> wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.
I don't think this is the most accurate analogy.
The most attention draining parts of the web/internet are some kind of social platform. I needn't list them, you know what they are... they are not analogous to air. Perhaps they seem that way when you've fully integrated them into your life, but they are not.
Keep your phone, your laptop, and keep the tools you need to create and work. But whatsface and spacechat are not part of that toolkit, those types of platforms are psychological crack cocaine.
Taking a full break from all tech can be good, but when you return to it, make sure you delete those accounts or uninstall those apps. Don't worry about friends, the ones that count will be happy to communicate with you through less toxic channels - the rest aren't really your friends anyway.
Social media --- those site which we don't need to name because we all know what they are --- surround us socially. I don't use the F, or the T, or the IG, or the YT, or the TT. But I sure as heck live in the world they create. In most of the West they've permeate politics and culture. It's often difficult to engage with businesses, or governments, or your own job, without having a presence on these systems. And in parts of the world they've played a major role in insurrection, revolution, and genocide. Sometimes celebrated for that role, increasingly looked on with a sense that something's gone horrifically wrong.
So no, disconnecting personally is not the solution.
I think you're correct to point out they indirectly affect us all through their impact on society as a whole.
However what I meant (but failed to say explicitly), is that it is unlike breathing air (which is impossible to avoid), because partaking in these platforms personally is still optional for most people in the world - Maybe it's different in the US but you certainly don't need any of it for your job or government purposes in the UK and I expect most of the EU, and of course none of the east.
In the case of breathing (or not) air, wearing a particulate mask or VoC respirator is an option. It's expensive and marks one in public, of course.
In the case of social media, the exposure equivalent is the fact that much other normal intercourse --- social conversation, behaviours in public (as detailed in detail in TFA), and references in media, news or journalism (to the extent these still exist), in the form of trackers which appear on the present Internet, offline tracking through purchase and surveillance mechanisms which also feed into the attention-diversion, manipulation, and advertising machine, etc., etc.
And again, I assure you, for an increasing number of organisations, businesses, and institutions, the unspoken assumption is that social media use is normalised --- for communications, advertising, often for commerce, and again, with website trackers and data feeds through offline interactions.
I don't think this is the most accurate analogy.
The most attention draining parts of the web/internet are some kind of social platform. I needn't list them, you know what they are... they are not analogous to air. Perhaps they seem that way when you've fully integrated them into your life, but they are not.
Keep your phone, your laptop, and keep the tools you need to create and work. But whatsface and spacechat are not part of that toolkit, those types of platforms are psychological crack cocaine.
Taking a full break from all tech can be good, but when you return to it, make sure you delete those accounts or uninstall those apps. Don't worry about friends, the ones that count will be happy to communicate with you through less toxic channels - the rest aren't really your friends anyway.