I'm an IT Guy. I was raised among computers, and I am most comfortable with one nearby me. I feel I have a very good understanding of technology from a generalist standpoint, and especially in how computers have networked the world together the past few decades.

And lately I have wished I could be more of a luddite. Corporate manipulation of social media has created a social stratification that I myself am not immune to. Constantly being connected with things like the (manipulated) news is making me miserable in a guided fashion that ultimately isn't good for my health.

I got rid of facebook for a few years, but drifted apart from some people I liked because of it. It also made keeping up with my favorite bands challenging.

Furthermore, the mass infiltration of large subreddits by corporate and political interests has created dangerous echo chambers designed to keep people behaving and consuming in ways favored by the socioeconomic elite.

It's applications of the Platonic Cave, and the worst people among us have access to a shadowbox unlike any the world has ever imagined. And it is actively assisting in making me a worse person by extension, if only by exasperating an already sensitive anxiety disorder.

I managed to attain a great deal of control over myself and my life last year, but I am slipping. Slipped, you might even say.

As I was mentioning before, I was raised with computers. I feel most comfortable with one on hand. Videogames and shows and literary articles are my favorite ways to spend my time. I work as an IT guy and so there isn't much of a possibility to cutting myself off completely, nor do I want to.

But I do have to exercise control. Self control, mostly. I've found myself forgetting how to keep my own self control as the winter rots ever onward, and now that I have found myself at a particularly low point, I need to be in control of my self more than ever.

So instead of deleting, I think I'll just log in once a month to collect info on who is playing where. Maybe delete my news feed off reddit, maybe only log into it once a day or less. Something that will help with all these would be to unsave my passwords on my various computers.

Tumblr is good to stay, though. But I'd still like to perhaps only stop by it once a day or so. And it's not social media, but I want to just state that nothing will get me to stop reading TV Tropes.

I don't want to be irresponsible anymore, doing things that I know will result in me worrying over things I cannot control. It's not just a burden on me, but a burden on the people closest to me.

Oh but yeah of course I'm going to continue the blog, no worries there, this gives me a certain small catharsis that is hard to get anyway else right now. But hopefully it warms up soon and I can go back to posting pics of my cat.