Missing the forest for the trees: the internet is not social media
7/20/2026
I decided to unearth our three decade old camcorder to play my cousin’s baptism after my aunt casually mentioned it. The last time I used it was two decades ago. We found out that one battery was already corroded, while the other looked fine. The camcorder’s manual was still intact though, despite some pages crumbling because of humidity, so I read on how to get it going. Unfortunately, the battery wasn’t charging no matter how long I plugged it into the charger. We thus resorted to connecting it to a direct power source using the charger, only to find that the cable to do so was missing. I once again looked at the manual, but at the same time, searched the internet for troubleshooting. I ended up reading manuals online, watching how-to videos, reading message threads, and searching online shops for the compatible cable that will not blow our house up.
I then remember a time when the internet was about archiving and looking things up, communicating and sharing stuff that transcends physical bounds. It wasn’t always the cauldron for all the fucked-up shit that causes the world and almost every other person on it to worsen. As a child of the 90s, the time I spent on the internet was clicking the ‘Random’ link on Wikipedia and reading the one I found interesting. I would visit websites and explore the maze of links and games which we called ‘surfing’. And, of course, I would satisfy my immediate curiosity because my dad, who had the patience in answering my endless questions, was on a ship working, and he taught me to look for answers myself.
As a teen, I was one of the first in school to have Friendster, Multiply, MySpace, and Facebook. My friends and I would customize our Friendster pages with custom GIFs, photos, cursors, and music. I would excel in coding simply because I’m a nosy bitch and I want to know how things work and replicate them (or mix and match them to my use). We embed music videos from YouTube on each other’s pages. After school, we’d catch up on Yahoo! Messenger, annoying each other with buzz and speaking GIFs. Friends would demand photos be uploaded and to tag them right after because not everyone had camera phones. My space on the Internet is a space at home, at the desktop in my room. I would spend days playing Defense of the Ancients and type up the stories I wrote during school lunch breaks. I then discovered DeviantArt and saw art that inspired some of my writing. I found out about Tumblr and LiveJournal. I learned RSS and followed some fashion bloggers. Everyone was scrolling on 9gag, but it was still chronological. Instagram only shows you the posts of those you follow. You would stop scrolling when you’ve seen a photo you’ve already seen earlier and do something else. I’d play video game walkthrough in YouTube in the background. One time, I even found a Midsummer Night’s Dream movie adaptation in some obscure video sharing site because my class couldn’t figure out how to start the production of our play.
Back then, I was already aware of the pitfalls of the infinite scroll and social media. My friends would spend exorbitant amount of time in Facebook and 9gag that they would neglect their school and organization work. It’s a good thing that we preferred to text back then because data promos were expensive and unlimited text promos were cheaper. I had to fight for WiFi at campus to surf the web, or browsing would have to be done at home where the internet was somewhat stable. And I don’t frequent Twitter; I would send text message to a number which would post on Twitter and Facebook for me.. Soon, the access to internet became readily available cheaply through phone, and when I started working a corporate job, internet access became a utility, a need, and something people couldn’t live without to the point that they replaced boredom with it.
I always believed that it wasn’t the phone. It was the platforms we frequent in.
More than half of the web traffic on the internet were made by bots. Thus, you wouldn’t know if the likes, comments, shares, follows, subscribers — any numbers you see online — are from real people or just an AI and bot combined to make you think that a piece of content was worth your time, energy, and mental space. There are making you think and respond in the way we believe social media to be, to rake in profits. But it’s no longer there, it had been long gone. Trending or viral stuff isn’t blessed by the algorithm or found by the people, it was paid to make it seem like it was favored organically when in fact, it wasn’t. It was made so because no one wanted to be advertised at anymore. Half of online interactions was just a simulation of programs mimicking what humans would do, the other: passive souls being carried away by whatever they see on the screen and surrendering their very being to it.
For me, I’m going back to the free, non-platform Internet.
1. If I’m going to ever use social media, I’m going to use it as a search engine. I’m going to be looking up someone or something on it if I’m going to use it. No apps, only using browser for browsing. If ever I find myself scrolling, it will be an immediate termination of the session.
2. We all have this experience where we meet new people in real like and then ask them if they have Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram to stay connected. I’d like to start doing the inverse of it. I’d like to message friends on Messenger about meeting up. Also, anyone who is remotely interested in what I’m up to and how I’m going, I would lead them to my website, which I frequently update.
3. Speaking of websites, I need to start using AI tarpits to stop corporations from scraping any intellectual output that I have and are posting online in using them to train their LLMs.
4. As a remedy or at least an antithesis to short form content, I’m going to keep expressing myself. I’m a writer, so that’s a no-brainer.
5. I’m going to have to consciously, to a point, ‘fight’ for inconvenience. I need to do tough brain activities and encourage neuroplasticity. That means practicing critical thinking and creation. Essentially, it’s to rebel.
6. And finally, I need to experience and re-learn real human interaction. I have to experience the uncomfortable agree-to-disagree discussions that people often avoid and never encounter in our own algorithms and echo chambers. I have to experience the awkward first greetings, the searching for the appropriate or frictionless topics to talk about, and enduring through the small talk. While, this is an area I don’t think I need to go out of my way to do, because I’m living with my family of 13 people, I have to meet my friends soon.
While it sounded conservative to go back to what the Internet was once were, I believe I’m a tech savy early adopter aware of the effects of platforms on myself and on others. I’m willing to reel in my established and forming negative habits and pave ways new positive ones that suits my needs.
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