podcasts! Can't figure out if I love or hate them. I feel like I'm being unproductive if I walk for 10 minutes without listening to one. But recently I decided to try and write a blog post which occupied my mind for a month or two, and realised I hardly ever am alone with my own thoughts anymore. But then there are a lot of fun/interesting people out there who are more interesting than my own thoughts ????

Great example: I'm pretty late to the party but have been listening to The Rest Is Politics a lot the last few months, and Alistair and Rory both have fascinating minds and talk about super interesting stuff. But why am I listening to it? Totally unactionable, largely stressful, somewhat depressing how fucked so many politicians/political systems are...

I feel this.

Nae guru intended, but take a 40 minute walk without phone / watch / earphones (preferably when it's not fucking it down) and see how you feel.

Yeah it's very hard to untangle how much of it was the technology, the people, the time and place and whatnot. I do think a big part of it is, as you say, it was alllll weirdos back then.

Not to harp on, but it sounds like you might enjoy fediverse ("mastodon"). It's somewhat like Twitter, except people are nice. And it's more about the small things. There's no algorithm so it definitely takes some effort to find stuff you like but it recaptures a lot of what I liked about places like this. People just chatting shit, sharing what they love, all in good faith.

Also, yup, know what you mean about not being alone with one's own thoughts any more. With the anxiety it's something I've conditioned myself to avoid cos, left to its own devices, my brain likes to spiral me into terror. But it's something I miss a lot (recently started proper therapy and they're helping with that).

Love me some podcasts though. If you like the politics then Novara Media's "Downstream" can be very interesting. And personally I like Chapo Trap House but they're full-on leftist and take the piss a lot so personal taste.

As for working for meta: Man's gotta eat!

I've never been into Twitter (or Threads) but will check out fediverse/mastodon - "good faith" is definitely a strong selling point. Maybe there's even an argument that "bad faith" is what's wrong with <gestures broadly in all directions>

Very good to hear that therapy is doing something good - terror spiral doesn't sound like much of a laugh. I get most of my alone-with-my-thoughts time in bed these days - got into having a teeeeny bit of weed (thank god for vapes) before spacing out and thinking about infinity or other such nonsense. Which maybe does run the risk of one day taking a wrong turn down a terror vortex, but so far is mostly fun.

I tried Novara Media for a while (not the podcast just their general social media) and found them to be a bit too perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good, so will skip that, tho the Chapo Trap House looks a laugh - thanks, will check!

...or maybe I should skip the podcast recommendations and do more walking, as you recommend.

Have been doing a bit in the middle on my walks, listening to *music*! Although I haven't followed music other than the radio for yonks so am now bamboozled by what to search for, and I kinda resent the various 'discovery' playlists because I know they're technically trying to help connect me with new stuff, but also the music platforms get to pay artists waayyyy less for plays-on-playlists (something to do with 'radio' vs 'record' licensing or some-such).

<old man yells at cloud meme>

I've been trying Mastadon for a cuppla months. I'm still at the confused and don't know where I am stage, but I've seen a lot of interesting things and it's nice not to have to scroll past high-fiving fascists all the time. Found a bunch of folks talking about The Expanse in a video this morning! Gosh.

Weed and zoning out sounds lovely. I've been so averse to being alone with my thoughts for *decades* that I've literally got to re-learn how to do it.

And yeah, I've never been into Twitter either. The only thing fedi shares with Twitter, really, is its basic format. Everything else is different. It *feels* entirely different. Has more of the feel of early internet forums.

Novara's main stuff has got very tabloidy in recent years and I'm less of a fan than I used to be. But the Downstream stuff is good. The Bastani ones at least. He just interviews people with interesting ideas and lets them speak. Often ideas that wouldn't necessarily be popular with Novara's audience.

Chapo's much more fun though. Their current stuff is a bit off cos one of their key people (Matt) is off sick and he's kinda necessary to the dynamic. So I'd go back a year or two for their good stuff.

Also their series about the 30 years war and reformation is *very* good. Called Hell on Earth. If you're into more historical stuff.

Oh my word I feel exposed.

What's your thingy? Let's be friends!

Oh well, yes. I'm @Athelstone which is the name I use on some other sites.

@mastodon.social? If so, I've followed you!

Hurrah! A little red number next to the bell. And a message.

Off for a walk now. Just read a bit more about the Neil Gaiman stuff and I need fresh air before I start to think that life will be disappointing forever.

Haha.Yeah. Have a nice walk!

I've proper fallen out with discovery playlists. Same old common denominator shite keeps cropping up and there's definitely some Payola bollocks going on.

I miss just getting music recommendations from friends.

I once had a really good thing going with Discover on Spotify, it was genuinely coming up with all sorts of good stuff for me from obscure electronica classics to new independent music. Getting DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR from Lingua Ignota on the way to work was a memorable example. Crikey! Then my son started wanting to play music and it's just a mess now that I almost never look at. Never mind! I encourage him all the same and enjoy some tiny percentage of his stuff amongst the badness.

I got right into jungle again recently. Anything that autoplays after jungle is always Chase n fucking Status.

Talked to a few people and now I listen to Sully, 5am Kru and Nia Archives. Much better.

It really doesn't exist. Certainly not in the form we'd view as the peak 10-20 years ago.

Move to mobile over desktop (and partly laptop) has definitely changed how we consume online. Or at the very least how the people here would. I'm guessing most of us probably do most of our browsing on a phone now and only get out the laptop or sit at the desktop for something more involved. Whereas in the past me I'd do most on desktop, eventually moving to most on laptop.

My attention span these days is totally fucked. I won't lie, I haven't read your full post. I may return and read it in full at some point, but that's a problem I currently have which I think has been partly caused by the "scrolling" nature of social media these days.
Next post, next post, quick dopamine hit, forward that reel to my gf, skip that. Just letting the algorithm feed me nonsense rather than seeking out interesting things I want read/consume/enjoy.

I need to regulate my screen time far better.

I used to pride myself on not falling for the "short hit" side of social media - I avoided Tik Tok, Twitter and while I watch a lot of YouTube it's mostly long form, useful, content.

But I won't lie - Facebook Shorts has utterly got me. I can easily zone out for ages just scrolling through, frankly, mindless shite.

I've deliberately not bothered with TikTok because of this.

I've got plumbers in my algorithm at the moment. Quite like it.

Oh and the occasional farmer too like this guy

https://www.facebook.com/reel/398326236653297?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Do like that everyday people make "diaries" like this, just wish it was on their own website.