Algorithms are frying my brain, LOL

Algorithms are frying my brain, LOL

Isn’t it worrying that so many people are making videos and posts on how to stop doomscrolling, stop using your phone and actually live outside of this little screen?

Lately I’ve been trying to take a break from social media, which is hard when you have art accounts to maintain and keep active, but I was determined to make it happen. Honestly, that’s the main reason why I’m on neocities! To have an online space away from my socials and be allowed to go slower and take my own time to update. However, after 2 weeks away I came crawling back to all my socials. Am I doomed to be trapped in these stupid apps and their algorithms forever? 

Okay, that’s dramatic. But if I realized something after failing is that when I start doomscrolling, I can feel my brain cells dying LMAO. I genuinely think algorithms are designed to make us dumber, distract us from what’s important and to make people fight about the stupidest shit. Everytime I go on tiktok all the trends are either overconsumption hauls, hating on someone who didn’t do anything wrong or nostalgiabait to make us feel like shit because the past won’t come back. Twitter is… Twitter. Bluesky is nicer, but the negativity on there is draining. Instagram insists on feeding me quick content when all I want to see there is other people’s art! It’s frustrating, to be honest. The internet feels dead, but it’s even worse if we start talking about all the AI slop. Honestly, I don’t want to get into that because it’s depressing.

The thing is, I already do many activities and hobbies that keep me away from social media: journaling, making art, crochet, videogames, coding this site etc… The biggest problem is the time in between: those moments in which I can’t do anything else so I go on my phone instead. My solution? Logging out on my phone, having my accounts open on my iPad so I can post art easily but locking the apps with a password to avoid opening them by “accident”, and only go on social media from desktop. It’s annoying, because I don’t like needing my laptop to go online, but come on! That’s how it used to be back in the day! And maybe if I spend more time on desktop, I will update this site more often o7. I don’t know if this is a definitive solution, but I guess it’s worth trying.

I can’t completely remove social media from my life anyway. Even if I wanted to, I still want the exposure social media can give to my art… even if the algorithms are making it harder and harder to reach new people. As someone who wants to have a mostly professional image as an artist on the internet, having at least an active account on instagram is very much necessary because it’s the app most people use (at least, that’s my opinion). But if I need to stay on social media, I have to try to keep a distance between me and the internet and learn to have a healthy relationship with it!

I still think algorithms are designed to have negative effects on us so I want to avoid them as much as I can. Ever since Tiktok appeared and the pandemic happened, I’ve felt my life going worse because I’m glued to a screen that makes me depressed and miserable. How sad is it that this is what the internet has become? 

My goal for 2026 is to have a healthier life, and if I have to remove all algorithm based timelines from it to achieve it, then that’s what I’ll do.

PS: Even if i rely a lot on social media for my art, I’m working on a separate site for everything art related, including an art blog! The only reason why I’m not adding an art section here is because I don’t want to mix my personal hobby site and my art projects. My other website is not intended to be a professional portfolio, but I think it’s important to separate them so I feel more comfortable posting here!