I’ve recently withdrawn from email, Internet and TV for a while. I’m currently reconnecting.
My main observation is that I’m happy getting back onto the things where I exert some control. Those with little control are harder to stomach:
1. TV news is one of the hardest. I can silence the adverts but the news itself is a horror. In most “items” I see blatant political manipulation, viciousness without apparent reason, ignorance and stupidity so deep that I’m dumbfounded. So much propaganda and disinformation. Can’t find any channel that is much good, not controllable. (Also newspapers, for them add plenty of hysteria.)
2. eMail has also proved surprisingly hard. The hard part is all the spam. (I don’t use surveillance capitalist mail servers, run my own.) I decided to go through my spam traps first. So much utter rubbish that it’s put me off. Outnumbers the good stuff even after automated pre-winnowing. Would be better if I could find a way to retaliate effectively against those who pay for spam.
3. Facebook is quite easy. I have a number of measures in place that put my content under my own control. Not that hard to get back into. (Though I find more people, a lot, are using it less and bailing out altogether as time goes on. It’s dying.)
4. Twitter is dead easy. You choose who you follow. That gives you a lot of control, so can be pleasant to use.
5. The Internet (WWW) in general is not too bad. I have a variety of tools to control and exclude those who want to watch everything I do. Gives me control.
My take away: The media you can control can be rewarding and worthwhile.