No Need For Feeds

Well, I did a thing. I’m trying to free my mind from content feeds and the near incessant pull to check, check, check them. The human brain, though neuromarvelous, is not a computer. An app can aggregate hundreds of websites with new content to feed on, but it always ends up overwhelming and never-ending — infinite scroll. My brain simply can’t keep up. So I’ve ditched feeds.

Content Consumption Conundrum

I don’t think our brains are designed to constantly input and process new info like a computer — the latest blog post, just “one more” short video, the next social micropost…

For example, you read something, and then you need to “chew the cud.” It takes time to process, assimilate, etc. You must intentionally think about something. And sometimes you need to “sleep on it.” There’s an active and passive way of ideas and info lodging in your gray matter.

Or if you’re consuming video after video, there might be little thought in the first place. There’s no musing when the content is amusing.

To keep up with feeds of text, my tendency was to read faster, almost skimming and scanning. Instead of thinking about the articles, I stayed superficial, trying to quickly absorb the main point. No wonder it seems popular now to let A.I. “read” for you and generate a summary — who has time to read all the things?

Nobody. We’re not meant to. That’s like the joke, “Hold on a sec; I’m downloading the entire web.”

News feeds and aggregators are meant to make reading web content easier, more convenient, and thus efficient. So if you want to read all-the-things, gobbling hundreds of articles up like Pac-Man on pellets, you can try to do that. But I end up scrolling lots of lists of headlines, trying to find a gold nugget or two. That’s a lot of dirt to sift through; is it really that efficient?

Also, RSS Readers typically have a number count displayed. So you’re likely to feel the need to read new stuff, even if you don’t want to, because you must get those numbers to zero, checking them off the unwritten to-do list that takes up space in your head. It taxes the brain like mindless scrolling and turns into a bad habit.

Well, maybe that’s not you. But it was me; I suspect it’s not uncommon. I’d had enough of the habitual impulse to frequently and repeatedly check my phone for intriguing sparks, new posts, and fresh ideas. I couldn’t let 60 seconds of boredom get to me while I waited for my lunch to nuke in the microwave. This can’t be healthy, right?

I want out of The Matrix.

Simple Slow Solution

I decided to try something old-school, relatively “low-tech” and “slow-tech.” I deleted my RSS Reader app (NetNewsWire) from all my devices. And I have no web bookmarks to Feedly. But how would I keep up with the latest? What about the cool sites I follow? Answer: surf the web!

Now I simply rely on my browser’s bookmarks. I made a folder called, “RSS Replacement” and saved all the sites that I like to visit for new articles. So I more intentionally go to my bookmark folder and click those I want to visit when I think to do so. I no longer feel pulled to frequently check an app — pull to refresh.

One great thing about this is that there are no numbers in the bookmarks folder of sites, so there’s no count of items I’ve missed or not yet read. I don’t ever feel like I must catch up. I’m also more mindful of each website and article I see, taking more time to read. It’s a manual and thus slower process; my brain needs that. No more content binging; call it Media Moderation.

Besides abandoning my RSS Reader, I also quit the YouTube home page. That thing was a huge time-suck. The algorithm always turned up good new videos, keeping me hooked. Most were only a few minutes long, so it was easy to say, “Just one more,” like eating a whole bag of potato chips. Tasty but not nutritious. Now I intentionally avoid that, seldomly going straight to my Watch List or Channel Subscriptions.

So I’m avoiding feeds. No RSS reader. No YouTube Home Page. No social media for now…I’m just visiting websites and blogs (when not reading a book). It’s been great so far and is a real change, not a mere experiment. Something deep has been shifting within me about the way I “consume content” online. Glutting or binging just isn’t healthy or wise, and I was tired of the downsides. Hopefully this digital detox goes the distance.