The internet is wonderful. And the internet is terrible. The history of the last few centuries demonstrates quite well that people are mostly unable to deal healthily with having things in abundance. We know what “enough” is, but that’s not the same as showing restraint and self control.

Having internet access means having access to everything everywhere all at once. We’ve been eating the everything bagel for several decades now. It’s hardly news for anyone that the results of this are not only positive and in fact are likely mostly negative. Yet I wouldn’t say that it seems like people are really trying to protect themselves from that. Even with all the talk about dopamine detox, mindfulness etc. the endless feed scrolling doesn’t seem like it’s diminishing.

People love agreeing with that statement, pulling up an image in their minds of empty eyed teens scrolling for hours through tiktok or instagram¹. But that’s just the highly visible well known and discussed part of the problem. After all complaining about the decadent youth is a fundamental human right.

Going on wikipedia scavenge hunts for hours on end, watching educational videos on youtube², diligently going along the path of “similar artists” in a streaming service. All supposedly better ways to waste your time than that slop the kids ruin their brains with. Only I’m not quite sure about that.

If the deluge of facts you gorge yourself on is sufficiently more than your capacity to remember and use them then what really is the difference with a two hour brain rot spree on tiktok? After hearing 10 new albums, but still can’t recall a single title, lyric or melody, even any band’s name, why do we assume that’s better than half a day spent scrolling reels on instagram?

Experiences online, just like offline, don’t really make sense if they leave nothing. Doing nothing is preferable to doing meaningless things.