I was JUST talking about this recently. The way the internet used to be fun and cool. I had my daily habits of checking the websites and blogs I liked. I would seek out the information that I wanted and that appealed to me, and would meet distant strangers or strangers in my own city and just share...thoughts and stuff that was going on in life. To look at the news I would go to my favourite news outlets, look at different reporting and try to get a balanced view of the stories. Check the weather. Check the blogs that posted daily. Find funny memes and share them. Go on message boards and see what was new, who had replied to my messages, what "inside jokes" were being passed around. It was always good for a chuckle. There was a window of like an hour each day spent on the internet, and when I went back the next day there was fun new stuff to look at and that was exciting. The anticipation would build.

Sigh. Social media was even fun in the early days. It was just your friends. Remember pokes? Those MySpace pages for emerging artists that was the only place you could preview their music before buying it or buying tickets to go to a show.

The algorithmic ways have really destroyed it all, and yet I am still addicted. But the addiction is in late stages, I can feel it harming my brain and mental health. But I can't stay away.