning it into a glorified console)
My tablet is going to be where I check my email, check a few small Discord servers (to keep in touch with important friends), take care of business related things (paying off cards and occasional orders), and just general searching for whenever I need to look up something (say I need to find a solution to a problem I’m facing in a game)
I’ve thought about a complete withdrawal from the net, but unfortunately it’s become a necessity it some ways (paying bills, getting things I can’t get in the small town I live in, etc) While I can’t get let my guard down completely, I should note that I’m nowhere near as comfortable using my tablet online as I am with my computer. Thus I THINK I should be more likely to use it sparingly and get things done promptly
Posts for this site will be done on the PC because that’s the only reasonable way to do it (No way I’m going to type these long beasts on a touch screen) However since that opens me up to increased risk of getting distracted and falling into bad habits, I’m going to limit that to 1 or 2 posts a month (I haven’t come to a decision on that yet. I might just do 1 at first at the end of a month and when I become more comfortable, start doing a second one)
Each post will be pretty massive and cover everything I’ve been up to that month from life to games to anime to whatever.
I will do another post or two before I go silent on New Years, I think. At the very least, I would like to do sort of a “first post” that will indicate what you can expect from posts in the future.
For now though, it’s getting late and I’d rather not be writing this until Christmas. We’ll end things off here and I’ll see you in the next one.
-Betsuniisan