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.
I don’t have any friends or any other hobbies. Financial situation is not so good rn and so even if I wanted to, don’t really feel like spending money for hobby or something.
I don’t really know what others definition of “computing” is but if it’s just about having an Internet addiction, then it’s something I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I didn’t have friends in elementary school but I had access to the Internet while at school and other spaces.
It’s all just coping for me. Without the Internet, I’d probably become the next Luigi or something.
I’m sorry you’re not doing so well. FWIW, I am the same way. Aside from my support worker and my cats, the internet is the only thing I really have. I don’t see the internet as “just something to do”. It is my life. I have no friends or family. Just internet.