New Year's Resolutions

life

Time to share my resolutions for 2023 so that I can hold myself accountable. There's a 50-50 chance I'll quietly delete this post in 5 months, btw~ (haha, kidding... probably 😈)

New Year's Resolutions are good because you have to stop and spell out what you want to do with your life over the next 12 months. Are you trying to develop better habits? Are you trying to reach a goal? Time to write it down and affirm it. Speak it into existance.

Here's mine...

No more algorithmic feeds

Puppycat is under the covers, intenty reading a bright mobile phone screen.
from Bee and Puppycat

In 2023, I'm going to stop using Twitter and leave algorithmic feeds behind.

Twitter's attention-consuming algorithmic feed and platform design has had a negative impact on the way I consume information, incentivizing me to doomscroll and jump from topic to topic without reflecting much. And I don't want it to have a lasting negative impact on the way I think and learn.

I've also been reflecting on the web's "dark forest" and how online spaces like Twitter have felt less personal than ever. What do I gain by continuing to refresh the timeline? It's become a hostile place. People even joke about how horrible of a place it is, regularly.

I already quit Facebook and Instagram a couple years ago. Quitting Twitter will be harder to do, because in the past it's been very important for keeping up with movements and activists.

So in 2023 I'm using these alternatives instead:

  • RSS reader comprised of worldwide news feeds (most importantly: not US or western centric)
  • Subscriptions to newsletters and magazines that do in-depth examinations of topics I care about
  • Mastodon as a non-aglorithm-driven social feed, to help with discovery
  • Discord for small communities
  • I'm trying out Cohost as well
  • Some good blogs
  • Listservs 👻

As part of this, I also want to reduce my screen time on my phone.

The rest

  • drive less (bike, bus, or walk instead)
  • use my standing desk every day
  • wake up earlier 🌄
  • read 25 books (mostly nonfiction, nothing web dev related because I'm trying to learn things outside of my area of expertise)
  • take an international trip (not Canada, that's too close)
  • bike 100km 🚴🏻‍♀️ (not all at once