I’ve had quite stringent settings on my phone for a long time: no badges, barely any notifications, screen time restrictions on social media and downtime in the evening. Despite all this, I still spend around 90–120 minutes on my phone every day. Like most of us, I default to picking up my phone and doom-scrolling every time there is minute or two of empty time.

I had a bit of a forced digital detox while we were in Greece: my roaming data ran out so I had a few weeks where I could only access the internet on wifi. I decided to make the most of it, partially inspired by Four Thousand Weeks, and deleted Twitter and Instagram from my phone. I still reached for my phone in every spare moment but it was a lot more boring.

I decided that I should start using RSS again to keep up with blogs and people and news instead. I’m using Feedly as an RSS reader and Pocket to save articles to read later. My Pocket articles go directly to my Kobo, which I love, but unfortunately it doesn’t let me highlight the text. I’ve also moved a lot of my Substacks to RSS now in an attempt to have less in my inbox as well. It seems like it’s not possible to do this with Tiny Letter though.

Here’s a few blogs and newsletters that I really love:

• Harper’s Magazine publishes a Weekly Review that reflects the chaos of our current reality and always makes me laugh out loud.
• The Baffler has a similar dispatch called Fresh Hell.
• Claire L. Evan’s Wild Information. Her most recent post, Intimate Geographies, is sublime.
• Patrick Tanguay’s Sentiers. I think this is the best newsletter out there… I usually save almost every one of the articles he shares to read later.
• Alicia Kennedy writes weekly essays on (vegan) food, politics and culture.
• David O’Reilly writes about digital technology and creative practice. It’s an honest and insightful look at what it means to be creative.
• Gnamma by Lukas W is poetic and watery and so well-written.
• Adam Greenfield writes occasional dispatches about politics and mutual aid.
• Naive Weekly seems sweet and peaceful (via Piper).
• Tom Critchlow’s blog on strategic consultancy
• Dark Matter Lab’s Provocations on strategic design, governance, urbanism and complex systems.
• The White Pube for art criticism, culture and game reviews.
• Branch, an online magazine about using the internet as a positive force for climate justice.
• Climate in Colour, on the intersection of climate science, diversity and sustainable living.
• We Can Fix It, on facing climate change with a mix of fact, feelings and action.

By the way — my own RSS feed is available here.

I’m @gem@social.coop on Mastodon.

I like it much more than Twitter already! I had gotten to a point where I barely posted anything on Twitter because it was too noisy and overwhelming, and reading the feed mainly made me feel depressed about the world. There sure were some good memes though.

I found a tool called Debirdify that helps you find your Twitter friends on Mastodon.

This article from Wired — How to Get Started on Mastodon — is a really useful introduction.

Strong agree with what Robin Sloan wrote about Twitter ending back in April:

There are so many ways people might relate to one another online, so many ways exchange and conviviality might be organized. Look at these screens, this wash of pixels, the liquid potential! What a colossal bummer that Twitter eked out a local maximum; that its network effect still (!) consumes the fuel for other possibilities, other explorations.

Also Jay Springett’s 10 tips for leaving Twitter.