I Have a Bone to Pick with the Internet...
& Here's Why :)
Ok, ok. Hear me out. I’ve made a career on the internet for the last 11 years and I am wildly grateful for it. Social media has connected me to pretty much 98% of my closest friends, introduced me to the spiritual life that is now the cornerstone of who I am, and also—I was BORN as an over-sharer, so I genuinely feel that having a career on the internet is basically a godsend for me. I can’t imagine what else I would be doing!
BUT… I have a bone to pick with the internet. And here’s why.
I think back to my own childhood, early 90’s days, filled with Limited Too glitter bubble chairs and Beanie Babies and running around outside with the neighbor kids until the sun went down.
We got a computer when I was about 8 years old, which is also when my brother made me an email address (jojoyounger@aol.com, baby). “You’re going to want one of these one day, trust me,” I remember him saying. “There will be a day where everyone has them and you’ll be glad you got this screen name before it gets taken.”
If I went online at all, I would shout down the hallway to my parents, “I’M LOGGING INTO THE COMPUTER!!” because even using technology was an activity in and of itself. I mean, the dial-up alone took like 15 minutes—I will never forget that extremely loud telephone noise it made, lol.
I loved chatting with my friends on AIM, giving advice in AOL chatrooms (I mean hello, I’m a blogger to my core), searching for the coolest & most colorful ombre font colors for my BuddyProfile (iykyk), and overall had a blast online. “You’ve Got Mail!” greeted me every day.
However, I was online for like 30 minutes a day—tops. When my family & I went on vacation, I didn’t even think about that silly computer for weeks at a time. Life was still lived offline, in the real world, and life was good.
Now, flash forward to 2024. I am 33, a mom to the sweetest little boy ever and a baby girl on the way, a wife, content creator, podcast host, writer, all the things. I love it. But I see my son’s bright, innocent eyes getting sucked into screens already, and the addiction to technology is REAL. And he is not even two and a half years old!
And it’s not just him, it’s all of us. We are all CHRONICALLY online. I read a book last year called Stolen Focus by Johann Hari & the stats were concerning to say the least—aka our society’s overall obsession with being connected and always needing something to focus on. Resulting in zero focus at all. Zero creativity. Zero original thought. Maybe so that we don’t have to focus on ourselves?
As a spiritual person I could go off on a million tangents about this. The only thing that’s real is the here and now. Anything that distracts us from the here and now is not the vibe.
Yet I am not enough of a luddite to believe that social media and the internet hasn’t also done amazing things for so many of us. It’s the Age of Aquarius baby, and the ancient yogis said THIS would be the time for spiritual information to be spread far and wide. For us to create the new earth!
As much as I would love to move to a farm and go off the grid for life, I love to be connected. I really am a social media junkie. I am not anti-internet, I just have a few issues with it… or a lot, lol, which I will share below.
On this substack you can expect a lot of spiritual posts. I can’t wait to talk all about the new earth. Spiritual info. Aquarian Age magic. Quantum leaping. Spirituality for the modern, everyday gal and mama. A life with deeper meaning. That kind of stuff.
But I felt like I had to start with this particular post, for some reason. So let’s get into it. WHY I HAVE A BONE TO PICK WITH THE INTERNET:
We are all chronically online. Many people don’t have access to their original stream of thoughts anymore, which I feel is totally killing creativity Unless you have a morning practice of stillness, meditation, or some other ritual that keeps you offline in the morning, most of us wake up and we are immediately “in it” for the day. We are responding to others’ stimuli before we can even come up with our own ideas. And… I know I am not the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night with a TikTok song or Miss Rachel tune looping through my mind, which will never not freak me out!
Information Overload: Similar to number one… we live in a culture and society that is PRIMING us to feel overwhelmed. I really don’t feel that we were created to be bombarded with constant updates, news, and opinions—and taking it a step further, as an influencer for the last decade+ I am also bombarded daily with people’s opinions about me, which has got to be quite unhealthy for the human species.
Keyboard Warriors: Need I say more?! The anonymity of the internet tends to embolden people behind the screen basically bully and be negative in ways that I just know they wouldn’t be if they had that face to face connection.
