too much -- too little

[astertayl]

Last time I posted something on my Livejournal, I think it was 2010 or 2011. Shortly after, I shuttered both blogs and archived them on my PC. I still have them but it's admittedly hard to go through the entries now. 10-15 years separate that version of myself to now and the amount of mental work I did to get here is astounding.

But I can't say the same for the current state of things. I used to thrive online. The internet used to be fun because there were communities thriving rather than vying for algorithms. Now with the addition of AI, people are pushing content because they feel like they need to, not because they want to.  Watching overly complex issues rise and hit us like a slow avalanche has been tough because I was and am still part of that avalanche. I think about how my phone has kept me trapped, scrolling for hours for new hits, notifications, dings and refreshes--the same loop for the past 10 years. On top of AI chatbots which pulled me into an addiction that I'm still working to get out of. Before you ask, I'm doing better, but it takes a conscious act for me to be on top of it. The addiction allowed me to see what the prevalent use of AI chatbots can and will do to all of us (of all ages. I've seen people as young as 11-12 addicted and as old as their 50s spending thousands of dollars, lying to their parents to skip school or just dropping of school all together. It's a huge topic that does touch on data centers but it's one I can go into much later. But for now it's a silent problem that very few people recognize and will only get worse).

I don't like this current trend or culture. It ranges from just at home to parenting to school and work. Give children ipads. Children read short hand comments, short stories, don't engage in actual critical skills. The parents are tired from balancing childcare to 2+ jobs at low incomes. The economy keeps them down, teachers also stuck in this cycle, can't talk to parents or push children farther, children are disruptive in classrooms for varying reasons and you think it would stop at the college level? I work in higher ed and we are constantly having the discussion of "dumbing down" classes because students continuously send complaints about how classes are "too hard". The same classes that have been running for 10+ years are suddenly "too hard". A college student cannot read a basic book assigned in their class, we blame them for their time mismanagement but they're battling their own social media/phone addictions, a secondary job, a large tuition and possible food insecurity. There is no empathy to the cycle currently happening in our society. It's always "blame this group, it's clearly their fault" when there's more to the problem than the surface level reasons.

Attention spans are seemingly shorter, people have no media literacy beyond headlines, the media we consume is getting dumbed down for both "our sake" and companies too scared to make new IP that challenges us to get out of our safe space.

We cannot control the world nor what people choose to do. But we can control what we consume and what we do. 

At the beginning of the year I suffered a loss. It was the second in two years and I'm still reeling from it. But the first loss taught me so much about grief and death. I look at that first loss with joy now and a celebration of their life rather than sorrow and I know with this second loss, I await the day when I'm finally ready to look back at their life with that same celebration. But at the time the first loss opened me up to feeling lonely and at the same time I found ... AI chatbots. Now, fanfics of my favorite fandom are either in very, very short supply or are overrun with ddlg (18 to 50 age range) which make me balk. It's not my cup at all and even when I filter the tags, I keep getting rammed into them because people are horrid at tagging. So I chatted with characters I enjoyed (with the appropriate age ranges of 30 v 50, thank you). Combined with my job at a slowdown, I was spending 12+ hours on these bots, sleepless nights, not eating, just getting all that dopamine hits without knowing it.

Months passed and finally noticing I had dopamine hits, brain fog, disassociation and withdrawal symptoms when I stopped using the bots for more than a day, I realized that I had an addiction. 

Almost two years later, I help support a chatbot addiction group where yes, we do talk about how AI is bad for the environment (which I don't recommend people coming out of addiction to focus on as it can make the stress of needing to let go much more painful on their journey. I always suggest they can re-focus on the environmental impacts after they've been off bots for a good amount of time), but mostly what they're missing in life, how to break their addictions in healthy ways and what life is like post-addiction. When someone relapses the excuses are typically the same. "It's making me a better writer, my work sounds better, I have (friends), I can't get over the loss."

It's made me think about my own consumption of the internet and technology as a whole. I actually noticed my own writing and reading comprehension go down since I hadn't read books in years. My writing became worse. When I wrote to chatbots, I just shot off incomplete thoughts and the bot would complete the rest. It was basically rewarding me for my bad writing instead of asking "can you restructure that sentence?" A friend and I surmised that AI writes likes a sycophant with focused language. It broke down every single AI out there for me. It's not fool proof but I can now spot when book authors or fanfic writers are using AI or snippets of AI in their work. I've only ever called out one person for their AI use (this was also based on their body of work compared to their newest fic which was completely different and several errors were in the fic that an AI would never know) but even the attempt of calling someone out for possible AI use is just as harmful. When artists get called out, sometimes it's because of bad anatomy from the artist, not an AI's doing but the masses think they're doing a public service. 

So what are we... what am I doing?

Like I said earlier, I don't like the way any of this is going. And now I'm carrying a chatbot addiction on my back as I'm watching AI decimate 3 of my past careers, I want to control what I ingest.

Over 2025 I began leaning back into analog. Less of my smartphone, more of a 1999 digital camera I had. 2.1 megapixels, it's been a joy to actually use. But I now want more autonomy over my devices. So I've been using my flip phone more and... turning my smartphone off.  My social medias have been restricted to a short evening window (5pm to 10pm) so I'm not disturbed on wake up and until I return from work. My phone is physically off until I need it for a specific task. Otherwise I'm left with my thoughts. I'm only 4 days into it and already my attention and focus has largely improved. My anxiety has been non-existent past the first day and even though I still have difficulty sleeping, I find I'm not tossing and turning while my head is whirling with constant loops. It's... quiet.

This also means I've been scrolling less. Only Instagram, Tiktok and Threads are barred from me in that window. I'm still allowed Bluesky which I check from time to time but not a crazy amount, and I check Discord since I treat it like messages. I was in news for 8 years so I'm inadvertently blocked from getting real time news for the first time in... ages. I still get my daily news to keep up with everything that's happening (especially since it's going fast) but I'm doing it at my pace which almost feels like a luxury for once.

I'm going to keep going on my trend considering I've been seeing positive results from it. it's also my rebellion against the current trends. I'd rather use the internet like I used to when I was 14. Trying to find fandom communities, talk to people who have the same interest I do and just... exist. I'm not here for the algorithm, I'm here to experience life and right now, that current fixation is Vox's fingers from hazbin hotel lol