How to Leave an Internet That’s Always in Crisis

These days, everything is made for us, so the things that feel really and truly ours are the things that actually weren’t.

I do think the internet used to be a lot weirder. Certainly more specific. It used to be a place you’d go for a specific interest. Now it is just the context of life and the way you communicate.

the internet used to be a place! Or at least it was for me. I love how the internet exposes the weird and funny things about being a person alive in the world.

It makes me feel ancient to say this, but I see a lot of much younger people engage with some of my writing about technology, and they’re like, “Stop overthinking it, man. We’re all just online. That’s life!” And they are right, and I am overthinking it. But our experiences are different!

I always feel very curmudgeonly saying this, but I think that mid-to-late Millennials and very young Gen Xers are this weird straddle generation. Like, one of my earliest memories is playing with a working rotary phone my parents had in the kitchen of our house. But, also, I was online for the first time at like 7 or 8 and very much was raised onli... See more

I just don’t think people have adapted to being in touch with so many humans at every moment and getting this much information. Now, I imagine people will adapt. But we are in this generation where it wasn’t like this fully when we were growing up.

going back to that idea of awareness of algorithms, I think one thing that really separates people online generationally is the divide between who has really tried to create stuff online. The savviest older-generation users are usually people who work in media, and they are exposed to how online content is made and travels. It’s not that they can’t... See more

Part of me wonders though if TikTok is helpful in understanding recommendation algorithms and curation, because it’s so blatant. I notice that, especially with younger users, there’s a total understanding that what they’re seeing is not occurring naturally, but is the result of computational choices being made for them.

TikTok is not insular—it wants to be a big melting pot of what’s happening on all other platforms, in a way that’s not really native to other platforms except for earlier versions of Twitter.