I first got online a good few years before social networks like Facebook began. My early memories were spending evenings on MSN messenger and watching flash animations. It was around when I begun attending university that Facebook appeared and I got myself signed up. While it fine I was never really sucked into it like some people were, my experience was usually seeing someone living their best life while I was sitting on the toilet. After a few years when all the privacy issues were beginning to be discussed, and when I practically didn't use it at all besides the messenger app, I decided to delete the app. I figured people I knew who wanted to get in touch could call or message me using other methods, and while I probably missed a few parties due to them being arranged in Facebook I didn't really miss it.
One social network that did manage to keep me hooked was Reddit. You can use it anonymously with your account name being an alias instead of your real name which aligned with what I was taught when I was younger, to never use your real name online! It also was separated up by interests so I could just read about videogames and not what my distant relatives are having for dinner. It was my doom-scroll enabler, I opened it up first thing in the morning and it kept me up at night, and as it seems everyone caught in a doom-scroll is aware of it was mostly shite.
I've got some major changes to my life on the way and I decided that I would like to be as present for them as I can be, so I decided to delete my account. I had deleted the app a few times but it found its way back after a short time, and I figured deleting my account was the extra step I needed. Before I deleted it I noted that I signed up 11 years ago.
Reddit was the only social media app on my phone, no other apps with the infinite scroll. It's been a couple weeks now and I noticed I have a habit to pick up my phone to scroll through something, but whenever I do I realise there is nothing actually on there to scroll through, I flick through my home screen a few times then put it down again, it's kind of weird. I do sort of miss having something to look at while I'm waking up, I now do the old person thing of staring out the window with my morning coffee, but I do find it much easier to go to sleep (usually after flicking through my home screen a few times).
I've always been into tech and I work in tech but I've never ran a personal website. Without Reddit to look at I have gone hunting for websites and found quite a few blogs that talk about the nostalgia for the old internet before social media took over, there are a few movements and communities such as IndieWeb which advocate for it, and I decided I should do something constuctive to replace my scrolling time so here I am.
I'm not really sure what I will be writing about, I'm fairly sure thats what most people think when setting up a personal site, but I will probably come up with something every now and then I can write about.