At the beginning of the year, in a fit of pique, I logged off pretty much everything. I was fed up with social media. I hated how it affected me on a personal level (made the bad brain chemicals) and how it was clearly affecting all of us on a political level (destroying democracy before our very eyes).

For the most part, I think this has been a good choice. I feel less anxious generally, more present in my real life. One of the unexpected perks is how much more energy and willingness I have for things like chores, probably because I am expending less mental energy on my phone.

But I’ve also experienced a general longing for connection that social media provided, in its own stunted and malnourished way. Instagram let me know what my friends were doing and where they were in the world. Knowing this wasn’t the same thing as being with them, but it was still nice. Facebook provided opportunities to give things I no longer needed away to someone within my community (through the Buy Nothing Group) or to buy secondhand items that I did need (through Marketplace). Goodreads, an objectively terrible app owned by perhaps the most evil company in the world, was like a big shared virtual bookshelf that connected me to my friends’ tastes and obsessions.

In the absence of these platforms, my longing for connection often manifested as a desire to participate in systems that don’t exist. I fantasized about town squares and bulletin boards. I wished for land lines and phone trees. I daydreamed about third spaces like medieval ale houses and cheap diners. I longed for a utopia that cherry-picked all the best bits from centuries of human development and mashed them together, improbably, to create a world built on community rather than capital.

I’m not saying this world is impossible, but it’s certainly not something I was going to create simply by Being Offline. Nor does it need to exclude the social internet completely. Recently, I enjoyed listening to Cory Doctorow talk about enshittification on Adam Conover’s podcast, and his (very funny) rants reminded me that my beef isn’t with social media per se, but with the billionaires who have made social media suck to make more money.

I say “computers were a mistake” (quoting one of the only good tweets ever written) at least once a week, but that’s not really true. There’s nothing inherently bad about an app that lets you share images and information. What’s bad is how the water level of ads is up to your neck now. What’s bad is the algorithm so hungry for your attention it will lead you down a path to unreality. What’s bad is how the people running these platforms seem to take joy in making them a little bit worse every single day.

Unfortunately, we can’t fix any of this simply by logging off, or by staying logged on but posting mean things about Mark Zuckerberg. For things to change, we need a policy environment that does not reward billionaires for being greedy little assholes. That world is possible, but getting there will be slow and arduous.

So what, I’ve been asking myself, should I do in the meantime?

To stay logged off would mean sacrificing a few things that I do find valuable: Not just keeping up with friends, but finding opportunities to be of real use to my community. Mutual aid networks largely organize through Instagram; when my favorite brewery does a food or clothing drive, they promote it through Instagram. Meta has inflicted so much bad on the world, but people are still using its apps to do good.

Which would I regret more: Conceding a portion of my social and civic life to a system I detest in full knowledge that billionaires will spy on and profit from it, or cutting myself off from people and groups who are working to build the world I dream about, simply because they’re doing it in the one we live in now?

I’ve been talking about social media in the context of my personal life, but it affects my work, too. As a freelance editor, I’m lucky to be able to choose whom I work with and what kinds of projects I take on. But let’s be real: I’m trying to grow this business. I cannot be that choosy. When I dismiss listings for gigs that include social media as a significant part of the work required (which is, frankly, most listings), I limit my ability to find new clients. And while these clients might not bring my dream projects, working with them would connect me to more people, and by extension more opportunities to find those dream projects.

Which would crush my soul into a flatter pancake: Dedicating hours of my week to writing posts that add absolutely no value to the world, or missing out on a chance to do something rewarding and meaningful because I refused to write the posts?

I’m not asking these questions just to paint a bleak picture of the world and bum you out. I’m genuinely curious: How do you navigate our enshittified media landscape? What tradeoffs do you make at home or at work? Are you using social media in a way that brings you a step closer to the world you dream about?

Send me a note. Or share this letter with your friends and talk about alternative networks of connection and care that you want to build. Or shut your laptop/lock your phone, go outside, and walk around until you find a really good tree. Then take a picture and send it to someone you love. (Unless you left your phone at home, which was the right call.)

Things I’ve been reading offline:

(Note: One of the apps I have meekly returned to is Goodreads. Yes the UX sucks. Yes it’s owned by Amazon. But I missed the big shared virtual bookshelf! If you’re on the bookshelf, let’s be friends.)

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici

I try to have a fiction and a nonfiction book going at all times, but I get through the nonfiction ones way slower. I was working on this one for more than a year. It’s dense and quite academic, but not impenetrable. Federici makes a compelling argument that the mass subjugation of women was one of the key forms of “primitive accumulation” in our transition to capitalism, and that the witch hunts were a major part of this transition. I probably would have benefited from reading Marx first, but I don’t think he’s a prerequisite if you want to dive straight in with Federici.

My main frustration with this book, honestly, is how bad I seem to be at describing it to people. I feel like I’ve absorbed the key points, but processing and communicating them is a challenge. Is this because my critical analysis muscles have atrophied in the decade since I’ve finished college, because in this decade I’ve watched too many YouTube video essays and not read enough books? Possibly.

Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time by Sheila Liming

I listened to this as an audiobook, which I wouldn’t recommend simply because there were many points where I wished I could re-read and mark up a paragraph. Liming explores the idea of “hanging out” in many forms—from parties to jam bands—and incorporates a lot of literary analysis which you know I dug. In general, she appealed to the reader to spend more time in unstructured, embodied togetherness with people. I imagine I’m not the only person who’s been longing for exactly that.

(I had a real Key and Peele moment with this one because the narrator’s name is Moniqua Plante and I was surprised to learn, when she said it aloud at the beginning of the book, that it’s just pronounced “Monica.”)

Things I’ve been reading/watching online:

• “The Anti-Cosmetic Surgery Essay Every Woman Should Read” by father_karine (Substack). You know what? Every woman should read this. It’s good. It’s funny. It’s a nice “snap out of it” smack in the face. It has many quotable passages, and here is one of them:

What duty do we have to each other? I think back to my darkest days and how I yearned for a reassuring voice that said “This is really silly. Dangerous, even. You don’t need to do this.” What hope do women have if we’re not willing to have those conversations? What hope do women have when we refuse to demand accountability from public figures? From our mothers? Our sisters? Our friends?

If my mother ever told me she intended to get “work done,”—as if her loving face was nothing more than a beat-up Chevy—a tiny crack would form in my heart and rend the ventricles apart slowly over the course of several weeks. If it was my daughter instead, I have no doubt that entire process would unfold over mere seconds.

• “A chaotic guide to making stuff instead of doomscrolling” by struthless (YouTube). This was a nice little breath of fresh air, one that inspired me to shut my computer for a bit and make a little mini-zine about the many longings I discussed above. Fun! Would recommend!