It feels like all the joy I used to feel from being an enthusiast has been completely voided as computing has become the modern vector for fascism and surveillance. I find myself recoiling from all online spaces, even independent and open source ones that I’d loved and supported in the past.

It’s been an exceptionally strange impulse to go from having an elaborate online presence to now feeling like the only acceptable way to engage with the network is to have as minimal of an online footprint as possible.

This especially hurts when it feels like an issue of skilling, where I know how to do certain tasks with computers, but have to teach myself for the first time the analogue alternatives that my parents and their parents likely already knew well.

How have you chosen to deal with it? Do you find yourself moving away from computing and the internet, despite formerly loving it as a hobby? Have you replaced things that computers used to do for you with analogue replacements?

I’m curious how other people are experiencing this.

  • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
    5·
    5 hours ago

    I have thought about this also. Especially when it comes to mobile technology. For most of my career I have been an advocate of mobile technology like smartphones, I have recommended it, I have set it up for people, and now I look at the world and honestly wonder if we wouldn’t be a better place without smartphones.

    Thing is, we are iron mongers. We build tools. We give people tools. “It is not the tool that determines its work, it is the mind mind of the man who holds the tool that does.” (-Brannon LaBoeuf).

    Does that absolve me of all responsibility? No not a chance. But it does offer s or a suggested path forward.

    The harm that comes from computing for the most part, IMHO, doesn’t come from users. It comes from people who exploit the users and users who don’t realize they are being exploited. Meta, TikTok, Snap, Google, etc. these are the guys causing the problem.

    So as technologists, we have an opportunity to change course. To show those who rely on us ways to use technology without being exploited. Yeah I realized to some degree it’s a drop in the ocean, trying to piss up a rope but there are little victories to be had.

    In short, be the change.