“Offline is the New Online” by Rachel Haywire

What if you and your friends had your own little internet, the size of a room? No outside influence, no outside information, no viral trends, no content-suggesting algorithms; just the machines and the people within the physical space. What would you do on your little internet?

As far as how humans connect to one another, what’s next appears to be group chats and private messaging and forums, returning back to a time when we mostly just talked to the people we know. Maybe that’s a better, less problematic way to live life. Maybe feed and algorithms and the “global town square” were a bad idea. But I find myself desperatel... See more

People feeling alone in their interests has always been true to a certain extent, but the internet has made it much worse. The excess of information allows you to travel down your path of interest with mad velocity. On the internet, Wonderland is recursive, with rabbit holes opening up to yet more rabbit holes; you never stop falling. And the furth... See more

When I discuss it with my friends, we sing in unison about how we wish we just weren’t on it and how much it distresses us. This conversation, often followed with a sigh, as though we somehow don’t have a choice. Which is partially true, considering how many job opportunities and social opportunities haunt the little feed in which we scroll, it’s t... See more