This is... a god send. Once upon a time, I thought of myself as intelligent and capable. But alas, I'm a child of the internet, bound by my own insatiable curiosity. Poor executive functioning, a handicapped attention span, and information addiction have dampened my potential. Now the floodgates are open to behavioral addictions of all sorts.
Now begins the systematic removal of vices. Digital Wellbeing timers don't work - I eventually disable them. I removed YouTube entirely this week - at first there was a visceral, anxious response to the silence that would otherwise be filled with rambling podcasts. Pathetic, yes, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
I still need better tooling, though. Something not-so-dopaminergic. Something that engages me with meaningful, cognitively challenging, long-format material. Something that I can annoyed with notes. RSS feeds are a potential candidate, but integrating that into my digital workflow has proved ineffective. Beam may allow me to replace my browser, left to read and research without wandering off into information soup.
I'm 26 years old, graduated with a comp sci degree three years ago and didn't score the job I needed after graduation. Most of my interviews were "close, but no cigar". I've been in limbo ever since. I feel like my behavioral addictions may be connected to this unfulfilled career. Anyone else in the same boat?
I feel right there with you, a few years behind, but also feeling adrift post-graduation. It feels as if there's been a "junk foodification" of digital bytes (pun intended), with our relationship with digital content becoming more ephemeral. For all the miles we scroll and all the paths of URLs we travel, there is very little that allows us to create maps, way-markers or any form of bread-crumbs for us to follow later.
Because we don't have good ways to store away content for later, it sometimes feel like we are cursed to wander aimlessly, creating files and bookmarks here and there, with no real aim or purpose. On the one hand, the world of cyberspace is almost seductive for its incredible vastness and on the other, it is almost paralyzing to explore without a proper set of tools.
I am anxious for tools designed to assist in forging paths through digital ecosystems, establishing a map over digital landscapes that enable me to understand the land, and how to travel through it. Without these, it feels that whatever I do will radically fall short of what I could do.
Now begins the systematic removal of vices. Digital Wellbeing timers don't work - I eventually disable them. I removed YouTube entirely this week - at first there was a visceral, anxious response to the silence that would otherwise be filled with rambling podcasts. Pathetic, yes, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
I still need better tooling, though. Something not-so-dopaminergic. Something that engages me with meaningful, cognitively challenging, long-format material. Something that I can annoyed with notes. RSS feeds are a potential candidate, but integrating that into my digital workflow has proved ineffective. Beam may allow me to replace my browser, left to read and research without wandering off into information soup.
I'm 26 years old, graduated with a comp sci degree three years ago and didn't score the job I needed after graduation. Most of my interviews were "close, but no cigar". I've been in limbo ever since. I feel like my behavioral addictions may be connected to this unfulfilled career. Anyone else in the same boat?