My (New) New Normal

It’s been a little bit over a week since I deleted my shortcuts to Facebook, reddit, Twitter and Tumblr. I’ve left YouTube on my accepted flyers list so that I can listen to music and make videos. I’ve left Instagram because I like taking and editing photos and I like sharing them. I’ve never found myself doing the Endless Scroll on Instagram. Once I get caught up, I’m able to put that one down pretty easily.

The results have been largely what I’ve expected. I’m bored. My normal routines feel like they’re lacking in entertainment because I’ve removed an entire platform for low-lever entertainment from it. I feel sort of distanced, like I don’t really know what’s going on in the world. I’m not being constantly bombarded by information about American politics, which I have to say is a nice change, but I’m also not up-to-date on what’s happening in Canada or the world right now. I considered buying a newspaper until I remembered that the whole reason I didn’t want to be on Facebook was because I was tired of media attempting to influence the way I think to maximize my eyeball time.

I’m bored. I need to be bored right now. I’ve somewhat forgotten what boredom feels like and I’m kinda digging it. I create a lot when I’m bored. And I’m exhibiting some behavior that I would consider consistent with addiction. My mouse hovers to where my Facebook and reddit links used to be. I find myself mindlessly opening websites just for something new in my field of vision. My eyes hover to the top left of my screen, where I kept the links I used most often, to try and sort out which one I should open to alleviate the boredom, and I need to remind myself that I’ve quit. I find excuses to get back on Facebook for just a minute. I’ll pop in to find a picture and while I’m here I can scroll through some memes Melissa and Avery have posted. I’ll sometimes hit up reddit because I’m looking up something someone has told me.

Well that’s not ideal…

And sometimes I find myself looking for replacements. I’ll scroll Instagram longer than I used to. I’ll refresh webcomics that I know aren’t going to update until tomorrow. The worst one by far, though, has been my Google Discovery screen.

My phone has a few pages of home screen, and if you swipe all the way to the left and then swipe once more, you’ll be shown a page that has some hand-picked google news articles for you. Which seemed fine until I realized that I would scroll to the bottom and then hit the refresh button hoping to see something new, and the articles were beginning to cater to things I’d tapped on earlier. It’s easy to notice if you’re looking for it. I opened a link about the Snider Cut of Justice League once, and suddenly the feed was full of news about a movie I’m probably going to play in the background while I write. Or I looked up something about Back to the Future and got a bunch of articles about Michael J Fox’s new book.

This is exactly why I got off Facebook, so I’ve disabled the feature.

And I’ve noticed that I’m sad more often. I probably need that, too. I wasn’t happy scrolling through endless amounts of random stuff people posted. I was, at best, maintaining. And now that that source of brain chemicals is gone, I feel sad. And I look for a link. And the link isn’t there anymore, and I think that’s probably for the best.

Abrupt Subject Change Because ADD

Two days ago I was on a bus with 50 other people. Roughly a quarter of them didn’t have masks on, despite the fact that face coverings are mandatory on BC Transit vehicles. The next day ten people died and 750 more were diagnosed with Covid-19. The government of BC has put in some new rules that honestly should have been the old rules, and we’re back on lock-down. Sort of. This one still doesn’t feel as serious as the shutdown that happened in March.

I get up for a minute and my coworker has stolen my chair…

I’m back to working from home now. I don’t have to - no one told me I needed to take my office home. Some people even seemed surprised. I hate working from home and I’ve made my opinion about that really clear, but I’m doing it because I have to do something and I am absolutely wretched at bio-sci. I’m going to try and do things a little differently this time, though. I’ve set up a separate work-from-home area in my kitchen rather than repurpose my bedroom. At least this way I spend some time in a different room in the house, and I have another reason to clean my kitchen - it’s going to be on video meetings. I’m going to walk my son to his daycare every morning that I have him, and every morning that I don’t I’m going to take an hour-long walk around my neighborhood to take pictures near dawn. I won’t be able to get to some of the more impressive locations I’d like to due to the short time constraint, but maybe that will make me get a bit more creative about what and how I’m going to shoot.

And now I need to figure out how to get my support network up and running effectively. We’ve all been hit by this change pretty hard, and I think we all rely on one another to keep going, so maintaining those connections is going to be really, really important.

I’m expecting that the combination of lower social media engagement and a lockdown is going to be sort of brutal for me. I’m planning to make more stuff in response. I’m going to go take more photos in the woods and on the coast. I’m blessed to live in one of the few places in the world that’s nice enough that you can hike essentially all year. I’ve read some difficult news articles about people in other parts of the country who are worried because getting outside was a major part of their coping strategy for the last lockdown, and Ontario winters aren’t ideal for long hikes.

I can empathize. Being with people has been a major part of my coping strategy for basic functions of living for the last 25 years.