The Return of The Computer Room
Tik Tok may already be back, but the entire situation has me ready to radically change my attention diet.
On January 18th, I let my screen time be whatever it was going to be. As someone with a platform over there, and with minimal building up of other platforms, I felt some anxiety and disappointment both of losing connection to my followers as well as my favorite creators. I’ve learned so much from Tik Tok content, from writing there, and from the comment sections. It is a third space in the internet in many ways, at least more so than other places.
This morning, I felt an odd sense of excitement, knowing the ban had gone into effect overnight. A few times as I had my morning coffee and read articles here or my physical current read, I found myself automatically going to the folder where TikTok has lived in my phone. I’d open it, and the ban notice would reappear, all before I consciously knew what I was doing. As much as I don’t want to app banned or further consolidation via Meta, I also found encountering a closed door digitally brought with it a sense of relief.
Oh, there isn’t endless scrolling, searching for the right bit or clip of entertainment. There’s some boredom here I can’t entertain myself out of.
Oh, there isn’t endless information. Maybe I actually do have time to write.
Oh, my Substack feed isn’t endlessly exciting, polarized, filled with hooks and calls to action and ads. Maybe I do have an extra moment to read something longer.
I’ve been upset at losing TikTok, and am glad it now, as of 2:12 PM ET, may even already be back up for my fellow creators and small businesses who rely on it, and communities that are central there. But what I am feeling now is almost a sense of disappointment that it’s already back, and that the choice of the endless scroll is something I will have to resist myself—something I have historically with TikTok not done very well, or at least not done well for a sustained period of time.
I’ve written before about the nostalgia and romanticization I have for the time of being a preteen and having the internet be something you went and did, like going to eat lunch or going to the mall, not something that was slowly merging into every piece of life. Times are different now, and there is not a real way back to that time. But just because we cannot replicate something from our pasts does not mean we can’t learn from it and apply it.
GTFO Your Phone February
The point of this challenge when we first did it last year, and now, is much the same: finding the right place for being in the digital world in our daily lives. In looking at and saving videos I’ve had earmarked on TikTok over the years, I realized there is never going to be a time where there is no friction to trying the things that seem interesting or worthwhile to do, and the actual doing will have more aspects of unpleasantness than the consuming of the image of the doing. Mary Oliver once said:
“Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”
I wonder if we might ask, “Are you watching just a little and calling it a life?”
It is apparent to me that my own sense of relief then disappointment today as the app seems to be back is that my priorities and, possibly more importantly, my realistic application of those priorities needs to be looked at. I have no wish, my dear reader, to delete my entire TikTok account, disappear from the web, and surrender to a life of meditation. But an important skill I’ve learned to use in adulthood is noticing when something is, decidedly, not working, and then to ask what the small steps towards changing it might be.
Instead of setting out a bunch of rigid rules for this challenge at the start, I want us to learn and discern together. For me, today, that means deleting the TikTok app from my phone, at least for this week, and allowing myself access on my desktop computer. If it is extremely unpleasant, then maybe next week I try something new. But for now, and with the inevitably discourse of the coming week, short form, acontextual information is not what I’m wanting, and that’s a good enough reason as any.
My first question for you, dear reader, for our challenge is this:
What have you felt today, so far, during the ban? What feelings come up with the idea that the app is completely back? Would you like the direction or way of relating to social media apps and the internet to stay mostly the same, or is there a way you’ve been wanting to start changing towards even before this week?
See you soon.
xx, Margaret of Bad Art Every Day
Relief is a good word for what I was feeling this morning before it came back. There was a sense of freedom- of knowing that whatever I was going to do today, it would not be scrolling on there. I realized it was back accidentally, reflexively opening the app as I did many times late last night and this morning (oh dear, the pathways that are ingrained...) and the tentative confusion and then excitement was quickly overshadowed by (of all things) frustration and anger.
I feel like I have emotional whiplash. I'm not spending any time on there today. I've given this app too much of my spirit this past week. That being said, I don't begrudge any of that time I spent there and the work I did to keep the things and people who matter- I approached it in good faith. The things and people I've gained from it are real, and special, and they matter, which is why I care so much. But I don't think Tiktok/the forces behind the ban and the timing and the messages approached anything in good faith at all. It feels like a political playground now- like my taps and likes and follows are (and maybe always were) just tools and machinations for some bigger entity. I just feel like I've been yanked around and made a fool of. My way of "punishing" this app (that doesn't care if I exist, by the way) is to stay off it. I'm taking back my time. No better day to start GTFO phone February. I still have my printouts I made from attempting it last year- I'm re attaching them to the side of my shelf by my desk to work thru them daily.
Today I've finished my holiday newsletter. I've drawn our holiday cards. I've taken a nap. I've listened to a podcast. My husband is making banana bread, and I'll run a loaf of that over to a sick friend this afternoon. Planning on working on a substack post and doing some laundry and some cleaning this afternoon.
I wasn’t happy when it shut off last night and I’m not at all happy about how it came back today. It’s been deleted from my phone and I’ve plenty to do on Substack and, get this, my regular ordinary life.
I tried moving all social media to my iPad today, I like the idea of trying things for a week and seeing how they feel, making changes as necessary.