Distraction Culture: For people like me who have lofty goals of writing hundreds of books in this lifetime, plus being a super present mom, plus being the best wife and friend and daughter and all the things, plus running a massive + full-blown brand, and all the things—why do I even think I have time to surf the internet and scroll social media for hours at a time?! I don’t, and I know that a lot of us end up wasting our time because we live in a society that has absolutely shaped us to be this distracted. (And don’t even get me started on why I think this is—I could go wild with the conspiracy theories and I SO WANT TO! This is the place).
Comparison Trap: Curation, FOMO, comparison, never feeling like our own lives are enough. It’s time to put the phones down, especially on the weekends (!!), and know that whatever we are doing in our own lives is far cooler than what we are seeing online. Because the only thing that’s real, the only thing that matters, is the PRESENT moment.
Echo Chambers: The algorithms on all platforms tend to tailor content to our existing beliefs and preferences, creating echo chambers where we're only exposed to viewpoints that reinforce our own. And look, I LOVE connecting with likeminded people. Give me all the crunchy mamas who want to move to Ojai and start a homestead, preferably while channeling Pleiadians! BUT for people who are not prone to leading with nuance and understanding/compassion toward others, I find that the echo chamber vibes lead to polarization and closed-mindedness. So our culture is officially more polarized than EVER before.
Way Less Privacy: I mean I don’t want to go TOO crazy with this, but is it not wild that I was talking to my mom about restless leg syndrome yesterday and today we both got a bunch of ads on our IG’s about RLS? And, when it comes to being a parent and deciding how to share your kids online, it’s a really tricky and personal topic. And I don’t know if anyone knows if they’re doing it “right” or not.
Addiction, babyyyy: Just because a social media addiction isn’t as dangerous as a drug addiction or something else, doesn’t mean it can’t equally impact your life. Add up the hours you spend on your phone or computer every day, then multiply that by 7, then by 52, then by about 90ish years of your life… and boom, how many DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS, YEARS do you get?! It’s… scary.
Digital Fatigue: Constantly being connected and plugged in can lead mega fatigue and burnout, which can also not be recognized as real exhaustion because we don’t see it the same way as physical exertion or something else. It just makes it hard to find balance, and I think balance is always key.
Ever-changing Algorithm: What I REALLY miss are the days when I could post on IG and my posts would actually reach my entire audience, back when things were posted in chronological order. And beyond that, I miss the days when social media was fun and new and all about connection, rather than all about having to actually pay for ads to reach your own audience. The ever-changing and shifting algorithm concerns me deeply for us content creators, however I don’t want to be negative about it. I know we can outsmart it, and that is my goal. I will share everything I learn on that front!
All in all, do I have an answer to all of this? No. Do I love TikTok, IG, podcasting, blogging, etc. as much as the next person? Yes, I do. Am I a perfect mom who allows zero screen time? Absolutely not.
BUT… I am someone who thinks a lot, and these are my thoughts. I am definitely perturbed by the distraction of the world and the increasingly expanding, AI-driven, super powerful entity that is “the internet.” Like, what would Steve Jobs think of all of this if he was here today?! Serious question.
Anyway, I don’t want to make this way too long (I tend to do that). If you want more, follow along! You can also find 11 years’ worth of content on my blog, thebalancedblonde.com. & 150 meditations in my membership platform, thequantummethod.co!
If you’re reading along, tell me so I can introduce myself. So happy you are here!!
LOVE Y’ALL.
XO,
Jordan a.k.a Jo
I feel all of this so much!! Social media/the internet has been a major topic in my life lately too. I have reassessed my usage (addiction) and I’m constantly shifting and changing how and why I use these platforms. I miss the OG days of the internet when we had blogs and other people read them and commented. The way our attention spans have shortened just in the past 12 or so years is scary. It’s part of the reason I started sharing on Substack, to be creating and fed more long form content! So glad you’re here!
I love Substack! This platform feels like the real vulnerable place. A place to let those creative thoughts out! So happy to follow along & I also am a very proud member of TQM!!