A Modest Proposal: Just Log Off
You’re simply not going to find what you’re looking for online
Every time I go online these days, three words rattle around in my head like a mantra. Often, they are directed towards myself, when I’m clicking on the fourth article about some stranger who has been cancelled for dubious reasons. But increasingly, I say them as a kind of incantation to the countless people I see online acting in a way that is clearly counter to their best interest: Just log off.
I can’t think of one online dust-up, cancellation, ruckus, brouhaha, Twitter screenshot apology, or controversial company statement—followed by another bizarre statement that clarifies the first one—that wouldn’t be made better by first following this simple advice: Just log off.
I realize the hypocrisy here, of me telling you to log off the internet while on the internet. But I say this with some basis. In the past six months, I’ve logged off more than I have in the ten years prior. So far this year, I’ve spent about 60 minutes total logged into Twitter — that’s far less than what I used to clock per day. Instagram is often deleted from my phone for weeks at a time and I deleted Facebook years ago. I am too old for TikTok. I find things to read via newsletters I’ve chosen to subscribe to and visiting the homepages of a couple of news sites…
