Jeremy's declassified internet survival guide

Technology can be a divisive topic these days. This isn't new. What's new is the pervasiveness of technology. We release it into the world for billions to use within weeks. At best, we can be proactive, thinking deeply about its downstream effects and taking actions to prevent them. At worst, we release it without guardrails, ripe for exploitation. Modern technology has virtually unlimited potential and risk at what feels like exponentially decreasing time horizons.

Growing up, I was always at the forefront of innovation. My dad grew up with an innate curiosity towards technology. He used it to make his career, riding the wave of computer networking innovation. We always had the latest gadget. I quickly learned Microsoft Office, file systems, minesweeper, and digital pinball. I was raised computer-native.

For the first few years of my life, the internet wasn't particularly interesting. I was too young for AIM Messenger and video games weren't online yet. My dad got me an email that I use to this day. I missed the web's first era, but quickly got up to speed a few years into Web 2.0.

Getting a smartphone and setting up a Facebook account as a 10 year old posing as a 13 year old was my first exposure to the internet and its lack of rules and regulations. There was only so much to do, so those first experiments were mainly writing into the void. Nobody I knew was really there yet. I was a pioneer!

It took a few years for everyone to join me in the circus of the internet. The new toys at that point were Instagram and Snapchat. With Instagram, we could tell our stories in photos while keeping track of everyone else's. Who could have the most fun, be the most witty in their caption, and get the most likes? With Snapchat, we could do the same, but it was fleeting, so there was much less thought going into effort. The reality was random angles of your face or a dark screen with some text, but that wasn't even a requirement. We were guinea pigs, sending bits back and forth without a care in the world.

Fast forward through high school and college, one by one I stopped using these social media platforms. I lived through the games being played, turning likes and followers into status symbols. It was obvious in hindsight, but those with the least filters on their word choice and expression dominated the platforms. This Web 2.0 gave everyone a megaphone at their fingertips, and they used it. For someone that values their words, it feels like they so quickly get drowned out.

For nearly the past decade, I have not been a creator in any sense on these platforms. Even going onto Twitter for the first time during the pandemic, I used it as a firehose of information, entertainment, and distraction. I have learned a lot since entering the open gates of the internet. Exploring my passions, but also my modes of failure. Learning about the Napoleonic Wars, but also mindlessly scrolling through bad takes and random processed news. Conscious of my unconscious consumption.

I want to embark on a new era of creativity. I am hopeful to find a digital home on Substack. Its business model that allows readers to pay writers for the words that they own seems to be the most fundamentally sound. I still find myself "doomscrolling" its feeds, but I'll chalk that up to its information-density and human nature being relatively incompatible. I value my words greatly and hope to share more of them with the world.

My whole life, technology has mostly been a trial by error. It doesn't usually come with a how-to guide. Hopefully we are maturing as a species in time for the fastest pace of technological innovation seen yet. As users of technology, we rely on its creators to set up reasonable foundations for its proliferation in society. Otherwise its patterns of use are emergent. Everyone can have a better understanding of technology and how its use impacts ourselves and society. We can use that understanding to shape its direction along with humanity's.

While technology is advancing, the analog world continues, trying to keep pace. We can do more to empower ourselves and future generations with more mindful relationships to technology. This is more top of mind for me now as I recently found out that I'm going to be an uncle. As an unsolicited gift for my expecting sister, I'll create a how-to guide for the internet as it exists today and for where it's going in the future. I'm sure she'll love it...

Let's create the future of the analog and the digital together.

Originally published on Substack.