Project Unplug - A Personal Reflection on Rediscovering the Joy in Being Online

Abstract

In 2021 I realised that large swathes of the Internet were making me sad. I resolved to do something about it. The result was a focused, intense process of finding the mechanisms by which I could optimise my relationship with the online world. I resolved to focus on those things that brought me sustained happiness, as opposed to those things that merely offered transient pleasure. I ripped toxic websites out of my life, and limited my exposure to those I regarded as merely hazardous. The result was a battle to regain joy I once experienced in my online leisure activities - to regain my focus on electronic common ground, as opposed to digital battle grounds. Few technologies have reached so deeply into our lives - and into our sense of self - as the modern Internet. Social and psychological defence mechanisms that evolved for the context of a tribe simply do not survive at Internet scale. For all that social media is designed to link us together, in many ways it only serves to push us apart. This paper is a personal, autoethnographic reflection of how 'Project Unplug' was conceptualised, prepared, and executed over 2022. The specific combination of online vectors that were the cause of my unhappiness are unique to me. This paper though outlines a hopefully valuable approach to creating our own digital rituals and rites so as to create strong, inviolable limits on the extent to which the Internet might erode our personal happiness